We were created for love, made by God for a love affair of the heart. Intimately connected in oneness. Jesus even prayed it in John 17:20:
“I do not pray for these alone [it is not for their sake only that I make this request], but also for [all] those who [will ever] believe and trust in Me through their message, 21 that they all may be one; just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe [without any doubt] that You sent Me.” (AMPLIFIED VERSION)
And where there is a love affair, there can be jealousy. God? Jealous? Oh yes …
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Exodus 20:4-5
for you shall not worship any other god; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His] Exodus 34:14 (AMP)
How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire? Psalm 79:5
Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? 1 Corinthians 10:22
You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. James 4:5 (MSG)
Merriam-Webster defines Jealousy as an unhappy or angry feeling of wanting to have what someone else has, expressing hostility toward a rival. If you have love, you will potentially have jealousy. Not all jealousy is sin. There is a jealousy that comes from the very deep nature of love and the object of that love. John Mark McMillan wrote well of God’s jealousy and love by with the words to the extremely popular worship song sung by many artists, “How He Loves” …
He is jealous for me,
Love’s like a hurricane, and I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me.
There is a love that is not to be understood or even explained, and yet is very much wanting and waiting to be experienced. If men and women were to encounter and experience this Lover of their souls, King of their hearts, Father of their development, we would see quite a different landscape of humanity. That is His plan, God’s invitation and our opportunity.
The Father isn’t the only one who is jealous. There is another, but rather than jealousy motivated by love, our adversary’s jealousy is fueled by hatred and envy. Lucifer fell from one role in the Kingdom of God to another by exercising his free will. Jealous of the affection of God set on Adam and Eve, the Trinity’s image bearers. Lucifer and a third of the angels made their choice from within, no “outside” influence … and a rebellion ensued against the Father and the position and post He designed for them in the Kingdom of God. The mutiny failed, and the Father cast Lucifer out of Heaven, a third of the angel armies falling with him. So altered is Lucifer, his name and identity are changed; now Satan, he sets his jealous and vengeful sights on the image bearers of God, “wound the Father by kidnapping His son and daughter.” and as Milton wrote in Paradise Lost,
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Jealousy is a powerful thing, it can move Love to rescue, it can move hate to steal, kill and destroy. It is the holy want of God for intimacy and the powerful and vulnerable letting us go to choose Him in return. Satan says, “If I can’t have what I want, I will destroy the one whose fault it is.” Where there is love, there will always be jealousy, and we must be on the alert as to whether we are being wooed by God for intimacy or lured by our enemy to arranging for love for ourselves … one sets us free, the other comes with chains.
For more listen to this podcast on the stage of the Lover from the Exploring More Podcast, Masculine Journey series below.
by Micheal Thompson
Along the masculine journey to becoming a good king, there are many opportunities for ceremonies of initiation/validation and for graduations – hundreds of such moments. Most men miss them, because most men aren’t looking. Nor are they seeing the bigger picture. God is growing you up as a man and wants you to engage, cooperate, and let him.
When I was young, my dad taught me how to shoot a basketball.
“Look at the back of the rim, see that hook the net is looped on? That’s your target. Hit that hook on the back of the rim and the ball goes in.” He used to say, “Never up, never in. With the right arch, hit the back of the rim and it will go in every time. Aim for the front, and you’re short even an inch, and you’ll miss every time. Never up, never in.”
End of lesson.
Brothers, what you aim at determines what you will hit. Though we might aim to “be a man,” becoming a man is to be far more intentional than accidental. Becoming a man is made up of thousands of moments that need to be seen and interpreted well. The vast majority of men are suffering from fatherlessness – having no guide to show them how and no model to inspire them, and therefore no target on which to practice. With no one to show us the way, it’s no wonder so many of us experience our false selves getting in the way. Years of uninitiated and un-validated moments create that “If it is to be, it’s up to me,” false-self tyrant. Every man has one and every man suffers under its influence. It was Thoreau who famously wrote, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to their graves with a song still in them.” Brothers of the Kingdom … you are not “most men!”
The film Kingdom of Heaven is story about restoration, one man’s journey through initiation and validation – becoming more. It is a story thick with the battle of good versus evil, and a man’s inevitable steps to discovering the consequences of compromise … and the painful reward of developing convictions which all-too-often lay on the other side of such compromise. Balian must come to experience who he is and what his life is all about. In a single moment, he moves from a small story, one centered on himself, to a very large one. His is the journey of a man who is just trying to survive, to that of a man who concerns himself with the survival of others. Another character, called Hospitaller, serves as a Holy Spirit-type character. He is the Templar Priest who travels with Sir Godfrey (Balian’s father), and fights for the people and the king of Jerusalem. Hospitaller tells Balian during a crossroads moment in his journey,
I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of god. Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What God desires is here [points to Balian’s head] and here [points to Balian’s heart] and what you decide to do every day will make you a good man … or not.
