Manhood is a Mindset. J. Colin Trisler

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СКАЧАТЬ 14:15). God has put his commands in place for your benefit—to define and protect the sanctity of your shared union. Your obedience to his commands keeps your relationship healthy and productive. It brings your affection for God to life and enables you to express your love in a real way in the real world.

      Love is indeed the foundation of your relationship with God. But fear plays an active role in keeping that love intact. Because your love for God is true, you should fear the consequences of failing to honor the covenant you share with him. Let the thought of existing apart from him terrify you. Fear the depression of a meaningless existence. Fear the weakness of your flesh and the damage sin can cause. Fear your own capacity for evil. Fear the hungry shadows that lurk within the dark corners of your own mind—those rebellious urges that have the potential to rob you of your life and ruin your relationship with God, your family, and the other people you care for. Fear the consequences of losing the battle for your own soul and shudder at the thought of drinking from the cup of God’s wrath. Embrace that fear. Breathe it in. Let it circulate within the depths of your spirit. Face it. Understand it. And use it as motivation to obey God’s commands and make good on the promises that define your relationship with him.

      In everything he does, including the boundaries he has established by his own righteous authority, God acts with wisdom. His twofold goal is to achieve his own glory and to work for your benefit. He values you as his son. He wants you to succeed. He takes his role as your Heavenly Father seriously. In turn, he expects you to take your relational responsibilities as his son and his student just as seriously. As the psalmist wrote, God has given his precepts with the intention that you will walk in them. He has established his commands for your benefit, so that you would keep his commands with diligence and receive the blessings that come from living in harmony with him as your Heavenly Father (Ps 119:1–4).

      But son, you can’t keep God’s commands if you don’t know what his commands are. As Solomon and I will explain in the next section, the only way to acquire a proper knowledge of God’s commands is to crack open a Bible and start reading.

      God Has Given You His Word—Now Use It!

      Prov 9:10

      Solomon’s call to fear the Lord is the call to develop a deeper knowledge of him as your Heavenly Father.

      He makes that point clear when he says:

      “10The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (9:10, emphasis added)

      Solomon once again cites the fear of the LORD as the starting point in a man’s quest for wisdom. Notice how he frames this fear as a healthy fear that motivates a man not to run away from God in terror, but to draw closer to God by pursuing a deeper knowledge of him as the ultimate example of true wisdom in action.

God exercises wisdom in everything he does. He is supremely rational by nature—and God must act in accord with his nature. He is identical with it. He cannot separate himself from it. Nor can he act inconsistently with who he is as a perfectly simple Being.16 Just as God is love, and Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, so he also is wisdom. In all things, God thinks and speaks and behaves with perfect knowledge, morality, rationality, and skill.17 He is never ignorant or immoral. Nor does he ever act on a whim or with incompetence. He is an eternal and unchanging God. He is eternally wise. And son, he expects you to exercise that same devotion to wisdom in your life. As a man who bears his image, God expects you to reflect his character and to act in harmony with the values and principles he has established for his household. And the best place to gain knowledge of the Holy One and insight into the specifics of his wisdom is the Bible.

      This knowledge of the Holy One that Solomon speaks of goes far beyond facts and information. To truly know God is to be engaged in a working and active relationship with him. If your desire to attain knowledge of God’s commands is authentic—if you really want to understand the character of God, if you want to gain insight into his values and live in harmony with his principles—then get into the daily habit of studying his word.

      The Bible is the very word of God. It contains all you need to know to live a wise life. But let’s be honest: Sometimes people get intimidated when they think of reading the Bible. Some people find its size and scope overwhelming and get confused as to where to even begin. Some people also have a hard time acclimating themselves to the cadence of the text and the style of writing.

      Son, you may at times experience these same struggles when you sit down with your Bible. Don’t worry. These are normal reactions for younger disciples. But you must never use them as excuses to avoid carving out time for Bible study.

      Let me give you some words of encouragement that will alleviate any intimidation you may feel when it comes to the word of God. Yes, the Bible is thick and contains a lot of information. Yes, sometimes parts of the Bible require multiple readings and an acute attention to context to gain a fuller understanding of its meaning. Yes, some of the biblical names are hard to pronounce and some of the ancient customs can seem a little strange. But son, do not let these things stop you from spending time in the word. These are superficial hurdles that any rational man of the Spirit can overcome with study and perseverance.

God gave mankind his perfect word so that we may learn the way and the truth of life. He gave his disciples his Holy Spirit to steer us away from the world’s conventional foolishness and guide us into all that is true and wise.18 And he gave you an elegant mind that is more than capable of reading and understanding his word.

      I have never heard the audible voice of God. But the God of all existence speaks directly to me every day through the light of nature and in the text of the Bible. He has breathed out the truth of his word over the span of hundreds of years and through the inspired hands of many wise men. He preserved his words and canonized them as Scripture. The Bible is perfect and without error and is therefore profitable for every man who takes the time to study it (2 Tim 3:16–17).

      Son, the best way to get to know God is through his word. Through disciplined and thorough Bible study, you will gain deeper insight into the character of God and you will develop a more intimate knowledge of him as your Heavenly Father. The more you study, the more you will grow in wisdom. And as you mature in your faith, you will come to know what it means to truly fear the Lord—and the more certain you will be of his unique involvement in your life.

      vvv

      Sinful fear stifles a man.

      It freezes his mind and numbs his senses and renders him an ineffectual coward. Rational fear, however, is a righteous motivation that lights a spark within the wise man’s spirit. That spark kindles action, not cowardice. The man who lives with a rational fear of the Lord is the man who gives real-life proof of his respect for God at all times. He honors his Heavenly Father by thinking and acting within the well-lit borders of all that is righteous and good.

      Son, you can likewise honor the image of God when you live in accord with the commandments of his word. He has put his statutes in place to protect his relationship with you. He is a good Father who values his relationship with you as his child. And his commands are proof of his love.

      You can in turn prove your love for him by obeying those commands and respecting his authority.

      But the call to obedience doesn’t stop with God. As Solomon and I will explain in the next letter, God expects you to take that same spirit of respect you have for him and extend it toward me, toward your mother, and toward the rules we’ve set in place to govern our home.

      Love,

      Dad

      8. СКАЧАТЬ