By Robert Anthony
June 15th 2024
This Father’s Day I want to encourage Godly Manhood!
In fact I have been encouraging God-made manhood for many years now.
I have to report honestly that this has been the most controversial part of my preaching for something like 20 years. You would think those who run the churches would welcome a man who is speaking the word of God, admonishing the men further into the things of God, but no… this ministry has been not only unappreciated but warred against I would estimate 9 times out of 10 throughout the churches.
Why would any church-leader have trouble with the men having authority, with the men being powerful, with the men being full of God’s fiery love and therefore… ALIVE!!? What could possibly be the reason church leaders would strive against such a thing?
Men, God created you to rule. Technically the women were created to rule also but for this time men have been given the charge to lead, to lead the families, to lead the churches… Men were commanded all throughout the New Testament to lead (and not just the pastors or clergy). And it all began, in the beginning.
Adam was given authority over all God’s earth and then He was alone with God for a time. Later, God gave Him a helpmate/help-meet, Eve (and Adam named her, “the mother of all living”). Even how God made Eve is allegorical of a woman’s authority and power, coming out of the man. God took Adam’s rib and fashioned the woman. It’s all right there in the beginning with that first family. Adam’s authority coming from God and then the woman’s authority coming from God/Adam together.
Even the curse explains this in further detail, Genesis 3:16, “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”
But again, in eternity everyone will be made new, we will all be “sons of God” – priests and kings unto Christ. In eternity there will be no more male and female but only the “sons of God”.
Warring against our design and the spirit within us (make or female) is to war against God. (Maybe, consider this for a moment.) For a man to refuse to lead His family (especially to God) is a man refusing His God-given responsibility. For a woman to refuse to follow her husband (especially to God) is for a woman to refuse her God-given role. So, simply put, our families are broken because we don’t believe and then follow the word of God.
Here is a longer article I have written on the subject that goes into all of this much deeper:
Brothers, that thing inside of us that wants to protect and cover and lead our wives and children is God-given.
Now obviously we need to become good-leaders, obviously there is a way to do this in love and all the things of love and there is a way to do this totally wrong. And there are many who like to point out our shortcomings. Over the years I have heard many even from the pulpits pointing out our struggles to love them perfectly, making mention of how we have failed them throughout our past.
But it’s hard to lead. Especially at first. Many of us were never shown (from our dads, mentors, etc.) good and Godly leadership in the home. For many of us we are literally completely unaware of how to do this (But the Holy Spirit will help us). Let us not be too hard on ourselves as we fail… and we ALL Fail sometimes.
The early years of my marriage I was very harsh with my precious wife. I had a rather short fuse and would not allow her much room to emote or complain, I was impatient and easily agitated but I have changed, by the power of God, Praise Him! I am not that man anymore. But it’s still hard. Our marriages are under constant assault from the enemy. He has had this plan all along, destroy the families and he will destroy the world.
Look at what Ephesians said, Chapter 5, Paul literally writes to us about HOW we are to love our wives. We all know to love them, but How!? Paul explains it in detail, verses 25-28, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.”
I hope you see Paul’s message clearly. What I just read told me to keep my wife holy, to keep her blameless and faultless before God’s throne… Paul said basically nothing about affection or romance or buying her things, but he absolutely told the men, “Keep your women holy!”
Not in Bible College, not in church, not in any marriage class did I ever hear such a thing. The very simple teaching we have from the word of God is… “Keep your women blameless, set apart and holy.” And this is what it is to love them! Amen?
It’s really true! Bring sin and iniquity into the house, men and you will destroy your family quickly. Bring various sins and lusts of the flesh and lusts of the world and the pride of life into your home… and watch everything fall apart. Allow your wife to rule the family!? Watch everything unravel, watch your children depart from the things of God as your generations become an easy target for the enemy as you refuse your God-given role to lead. We were made to cover them, brothers. We were made to have authority and protection over our children and to teach them, to lead them in this Godly way.
Many of our children have departed the things of God simply because the fathers would not take their place and lead them. And to lead is a part of what it is for a man to love. How do you have authority over your garden? Well, if I stomp my garden, if I refuse to water it and allow the weeds to grow up and choke it out, it will die. But if I, with great care and diligence, tend to my garden, watch over it, one might even say, love my garden… my garden will flourish! This is allegorical of what it is to use our God-given authority… to rule them, to have authority over them is fundamentally, to love them.
If our hearts have grown hard, repent. If we have ruined many relationships because of the hardness of our hearts, cry out to our God and He will heal us! Listen to what He promised us thru the prophets, “I will take out your stony heart and I will give you a heart of flesh and blood” a heart that can break, heart that feels, a new heart, a good heart!
One time in prayer God said, “Robert, I can do many things but I can’t force a man to have a good heart.” Quite profound! God will not force anyone to be good. If a man is content to destroy, to hate, to live in anger and vengeance, if I man loves evil and hates what is good, then his heart will grow hard like a flint stone and God will not force anyone to change. Everyone has been given the power and authority to choose. All of us. And God will not trample that freedom.
The Good News is, God wants to work with our hearts, He wants to work with our souls and make us good again, even like children, innocent and pure, trusting, trustworthy, hopeful and full of joy! We can return. Jesus told us, “Truly I say unto you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” So we must allow the goodness of God in. We must allow God to change us, even at the depths of our very being… and we must lead our families!
But where will we lead them? With hardened or broken hearts, with iniquity and sin, with all the unforgiveness and bitterness - Where we will lead those who are most precious to us!!?
We must become something new if we are going to lead those we love the most into the blessing!
Most men on their death beds are filled with regret and shame. And why? Because they can see their life so clearly laying there, about to pass into eternity – and suddenly they can take an accurate account of themselves and their choices. All these rich and powerful men say similar things, they call them deathbed confessions and these always have to do with the family. If only I had loved them better… they all come to the same conclusion - they should have loved their families better.
But brothers, let’s not wait until we are on our deathbeds to repent and change! Let’s become something New and Wonderful and Worthy, and Powerful in God’s love, TODAY!! Let this be our Father’s Day gift – that we are going to learn to walk with God like never before, that we are going to love our families like never before, that we are going to remove sin and godlessness from our homes today and we are going to lead our families with our whole hearts into God’s love and perfection! This most certainly is the greatest blessing - to lead our families in holiness and to come and walk with God!
And we can not do it alone. We will need our God and Father but we will also need our brothers. We were never supposed to try and do this alone. God is our Father. And He gave us brothers.
I hope this encourages you men. Time is short. You can see it all over the world: as we just lived thru Covid, as something like WW3 seems to be starting, as there is economic turmoil, political turmoil, weather turmoil, it’s all happening just as the Lord said it would. There has never been a better time to love these who are most precious to us!!
We can do it, Men! We are not alone!
God will lead us throw this mess
We don’t have to live afraid.
Our Father is All-Powerful.
Let’s come to Him anew
And let Him teach us anew to lead them…
Amen!!?
And then… GOD'S VERY BEST WILL FINALLY COME!!I
love you brothers.
Happy Father’s Day.
Robert.
(A Great Fathers Day Praise Song!)
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