Three Duties of Man

If your a guy there are most likely three rites of passage you will face.
1.) Manhood
2.) Marriage
3.) Fatherhood
Each of these carries an awesome blessing and a heavy responsibility. As I have found in my walk with Christ, everything is a balance. There is no single solution for everything, but multiple solutions and purposes that need to be handled with care and wisdom. These three passages lead us men into three incredibly important and difficult jobs, that also fill our lives with joy, and excitement. In order of importance:
1.) Christian
2.) Husband
3.) Father
In the future I plan to explore these duties in greater depth, with more study, for now we'll just get an overview of them.

I think we can all agree there is nothing more important in this life than our faith and belief in Jesus Christ, in His resurrection, and forgivness. These should be the core of every piece of our life. Beginning in my late teen years and up until almost a year ago I always questioned the validity of the Bible. Yes, there were more manuscripts of the Bible find than The Art of War, or the Qur' an, or Homers epic poems, but it never changed my idea that these books were written thousands of years ago with no printing press and retold by word of mouth. Even if the dead sea scrolls were proven to be written in the days of the early church, I still questioned how trustworthy they really were, and then a single verse put everything in perspective for me:
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,"
2 Timothy 3:16
As I meditated on this verse it became explicitly clear to me, If I believed that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Then I had no choice but to believe EVERY scripture in the Bible was not only the truth, but it was the breath of God in written word. To deny any one single would be to deny the entire Bible including the resurrection, the birth of Jesus, even the deity and existance of God. It was then I realized I have no hope of knowing God, much less loving God if I wasn't getting inside of His breath and His word every day. As christians it should be our desire and our purpose to immerse and drown ourselves in the words of Christ and draw ourselves closer to Him and gain a deeper understanding of who He is.

Our next duty of husband paints our relationship with Christ as a more tangible picture, being commanded to love our wives as Christ loved the church. This verse goes on to say, and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. So not only is it our duty serve and scrifice ourselves to our wives, her spirituality is dependant on us as well, "washing with water through the word." I heard someone on the radio once say that regardless of whether or not the head of the household is the one who sinned, he is still held responsible for the faults of his family. Adam was not the first to sin, but he stood by and did nothing while his wife was tempted, and not only did he in turn fall because she did, he was also held responsible for her actions. In Genesis 3:9 it says specifically that God called for Adam, there was no mention of Eve. Because Adam failed to step and defend his wife from evil, not only did she fall, but he fell with her, and both were punished. Because of one mans failures sin prevailed. Given the choice, would you allow sin to enter and  prevail within your family? Would you desire your wife and children to fall away?

To me personally there is not a more daunting responsibilty than the care, and well being of a brand new child that is absolutly dependant upon you for everything, and I do mean everything. These lives that have not yet had a chance to live will inevitably be created, shaped, molded and determined by how we raise, teach and discipline. They have no concept or thought of God unless we make Him a part of our families. From the day they are born as far as they know, the world revolves around them. They are born, they need to be fed, they need to be clothed. We do everything for them when they are first born, and unless careful discipline is administered they will always believe that life will serve them everything they need on a silver plater. It's the delicate balance I was talking about, we need serve them, but teach them to do it themselves at the same time. We need to be tough, but loving. It's a very difficult and fine balance that I truly believe has never yet been perfected, but if we Commit to the LORD whatever we do, and he will establish our plans.

I believe the three studies on all these jobs are going to be great, and I hope and pray they's be a blessing to all. Looking forward to the journey.