Today we are celebrating one year here on the blog. I am overwhelmed and so grateful for the support and growth of this community. About 18 months ago, I felt like God was leading me to start doing something to encourage and challenge men to step into their God-given potential. That is where this blog was birthed and it has been a real challenge to write about 1200-1500 words weekly. But this has turned out to be such a rewarding and fulfilling experience for me. As I have been encouraging and challenging you, I have found myself challenged and encouraged.

We are still just scratching the surface of where God is leading us and I want to say, THANK YOU!

Welcome back to our series called “In Parables”. We are at the midpoint of the series and we are going to dive into the most famous parable that Jesus told. “The Prodigal Son” has spoken so deeply to me in different seasons of my life. I hope to inspire you today to do your own reflection and research and receive from the Holy Spirit what he wants to impart to you as we learn from Jesus today.

The Prodigal Son

(Read the full parable here → Luke 15:11-32)

Some of my earliest memories in church growing up in our small baptist church was learning this parable in Sunday School (in the south it is pronounced “Sun-dee School” for those wondering). It was the 80s and 90s and flannel boards were all the rage and I remember my teacher using the flannel board of the Prodigal Son to tell the story. It was always one of my favorites.

Maybe like me, you grew up thinking “prodigal” meant someone who was lost or wayward. But it is defined as someone who spends extravagantly or lavishly. It can mean someone who is recklessly wasteful, but it can also mean someone who is extravagantly generous. We are gonna get into why this is important in a few moments, but we need to remember that Jesus did not name his parables…we did. He told the stories and to help us remember them, we named them and they became headings in the printed Bible. The late Tim Keller, in his book “The Prodigal God” says that if Jesus were to name this one, he would not have named it the prodigal son, but rather, “Two Lost Sons”.

Let’s jump in and discover more about these two lost sons and the heart of our Prodigal God who is extravagantly grace filled and generous to us.

GONE

The religious leaders in that day, the Pharisees, were complaining and grumbling that Jesus was hanging out with “sinners and tax collectors” so Jesus tells this story to reveal their heart and just how much they didn’t know the heart of God.

11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.” Luke 15:11-12

It is easy for us to read past the younger son’s request but Jesus’ audience would have been beside themselves. To ask your father for your share of the inheritance before he was dead was tantamount to saying, “I wish you were dead. I want what is yours more than I want you.” But the father complies and splits the property and gives the younger son his share.

13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. Luke 15:13-14

The younger son didn’t just reject his father, he clearly rejected his family’s way of life. His father was a wise man who had much property and had amassed a sizeable fortune. So this younger son burns through a fortune on prostitutes, feasting, and fast living. Then when famine hits the land he had run to, he has nothing to show for it.

15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. Luke 15:15-16

Think about what that means for a Jewish audience. Feeding pigs wasn’t just a low job. It was unclean, humiliating, about as far from his father’s house as a Jewish son could fall. He went from an honored son in his father’s house to desiring what the pigs were eating. Running from God and wasting our lives on reckless living will always end with us being found wanting and desperate.

HE CAME TO HIMSELF

17 But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” Luke 15:17-19

This is a powerful moment in this young man’s life. Jesus said “but when he came to himself”. He had come to the end of himself and snapped out of this prodigal bender he had been on. In a great act of humbling himself, he turns for home.

I know that turn personally. When I was a teenager, I ran from God. Ran from his call on my life and gave myself over to the things of the world. Even though I didn’t run off to a far away land, I might as well have been a million miles away. I still showed up on Sundays and served in leading worship. But my heart was far from him, living a double life in the dark while looking fine on the outside. It was like my soul was being torn in two because I knew what I was doing was wrong but it was like I just couldn’t help myself.

But there was a moment that changed everything. God called out to me. He didn’t use shame to get me back into line. It was his voice, quiet and clear, telling me “This isn’t the life I called you to live. Come home, son.” That’s it. No condemnation. Just an invitation home and it changed my heart and life forever.

Notice what the younger son plans to say when he gets there. He doesn’t rehearse a defense. He doesn’t expect to walk back in as a son. He’s ready to ask for a servant’s wage, because his own shame has already talked him out of anything more than that. In that day and age, no father would have accepted him back, so his request to even work in his father’s estate as a hired servant would have been unthinkable. So he heads for home.

20 “And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” Luke 15:20

While he was still a long way off. I take this to mean the father had been watching. Scanning the road, day after day, for a son he had no guarantee would ever come back. And the moment he sees him, he does something no dignified older man in that culture would ever do in public. He runs.

Running was beneath a man of his standing. It meant hiking up his robes and making a spectacle of himself in front of the whole village, a village that already knew exactly what this son had done and exactly how much shame he’d brought on this family. The father doesn’t wait for an explanation. He doesn’t make his son walk the rest of the way in disgrace while the neighbors watch. He runs straight into the shame himself before his son says a single word.

21 “And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’” Luke 15:21

He gets out his confession but he doesn’t get to finish. He never gets to ask to just be a servant because his father is already calling for the robe before he can ask to be made anything less than a son.

RESTORED

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.” Luke 15:22-24

Every item the father calls for means something. The best robe covers his son’s rags and restores his honor in front of everyone watching. The ring is the family signet, back on his hand, meaning he can transact business in his father’s name again. The sandals matter too, since only sons wore them in that house. Servants went barefoot. Putting shoes on his feet is the father saying, in front of the whole estate, “this is not a hired hand. This is my son.”

And then the fattened calf. Not a goat, which would feed the immediate family for a night. The fattened calf was reserved for the biggest occasions and was enough to feed the whole village. This isn’t a private reconciliation. The father throws the party of the year!

The son did nothing to earn this. He wasn’t given these things after a probation period where he proves he’s changed. It’s all given the moment he turns toward home, before he’s worked a single day back on the estate. That’s the gospel. Not “come back and earn your way to trust again.” Come back, and all you need and want is already waiting for you.

That is the heart of our prodigal God who is extravagantly generous and lavishes his love on those who were lost, but now are found.

I am deeply moved by this story because I know what it’s like to battle the shame of being wayward but be met with prodigal grace. Even though this son wasted all of his inheritance, Jesus shows us, you can never “out prodigal” God.

THIS SON OF YOURS

25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in.” Luke 15:25-28

He won’t even go inside. The whole household is celebrating and he stands outside, refusing to join the party his own father is throwing.

29 “His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’” Luke 15:29-30

Check out what he calls his brother. Not “my brother” but “this son of yours.” He won’t even claim him as family, he’d rather disown him than celebrate him.

And look at the language he uses with his own father. “These many years I have served you.” Served. Not walked with you, built with you, loved you. He is like an employee tallying unpaid overtime. He’s lived under his father’s roof his whole life, with everything his father owns at his disposal, and he still sees himself as a hired hand working for something he feels like he isn’t getting.

He was also upset because the younger brother’s portion of the estate was already gone. Meaning that everything that the father used to celebrate the homecoming of his younger brother is less for him as the primary heir.

Tim Keller’s insight comes into full focus right here. Both sons are lost. One in a far country, wasting everything on reckless living. The other still standing in the field, keeping score of every rule he never broke, but just as far from his father’s heart.

YOU ARE ALWAYS WITH ME

31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” Luke 15:31-32

The father doesn’t rebuke him. He corrects him gently, reminds him what has been true all along. He points him to relationship with himself. Everything I have was already yours. You never had to earn a celebration. You never had to ask for a goat. It is already yours.

And then Jesus ends the story with no resolution. We never find out if the older brother goes in. Jesus leaves the door open on purpose, and aims straight at the Pharisees listening to him that day, and straight at us.

This isn’t a story about one bad son and one good son. It’s a story about two sons who both misunderstood their father’s heart, one through rebellion, one through resentment. The longer you walk with Jesus, the easier it becomes to grow familiar, and even callous to the very mercy that saved you in the first place. You forget your own lostness. You start measuring other people’s sin against your own record instead of measuring everyone, including yourself, against the father’s grace.

WHICH SON ARE YOU?

Maybe you’re the younger son right now and you feel like you are a million miles away, still convinced you’ve screwed up too bad for your father to accept you back. You haven’t…and he’s already watching the road.

Or maybe you’re the older son. You’ve walked with Jesus for years. You know the rules, you’ve done the serving, and somewhere in that faithfulness, resentment crept in toward someone whose mess looks worse than yours, whose comeback looks more celebrated than your consistency. If that’s you, the invitation is the same one the father gave in the field. Come join the celebration. Everything I have was already yours.

