God's Mighty Men I will be bringing back some of my favorite Blogs for the next few weeks – starting Friday we will be doing a 21 day Prayer Vigil for the upcoming Conference – Please check out the Prayers and join us.
I just had to bring this Blog back — it was a book that motivated me to help in getting GMM Started… and since our main Speaker is Erwin McManus this year – it is really special. If you have not read the book “The Barbarian Way” you need too. This is the first Blog that I ever posted… and most of it comes from the book… I have always wanted a GMM Theme called… “Going forward like a Crash of Rhinos” — but I just cannot get the GMM Team to go along with me……… Someday it will happen… ENJOY
Excerpts from the Barbarian Way (Erwin Raphael McManus)
Although the force of one person fully committed to God is tremendous, it pales in comparison to the force of God’s people moving together. One barbarian wandering through civilization can be discarded as nothing more than an oddity. But when members of the barbarian tribe line up across the battlefield side by side, something amazing begins to happen; Dark kingdoms tremble; the dungeons and prisons that hold men, women, and children captive crumble; prison doors open; chains unlock; and multitudes come to freedom. Whenever the barbarians of Christ pass through civilization, the oppressed and forgotten are soon found dancing in the streets.
Tigers
A tiger will defeat a lion in battle; but five lions will defeat five tigers because lions fight together and the tigers do not, so the five lions take on one tiger at a time.
**Do our church’s today look like this – battle by them self only to be defeated by a group of advocates who would like to see the church fold – what if the church’s banded together – a powerful force would be going forward.
Barbarians are far more tiger than lion. I am convinced the old adage is true, at least in this case, that a tiger can never change its stripes. More than that, we do not want to domesticate the tiger. We don’t even want the tiger to try to become more like the lion. But imagine what it would be like if tigers could learn how to move together, it tigers would choose to stand side by side and engage in battle as one tribe.
**That is what GMM is trying to do – each church is unique but if they were going side by side fighting the Spiritual Battle that is real – then they could not be defeated.
Jesus description that “the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold if it (Matthew 11:12) – is a call for tigers to move together, not for our untamed faith to be domesticated.
Rhinos
Rhinos can run at thirty miles an hour, which is pretty fast when you consider how much weight they’re pulling. Running at thirty miles an hour is faster than a used Pinto will go – just one problem with this phenomenon: Rhinos can see only thirty feet in front of them. Can you imagine something that large moving in concert as a group, plowing ahead at thirty miles an hour with no idea what’s at thirty one feet? You would think that they would be for too timid to pick up full stream, that their inability to see far enough ahead would paralyze them to immobility. But with that horn pointing the way, rhinos run forward full steam ahead without apprehension.
**What if the men of GOD would go forward like a Rhino with Christ at the point. When Christ calls us to go forward – how many times do we stop because of the unknown – we should be like that Rhino running at full steam…
Now this leads us to what a group of Rhinos are called. Rhinos moving together at full speed are known as a CRASH. Even when they’re just hanging around enjoying the watershed, they’re called a crash because of their potential. You’ve got to love that. I think that’s what we’re supposed to be. That’s what happens when we become barbarians and shake free of domestication and civility. The church becomes a crash. We become an unstoppable force. We don’t have to pretend we know the future. Who cares that we can only thirty feet ahead? Whatever’s at thirty-one feet needs to care that we’re coming and better get out of the way.
We need to move together as God’s people, a barbarian tribe, and become the human version of the Rhino Crash. The future is uncertain, but we need to move toward it with confidence. There’s a future to be created, a humanity to be liberated. We need to stop wasting our time and stop being afraid of what we cannot see and do not know. We need to move forward full force because of what we do know.
**GMM is pushing men to step up to the plate and be the men that GOD had planned for them to be. We cannot sit back and wait – we must go FORWARD and it must be at full force.
Bobbyg