Brothers, your masculine heart is on a journey. A long and treacherous journey … a glorious and beautiful one. Do you know the targets you are shooting at, and how your heart will be trained? Do you know what the destination is and the many graduations it will take to get you there? If you don’t, then how will you know when you arrive? How will you know what you are missing? How will you know what to offer your wife, your sons or daughters, your friends along the way?
The story your masculine heart is in is a very large one, and it is unfolding day-to-day, chapter-by-chapter. The journey is what is ahead of you; your story is what is behind, what has happened to you. Not every man’s journey starts in the same place. Not every boy will take the same sequence of steps to become a good king. And yet, we share a common journey with specific and certain mile markers. Each and every step inviting us to hit our target … which is? Becoming more and more like Jesus. We all live in the same larger story; it is dangerous and glorious to say the least. What are the odds we have interpreted all of our lives accurately? Guaranteed, every scene and chapter of your life has not been interpreted correctly. What if you could walk with the Father back? Back to the moments when you were impacted badly or wronged significantly? There will need to be some reflection, redemption, and restoration in every man’s story if we are going to move forward well and recover from our past and become like Jesus, our Shepherd, Savior and King. This is what is necessary to become a good king, to love well, listen well, and rule well as a son of God, adopted and dearly loved by a good, good Father. Balian’s father initiates him and brings him to the place of graduation when he says to his son,
You are not what you were born, but what you have it in yourself to be.
I invite you to experience a FREE audio series – Two Realms and Two Kingdoms – designed to give a man a fighting chance, to be trained in how the Larger Story works and take some of the critical next steps in becoming who you were born to be. Aim at nothing less than becoming who you are in the Kingdom, who God created you to be. I promise you, the more you partner with God for your becoming, the more you will hit it as you walk with Him and allow His love to transform you into the image that you bear.
Getting your Heart Back, Dads
We’re all familiar with the flight attendant “in preparation for take off” speech. Specifically the part when they say,
In the case of sudden loss of cabin pressure oxygen masks will drop. To start the flow of oxygen, pull the mask towards you. Place it firmly over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic band behind your head, and breathe normally… If you are traveling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask on first, and then assist the other person.
“Your mask first.” Seems a little selfish, don’t you think? We know better. If you are going to be of any help to your child or loved one you are going to need to tend to your safety first. It’s true in the spiritual realm as well.
Fathers, if you are going to be of any help, any encouragement, any strength to your children, then getting your heart back is critical to helping the hearts entrusted to your care.
There are many kinds of dads out there. We aren’t “called” to be a dad; you either are or aren’t. The calling is on you. Every man has been on a challenging journey, a masculine journey of becoming more or less of whom he has it in him to be. Long before a man becomes a father, the enemy has come to steal, kill and destroy his heart … attempt to make him settle for less. The kingdom of darkness is all about assaulting a man during his lifetime, from boyhood to fatherhood with a heck of a lot of wounding. Darkness is betting itwill impede our ability to breath, compromise our capacity to love and stunt our strength to offer. Being compromised is a very dangerous position from which to fight for your kids. Dangerous to your heart and to theirs. The further you are from your True Self, the harder it will be for your kids to find theirs, and that is exactly what our enemy wants. The more you are free, walking with God in your True Self, the greater your voice and strength. This is what the Trinity wants. A man’s True Self is felt, seen and experienced by those he is given to love when he walks in the freedom given him by the Father through the Son …
nothing to hide
nothing to prove
andnothing to fear.
Living and loving like Jesus, the unique and incredible one whose image you bear. When a man comes to experience first that he is a beloved son, he can then fight well for the hearts of his children. God is with us and for us, and it is His unconditional love that, when experienced, will transcend and transform us. And that is what all children need: a father who is transformed.
This fatherhood thing is important, very important, and therefore the primary target of our enemy. Satan and his minions are counting on the storms of life working against you rather than training you. Our children live in the same story we do, and the same story our fathers did. It is a very large story in which living in naiveté or ignorance (or worse – unconscious to what is really going on, how it all works and whom God is inviting us to be) is not only a turbulent journey, but is certain to end in disaster. Experiencing the love of God is our lifeline, the oxygen we need that when the challenges come. And they will come. With the love of God, not only can we breathe, we can also engage and assist those entrusted to our care.