Either way, the father isn’t waiting for you to earn your way to him. He’s already running toward you. Either running down the road or out to the field to call his son home.

PRAY

Take some time right now to pray and ask your Father to bring you close to his heart. No matter where you find yourself, God’s desire is for you to know him and be close to his heart. So, what is keeping you from experiencing the depth of his prodigal grace right now? Is it your own shame? Or maybe seeing yourself as an indentured servant rather than a son.

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

Welcome back to our series called “In Parables”. We are dissecting and applying principles from some amazing short stories that Jesus told those who followed him. As we follow Jesus, these stories still ring true for our lives and we would be wise to slow down and think about our own lives through the lens of these timeless truths. So today, we are diving into a parable that Jesus’ disciples ask for clarification on and he pulls back the curtain on the deeper meaning of the parable. With no other parable does Jesus do this, so he thought it valuable enough to slow down and so should we.

The Parable of the Sower (Read the full parable here → Matthew 13:3-9)

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

3 “And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6 but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.’”

Matthew 13:3-9

At the outset, I think it is interesting to note that the sower sows the seed almost indiscriminately. He doesn’t skip the hard soil and only plant where he already knows it’ll grow. He just sows, everywhere, generously, and lets the soil reveal what it actually is.

The same is true about our world and the hearts of men. God has revealed himself to every single one of us. As it says in Romans chapter one:

19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Romans 1:19-20

In God’s sovereignty, he allows the “seed” to be scattered where he knows it will not grow and that is not a blight upon the seed but rather upon the soil. It is a testimony against the condition of the hearer not upon the power of the Word.

THE KEY PARABLE

10 “And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12 so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”Mark 4:10-12

Before Jesus explains the parable, he tells them plainly why he teaches this way at all. The secret of the kingdom has been given to them. For everyone else, it stays wrapped in parables, seen but not perceived, heard but not understood. This isn’t Jesus being difficult. He is describing reality in that some truths can only be received when God opens the eyes of the one who will receive them.

Then, in the account of this parable in the Gospel of Mark, he goes further than that in this moment, further than he does with any other parable.

13 “And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word.’”Mark 4:13-14

Instead of answering their question, he asks them one back. If you don’t understand this parable, how will you understand any of the others? Jesus is telling us the Sower isn’t just one parable among many. The principle of this parable is the one that unlocks understanding the rest of them.

Think about why that would be true. Every other parable Jesus told assumes something about the person hearing it. The prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the unforgiving servant, each one hits differently depending on the condition of the heart receiving them. Before you can understand any story Jesus tells, you have to understand what kind of soil you actually are. I think that’s why he explains this one in greater detail. It’s not just a parable about hearing. It’s the parable about how you hear everything else.

So let’s look at the different types of soil.

THE PATH

19 "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path."Matthew 13:19

Hard ground. Seed never even gets in. This is a man who hears something true and it just bounces off. No understanding, no wrestling with it, nothing. And the enemy doesn’t even have to work hard here. He just snatches it before it has a chance to sink in at all.

ROCKY GROUND

20 “As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.”Matthew 13:20-21

This is the man who gets excited fast. Emotional response, immediate joy, looks like real growth right out of the gate. But there’s no depth underneath it. When tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he falls away immediately. This soil looks the most promising early on, and that’s exactly what makes it dangerous. You can’t tell it apart from good soil in the beginning.

In my experience as a pastor, I have seen this happen so many times. People come to church, raise their hand for salvation, “pray a prayer”, and it looks legitimate. But then life gets hard, they run into something unexpected and boom…they ghost the very community of people they said they were all in with. It honestly is the most confusing one to discern.

THE THORNS

22 “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”Matthew 13:22

In this soil, the seed actually grows. It just never gets to finish, because it’s competing the whole time with worry, ambition, comfort, the deceitfulness of riches. Nobody watching this man’s life from the outside would call him unfaithful. He’s in church, he’s raising his kids, he’s building a career. His life is just too crowded to bear anything else.

When your faith becomes a nice add-on to your already full life, this is what happens. The current patterns of our life MUST give way to the Gospel of Jesus. The truth we have received should change our priorities, calendar, and bank statement. If we receive the Word of God and nothing changes, we need to ask ourselves if we really have received it at all.

THE GOOD SOIL

23 "As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."Matthew 13:23

This is the goal, right? This is what we want when we think about our spiritual walk. Notice the word Jesus uses here. Understands. Not just hears, not just feels something, understands. That’s what separates good soil from rocky ground. Short term growth may be encouraging to see at first, but it is depth of comprehension and receptivity that leads to sustained fruitfulness. And this fruitfulness is abounding and producing even more fruit…100, 60, and 30 fold.

WHAT’S YOUR SOIL?

Our tendency at this point is to immediately go into analysis mode. We will either talk ourselves into thinking we are the good soil and it’s all those other people that are the other three, or we will justify our actions or pattern of life and excuse ourselves from the weightiness of the question that this parable causes. But we cannot ask this question in isolation. Mainly because we can’t truly know the depth of our own depravity.

9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 10 I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”Jeremiah 17:9-10

Your own heart will lie to you about your own heart. That’s a big issue. You can convince yourself you’re good soil because you show up, because you know the right answers, because from the outside your life looks fruitful. But the Lord is the one who searches the heart. He’s the one who actually knows whether what’s growing in you is real fruit or just the appearance of it.

That should push you to actually ask him. Not just examine yourself and trust your own conclusion, ask the Holy Spirit to search you and show you the truth, even if it’s not what you want to hear. This isn’t a question you’re equipped to answer honestly by yourself. It’s a question you have to bring to God and ask him to help you answer.

And once he shows you, don’t waste it managing the image instead of dealing with the ground. If he shows you a hardened place, ask him to break it up. If he shows you shallow places with no root, ask him to deepen them. If he shows you thorns choking something out, ask him to clear them, even if clearing them is uncomfortable and costly.

THIS WEEK

So this week, spend some intentional time to ask the Holy Spirit, “What kind of soil am I right now?” Then take a concrete action step to confront it. Share it with your spouse or a trusted friend. Someone who will speak truth into your life and hold you accountable to do something with what God shows you.

Let’s be men who are good soil!

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

Welcome back to part 3 of this series where we are learning from some of the most simple but powerful stories that Jesus told that are still shaping hearts and minds today. Through these stories, Jesus gives us insight into the heart of God, the Kingdom of God, and our own souls.

This week we are going to pull back the layers on The Parable of the Talents. It gives us such an interesting glimpse into how God responds to us and shows his desire for us to steward well what he has entrusted to us. You can read the full passage here [Matthew 25:14-30]. Let’s dive in.

14 “For it [the Kingdom of God] will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.”

Matthew 25:14-15

A talent was not an inconsequential thing. The people of Jesus’ day would have understood this to be a large amount. It is believed to be equivalent to 20 years wages for a day laborer. In today’s currency that would come out to between $500,000 - $1,000,000 for each talent.

I find it interesting that he gave each servant a different amount, “according to his ability”. We have a tendency to compare ourselves to everyone else. Who has the most influence, the most smarts, the bigger following, the bigger house, the most toys, the better vacations. The hearts of men have been swayed and weighed down by “keeping up with the Jones’s” for thousands of years.

Jesus is telling us, “Your master knows you intimately. He knows how he made you. He knows your capacity, your strengths, and weaknesses.” I want to encourage you, man of God, that God knows you better than you think you know yourself and he has a plan for your life that he is entrusting to you. As men it is difficult to feel inadequate or to feel like we must prove ourselves. We can all fall into that trap. God is only measuring us against our own potential, not against someone else’s.

Now I am not talking about salvation here. None of us measure up to God’s standard of perfection. My potential to save myself is 0.000%. This parable is getting to the heart of how we see God and honor him through our management of what he has placed in our hands to steward.

There will be a day when we stand before him and give an account for everything we said or did. How we did or did not steward the life he gave us. That is the backdrop for this parable.

AT ONCE

16 “He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more.”Matthew 25:16-17

Notice the word “at once.” These men did not delay in getting to work. They understood the assignment and took action.

I think there is a disease that has wreaked havoc on the men of our time. That disease is called “inaction”. You could also call it apathy. Maybe even laziness. But at the root of what we see is the inability to take action toward what God has called us to do. Which in my book reads as disobedience. There are a number of motivators behind there is one specific reason we will discuss in a moment. But for now we can glean from these two servants that they wasted no time in getting about their master’s work.

