WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER

When I think of the most influential men in my life, I think of the men who invested deeply and believed in me when there was not a lot to invest in.

Each time, their continued investment in a troubled and struggling young man has helped me grow, helped me to understand more about what being a man means.

They’ve shown me that real strength is leading with service and compassion. They’ve shown me that a real man follows Christ and never retreats on his responsibilities to his family and community. They’ve shown me a man of God’s responsibility is not to himself alone, but to the Lord, and to the ones the Lord’s given him to lead and shepherd.

A man of God stands for what is right, when what is right is not popular. But a man of God acts decisively with courage, not fear; fierce love instead of fierce anger.

He draws from the strength of God, not from his own strength. And when He draws from God’s strength, He seeks to strengthen others. His foundation should be Christ alone, and he should seek to build others up from that firm foundation.

A man of God does not cower from the fight, but stands firm with God’s armor to defend and protect those in his care. Instead of charging ahead alone, he links arms with the men alongside him, knowing that a battle line drawn with other men of God can never be broken.

Often I have tried stand and fight alone, and often I have been felled in the process. I praise God for the men who have picked me up in the aftermath of these battles. I would not be standing today without those men.

But just as these men have carried this oft-wounded soldier, so the Lord has called me to more – called me to do the same for other men as He has done for me.

I recall a passage I once read in Exodus 17, when Moses was wearied while leading the Israelites in battle, and his arms were lifted by two others who would not allow him to fight the battle on his own.

“But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.” (Exodus 17:12 ESV)

When I fail to do the same for other men who struggle, I fail in my responsibility as a man of God. When I try to fight the battle alone, and do not allow other men to come alongside me, and do not seek their counsel, I again fail in my responsibility as a man of God.

The man of God fights not as a superhero or lone gunman, taking on all comers and pursuing glory for himself. Instead, he takes up arms in a vast, innumerable company, defending all the Lord has given Him to protect, attacking the spiritual ground the Lord has called men of God to take back from the world.

If men do not together for their families, who will fight for them? If men to not take up arms to banish the Enemy from their homes, communities, and churches, who will?

I cannot live in fear, and I cannot fight alone. As a man, I have been made in His image, with His strength. He has called me to be “strong and courageous”, but never to leave a brother in arms behind to face the fight alone.

Christ’s love should drive men not to the sidelines but into the heart of the battle against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12 ESV)

This means as men, we ought not be fighting against each other, but united with each other with the fierce and sacrificial love of Christ. As Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 4, as men of God we are much stronger together than we are fighting alone.

As a man of God, I choose today to stand and fight with my brothers in arms.

Will you make the same decision?