Most Important Goal for 2013

By Mark Kincannon

I have several things that I pray, hope, and will work towards in 2013, but I feel pretty comfortable with this verse from Malachi 2 representing my most important goal.

Malachi 2:15-“Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth.” (NLT)

This verse is written within a passage with larger implications, but it is simple enough to remind us of what we as men should be majorly focused on.

A rhetorical question is asked, “Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife?” Then another question is asked, “And what does he want?” In other words what does God want from us as the men, as the one with God-given responsibility to lead our family?

Does he want more money in the 401K or the bank account? Does he want us to earn a promotion in our career? Does he want us to expand our business? Does he want us to kill a bigger deer, or lower our handicap? Does he want us to make sure our kids make that travel baseball squad? Does he want us to make sure our kids get good grades or make a high ACT score? Does he want us to make sure our kids experience the vacations we wished we would have experienced? What is his answer?

God’s answer is pretty simple. He wants godly children to come from our marriage. If our relationship with God isn’t healthy our relationship with our spouse won’t be healthy and if that happens it’s difficult to raise godly children. Therefore God tells us to guard our hearts. We need to keep our hearts from falling in love with things that aren’t going to bring lasting satisfaction. Things like money, power, and sexual immorality. We have to set up boundaries in our life to make sure we are protecting our hearts.

When we protect our hearts we protect our relationship with our wife, in turn we will remain loyal to our wife. When we protect this relationship we protect our kids. This gives us the best chance to raise the type kids God desires. This is a great reminder of what God wants our kids to be. He doesn’t desire the smartest or the most athletic kids, he wants godly kids.

So here is my priority this year. Inspired by a writing that is thousands of years old. Guard my heart, remain loyal to my wife, and raise godly children. All of the other goals will submit to this.

Planning for Next Year

If real manhood is defined by (1. Rejecting Passivity 2. Accepting Responsibility 3. Leading Courageously 4. Waiting on the Greatest Reward) we can use that definition to encourage us as we are planning for the next year’s success.

It’s easy to passively move from this year to the next without making adjustments to your family’s vision. It’s easy to sweep our responsibility (to lead our family in to the next year focused on Christ) under the rug. It is hard to courageously lead and challenge our family to do something that is difficult. It is hard to wait for the lasting rewards that God promises when we spend time and energy in learning God’s word and his ways. Most of the time the results of learning and living God’s way doesn’t result in quick rewards. God’s rewards are seen over years and decades.

Will you invest in your family by investing time and energy into teaching your family about God. It isn’t easy. It takes firm and unwavering committment. I hope you will join me in teaching your kids and spouse who God is and what he desires.

As you are game planning for the next year, consider utilizing the Newcity Catechism to help lead your family. This is basically a series of questions and answers (1 per week) that you and your family learn together. Each week also provides commentary and explanation via short videos and articles that help us understand the questions and answers from a Biblical perspective.

Make this a goal for next year. Accept the responsibility of leading your family, reject the temptation to be passive, lead them with courage to experience the lasting rewards of following Christ. Rewards that your grandchildren and their children might be able to enjoy. The impact will last for generations.

Check this link out. NEWCITY Catechism

Can you define Manhood?

There are those that think that many guys are stuck in a stage of life called  adolescence.  There are guys that spend vast amounts of time focused on the same things they focused on when they were teenagers.  Some of these guys still view women, work, and play the same way they did when they were 15.  You work just enough so that you can have enough money to play with the things you want to play with…including women.  They don’t see work as an opportunity to impact the world, they don’t see their wife as someone to lead and serve, and they see their play as a priority that governs their lives greater than God’s word, greater than the needs of their wife, and kids.

I think the phrase, “boys will be boys” exemplifies this idea.  Many use this phrase to trivialize the actions of  grown men that are still acting like boys.  I think that is a natural tendency for all of us, but it isn’t a trend that we should be ok with just because it is becoming increasingly normal.  Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”  Paul points us to the idea that there is a point in everyone’s life where it’s no longer ok to be a boy.

Western culture doesn’t seem to have a clear and certainly not a biblical right of passage for boys that helps them understand this transition from boyhood to manhood.  My opinion is that one reason so many guys stay in the boyhood stage of life is because no one has clearly defined manhood for them so guys just coast thru life without a vision for what they should be.  Therefore they think manhood is achieved when they have sex, when they start drinking, when they kill a deer, or when they can shave.  Others think they are a man because they’ve convinced a girl to marry them, because they have a child, or because they got a degree.  What do you think defines a man?

I’ve adopted a definition of manhood that I think is biblically supported.  It comes from Robert Lewis, a former college football player, pastor, and creator of Men’s Fraternity.

This definition is something that I want my two sons to learn, but I also want my daughter to know.  My sons so they have a vision of what they need to be and my daughter so she can have a vision of what she needs to marry.

A Real Man:

1.  Rejects Passivity

2.  Leads Courageously

3.  Accepts Responsibility

4.  Waits for the Greatest Reward-God’s Reward