When the master returns, he says the exact same thing to both of them.

21 “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’”Matthew 25:21

He doesn’t say “well done, you doubled my money.” He says “well done, good and faithful servant.” The two-talent man hears the same words as the five-talent man. God isn’t grading you against someone else’s test. He’s looking to see if you will be faithful with yours.

That should take the pressure off and put it back on at the same time. You don’t have to outperform anyone, but you do have to take action.

AFRAID

18 “But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.”Matthew 25:18

If you’re anything like me, you might read this and think, “What a worm! This dude is really gonna get it when his master comes back.” And rightfully so, Jesus’ followers would have been thinking the same thing. But if we look a little closer, it is easy to see that many times in my own life, I have been this man. Let’s keep reading.

24 “He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’”Matthew 25:24-25

There it is. The specific reason I mentioned earlier. Fear. Not incompetence or lack of knowledge…fear. He was so afraid of losing what was given that he never gave himself a chance to be faithful with it.

And notice what he does next. He doesn’t just admit he was afraid, he blames the master for it. “I knew you to be a hard man.” He’s making his perspective of the master’s character the reason for his own disobedience. That is exactly what fear does in the heart of a man. It doesn’t just paralyze you, it eventually turns and points the finger somewhere else. Blame shifting and seeking a place to hide.

NO EXCUSE

26 “But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.’”Matthew 25:26-27

The master doesn’t let the excuse stand. He actually uses the servant’s own words against him. If you really believed I was that demanding, that should have made you do something, not nothing. Even the safest, laziest option, putting it with the bankers, would have been better than burying it. He wasn’t asking for a home run. He was asking for effort.

I also don’t think the master is conceding that his character was actually harsh. I think he’s showing this servant that even his own excuse doesn’t hold up.

WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH

28 “So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”Matthew 25:28-30

This is a difficult ending to the parable. Like many other parables, Jesus doesn’t resolve them in a way that answers the question plainly. It should cause us to ask some questions about the state of our own heart and our perspective of God.

Go back and read what this servant said to the master’s face. “I knew you to be a hard man.” He never once admitted he was wrong. He accused the master and used that accusation to justify doing nothing. This is a man who didn’t really know the master. He wasn’t motivated to please him on the front end, and resented and blamed him on the back end. Jesus is showing us that if we don’t truly know God, it will show up in our actions and the way we serve him.

Your view of God’s character will always shape what you do with what he’s given you. If you secretly believe he’s harsh or hard to please, you’ll manage your life defensively instead of stewarding it faithfully.

Ever stopped to think about that phrase “the weeping and gnashing of teeth”? R.C. Sproul once taught on this in a way I haven’t forgotten. He said there are two kinds of people who end up separated from God. There are those who weep: They finally see clearly what they missed, and they spend eternity in tears and regret, knowing exactly what they should have done and didn’t. Through tears they cry out, “Oh no! Not here! Why didn’t I listen? Oh God, no!” Then there are those who gnash their teeth: They spend eternity in bitterness and spiteful hatred. Instead of admitting they were wrong, they insist God was wrong. Through gritted teeth they shout “I knew you would do this to me! You’re unjust! You’re unfair! I hate you, and I will always hate you!”

Wanna take a guess as to which category the one talent servant would fall into?

WHAT’S IN YOUR HANDS?

It’s easy to read this parable and think about money, a job, a skill you’ve not been using. But I don’t think that’s where most of us have the greatest danger of failing. For us men, it is in the leadership of our home.

God has given you the leadership of people who are priceless in his sight. A wife whose soul matters more than anything you’ll ever build at work. Kids who are watching how you handle pressure and fear right now, and forming their idea of what a man is based on what they see in you. That’s not a small talent. If you’re leading your family half-present, playing it safe, checking out because it’s easier than engaging, that’s the one talent going in the ground.

He’s also given you gifts from the Holy Spirit. Not for your comfort, for building his kingdom. A word you’re supposed to speak into someone’s life but you keep talking yourself out of it. A door he’s opened that you keep walking past because it will require more of you than you think you have bandwidth for. Influence with the people around you that you’ve never once used for anything that actually matters for eternity.

So take a few minutes right now and ask yourself this question: “What has God placed in my hands, and have I been faithful with it?”

If not, what steps do you need to take this week to put things into motion? What would it look like for you to act “at once”?

Let’s be men who are good and faithful, not wicked and slothful. Men who seek to know God for who he is and take actions aligned with that reality.

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

Welcome back to part 2 of this series where we are diving into the parables that Jesus used to challenge and shape the people around him. Because they are God’s Word, these stories are still shaping hearts and have been the topic of countless sermons and devotionals.

Today we are going to look at one that isn’t discussed very often. The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. (Read the full parable here → Luke 16:19-31)

There is some debate about whether this is an actual parable or whether it is Jesus pulling back the curtain on something that actually happened. The reason why this question is asked is because Jesus actually names one of the men in this story. This is the only time Jesus did this in all of his recorded teachings, so it naturally sparks curiosity on whether Jesus was giving us insight into actual events that were witnessed or if this stands as a cautionary tale.

Either way, there are so many takeaways from this intriguing story so we are going to try to distill a few and apply them to our lives as men.

AT THE GATE

19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. Luke 16:19-21

Don’t miss an important detail. Lazarus was laying at the rich man’s gate. He wasn’t across the city or somewhere he would see him every once in a while. He saw this man covered in sores every day. And every day he walked right by. As was typical for a man in his position, Lazarus would have no doubt begged for money or food from the rich man, as he “desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table.” The rich man walked through that gate every day of his comfortable life. And somehow a starving, sore-covered man became just part of the scenery.

That’s what comfort does to us if we let it. It doesn’t always make us cruel. It just trains our eyes to stop seeing the need around us that’s inconvenient to look at.

So think about your own gate. The coworker who’s clearly struggling but you steer the conversation to something less heavy. The friend who’s gone quiet. Your own wife or kids, right in front of you every single day, easy to walk past because nothing about them is currently on fire. Lazarus wasn’t hidden from the rich man. He just stopped being seen.

DEATH DIDN’T HUMBLE HIM

22 “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.’” Luke 16:22-25

Both men die. Lazarus is carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man is buried, and now it’s the rich man who’s in torment, looking across at the comfort Lazarus has.

Don’t miss what the rich man asks for. He wants Lazarus sent to “dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” Even in torment, he’s still thinking of himself as someone who is superior and is asking to be served for his own comfort. He sees Lazarus as his errand boy and not the man he ignored for years at his own gate.

And notice something else. He knows his name. He doesn’t say “send that beggar.” He says “send Lazarus.” This proves he wasn’t ignorant to Lazarus’ existence. He knew exactly who he was the entire time. That makes the years of stepping over him at the gate worse, not better.

That tells us something important. His torment didn’t change his heart. It only changed his circumstances. He was still the same man, still expecting to be served, just now from a place of anguish instead of luxury.

It also tells you it was never really about the money. A man can lose everything and still not repent. A man can be in torment and still not humble himself. What condemned the rich man wasn’t his wealth. It was a heart that never turned toward God, and never turned toward the man at his gate either.

THE GULF IS FIXED

26 “And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, in order that those who wish to come over from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.” Luke 16:26

Abraham doesn’t tell the rich man there’s still a chance. He tells him the opposite. There is a great chasm fixed between them, and it’s fixed both ways. No one crosses from torment to comfort, and no one crosses from comfort to torment either. Whatever was decided in life is settled now, permanently.

That word “fixed” matters. This isn’t a wall that might come down later. It isn’t a distance that closes with enough time or enough begging. It’s finished. The rich man had his whole life to turn toward God and toward the man at his gate, and he didn’t. Now the door on that decision is shut, and nothing he does in torment can reopen it.

This is a really sobering moment in the story and it should cause us all to pause and to ponder our reality. Do I know that I know that I know that I will be with God forever? Or does my life here on this earth show a self-centered and self-pleasing man who will spend eternity separated from God? Once we take our last breath, there is not another chance. The window of salvation is open on this side of eternity. Whatever you do with God, and whatever you do with the people in front of you, has to happen now, while there’s still time to do something about it.

You and I are not promised tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation. If you are reading this and you do not have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, I am imploring you today to pray and ask God to save you. Surrender your life to him and experience joy, peace, and hope. Right now, there is hope you can be saved, but after you pass from this life, there is no more grace or mercy for those who have rejected God and his Son, Jesus.

