Inspiring Men With Courage
by on Oct 26th, 2009 at 8:42 am
When did you last gather among other believers with a purpose to bring courage to a brother or sister? Have you ever gone to church thinking about how you were going to search out brothers in Christ and offer them motivation for keeping on in their fight of faith?
These questions have been weighing heavily upon me over the past few weeks as I have been studying and teaching Hebrews 10:19-25. Within this text, we have a clear command to strategically and actively set our efforts on provoking one another to love and good works for God’s glory. We have a mandate to inspire courage within one another, but I have been neglecting this command for far too long.
When it comes to encouragement, I am a blatant hypocrite. I value the instillation of courage very highly on a personal level. Some of the most pivotal and life-shaping moments have the common thread of receiving a crucial bit of encouragement from someone that I respect. As a teacher, I sometimes struggle with spending dozens of hours on a lesson only to think that the preparation was a waste after class. A time has not yet gone by where God did not send someone from that class my way to say a kind word. Those encouragers did not know how much they impacted me and gave me the shot in the arm that I needed to get back to the hard work of preparing the next lesson, but the giving of courage worked.
I value encouragement, but I rarely give it. Yet, I have the mandate of God’s command and the evidence of its power in my own life to serve as motivation to make a change. This week, I would like us to focus on the effect that encouragement has on men of God.
As prideful men, we do not like to be seen as weak or in need of courage from others. We want to be known for having enough intestinal fortitude to drum up our own courage and strengthen our own faith as we fight our own battles and pass our own trials. Yet, most of us can look back to the most pivotal moments of our lives only to find that there was some teacher, parent, coach, brother, or spiritual leader present who gave us the right word, gift, or inspiring action that spurred us onward in our relationship with Christ.
We are all beneficiaries of the courage of others, and now we need to be learning how to instill it the men around us. The kind of courage sourced in Hebrews 10:24-25 is far more than a mere feeling of strength. This courage is built on substance and it results actions that God would consider right, just, loving, and we would consider them brave (perhaps even crazy).
I am convinced that churches would be transformed if we devoted our energies to provoking faithful and good works in one another. I am also convinced that men really want to be in an environment where courage is passed from one man to the next. Most warrior cultures are built around such an environment. Hopefully, this week will help us all become purposeful in keeping each other steady at our posts.