Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

Men today are in a battle without bullets or bombs, but a battle all the same. It's a fight for our families and our future. Facing the battles of life demands courage, and courage is the ability to do the hard thing in every circumstance, despite the cost.

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Manhood and Spiritual Leadership Guest: Dennis Rainey From the series: Stepping Up (day 4 of 5) Bob: Being a man involves taking some risks: stepping up, being courageous, leading, initiating. Here is Dennis Rainey: Dennis: What if I failed every time I’ve initiated? Well, the easiest thing to do is nothing and to stop initiating. The reason we fail to initiate is we may have trained our wives to just jump in and do it for us because we haven’t stepped up and taken responsibility for our finances, for the spiritual well-being of our family, for the direction we’re headed as a couple. All of these demand initiative from a man who knows where he’s going. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, March 10th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We’re going to begin today to unpack some of the essentials that make up biblical manhood. Welcome to FamilyLife Today ; thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. Do you think men know what it is they’re looking for, they’re aiming for? I mean, do you think they understand what manhood looks like? Dennis: No. I don’t. In fact, I think there is so much taking place in our culture today it is like real manhood, as God designed a man to be, is an elusive goal at best. For most, they have no—they haven’t even got the foggiest idea what that looks like. Bob: Well, I remember—this will date me a little bit, but I remember trying to figure it out myself and thinking, “So, as a real man the tough John Wayne, Rambo, you don’t share your feelings; you just go out and get it done.” Is that a real man? Dennis: Don’t eat quiche. Bob: Yes. Or is a real man a sensitive, caring, kind of person who is tender and who is kind and who pays attention and listens to the heart of his wife? Is that a real man? We get such mixed messages in the culture that I think that a lot of guys are looking around going, “I want to be a man. I’m just not exactly sure what that means.” Dennis: Well, I don’t often quote from advertisers, especially advertisers that advertise jeans, as an authority; but I ran across an advertisement for Dockers jeans where I just felt like they nailed it. In fact— Bob: Now hang on. I’m wearing Dockers right now. Dennis: Are you? Bob: Okay. Yes. Dennis: Well, this is a good ad for Dockers jeans, but I want you to listen to this because this appeared in an advertisement for their jeans. You tell me if you don’t feel like they nailed it. Once upon a time, men wore the pants and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors, and little old ladies never had to cross the street alone. Men took charge because that is what they did, but somewhere along the way the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny; but today, there are questions are genderless society has no answers for. Now, I’m going to finish this, Bob, but can you believe this is for jeans? Now I know Dockers makes other things too— Bob: Right. Dennis: But this is advertising their jeans. They continue: The world sets idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave, and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown-ups. We need men to put down the plastic forks, step away from the salad bar, and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It is time for you to get your hands dirty. It is time to answer the call of manhood. It is time to wear the pants. Talk about politically incorrect. Bob: They’ve been reading your book haven’t they? Dennis: Here’s what they are saying, and again, an advertisement is not my authority. I’m about to go to Scripture, but they are picking up on the theme of Scripture that there is a lot about manhood that is all about a man taking initiative. Manhood is about initiative. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 talks about standing firm in the faith, acting like men. Be a man, it says. 1 Kings 2 David is about to die. He charges his son, Solomon. He says, “Show yourself a man and keep the charge of the Lord your God walking in His ways, keeping His statutes, His commandments, His rules, His testimonies.” I mean, he’s calling his son up: be a man; step up, son; don’t fritter away your manhood on lesser callings. Yet, this culture is sending messages to boys that make the waters incredibly murky. If there is someone that needs to be clarifying what it means to be a real man today, it ought to be followers of Jesus Christ who are tethered to the Scripture. Bob: So, you would say that the Scriptures give us a clear picture of what mature manhood is? Dennis: Right. Bob: Okay. So, unpack it for us. Dennis: Well, first of all, let me tell you what it isn’t: it’s not passivity. It has been suggested in the Garden in Genesis chapter 3, that when the serpent came to Eve that Adam was standing there. Adam was present, but he did nothing. It has been suggested that perhaps the first sin of man was passivity. If you think about it, if initiative is the essence of manhood, could it be that the sin of arrogance and pride of doing nothing and just standing back watching may be the opposite? I think there are three reasons—actually I’m going to give you a bonus reason. Four reasons why men are passive today, they don’t take the initiative. First of all, taking the initiative is hard work, and I’m tired. It is the end of the day. I don’t feel like leading my family in a devotion at the dinner table. I don’t feel like putting the kids to bed and serving my wife by helping the kids be tucked in and praying with them. The easiest thing for me to do is to sit in my easy chair and become a giant amoeba and just do nothing. It is hard work to lead. Being a man calls us out of our passivity, out of doing nothing into engageme...…