TOO LATE

27 “And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’” Luke 16:27-28

Notice the change in this man. For the first time in the whole story, he isn’t asking for anything for himself. He already knows there’s nothing left to ask for. The chasm is fixed. His fate is sealed. And it’s only now, with no hope left for his own soul, that he thinks of his five brothers.

He begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn them. He begs Abraham to send the beggar. This is a man in real desperation, watching his own family walking the same road he walked, straight toward the same torment he’s now stuck in, and he can’t do a single thing to stop it.

This rich man is finally getting a glimpse of reality. He spent his whole life walking past a man at his gate that he had the power to help. Now he’s helpless to warn his own brothers.

MOSES AND THE PROPHETS ARE ENOUGH

29 “But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’” Luke 16:29-31

Abraham’s answer is simple. His brothers already have what they need. Moses and the Prophets, the Scriptures they grew up hearing, are enough to lead them to repentance if they’ll actually listen. The rich man pushes back. He’s sure a dead man showing up would finally get through to them. Abraham tells him no. If they won’t listen to the Word they already have, a resurrection won’t change that either.

We’re not reading this from the rich man’s side of history. We’re reading it after the resurrection Abraham was talking about actually happened. Jesus rose from the dead exactly like the rich man hoped someone would, and plenty of people still don’t believe. That proves Abraham right. The problem was never a shortage of proof. We have Moses and the Prophets, we have Jesus’s own words, and we have the empty tomb, more than the rich man’s brothers ever had, and it’s still possible to read all of it and to harden our hearts.

So don’t wait for some dramatic sign to finally take God seriously. You already have what the rich man begged Abraham for. The only question left is whether you’ll actually listen to it while you still can.

A CHALLENGE TO BOTH

If you’re reading this and you don’t have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, this story is for you. The rich man had his whole life to turn to God and he didn’t. Don’t make his mistake. The gulf isn’t fixed yet for you. Today, while you’re still reading this, is the day to repent and turn to God. If you need someone to talk to about this, please email me at [email protected] and I would love to help you.

But if you already know Jesus, this story is for you too. The rich man spent his whole life ignoring the man at his gate, and it wasn’t until he was in torment, with no way to warn his own brothers, that he finally understood what was at stake.

I was talking with a mentor of mine last night about this exact parable. He said something that really struck me. If it’s possible for someone in torment to look across that chasm and see us, he doesn’t want to hear them shout, “Why did you never tell me?!” He said if someone chooses to reject the truth after he’s shared it with them, at least when that moment comes he can say, “I tried to tell you. I tried to warn you. But you wouldn’t listen.”

So ask yourself. Do you have that kind of urgency for the people around you? Your coworkers. Your neighbors. The people in your own family who don’t know Jesus. The rich man would have given anything to warn his brothers and wasn’t allowed to. You’ve got that opportunity right now. You can still do something today.

So this week, pray and ask God to give you an opportunity to share with someone in your sphere of influence every day about the hope that you have.

PRAY

God thank you for saving me, thank you for rescuing me from my sin and myself. Allow the motivation to share your love with others to come from the reality of your love for me. Help me to see others the way you do and to be aware of the needs around me. Help me to live today and every day in light of THAT DAY. Give me boldness and courage to share the truth of who you are and what you have accomplished with those around me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

You are living a story right now. A story with a beginning God authored before you were born and an ending He’s already writing and leading you toward. Every decision you make and season you walk through is a scene in the epic story God is telling through your life.

This is why stories hit us the way they do. We don’t just learn from a story, we recognize ourselves in it. A good story doesn’t jump straight to the conclusion, but takes you on a journey of discovery. It sets a scene in front of you and invites you to uncover the principles in a way that cements the truth onto your very soul.

Jesus knew that better than anyone and I believe it is why he illustrated the heart of God and Kingdom principles through stories. In the book of Matthew scripture tells us “He told them many things in parables…” [Matthew 13:3] At one point His disciples pulled Him aside and asked why He kept teaching that way. He told them it had been given to them to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but not to everyone. Some truths don’t land just because they were said plainly. They have to be revealed. Two men can hear the exact same story, and one walks away unchanged while the other walks away undone. God uses stories to open some eyes to reality while other eyes remain veiled to the truth. That is why Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

So if God is the author of your story, He has control of the narrative and He means for it to be lived out according to His ways, not your own. Over the next several weeks we’re going to look at the stories Jesus told and invite them to shape our story.

So let’s not just talk about stories, but jump into one.

TWO BUILDERS

Jesus closes out the Sermon on the Mount, the longest recorded block of His teaching, with a story about two men who build a house.

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

Matthew 7:24-27

You’ve probably heard this one preached more than once. Build your life on Christ, not on shifting ground, storms are coming, make sure your foundation can take it. All true. But I want you to notice something that is easy to skip past in a quick reading.

Both men heard the exact same words. Not a similar one. The same words, probably standing in the same crowd. And both of them went and built a house. Nothing in the text says the foolish man’s house looked worse. Same size, maybe. Same design. Maybe his looked better or even went up faster. After all, sand is a lot easier to dig into than rock. From the outside, on a clear day, you could not have told these two houses apart.

The only difference between them was underneath, where nobody could see it, and it stayed invisible until the storm revealed what the eye could not discern.

Jesus doesn’t split these men into believer and unbeliever. He splits them into hearer and doer. Both of them had access to the truth. The line wasn’t drawn at what they heard, it was drawn at what they did.

James doubles down on this:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

James 1:22-25

We must be doers of Jesus’ words and not just content with hearing it. James says we deceive ourselves and that is precisely what Jesus is saying too. Without putting his words into action we are deceiving ourselves. Thinking we are building something of significance that will last but headed for a great fall. But if we act on Jesus’ words, we will be blessed in what he has called us to do.

THE TAKEAWAY

The foundation of your life isn’t something you lay down in the moment of crisis. By the time the storm hits, the foundation’s already been poured. It was poured in the thousand ordinary and seemingly inconsequential decisions of your life. Every quiet act of obedience. Every selfish impulse you put to death. Every time you choose faithfulness over ease. Every moment you obeyed because Christ said so and not because someone was watching. That’s the digging. That’s the rock work. It isn’t sexy, and it sure as heck isn’t faster, but it’s what determines whether your house is still standing when the wind starts blowing.

Here is the truth: you are going to have struggles and trials in this life. Jesus promised us that trials and offenses WILL come. But he also told us to take heart because “he has overcome the world”. Scripture says the testing of your faith produces perseverance. So the trial isn’t just something to endure but we need to see it as necessary.

Every great story arc has what storytellers call an “inciting incident”. A change in the story that adds tension, opportunity, and intrigue. Writers use these inciting incidents to move the character into the next phase of character development. Without those moments, the character stays stuck. And no one wants to hear or tell a boring story. I believe that God gets a lot of glory from his people trusting him through the struggles and trials of life. When we exhibit unordinary faith and perseverance, the writer of our story is delighted in the development of the character he is producing. The storms of your life are those inciting incidents.

Back to the parable, Jesus says, “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house” on both men, the wise and the foolish, at the same time and with the same force. Doing what Jesus says doesn’t mean that your house won’t get hit with storms. It’s a promise about what happens when it does.

So ask yourself honestly. In your story, how are you handling the storms of life? If the storm is the test, what would it reveal about the foundation your laying?

THIS WEEK

Pick one area where your foundation and your appearance don’t currently match, a place where things look fine on the surface but you know the digging hasn’t really happened underneath. Then take action this week to start laying rock there instead of settling for sand.

PRAYER

Jesus, thank you for teaching in a way that confronts me and my pride. We don’t want houses that only look strong but are founded on the truth. Show us where we’ve been building on sand and give us the courage to dig down to rock, even when it’s slow and nobody’s watching. Let our lives tell a story of your faithfulness and goodness when the storm comes. Amen.

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

Welcome back to Forged Fridays and to the final installment of our Hot Takes series. Starting next week we are going to be diving into a brand new direction for the content so make sure you stay tuned.

For this final hot take, many men probably would not put themselves in this category but the outflow of their lives says differently. And when you have been truly wronged we can be so focused on the wrong done to us that we completely miss the damage we cause ourselves for not processing it appropriately. So…here it is:

Hot Take #4

A victim mindset is more damaging than the trauma that caused it in the first place.

First things first, my goal is not to minimize anything that may have happened to you. This also could sound like, “Man up and just get over it.” But that is not at all what I want you to receive today.

