"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."
In 1 Peter 5, Peter teaches how the old and young can benefit from one another. Sometimes though pride can be our down fall. For me I put my pride aside. It took me 31 years to learn what vulnerability looks like. That is what I benefited from these men of God.
For them, I just wanted to commend them on their honesty. These guys are 5 to 10 years younger than me being this vulnerable. I have waited pretty much till now on the race to say “Here is my crap”. I told them whether if it’s with one of us or a key person or friend back home keep going to those you can say “here is my crap”. " Don't wait till your my age." If I did that 5 or 10 years ago I believe I would have found the victory and freedom I wanted so long ago. Funny how I wanted them to learn and grow from me because I had this crazy idea I was the oldest. I experienced more years then they did and yet I learned and grew from these 14 awesome Americans in different ways. Read the next blog to find out. Lets just say what I wanted once again was not what God wanted.
Jesus wants us to be his first and foremost friend we can go to when we mess up or don’t have life figured out so we can experience him to the fullest. He doesn’t want us to be those Christians who smile on the outside and yet are hurting on the inside because we are hiding a secret life. God sends us key people who can fight, pray for us and hold us accountable not so they can be our dependency or dictator but people who can see us grow, friends that want to see us live for Jesus to our full potential.
There Is something about exposing our sin to one another that really ticks off the enemy. What happens is we got all this sin and we carry it and we pretend everything is alright but it isn’t. Yes by the Lords grace and mercy you are forgiven but are you still living a secret life? When we are consistently living in that sin or holding on to something you start to harbor it and you’re frustrated because you can’t experience his goodness in any personal time with the Lord, you take it out and get angry with him and others because it is there. When we expose it then we have nothing to hide any more, it was never hidden from God in the first place but he doesn’t want us living like the Pharisees. We know how to look good on the outside but on the inside we can be all a show, an act if you will because we are numb to sin and our flesh we don't even recorgnize how far we astrayed.
Doesn’t mean you have to share your crap with everyone but Jesus wants you to have mentors, parents, brother or sisters in the Lord that can call you out. Jesus doesn’t want us to drag a heavy chain around our ankle for the rest of our lives. Carry your burdens, your sins to the cross then allow others to come in and say “here is my crap hold me accountable”. We all have it. But what are you hiding? I think as men we need to start Manning up. Set the example for other men and all Christians to follow. Don't let sin, pride and fear have any claim over you. AMEN!!
1 Corinthians 7:21-23
