Enlightened Hope

Have you listened to Gianna Jessen testimony yet?  She is an amazing woman with an incredible testimony.  I’ve been thinking about her message.  In it, she directly addresses and challenges the men.  Her words have been ‘ruminating’ in my head.  Check them out.

“Men, you are made for greatness.  You are made to stand up and be men.  You are made to defend women and children, not stand by, and turn your head, when you know murder is occurring and do nothing about it.  You are not made to use women and leave us alone.  You are made to be kind and great and gracious and strong and stand for something because men, listen to me, I am too tired to do your job.”

“I trust, men, you will rise to the occassion…you are made for greatness…you are made to defend what is right and good…what sort of man do you want to be?  A man obsessed with your own glory or a man obsessed with the glory of God?”

“Men, you are made for greatness”

I guess this is some thoughts for men.  “Men, you are made for greatness.”  Don’t misunderstand this quote.  This isn’t ‘great’ in your own sight and in the sight of others, this is great in the sight of God!  This isn’t puffing up and glorifying yourself (as lots of men do) it is glorifying God.  To quote an early Saint

“THE GLORY OF GOD IS MAN FULLY ALIVE”- Saint Irenaeus (2nd century AD)

We are to stand out as shining lights for justice and mercy, integrity and love, kindness and graciousness, to defend and protect the widow and the orphan, to be the man of God that loves his wife as Christ loves the Church.

“He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” [Mic 6:8]

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” [James 1:27]

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing  her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” [Eph 5:22-27]

and yet, a lot of us are bumbling about in the dark.  Why?  There are many reasons.

One is, we live compromised lives.  The virtues of honest and integrity are pushed aside for an easy, more comfortable life.  The values that we say that we subscribe to are pushed away by the realities of life.

Another reason is that we have never grown up.  Like Peter Pan we never step up to the responsibilities of being a man.  We shy away.  We look for the easy way.  We remain children at heart.  Why?  Because we can.  In this society we can avoid being mature and upright men so we ‘hide out’ in the ‘safe places’ of our addictions and soul comforts.

“Men, you are made for greatness”

So what does God do when men refuse to stand and be men?  He raises women!  God raises women to do what the men won’t do.  God raises women to do and to speak and to lead because the men refuse to be men and/or do not know how to be be men. Gianna says to the men listening…

“I am too tired to do your job”

I’m not trying to promote something sexist here.  I am highlighting a truth. Most men are not men of truth and integrity, of love and kindness, of faithfulness and honour, of courage and valour, of loving their wives as Christ loves the Church, of standing  up for the widows and the orphans, of fighting for the causes of the opressed, of standing against all forms of wickedness and evil.

Why are men such pathetic wimps?

We were made for so much more!  We were designed to rule and reign but, at the ‘fall’, this rule and reign was defaulted to Satan through deception.  However, at the cross, Satan was defeated and put to public spectical.  Here’s where we go wrong.

Just like in the garden, we believe a lie.

We do not believe sin is broken over our lives.  We believe what this world teaches us more than we believe the Word of God.  We allow thing to bind us and to rule and reign over our lives so that we never become a powerful and effective man of God.  Christ has given us the power to overcome anything that would try to rule and reign us.  Don’t you know that “if we endure, we will also reign with Him” [2 Tim 2:12]

All power and all authority have been given to Christ therefore, those who are in Christ, there is nothing that should rule and reign over them!

I want to end with some Words from Revelation…

• To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. [Rev 2:7]
• He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death. [Rev 2:11]
• To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it. [Rev 2:17]
• To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—
  ‘He will rule them with an iron scepter; he will dash them to pieces like pottery’ –
  just as I have received authority from my Father. 28 I will also give him the morning star. [Rev 2:26-29]
• He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. [Rev 3:5-6]
• Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. [Rev 3:12]
• To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. [Rev 3:21-22]

Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor speaks at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House, Victoria (Australia) September 8 2008 on the eve of the debate to decriminalize abortion in Victoria.  Gianna’s visit was sponsored by the Ad Hoc Interfaith Committee – Part 1

Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor speaks at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House, Victoria (Australia) September 8 2008 on the eve of the debate to decriminalize abortion in Victoria.  Gianna’s visit was sponsored by the Ad Hoc Interfaith Committee – Part 2