There are indeed very real hurts and pains that we have experienced and we will discuss how to handle those but there is something that can develop from a wound that is more dangerous to our souls than the original offense. Living with a victim mindset will keep you crippled for years, or decades. Affecting every relationship and permeating your thoughts and posture toward every situation.

DOWNSTREAM

Most men that I have counseled or walked with that are struggling in this area all have one thing in common. None of them can see that the victim mindset has taken hold. They are oblivious to the fact that the pain they experienced has become the filter through which they see the world. None of us wake up one day and say, “I think I am going to have a victim mindset today.” It sneaks in gradually and it takes hold of us one small justification at a time until it becomes the lens we see through.

It looks like a man who can’t hold a job more than a year, and every boss, every company, every coworker was the problem. It looks like a man who can’t maintain a healthy relationship with a woman, and somehow it always traces back to how his mom treated him growing up. It looks like a man who explodes at his kids and explains it away with “this is just how I was raised, I don’t know another way.” It looks like a man who’s been offered real help, real counsel, real correction, more than once, and always has a reason it doesn’t apply to him this time.

Here’s what’s actually happening in every one of those. Something real did happen to that man. The absent father, the failed marriage, the hard upbringing, all of it can be true. But somewhere along the way it stopped being an explanation and started being the reason nothing has to change.

WHY THIS TAKES ROOT IN THE FIRST PLACE

So where does this come from?

When something genuinely harmful happens to you, especially young, before you’ve got the tools to process it any other way, some part of you learns a lesson that feels necessary at the time: “I am powerless here, and the safest thing I can do is stop expecting anything different.” What’s happening is a natural response from your mind doing exactly what it’s built to do, protecting you from a threat you have no other way to fight or escape.

The problem is, that response doesn’t come with a built in expiration date. It’s supposed to be a season, not a personality. But every time you retell the story the same way, every time you get comfort from being the one who was wronged, sympathy, attention, an excuse to not have to risk trying and failing again, that response gets a little more cemented. It stops being something that happened to you and starts being how you see everything that happens to you.

That’s the trap. The posture that once kept you safe from a real threat is still running, years or decades after the threat is gone, and now it’s not protecting you from anything. It’s just keeping you from moving beyond where you already are.

THE COST

And the cost can be catastrophic. Your marriage stalls, because you can’t own what you did wrong today while you’re busy explaining it with what was done to you twenty years ago. Your friendships thin out, because people can only carry someone else’s unresolved grievance for so long before being completely exhausted by it. Your walk with God plateaus, because repentance requires taking responsibility, and you’ve built a permanent exemption from that. Meanwhile the men around you keep growing, and you keep explaining, and one day you look up and you’re forty five years old still talking about what your dad did or didn’t do.

A POSITIVE EXAMPLE

If anyone had grounds for this, it was the Apostle Paul, from both directions.

He caused real trauma. He held the coats while Stephen was stoned to death (Acts 7:58). He dragged Christian men and women out of their homes and into prison (Acts 8:3). Actual blood, actual families destroyed, in the wake of his life.

He also received real trauma. Beaten with rods three times. Stoned once and left for dead. Shipwrecked three times, adrift at sea a night and a day. Constant danger from rivers, robbers, his own countrymen, false believers. Sleepless nights, hunger, cold (2 Corinthians 11:24-27).

He had every reason to build his identity around either side of that. Guilt over what he did before Damascus. Grievance over what was done to him after. He builds around neither.

“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

Forgetting isn’t denial. Paul references his past constantly. He’s not repressing it. He’s refusing to let it be the foundation his present stands on.

JOSEPH, SAME PATTERN

Sold into slavery by his own brothers. Falsely accused. Forgotten in prison for years by the one man who could have helped him. Joseph has every right to a grievance. When he finally has power over the brothers who did it, here’s what he says instead:

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)

He doesn’t minimize it. You meant evil, plainly stated. He also doesn’t let that evil become the explanation for who he is or what he does next. Both stay true. There were real wrongs done to him but it had zero grip on his identity.

PUT IT DOWN

I want to challenge you to look at your life and consider the possibility that you may be unknowingly functioning in a victim mentality. And if you can see yourself somewhere in this, here’s what to actually do about it.

* Pray and ask God to search your heart and reveal it to you. If you genuinely ask him in earnest, I believe God will show you where it came from and show you the way out. Many times that way out is inviting someone else in.

* Acknowledge it and admit it to someone. Don’t just let it live in your head, that’s kinda where all this mess started in the first place. Share it with a trusted friend, a pastor, a counselor. Someone who won’t just agree with you or perpetuate the mindset. Say what happened plainly and let someone help you separate grief from grievance.

* Forgive the person. Not “let it go.” Name the person, name the offense, release the debt. This is the step most men skip, because forgiveness feels like letting someone get away with it. But you aren’t letting the other person off the hook. Forgiveness is actually what gets you off the hook.

Stop using the reason as your excuse. What happened to you can be the reason you struggle but don’t let it be the excuse for why you won’t change. A reason explains where the fight came from. An excuse says you don’t have to fight at all. You get the first one. Not the second.

Neither Paul nor Joseph denied what happened to them but both refused to let it be the final word. Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners in one breath (1 Timothy 1:15) and presses forward toward the goal in the next. Joseph doesn’t minimize the evil. He calls it out explicitly and then still provides for the men who did it to him.

Tell the truth about what happened. Then refuse to let it be the thing that explains everything you do next.

Your wounds may be real. But the mindset you build on top of it, if you let it harden into an identity, will cost you more than the original wound ever did.

It’s time to lay down the victim and truly move forward into becoming the victor God intended.

How are you processing this? Leave a comment below and let’s chat.

If today’s post stirred something in you, that’s exactly what The Forge Summer Challenge is built for. Eleven weeks of practical, faith-anchored action to help you move from independence to real dependence on God. We are in week 6 right now so it’s not too late to jump in. Free and paid tiers available, with a private group and biweekly calls for those who want to go deeper.

Check out the archive of our latest blogs to find the Summer Challenge posts and get caught up.

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

Welcome back to the heat of summer and we are continuing in The Forge: Hot Takes series. This week is another thing that I have said for quite some time but have never written out…so here we go.

Hot Take #3:

“Forgiving yourself” is not biblical.

I know how that sounds. I know it sounds like I’m telling you to stay stuck in shame forever. I’m not. Let’s dive into this.

WHY THIS PHRASE FEELS SO RIGHT

“You need to forgive yourself” is one of the most repeated phrases in modern recovery language, therapy language, I’ve heard a lot of well-meaning Christians say this. And I get why. A man does something he regrets. He knows it was wrong. He feels the weight of it every day, sometimes for years. Someone tells him he needs to let himself off the hook, forgive himself, and move forward. It sounds like healing. It sounds like grace.

The problem is, you can’t find that phrase anywhere in scripture. Not once. Not from Jesus, not from Paul, not from any writer across sixty six books when dealing directly with guilt, sin, and restoration.

This isn’t just an argument over semantics. The words we use are powerful and can shape our thoughts, behavior, and beliefs. So what we say is just as important as what we mean.

WHAT FORGIVENESS ACTUALLY IS

Forgiveness in scripture is generally transactional. Someone is offended. Someone else did the offending. The offended party releases the debt or doesn’t. That’s the whole shape of it.

So who’s the offended party when you sin?

David answers this after committing adultery and murder, two offenses with very real human victims. Here’s what he prays:

“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” (Psalm 51:4)

David sinned against Bathsheba. Against Uriah. Against the nation he led. And he says none of that first. When he gets called out on it, he goes straight to God. Why? Because ultimately, every sin is first and foremost a violation of God’s holiness and God’s law. You are not the offended party in your own sin. You’re the offender. Which means you were never in the seat to grant forgiveness in the first place.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DAMAGE YOU DID TO YOURSELF?

I want to wade into this territory carefully, because there are real emotions and needs behind the phrase “forgive yourself,” even if the phrase itself isn’t biblical.

Your sin really did cost you something. The addiction wrecked your health. The affair cost you your marriage. The years you spent chasing the wrong things cost you relationships you can’t fully get back. That damage is real. I’m not telling you to pretend it isn’t there.

But walking through consequences isn’t the same thing as harboring guilt, and God never asked you to forgive yourself for either one.

Go back to David. The moment he confesses, Nathan tells him plainly, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13) Forgiven. On the spot. No waiting period, no probation.

