Believe Become Be: Becoming the Man God Believes You Can BeНамуна

As Christian men, we can take great comfort and be encouraged by the apostle Paul’s boldly transparent words in this passage. When we see his honesty, we respond, “Yeah, Paul. I totally get how you feel. Me too!”

After talking with hundreds of guys over the past decade in men’s ministry, I have seen that one of our greatest frustrations this side of Heaven is matching beliefs to actions, beliefs to being. We know that to truly change we must believe God, cooperate with His Holy Spirit to become what He ultimately wants us to be as we transform into the image of Christ.

We don’t ever say, “I want to do peace.” We say, “I want to be at peace.” I want to do faithful? No, I want to be faithful. I want to do self-control? No, I want to be self-controlled. Why? Because do is an action in which we start and stop, while be is a state we are in, or a reality, an actuality.

Whether you are a dad or not, we all know our deep innate desire as men for a father to believe in us. We all want that sense of knowing, feeling, and sensing the pride of a dad in who we have become and what we can accomplish.

Far too many of us battle with the belief that our heavenly Father believes in us. He is sovereign and omniscient, so we understand He knows our hearts and minds. But to walk through life with the knowledge that our Abba Father, as Jesus called Him, deeply loves us, desires to bless us, and believes we can be everything He designed, created, and gifted us to be is an extraordinary and miraculous gift. I haven’t found anything in Scripture that says we cannot believe and embrace that truth in our lives.

So together we must find our answers in the Answer, a way in the Way, truth in the Truth, and life in the Life as Jesus declared Himself to be in John 14:6. We must choose to believe we can become a man of purity, truth, and righteousness, to be a man after God’s heart in Jesus’ name for His glory.

Take a moment to write down your greatest spiritual struggle right now. Next write down your strongest area or most recent moment of victory. Take a few minutes to pray about both.