The Sword

The 90's saw the rise of a new man. Men were tired of being defined by the Al Bundy's and Homer Simpson’s and knew that a change had to take place. Men saw a need to get off the couch and on their knees and start to take their God given places as the leaders of their homes.
This is what was birthed in the hearts of the men who wanted to see change on a massive scale and started to call out using the venue of large conferences across the country. Of course this movement is called Promise Keepers. Hundreds of thousands of men for the first time were presented with the sword. This sword represented everything that God intended for manhood including integrity, purity, love and most of all leadership.

Most men learned from their own fathers what it meant to be a father and husband, but even they didn't know how to hold that sword. The man ruled his house with an iron fist. The wife and the children were prim and proper and full of respect......or else. There was no respect here, just fear. So instead of holding the sword high over their heads as a symbol of God's anointing, they used held it over their wives and children in a position of threatening and dictatorship. The sword was abused.
The feminst movement swept in in the sixties and ripped the sword away from all men, not just the abusers. In retrospect it is very easy to how it was these abusers that birthed the feminists movement by the harshness in which they ruled their families, not liberal women. But unfortunatley women, even feminists were not anointed to hold the sword either and so it got put in the closet and eventually buried under all the other crap in our lives.

There are many places we could put the blame for our condition, maybe it is the fact that many of our grandfathers were new immigrants to this nation and were far too busy plowing the soil and building the homestead than to be a father to our fathers. Or maybe it was that self-reliant immigrant attitude that "I am going to find a plot of land somewhere in the middle of nowhere and start my life, and I don't need anybody's help" that passed on to our fathers generation. Regardless many of our fathers (pre baby boom generation) felt abandon, loveless and alone.

Many of us Generation X'ers were raised by these men, and the cry for the love of the father has amplified.

Now that we know where we came from, where are we now? My desire for my generation is that they would be the new man. The ones who see the holes left in their hearts from the lack of love from their earthly father and fill it with the love of the heavenly father. The ones who know that we can not do this all on our own and cry out for help from other brothers in the Lord. We are the ones who are just learning to hold that sword up high but constantly surrendering it back to the father because we just don't know how to hold it (yet). We are the ones who see the hurt we have cause our wives by not leading our families. This made them have to try and lead our familes swordless, a positon which they were not anointed for. This caused hurt and resentment in our wives because somebody had to lead in our place. We are the ones who are going into the closet to get that sword and take back the leadership from our wives with humbleness and a heart of repentance. We are the ones who will love our children and make sure they know they are loved. We will not stand by and watch them grow up in a society of love deficiency where they need the find love in every place but their fathers. We will realize that we as men represent God in the hearts and lives of our children.

We will stand firm against the generational curses and declare in the heavenlies that THIS CRAP STOPS HERE!!!!!

Men this is your call. We are a new generation, we need not be hampered by the sins of our fathers. We need not let what was started however many generations ago continue through our lines. God is raising us up he is calling us, the question is will we listen???? Men get up off your couches tonight, turn off the TV, stop being so quiet in the church and forcing our women into roles for which they were never intended. Get on your knees, repent for the areas of your life where you have not been the man God is calling you to be, stop hiding, stop running away! You know the truth now, there is no escaping it, no going back!

Seize this day, this is the day, the awakening of the new man, the new you. Your sins will no longer hold you back, they are the old man. The choice is yours, and really it is a choice. Will you look at your feet and all the crap that is oozing and squishing between your toes and concentrate on just how dirty your feet are? Or will you make that conscious choice to look up. I don't care about your addiction, God is bigger!!!! I don't care who you think you are, the Holy Spirit is alive inside of you and again He is bigger.

Men, join with me, grab your sword and hold it high, you are anointed to carry it. It may seem heavy at first. You may have to give it back to the father when you see that you are abusing it. You may have to call on a couple other Godly men to come beside you and help you lift it until you can lift it on your own BUT IT IS YOURS. Your name shimmers in fire on the blade followed by the words "Anointed One". It cannot be passed.