But the child conceived in that sin still died. The consequence didn’t disappear just because the forgiveness was real. David begged God for seven days, fasting, lying on the ground. Then the boy died, and here’s what he did next. He got up. Washed. Changed his clothes. Worshiped. Ate a meal. (2 Samuel 12:20) His men were confused, he mourned harder before the death than after it. But David already knew he was forgiven. That’s what let him carry a real, permanent consequence without collapsing into self punishment on top of it.

And that’s what can carry you through the wreckage. Not self-forgiveness. Receiving the forgiveness God already gave you. That’s what lets you walk through consequences with your head up instead of your head down. Eyes fixed on Jesus instead of fixed on yourself. A man who’s actually received God’s forgiveness isn’t wallowing in shame while he rebuilds, he’s walking in peace while he rebuilds. The same hard road but a completely different posture.

Self forgiveness keeps your eyes on you while you decide if you’ve finally suffered enough to let yourself off the hook. Received forgiveness moves your eyes off you and onto the one who already settled your debt.

BUT WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS PAIN I’M STILL CARRYING?

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, fine, I believe God forgave me. I’ve believed that for years. But I still feel the weight of it. I still carry the shame. So what actually gets rid of that?

Here’s the answer, and it’s the whole point of this post. Truly receiving God’s forgiveness is what unlocks your ability to release the shame and guilt you’re still holding. Not the other way around. You don’t earn the right to let go of shame by suffering under it long enough. You let go of it because someone with the actual authority to close the case already closed it, and unlocked your prison chains. Our response to this mind-blowing grace is to walk out of the courtroom into a life of freedom.

Many times, trying to forgive yourself makes this worse instead of better. If you’re the one who has to grant yourself release, some part of you is still keeping score, still deciding whether you’ve paid enough penance for the things you’ve done. That’s a debt that can never actually get paid, because the guilty party can’t ever fully trust his own verdict. So the shame doesn’t lift. It just gets managed a little differently. The same weight with a new label.

Receiving forgiveness removes you from that seat completely. You’re no longer the one deciding when the debt is paid, because someone else already paid it and already declared it finished. That’s not a bypass around the hard internal work, that’s what makes the hard internal work possible in the first place. You can’t actually release something you still believe you’re responsible for settling yourself.

WHY THIS BECOMES ITS OWN FORM OF PRIDE

So if David shows us forgiveness and consequence can coexist, why do so many men still insist on adding their own verdict on top of God’s?

Because deep down, it feels safer to keep judging yourself than to trust someone else’s judgment, even God’s. If you’re the one still holding the gavel, you feel like you’re still in control of the outcome. Letting go of that feels like letting go of whatever control we think we have.

But that’s not humility, it’s pride. You’ve decided your own assessment of the situation matters more than the verdict God already rendered. You’ve made yourself the last word on something Jesus already finished on the cross.

WHAT THIS DOES TO YOUR VIEW OF GOD

Here’s the real cost. When forgiving yourself becomes a requirement for moving forward, you’ve built something God never asked for. You’ve made his mercy conditional on your own approval, forgiven by him, but not really free until you sign off too. Newsflash…the check that paid for your sin doesn’t have a second signature line.

Read what actually happens the moment you confess:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Faithful and just. Paul goes further in Colossians, saying God, having forgiven us all our trespasses, canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)

The record is gone. Nailed to the cross. Not something still sitting in a file with your name on it, waiting for a second signature.

SO WHAT DO I NEED TO DO THEN?

You don’t need to forgive yourself. You need to receive the forgiveness that God has already given, and let that be enough. Let His mercy and love be the power by which you live in freedom and walk out of the courtroom.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

No condemnation. Not a reduced sentence you still have to finish out yourself. None.

Stop trying to forgive yourself. Start living like a man who actually believes he’s already been forgiven, consequences and all, head up, eyes on Jesus.

How are you processing this? Leave a comment below and let’s chat.

If today’s post stirred something in you, that’s exactly what The Forge Summer Challenge is built for. Eleven weeks of practical, faith-anchored action to help you move from independence to real dependence on God. We are in week 6 right now so it’s not too late to jump in. Free and paid tiers available, with a private group and biweekly calls for those who want to go deeper.

Check out the archive of our latest blogs to find the Summer Challenge posts and get caught up.

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

Welcome back to Forged Fridays and we are still in the heat of summer and continuing in The Forge: Hot Takes series.

I have said this many times but this is the first time I’ve written it and posted this online and I’ve been waiting to write this one for a while. So here it is:

Hot Take #2

There is no such thing as “toxic masculinity.”

Now before you head straight to the comment section, I want you to go on a journey with me and look behind the cultural gender war and see the deeper thing that has happened.

So let’s actually test this out, because if the statement that “toxic masculinity doesn’t exist” is true, it first needs to survive some hard questions. Some of them may be close to these:

What about the men who’ve started wars for nothing but ego and territory? What about the ones who build empires on the backs of people they crushed to get there? What about the husband who controls every dollar his wife touches, or the father whose kids flinch when he raises his voice, or the boss who dominates a room just to remind everyone he can? What about the fact that when you look at who commits the overwhelming majority of violent crime, who starts the wars, who abuses the vulnerable, who hoards power at the expense of everyone underneath them, the answer is almost always men?

If that’s not toxic masculinity, what do you call it? 1+1=2 right?

That’s a fair question, and most of us men would rather change the subject than answer this question head on. We say something like “well not all men are like that” and move on. That’s not going to work here. The evidence is real. Something in a lot of men has produced enormous, historic, generational harm.

But here’s the deeper question hiding underneath: was it the masculinity they possessed that did that? Or was it their masculinity, void of the very thing that was supposed to govern it?

Because look closer at every example. The tyrant who started a war for ego wasn’t submitted to anyone; he’d stopped believing any authority stood over his own. The husband who controls every dollar isn’t providing, he’s hoarding, using strength to shrink someone rather than protect her. The father whose kids flinch isn’t leading, he’s dominating, and domination is the opposite of what leadership was supposed to be. The boss who fills a room with his own ego isn’t strong. He’s covering for something he’s afraid people will see if he doesn’t.

Every single one of those men had the same thing missing. Not too much masculinity. A masculinity that had stopped doing what masculinity was made to do. A twisted and broken shadow of what true masculinity was always supposed to be.

THE WRONG SUSPECT

Here’s the sleight of hand culture has pulled off, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. What’s actually broken in every one of those men is unaccountable, ungoverned strength. But culture just handed it the nearest label instead. Toxic masculinity. As if the maleness of the man is the active ingredient in the harm, instead of what’s missing underneath it.

That’s not a small error. It’s the whole ballgame. Because once “masculine” itself becomes the suspect category, you haven’t actually solved the problem those men caused. You’ve just made every man carrying real strength, the ones actually protecting, providing, leading toward something bigger than themselves, feel like a suspect too. You’ve told every good man that the safest thing he can do with his strength is hide it.

And a lot of us believed that. We heard the phrase enough times we stopped asking what actually went wrong in those men and started asking something else instead: what’s wrong with me? How do I even grow when the very thing I’m made to become is the thing I’m being told is the problem?

That question has no good answer, because it’s the wrong question. Let me say this emphatically…You are not toxic for being a man! You’re only dangerous when your strength answers to nothing and no one.

THE REAL ENEMY BEHIND THE LABEL

But let’s go one layer deeper, because “culture” isn’t actually the source. Culture is just the delivery system.

Behind the confusion, behind the sleight of hand, behind an entire generation of men trading their strength for an apology, there’s an actual enemy with an actual target. Scripture doesn’t leave room to pretend otherwise. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. This didn’t originate in a university, a headline, or a hashtag. It originated in the pit of hell.

Here’s why. A man surrendered to Christ, confident in who God made him to be, comfortable in his own skin, walking into dark places and exposing what’s hiding there, that man is one of the most dangerous things to the kingdom of darkness. He’s not easily controlled. He’s not easily shamed into silence. He leads. He protects. He confronts evil instead of accommodating it. Satan wants that kind of man gone.

So he didn’t attack masculinity by telling men to stop being strong outright. That’s too obvious, too easy to resist. He attacked it at the root, at the level of identity itself. Convince a man that the very thing God built into him is the thing that’s dangerous, and he’ll neutralize himself. No war required. Just a label, repeated enough times, until good men started policing their own strength instead of stewarding it.

That’s not a culture war. That’s a spiritual one, and many men don’t even know they are in the battle.

IMITATION MANHOOD

Here’s the trap a lot of men have fallen into instead. They felt the attack, even if they couldn’t put their finger on it, and they knew something in them wasn’t supposed to be silenced. So they went looking for how to be a true man. The problem is where a lot of them went looking.

