The Man of God
(For Men Only) :>)
Every job that I have ever heard of takes some kind of training. It could be college, farming, the military. It may come in the form of a classroom or it may be on the job training. Whatever it is, there is training.
Even being a man of God takes training. God wants the man of God to be properly "equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:17). In Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus, we are given what some call qualifications of elders. To be sure, these are traits we wish to find in our church leaders. But upon further and deeper examination we should also conclude that all men of God should aspire to have these traits in their lives.
In this day there is a great shortage of men who will step up as Joshua did (Joshua 1:9). God wants men who are not afraid of what the world thinks of them. God wants men who will strive to do the right thing as Peter and John did in Acts 4 and 5. Even if it means being arrested as in their case.
Let's consider these traits that Paul wrote about to Timothy and Titus
1. A man of God should be above REPROACH 1 Tim 3:2. That is, he should have a good, godly reputation. The man of God does not get this by being concerned with Political Correctness. One does not get this by trying to please everybody. Further this reputation comes about as the result of putting God first. Not man. Even ungodly people will respect you to a point.
This reminds me of a young man in high school who wanted to go out with a girl. They had a date planned. The young man was looking forward to the date. But for some reason the girl broke the date off. The girl was asked why she broke her date and her reply was, "I wanted someone who would do certain things with me and he will not because he is a Christian." Word got back to the young man as to why she broke the date. He was thankful. A reputation, once ruined can be difficult to regain. Even the godly man will stumble and fall. But when he does he must regain his courage and stand for God again. It may take time but the reputation will come.
When we fail, God does not expect perfection from us but He does expect repentance. There will be those that Satan places in your life that will want to keep you down when you are trying to get up and move forward. But God has called us to be overcomers in this life (Rom. 8).
A good reputation does not just involve how others look at you. It also involves how YOU look at YOU. In other words, how well do you know you?
A good book to buy and study to help you with this is, The Measure of a Man by Gene Getz. This book has been revised in recent years.
We will touch on more traits of a Godly man later. Take time to look at the passages above. Ask God to guide you as you mature into the Godly man He wants you (us) to be.
God bless,
Gerry
