Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be

by Mark Batterson

Tough love is loving others when they least expect it and least deserve it.

Tough love is sacrificial love—a love that is willing to be nailed to a cross for someone else’s sin. Tough love is unconditional love—a love that is not dictated by someone else’s performance. Tough love is covenantal love—for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.

Because Jesus knew that conflict, not comfort, is the catalyst for growth.

Truth is crucified in the name of tolerance, undermining civil debate, conscientious objection, and religious conviction.

When you take offense, you become defensive. And the second you become defensive, the kingdom of God stops advancing through you.

True knowledge results in profound humility, which fuels childlike wonder.

For an organism to survive, the rate of learning must be equal to or greater than the rate of change happening around them.

A workman is someone who shows up every day, a blue-collar approach to the Bible that digs into the Word and then keeps digging.

The Word of God is preventative medicine for whatever ails you. Take a daily dose. It’ll make you smarter, for starters.

It’s a mirror that reveals who you are and who you can become in Christ.

I think Paul is talking about childish self-centeredness. When you’re a baby, the whole world revolves around you.

Arthur Gordon. I read his wonderful book Wonder

Louie Zamperini

Unbroken.

Frankl wrote a book for the ages—Man’s Search for Meaning.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”2

There is no situation under the sun in which your ability to respond can be taken away from you. You may not control your circumstances, but you control your reactions to them. And that is what sets the men apart from the boys!

Taking response-ability doesn’t mean admitting fault. It means making the most of any and every situation you find yourself in. And that requires tremendous will power in difficult circumstances.

Fear is letting your circumstances come between you and God. Faith is letting God get between you and your circumstances.

If you want God’s best, you can’t just say no to what’s wrong. You have to say no to second best. Good isn’t good enough! That’s what the apostle Paul is getting at when he writes, “Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial.

Fasting helps you not only break bad habits but also build will power. If you can say no to food, then you can say no to just about anything!

Discipline begets discipline.

exousia is rarer. It’s good old-fashioned will power, and it’s the difference between playing the man and playing the fool.

His greatest victory was won with exousia. As Jesus hung on the cross, He said, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”10 A legion was the largest unit in the Roman military, consisting of six thousand soldiers.

Do you have a need that’s not getting met? That’s the target the enemy aims at.

Nine times out of ten, we sin because we’re trying to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.

starts with taking inventory of temptation. What are your triggers? Ask yourself when, where, and how it happens.

an opportunity is not an opportunity if you have to compromise your integrity.

Every man has defining moments in his life when his integrity is tested.

We live in a culture that celebrates talent more than integrity,

Integrity appreciates over time—over eternity!

John Muir, naturalist extraordinaire,

Starting at an early age, Muir read Scripture every single day.

memorized the entire New Testament.

Muir believed that the Creator was constantly revealing Himself through His creation, so he studied it with more childlike wonder than perhaps anyone before—or anyone since!

It’s an insatiable energy that motivates you to live each day like it’s the first day and the last day of your life.

The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek roots en and Theos, meaning in God. So the more you get into God, and the more of God’s Spirit that gets into you, the more impassioned you become.

Muir climbing the Douglas fir tree, Eugene Peterson said Muir was “a standing rebuke against becoming a mere spectator to life, preferring creature comfort to Creator confrontation.”

Playing the man means playing hard—giving God everything you’ve got. It’s leaving it all out on the court. The gold standard is Colossians 3:23, which says, Whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart, as working for the Lord.

The Dragon of Doubt plants seeds of doubt, getting us to second-guess what God has said.

Doubt is buying into the enemy’s lies, believing them to be truth.

Scripture is our double-edged sword. If you want to win the duel with doubt, you have to wield your sword every single day.

Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil first. But it wasn’t a unilateral decision. Adam was right there. Instead of playing the man, Adam played opossum. He should have stepped up, stepped in. But instead, Adam sat back. Even worse than eating the fruit himself, Adam let Eve eat it, making him an accessory to sin.

The Dragon of Apathy lulls us to sleep with a lullaby.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil,” noted Edmund Burke, “is for good men to do nothing.”18 And that’s what Adam did—nothing!

indecision is a decision and inaction is an action.

The opposite of apathy is respo...

instead of playing the man, Adam played the passive card. Then when he was confronted by God, he played the passive-aggressive card.

Foreplay takes forethought.

Dragon of Lust,