Podcasters. Influencers. Politicians. Intellectuals. Guys who are boisterous, confident, unbothered by criticism, and dead certain of themselves. Some of what they say isn’t wrong (I actually enjoy a lot of their podcasts). Discipline, ambition, physical strength, refusing to be pushed around, these aren’t bad instincts. But watch closely and you’ll notice what’s missing every time: submission. None of it answers to anything above itself. It’s strength with no authority over it, confidence with no accountability under it, exactly the same problem we just traced in the tyrants and the domineering husbands. This time they are just posing in front of a gym mirror and a chasing a microphone instead of a crown.

That’s not masculinity either. That’s machismo, boys who never got discipled by a real man who has walked with God, so they built their own blueprint off of a copy of a copy of a copy. And it is now so pixelated, no wonder men are confused on how to thrive today.

Real strength was never the ability to answer to no one. It was always the ability to submit to God and lead everyone under your care because of it.

So if it’s not the tyrant, and it’s not the counterfeit either, what does real masculinity actually look like when it’s fully submitted and fully strong at the same time?

A MAN OF STANDING

Scripture gives us a picture in an unexpected place. Boaz. Ruth 2:1 introduces him as “a worthy man,” but the Hebrew there is gibbor chayil, the same phrase used elsewhere for mighty warriors and men of valor. Boaz had real strength, real standing, real authority in his community. And what did he do with it? He noticed a vulnerable widow gleaning in his field, and he used every bit of his power to protect her, provide for her, and elevate her, without ever controlling her, without ever making the moment about himself. He told his men to leave extra grain for her on purpose. He made sure she was safe from harassment. He didn’t demand anything in return. He eventually redeemed her and took her to be his wife. An amazing act of strength, cunning, and strength.

That’s the whole argument in one man. Real strength doesn’t announce itself by dominating a room. It announces itself by what it does for the people who have less power than you do. Boaz was dangerous to nobody except the men who might have hurt Ruth. That’s what submitted strength looks like. Not weaker. Aimed.

WHY THEY WILL STILL CALL IT TOXIC

Here’s what you need to know going forward: understanding all of this won’t make the label disappear.

There’s something that happens when a man walks into a room fully surrendered to God and empowered by His Spirit. You can feel it before he says a word. Like a lion walking into a clearing, fully walking in who he was made to be. Confident. Unshaken. Kingly. When a man brings a presence like that, everything in that room senses his strength. And because a man like that exposes the works of darkness, darkness trembles.

That’s precisely why he gets called toxic. Not because he’s controlling anyone. Because a man who is comfortable in who God made him to be exposes what everyone else has learned to hide from. He holds a room accountable just by being in it. He calls things what they actually are. People who’ve built a life around not being confronted don’t want a man like that anywhere near them, so they reach for the label instead of reaching for the mirror.

So don’t be surprised when it happens to you. Walk in real conviction, hold a real standard, refuse to look away from what needs to be confronted, and someone will eventually call it toxic. Because you’re in a spiritual battle and your strength is in direct competition to evil and those who promote it.

WHAT WE ACTUALLY NEED MORE OF

So no, there’s no such thing as toxic masculinity. There’s sin, and there’s counterfeit, and there’s an enemy who’s convinced a generation of men that the solution to both is to stop being men altogether. But there’s also this: real masculinity, submitted to God, aimed at protecting and providing and helping others flourish, the kind Boaz carried into that field.

The world doesn’t need less masculinity. It needs true masculinity back.

It needs husbands who provide for their wives instead of controlling them. Fathers who lead their kids instead of intimidating them. Men who walk into dark rooms and dark situations and dark conversations, not to dominate them, but to expose the works of darkness, because that’s what a man surrendered to Christ actually does. Provides, protects, builds, leads, and helps others flourish.

Your masculinity is not the problem. But it does require your surrender.

Submit what you’ve got to the only authority strong enough to aim it correctly, and watch what real masculinity was always supposed to do.

How have you experienced this? What’s your take on toxic masculinity? Leave a comment and let’s talk…

If today’s post stirred something in you, that’s exactly what The Forge Summer Challenge is built for. Eleven weeks of practical, faith-anchored action to help you move from independence to real dependence on God. Free and paid tiers available, with a private group and biweekly calls for those who want to go deeper.

Check out the archive of our latest blogs to find the Summer Challenge posts and get caught up.

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

We are in the middle of summer and the heat is raging…oppressive even. So that inspired me to do something a little different for the next few weeks. Because it is so hot, we are going to turn up the heat on the topics here on the blog with some “HOT TAKES.”

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to take one thing men have accepted without ever really examining it, and say some uncomfortable things out loud. I think many of us are living by conclusions we’ve never tested against scripture or even simple logic. We inherited them from culture, from our own wounds, or from what others have told us.

This first one might ruffle some feathers before you finish reading it. So here it is:

Hot Take #1

If you don’t discipline your kids, you hate them.

Maybe your mind went to your own childhood. Maybe to a father or mother who “disciplined” you in a way that left marks that were never just physical. Maybe you’re already thinking, that’s exactly the kind of line that gets used to justify abuse. I’m not dismissing that. We’ll get there.

But consider this too: you may have spent years building a parenting philosophy specifically designed to avoid biblical discipline, and telling yourself you’re choosing grace, when really you’ve just been choosing comfort and calling it grace. The culture today calls this “gentle parenting”. However you define that, I think scripture directly contradicts it. You can be gentle in spirit while still being firm in your approach.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “spare the rod, spoil the child” your whole life. Church potlucks, your grandfather, maybe a sermon or two. It sounds like scripture but…it’s not in the Bible.

What Solomon actually said was:

Proverbs 13:24

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

Not “spoil the child.” Hates his son. Solomon didn’t warn you your kid might turn out a little soft. He said the absence of discipline is hatred.

WHAT THE TEXT ACTUALLY SAYS

The word translated “rod” is shebet. Meaning a stick or staff, the same word used for a shepherd’s rod. Some people dismiss this and say it just means authority (shebet can also be translated scepter) or that it’s the shepherd’s staff, used to guide, not strike. Both of those readings exist elsewhere in the Old Testament. But Proverbs itself settles the question. In Proverbs 23:13-14, shebet is paired with the verb nakah, “to strike.” The child is twice described as being struck with it. A scepter doesn’t strike anyone. Hebrew had a separate word for the shepherd’s guiding staff, and Solomon didn’t reach for it here. He reached for the word paired with “strike,” on purpose.

Proverbs 22:15 says folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Proverbs 29:15 says a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

And to be clear: I’m not saying that spanking a seventeen-year-old is an effective discipline strategy, and if you’ve got older kids, you probably would agree. What Solomon is describing is the starting discipline of a younger child, when right and wrong are still black and white and a swat on a child’s rear end for direct disobedience teaches a clean, immediate lesson.

Here’s the part nobody talks about: if you won’t do that hard, clear, black-and-white work while they’re young, you will not have the strength for the discipline that’s actually harder later. The gray-area stuff. The teenager who disrespects you to your face, who argues back, and walks out the door instead of taking a swat. That discipline requires a father who’s already built the muscle of holding a line. You don’t get that muscle by skipping the reps when that child is 5.

But this isn’t only about spanking. It’s about a grace you may be withholding from your kids without realizing it.

BOUNDARIES ARE HOW LOVE GETS PROVEN

Here’s what happens when a father won’t hold a clear, defined boundary: his kids grow up and lose respect for him. Many times dads spend time auditioning to be a friend when their kids get older rather than guiding the child into maturity while they are still young. Let’s look at what Hebrews says about this.

Hebrews 12:7-11

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

The author isn’t warning you that undisciplined kids turn out badly. He’s saying the absence of discipline is what makes someone illegitimate instead of a son.

The KJV doesn’t soften that word illegitimate, it says if you’re without discipline, you’re a b*****d, and not a son. That’s not a curse word here, it’s a legal status. A b*****d had no inheritance, no name, no standing in the family. That’s what’s at stake when a father refuses to discipline his kids: a son or daughter functionally cut out of what sonship was supposed to give them.

Notice verse 9 too: we respected the earthly fathers who disciplined us. Not despite the discipline, but because of it.

