Be a Mighty Man of God! By: Tom Russell
Being a skinny kid and moving to a new school at least a couple of times a year makes you the target of every bully. It produces an emotional agony that is indescribable and can be self-destructive. Without proper guidance and examples, a boy has to find own way. Some give up, while others instinctively continue searching for examples of strength and positive masculinity. 
In my experience “Christianity” was not much help as it has been pretty much emasculated. Christ has been presented as some soft, effeminate shampoo model telling you to submit to any and all abuse. I wanted to be right with God, but looked to western writer Louis L’Amour and prolific firearms author Jeff Cooper, to learn about manhood, and did not realize until later that the positive masculinity they espoused was in accordance with God’s word, design, and expectation.
God wants His people to be strong, brave, and capable. Consider Abraham, Caleb the Ferocious (Joshua 14), Samuel, David and his magnificent Thirty (2 Samuel 23:8-39). What of mighty Benaiah who killed two Ariels of Moab (???) and a lion in a pit on a snowy day, and then a magnificent giant Egyptian with the Egyptian’s own spear? Yes, Benaiah the “doer of great deeds” still did not number among David’s Three Mighty Warriors. What has happened to men of God? Where has the strength and ferocity gone?
One of the reasons believing men have become soft is because their religious leaders have become soft. Too often effeminate priests and “preachers” who would fit better in a tooth paste commercial than a pulpit of God, represent “Christian men”. These bear no resemblance to the prophet Samuel who hacked King Agag to pieces with a sword, or John the Baptizer who was clothed in camel’s hair with a leather belt and ate bugs and wild honey. John, when he saw the chief religious characters of his day coming to be baptized, called out to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Matt 3:7-8) He was completely unconcerned about offending them, burning bridges, etc.
Yes, Jesus instructed the Jews to “turn the other cheek” (Lk. 6:29) when another commits a minor offence, but He also directed His followers to “sell their cloak and buy a sword” (Lk. 22:36). The sword is not to be used contrary to the will of God (Matt. 26:52), but notice He instructed Peter to put the “sword in its place”, He did not tell him to get rid of it, or condemn Peter for having one. Most do not realize that Jesus Christ is the 
ferocious Jehovah of the Old Testament! Notice the words of the prophet Jude, “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” Jude 4-5 Jesus was the God that David sang of in Psalm 7:11-13 “God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.”
This same Jesus told John in Revelation 2:10 “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” The Lord said, “Do not fear”! Have you ever heard anything more positively masculine? Fear is simply an emotion, not an omnipotent master we have no control over! Conquer it!
Those who only see Christ as a sweet shepherd fail to see the Christ who prophesied His destruction of Jerusalem and obliteration of Israel (Matt. 24), and the Christ that John and Daniel witnessed who caused these mighty men of faith to faint (Rev. 1:17-20, Dan. 10:2-9). My point is simply that God has set for us an example of strength, justice, and fearlessness that we are to emulate.
There was a time when western civilization appreciated and admired strong masculinity and machismo. I am reminded of the men of the Victorian age like Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, who defeated every French Marshal he fought and then defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Cecil Rhodes who created the nation of Rhodesia. Theodore Roosevelt who resigned as the Secretary of the Navy to lead men in battle during the Spanish-American War, then served as an immensely popular President of the United States. These men and others were lauded by Rudyard Kipling and other great writers of the 19th and 20th century. These men, and those like them, conquered continents, not just nations, but something was missing.
Roosevelt was a prolific writer and extolled the virtues of “The Strenuous Life”. I have the book and it is an exhortation to be strong and exercise a charismatic masculinity, but I realized there is something missing from it. In the writings and lives of these titans there is little, to no mention, of God and compassion. I believe that masculinity and strength without godliness will always result in tyranny by the strong. The colonialism of the Victorians (I use that term to identify a mindset, not limiting it to the English.) was often characterized by arrogance, disdain for the rights of others, and abuse. God calls upon all “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8), and all efforts to the contrary are doomed to failure and so it was with Western Colonialism. Strong masculinity is essential, but devoid of justice, kindness, and humility before God, it is abusive and eventually, after causing much destruction, will fail.
The greatest men of all time have borne a godly masculinity. There has never been more ferocious or martially capable warriors than the mighty men of God, and these are the men we should emulate! 
Men, our God, our families, our nation, calls for us to repent of ignorance, effeminacy, and fear, and embrace duty with hearts tempered by godliness, our razor edge steeled by His word.
We were born to be Mighty Men of God, let us make it so!
Photos by: www.forgedbyfaithart.com