Prisonbreak!

"Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage" - Exodus 6:9

As men we must admit that we aren't all that complex a creation. God simply made us much more simple than women. I hope I'm not really offending anyone by that statement. However, we are far from ordinary. John Eldredge wrote a book called Wild At Heart wherein he proposes that God has created men with a natural longing for adventure, excitement and challenge. I have to agree with that thesis. I believe that the Christian male has a God-given tendency to approach any given situation with zeal, determination and an aggressive appetite for success. However, most Christian men today find themselves with an attitude toward their walk with the Lord that is QUITE different from that God-given passion. Why is that?

Our life in Christ should not be one of boredom, stifled spirits or oppression. However, I fear that many men find themselves in that exact spot. And the reason is one word - bondage. Prior to salvation, we are all in bondage to sin. Christ came not to transfer our bondage from sin to Himself, but rather to set us free. To liberate us from that oppression.

Chris Tomlin has a great new version of the song Amazing Grace. In it one of the lines says "My chains are gone, I've been set free. My God, my Savior has ransomed me." Psalm 107:14 says "He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains." Yet far too often we men fail to accept that liberation. Instead, we choose to pick the chains of our previous bondage back up and submit ourselves to the weight of whatever previously held us. We become like the Hebrews who fled Egypt, only to complain against Moses that they wished they were back in bondage to the Egyptians.

The problem is that when we do that, the bondage has a tendency to deafen us. Exodus 6:9 above says that the Hebrews didn't listen to Moses because of their bondage. We cannot hear from God in that state. We will certainly never experience the excitement of our Christian life while we are held captive to our sin.

It's not all gloom and doom though. The good news is that the only authority that sin has in our lives is that which we give it. If we choose to fully submit to Christ's authority, and allow His power to not only remove, but to DESTROY the sin which so easily ensnares us, then we can experience life changing freedom. And it's only at that point that we can be as John Eldredge calls it, wild at heart. A life of communion with Christ is one where He empowers us to live for Him with passion. With excitement. With purpose.

Do you want to throw off that mold of the common pansy Christian man and embrace the wildly passionate transformation of our minds? My desire is for every man at Summit to be able to exclaim with the same energy and passion that William Wallace does at the end of Braveheart - FREEEEEEDOOOOOOM! To eagerly seek to become holy as He is holy.

Are you in?