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. A Call to Manhood Guest: Dennis Rainey From the series: Stepping Up (day 5 of 5) Bob: As a husband and as a dad, Dennis Rainey has not always done it right. He remembers times when he embraced his role to lead courageously. Dennis: I remember one time when our daughters came downstairs ready for church, and one of our daughters was wearing a dress that was immodest. Instead of telling her to go change I was wimpy. I didn’t engage her because I didn’t want to experience the pain of the conflict, and so I was a good man who did nothing. All of us make mistakes that we can look back on and have some regrets about, but the key is, as we look forward, how are you going to protect your family today? How are you as a man going to take responsibility and not give evil a chance to triumph in your family? Bob: This is FamilyLifeToday for Friday, March 11th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll talk today about what it means for a man to be on the alert, to stand firm in the faith, to act like a man and to be strong, to let all that he does be done in love. And welcome to FamilyLife Today . Thanks for joining us. You think those who have been with us all this week have been kind of feeling the – smelling the testosterone as we’ve been talking about what authentic manhood ought to look like? Dennis: Calling men to step up. In fact, a call to courageous manhood is what we have been talking about. You know, here’s the thing, Bob: We watch TV. We watch a sporting event. We watch the golfers, the football players, the baseball players, basketball, doesn’t matter what season it is, and you hear somebody say, “He stepped up his game.” Bob: Yes. Dennis: We’re used to using this phrase, stepping up . It is used all the time. Now I know I am sensitive to those two words because that’s the name of a book that I just finished, that I’ve been working on for more than 10 years. But I do feel like men today need someone in their lives calling them to step up and out of boyhood and adolescence and step fully into manhood and to be the man God made them to be. Bob: Well, and we’ve already acknowledged this week that this is a theme that God seems to be stirring in our culture today. We talked about the movie that’s coming out in the fall that the folks at Sherwood Baptist have put together called Courageous. It’s around the same theme. Dennis: It is. In fact it’s interesting that so many different Christian organizations, groups, and churches are all raising the same issue. The guys at Sherwood seem to have their fingers on a pulse that I believe is something God wants to do in the church. I think this movie is going to stir individual Christians, and I hope men to step up and be courageous in their most fundamental callings in life. Bob: Give me a definition of courage. Can you do that? I mean, how do I understand what courage looks like biblically? Dennis: Well, courage is doing your duty in the face of fear. Doesn’t mean you don’t have fear. In fact, one of my favorite questions to ask at a dinner table – I think you’ve probably been at a few meals – Bob: I’ve been the victim of this question before, yes. Dennis: You get at a table that’s a round table and has four or five couples at it, or ten people at your table. You hate to bore one another with yourselves, you know. Life is too short. Let’s cut to the chase; let’s talk about some stuff of meaning, you know? So I like to ask the question, “What is the most courageous thing you’ve ever done in all your life?” It’s been interesting to look at how people have answered it. People have talked about a decision at work to push back against deceptive business practices where it could have cost them their jobs, maybe stepping away from their existing job and pursuing a dream. Others have protected an unborn life. I’ve heard young men answer this question talking about stepping up and away from pornography. But the most frequent answer to the question, “What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?” usually involves the person’s father, where they stepped up and either took another job and didn’t go to work for the family company – recently I was at a dinner table and a man said “It was my decision to not go to work for my father but go to college. I was the first person in our family to go to college.” There’s something about our parents, standing up to our parents and taking a stand for what we believe God wants us to do that calls upon a bedrock of courage from a man’s life. Bob: And not to do that disrespectfully; to do it in the context of honor, but there is something about declaring, “I can navigate life apart from your guiding me.” Dennis: I actually think it is a form of a rite of passage, as you’ve said, to adulthood, where we take a stand and we go, “You know what? I’m my own person. God has a plan for me. I’m fulfilling that plan, and I will honor you, but I am going to be obedient to the God who has called me to do this thing.” Bob: What you’ve done in the book is kind of chart the trajectory a man follows from boyhood, which dads can help make more intentional for their sons by pointing them in the right direction and calling them onto the right path, and then adolescence, which is full of all kinds of traps that a young man needs to be navigated through so that he can get to mature manhood. Dennis: And one that every man needs to understand that his son desperately needs him to engage him during this period of time and not just kind of wipe his hands and say, “It’s done. He’s a teenager now; he’s 16, 17, 18 years old. My influence is over.” No it’s not. There will come a time when your influence will be lessened substantially, but until that time we’re charging men to reach down to those young men in adolescence and call them fully up to the manhood step. Step on up to what it means to be a man, and step away from, well, the lure of childishness and acting like a boy and prolonging youthfulness too long. Bob: Well, if a guy is going to call younger man to step fully up onto the platform of manhood, he’s got to be there himself, and to be there he’s got to know what it looks like. And as we’ve already said, a lot of guys just don’t know what it looks like. &...…