Here’s where a lot of us get it backwards. We tell ourselves we’re choosing grace over discipline. “I’m not going to come down hard on this, I’m going to show them love and grace instead.” Discipline isn’t the thing standing in the way of grace in your kid’s life. It is a means of God’s grace in their life. When you skip it and call that grace, you’re robbing them of the very grace God appointed you to deliver. You might be choosing your own comfort and calling it grace.

I tell my daughter this when she doesn’t like a decision I’ve made: “I am not trying to be your friend. I am your father. I am not trying to get you to like me, I am doing what’s best for you. One day I will stand before God and answer for how I led you.”

Boundaries are one of the only ways love gets proven to a child who can’t yet understand your motives, only your consistency.

YOUR KID’S WORST ENEMY ISN’T OUT THERE

The most dangerous thing in your child’s life is not the temptation they’ll face someday. It’s the foolishness already bound up in their own heart, the thing that makes temptation attractive in the first place. Your kid is his own worst enemy long before the world gets a shot at him.

If you’re not diligent to drive that foolishness out while he’s young and the stakes are small, you’re guaranteeing he loses the fight later. Sparing the rod isn’t gentler. It delays the cost, raises the price, and withholds the grace that was supposed to shape him while the shaping has lower stakes.

THE ANGER PROBLEM

A lot of what men remember as “abusive” discipline had less to do with the method and more to do with the spirit behind it. Discipline delivered in rage, to relieve your own embarrassment or prove you’re still in control, isn’t discipline. That’s actually sinful, and it can become abuse, physical, emotional, or spiritual. Men who were on the receiving end are right to hate it.

But I’ve heard guys say, “I just can’t control my anger, so I don’t discipline them at all.” That’s weak thinking dressed up as self-awareness. God didn’t give you an escape hatch from fatherhood because self-control is hard. He gave you the Spirit to produce it. Refuse to deal with your anger and refuse to discipline because of it, and you’re just handing your kids a different version of the same lack of self-control.

So before you discipline: check your heart. If you’re angry, wait. Come back when the goal is your child’s heart, not your own relief.

WHAT YOU’RE ACTUALLY AFTER

God has sent you on an epic rescue mission for the heart of your child. Discipline done right is aimed at the heart, not behavior. Solomon didn’t say the rod fixes actions, he said it drives folly far from the heart. Not compliance. Not a quiet house. A heart shaped toward wisdom, formed by the grace of a father willing to do the hard thing.

Many of us withhold discipline because we want our kids to like us. We want the easier evening, the hug instead of the tears. But when you trade what your child needs for their future for what you want right now, you’ve withheld grace and called it grace. You’ve proven who you actually love in that moment, and it isn’t them. You’ve got the rest of your life to be friends with your kids. Right now, they need a father.

You will stand before God one day and answer for how you led the people He gave you. For whether you were faithful to hand them the grace of discipline in every stage of their development.

Let’s raise sons and daughters, not orphans.

How are you processing this? Leave a comment below and let’s chat.

If today’s post stirred something in you, that’s exactly what The Forge Summer Challenge is built for. Eleven weeks of practical, faith-anchored action to help you move from independence to real dependence on God. Free and paid tiers available, with a private group and biweekly calls for those who want to go deeper.

Check out the archive of our latest blogs to find the Summer Challenge posts and get caught up.

Want more content like this? You can find all of our content and resources here:

The Forge exists to provide deep brotherhood, essential tools, and focused coaching so that every man can run with clarity, live with intention, and fully become the man he was designed to be. That’s the mission behind everything we’re building here. We’re creating a place where men can grow, get sharpened, and take real steps toward becoming the man God called them to be.

If this content hits home for you, share it with another man who needs it. And if you want to help support what we’re building so we can keep creating resources, coaching, and tools for men, you can do that below.

Every share and every ounce of support helps move this mission forward. Thank you!

Contact Gabe: [email protected]

This year marks 250 years since a group of colonists looked at the most powerful empire on earth and said, “no more.” Two hundred fifty years since the ink dried on a document declaring that men would no longer bow to a king across the ocean.

But here’s something most Fourth of July celebrations skip. Some of those same colonists were quoting an older rallying cry as they made their case: “no king but King Jesus.” It shows up in sermons and writings from the era, a phrase colonists used to explain what they were actually fighting for. They weren’t just fighting to answer to no one. They were fighting to answer to only one.

That distinction changes everything about how we should think about freedom.

FREEDOM FOR SOMETHING, NOT FROM EVERYTHING

We tend to think of freedom as the absence of restriction. No rules, no authority, no one telling you what to do. That is not what the founders were after, and it’s not what scripture means by freedom either.

The founders didn’t throw off a king so they could have no king. They threw off a bad king so they could govern themselves under a better authority, ultimately under God. Independence from England was never the end goal. It was the means to a greater end: the freedom to worship, work, and live without a government standing between a man and his God.

That’s worth celebrating as we mark 250 years of independence. The freedom we celebrate on the Fourth was never supposed to be freedom for its own sake. It was freedom so we could willingly choose to answer to someone higher.

SLAVES TO SIN OR SLAVES TO RIGHTEOUSNESS

Scripture is blunt about this. Every man serves something. The question was never whether you’d be a slave. The question is who owns you.

Paul lays it out plainly in Romans 6:16-18. You were a slave to sin. Sin paid you in shame, addiction, anxiety, and a hollowed-out life. But when Christ set you free from that, He didn’t set you free to be your own master. He set you free to become a slave of righteousness.

That word should stop you. Slave. Not customer. Not fan. Not a guy who checks in on Sundays. A slave has one owner and one will to obey. Paul uses that word on purpose. He wants you to feel the weight of what it means to belong to Christ completely.

Here’s the part our culture cannot make sense of: that kind of slavery is freedom. Real freedom. Because the alternative was never true independence. It was a different master, one that used you and left you empty. Sin never sets you free. It promises freedom from a “tyrannical” God but only delivers deeper slavery to itself. So if you are a slave, the question is: “Who is your master?”

SLAVE IN POSTURE, SON IN STANDING

But Christ doesn’t stop there. That’s not where the story ends.

Paul writes in Galatians 4:4-7 that God sent His Son to redeem those under the law, so that we would receive adoption as sons. Not servants. Sons. Heirs of everything that belongs to the Father.

Here’s the tension worth living in: you serve like a slave, but you stand like a son. Your posture toward Christ is total surrender, total obedience, total submission. But your position before the Father is inheritance. You’re not working to earn a place in the family. You already have one. You obey out of sonship, not for it.

That’s a completely different kind of dependence than what most men are used to. It’s not the dependence of a man who has no other options. It’s the dependence of a son who trusts his Father enough to surrender complete control to Him.

THE LIBERTY THAT COMES FROM SUBMISSION

This is where America’s story and the gospel actually connect. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:17 that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Not liberty to do whatever you want. Liberty that comes from being under the right authority.

Most of the founders understood, at least in part, that self-governance apart from God isn’t actually freedom. It’s chaos waiting to happen. That’s why so many of them tied their independence to their dependence on God from the very beginning. They wanted a nation free enough to worship, not a nation free from worship altogether.

This time of year you’ll see fireworks, flags, and cookouts everywhere you look. All good things. But don’t let the celebration stop at gratitude for political freedom. Let it go deeper. The freedom to worship at all is worth celebrating. But the greater freedom is the one Christ already purchased for you, the freedom to stop being a slave to sin and become both a slave and a son to the King who actually deserves your allegiance.

America declared independence from a king who didn’t have the right to rule over her. You are called to declare dependence on the King who does.

CHALLENGE

Do something a little different this year. Sit down and write your own “Declaration of Dependence.” Not a list of complaints or grievances like the original. A short, honest statement of who you’re surrendering to and why.

Write down what you’re done being enslaved to. Sin, approval, comfort, control, whatever it is. Then name the King you’re choosing instead. Keep it short. A few lines is enough.

Let this 250th anniversary be the moment you stop confusing independence with freedom, and start living like a son who serves his Father on purpose.

PRAY

Father, thank You for the freedom to worship You without fear. I confess I’ve often chased independence instead of embracing dependence on You. Break whatever I’m still enslaved to that isn’t You. Remind me that surrendering to You isn’t losing my freedom, it’s finding it. Let me live this week like the son You’ve made me to be: obedient like a servant, secure like an heir. Amen.

If today’s post stirred something in you, that’s exactly what The Forge Summer Challenge is built for. Eleven weeks of practical, faith-anchored action to help you move from independence to real dependence on God. Free and paid tiers available, with a private group and biweekly calls for those who want to go deeper.

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Contact Gabe: [email protected]