Battlefield Instructions for Men, Part 1

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Do you have your battlefield plans?

In order to be able to fight in the battle, you've got to have a plan. Whether it's in the streets of Fallujah or the halls of your home, you must know what you need to do to win. These principles apply to the married man or the single man. We all need help winning this battle. So, with these things in mind, let's take a look at some choices you can make starting today.

Choose to Be Committed with Your Eyes - In the Bible, Job put it this way: "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl." Job 31:1. Job is making a commitment to a special kind of blind love. That is Semper Fidelis. Note that the Bible doesn't say that we must never notice a woman. It says that we are not to look lustfully at a woman. Good-looking girls and women are everywhere. You can't help but see them. There is a difference, however, between seeing a beautiful woman and lusting after her. Just point is simply this: there is a difference between a look and a lustful look. Note the words of the Message translation, which is really is a scripturally blunt definition of LUST:

Keeping your eyes focused on Jesus...

"never to undress a girl with my eyes." (Job 31:1, MSG)

Here's what I'm saying, a man who is committed with his eyes will avoid certain kinds of magazines, television programs, and shows that are offered in a hotel room when you could possibly be hundreds of miles from your wife and kids. Train your eyes to appreciate beauty rather than cause you to stumble.

Jesus said that if our eye offends us, pluck it out. That means that men must take extreme measures like removing themselves from a situation. Do you really need a TV in your hotel room? Could you bring someone with you on overnight trips? Should you avoid the new stands in the airport on trips? Whatever it is, if we are going to win this battle, we must get extreme.

Do you remember a man named Dick Butkus? He is truly a legend. There has never been anyone so extreme or sold out to his task of stopping running backs in the history of football. He bit, hit, punched, slapped, fought, and slammed his adversaries into the ground to stop them. It's time we got Dick Butkus extreme with our eyes if we want to be the kind of men God wants us to be.

'Nuff Said

Choose to Be Committed with Your Mind - It was Oscar Wilde he said, "I can resist anything except temptation." Do you ever feel like that?

Here's God's take on the situation found in 2 Corithians 10:3-5:

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We can't stop bad thoughts from entering our mind, that's temptation. It is not wrong to be tempted. Jesus was tempted but never sinned. The ideas that we must fight are those tempting ideas that want to run our life. Those must be brought to obey Christ instead of our flesh. Learn to sift through the wrong ideas and take them captive to Christ. Tranform the temptation into an opportunity to win. Tha happens with Bible study as we engraft our hearts with His Word. (Go here for some simple but effective memory verses)

Bill Hull (author of The Disciple-making Pastor) writes that a man "must know the Bible well enough, through study, to fight temptation and protect himself against the ideas and philosophies of the world. He is confronted daily with thousands of messages and ideas. A biblical defense system must sort out the ideas, take what is obedient to Christ, and reject what is not."

The point is this: learning to deal with your thought life is the spiritual equivalent of learning to dribble with your left hand. It is work to learn, and you will not be successful at first. You'll feel overwhelmed, discouraged, and frustrated. You'll begin to think you'll never make progress. But slowly and surely you will develop a new habit. It doesn't come easy, but what worth-while habit does? You'll be developing a new pattern of thinking. If it's something that you've been doing for 25 years, you're not going have it down in a few weeks. It will take time and effort and perserverance, but it can be done.

It's high time we all quit making excuses and run to the battle!

More tomorrow that will help you win your battles.

Pastor Trey Rhodes

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