A Godly Man

I was chatting with a gent the other day and noticed that his problems as a husband and father were not changing because he did his homework because I had told him to do it, not because he wanted to do it. That often occurs. In fact, it is very normal in the counseling business. What I try to do in giving homework, is to help the man get into the habit of reading his Bible and meeting with God. I’m trying to help him to develop a love for the work that I assign for homework; which is essentially a love for God and God’s word.

I’ve found that most of the time men don’t read their Bibles at all. And even when they do read them, they don’t read them in a way that makes them more Godly. Oh sure, they might know what the Bible says. They might be reading other heady theology books at the same time so that they can argue with their friends about theological things. But what I mean by becoming more godly is that when they read their Bibles they meet with God and in the process become more like God.

A godly man is a man who reflects God. He is a man who is like God. When others talk about him, they say things like, “You want to know what God thinks about a particular topic? Go ask Bob. He knows God and therefore knows how and what God thinks.”

If you want to be a godly man, read your Bible and do it in such a way that you are actually (not literally) caught up into glory and are meeting with the living God. You want to rejoice in meeting with him. You want to echo the psalmist when he wrote Psalm 119, “With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!” (119:10) and “Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law” (119:18) and “Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart” (119:34).

A godly man is a man who is godly first and whatever he does for a living is second or third. A godly man is one who loves Jesus, which means obeying Jesus (Jn 14:15). A godly man is a Christian who happens to make his money as a doctor, truck driver, whatever. He isn’t a doctor who also happens to be a Christian, he is a Christian who happens to be a doctor. He isn’t a musician who happens to play Jesus music, he is a Christian who expresses his Christianity through his music. A godly man isn’t even a pastor who preaches. A godly pastor is one who is a Christian first and a pastor second.

I think this is one major reason why Christians have so little to say to our culture. They aren’t Christians who do X. They are X most of the time and are Christians when they go to church, or Bible study, or whatever. This is why when they come to counseling and I assign Bible reading, they might read, but really, they’re just going through the motions because they think, “If I do what Dr Lawyer tells me to do, my family, job, relationship, life problems will magically go away.” They think of their Christianity like some kind of medicine—”take one of these every day and in a week you’ll be well.”

Being a Christian isn’t the source of their life it is something they’ve added on to their lives. It’s just something else they have to put up with to do whatever they really want to do.

But Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mt 16:24). This means that if a man wants to be a Christian, he must die. This means that if he wants to be a Christian, a man must die. Dying doesn’t mean adding Jesus to all your other gods and interests. It means die. Let Jesus bring you back to life and give you life. It means take the life, he’s given, and live it with every fiber of your being. It means a Godly man is a man who has submitted to Jesus in every area of his life. It means that he is a Christian doctor; a Christian musician; a Christian teacher; a Christian whatever.

It also means he can’t get enough of God’s word. It takes every ounce of strength for him to tear himself away from the study of God in his word, to do anything else. But when he does rip himself away, he wants to get back to it as quickly as he can. And in the process, he becomes a better husband, father, boss, employee, son, friend, etc. because he is like Jesus. He is a godly man.

I hope this helps.

Image by Dorothée QUENNESSON from Pixabay