Influencers Weekly Devotional

One of my favorite quotes for men is: “The greatest danger in your life is not that you might fail at something you think is important; the greatest danger is that you will succeed at things that don’t really matter.” We Believe That Ministering To God’s Men Really Matters.  I personally believe that there is nothing more strategically important that I could give the rest of my life to than ministering to God’s men.  Let me tell you why. The Influencers ministry to men was founded and rooted in the belief that God has a plan to redeem a lost world to Himself, and His men have a vital role to play in that mission.  We believe that men are uniquely created and gifted to fulfill their God-given roles of being faithful to their wives, gracious with their children, loyal to their friends, courageous in living out their faith, and all this wrapped up in their sincere commitment as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Men were made to follow in their Master’s footsteps by standing in the face of danger, bearing up under suffering, and sacrificing for the good of others.  We believe that when you reach the man you reach the marriage, the family, the church, the community and the world. The Southern Baptist did a study and found that if you lead a child to Christ, 3.5% of their families will follow them in the faith.  If you lead a Mother to Christ, 17% of will follow them in the faith.  And, if you lead a Dad to Christ, 93% of their families will follow them in the faith.  That’s quite a startling statistic, even if it were half true. This must have something to do with why Jesus, when He stepped into a crisis filled world much like ours, did not go to the politicians as His plan; he didn’t join the zealots in trying to run the Romans out of Israel; He certainly didn’t see the corrupt religious system as the answer, in fact, it was a large part of the problem.  When they asked Him to be their king, He told them that His kingdom was not of this world.  Then, when they impatiently asked Him what His plan was, he pointed to a hated tax-gatherer named Levi and three uneducated fishermen named Peter, James and John and said, ‘They are My plan’.” “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called.  Not many of you were considered wise according to human standards, not many influential and powerful, not many of high and noble birth.  But God selected and deliberately chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—even the things that are nothing, to nullify the things that are, that He might bring to nothing the things that are, so that no man should have pretense for  boasting in the presence of God.” (I Cor. 1:26-29) So Jesus’ plan was to start the first ministry to men.  Men were to be the instruments He would look to as His dependable ones in a crisis.  Oswald Chambers said, “When the crisis comes and courage is required, God expects His men to have such confidence in Him that they will be the dependable ones.” This is not to say that God’s women don’t have a strategic role to play in God’s plan.  Of course they do and they do it well.  While we have much in common spiritually, we are very different in our roles that God has chosen for us. Jesus chose twelve rag tag men, spent two and a half years building into their lives, and sent them out to mend a broken world.  And what was their mission?  To share the gospel of a crucified Christ and watch lives change.  In Matthew 28:19,20, He told them to go and make disciples of all nations, to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and to teach them to obey everything He had commanded them.  And then He promised that he would be with them always, even to the end of he age. And what would these disciples be like?  They would be new, changed, different men.  Changed by the power of the Holy Spirit and committed, as the twelve Apostles were, to getting excited about Jesus, to staying excited about Jesus, and to be contagious with other men in getting them excited about Jesus Christ. Well, what would The Influencers have to do with any of this?  I will share a few thoughts with you about that. A man made a powerful statement to a group of men a few years ago that made men hungry for what he had.  He said, “My life has changed and I’ll never be the same again.”  Being in the presence of Jesus makes a difference. A friend stopped me in the hall at church several years ago and asked me if I wanted to catch lunch that week.  I told him that I was going to Arkansas to be trained to be able to lead a new process that God had given my best friend that helps men become more intimate with Jesus Christ.  He said, “I’m in!  Where’s Arkansas?”  Just the thought of becoming more intimate with Christ hooked him. A prisoner at Chino prison who had read Rocky’s book, “The Journey To The Inner Chamber”, said that of all the Christian books he had read while in prison, and there were many, this one changed his life like no other.  We asked him why and he said, GRACE!  It’s the journey I learned in the first allegory that helped me understand my own journey, and the grace I learned in “Gabe” that changed my life.  When men enter into the presence of Jesus, instead of hearing a sharp rebuke because of their slovenly ways, they hear, “Son I love you.”  Proximity to Jesus will change a man’s life. Another prisoner shared that he had read The Journey To The Inner Chamber with his wife on her last visit, and that it was the best visit they had ever had. When you reach the man, you reach the marriage, even if they are in prison. A man in northern California shared that he was losing his marriage of many years when he began The Journey.  He said that his wife observed such a change in his life that she chose not to leave.  He said learning to walk intimately with Jesus saved his marriage.  Reach the man… After hearing a message about living the faith life rather than the fear life, and the grace life rather than the performance/works-based life, a man said to me, “I have felt unworthy and beaten up after most men’s meetings and retreats that I have ever attended, to the point that I was about to quit on this men’s stuff.  They kept telling me what I am supposed to be and do as a man and I would go home and discover again and again that I just couldn’t do it!  But the message you shared with us last night is the message I’ve been waiting to hear all of my life.”  He heard from the Lord that he was loved no matter what, and that he should just come to Him and He would give Him rest.  He told the man that He had never been disappointed in him a day in his life, and that there was nothing he could do to get Him to love him more, and no bad that he could do would make Him love him less.  He also told him that the Christian life isn’t hard, it’s impossible to live out apart from Christ, and Jesus through the Holy Spirit comes to reside in us and to live His life out in and through us as we allow Him.  That’s life changing! Many wives have shared with us that their husband is a different man after going through The Journey.  That may be the true litmus test of a man’s changed life. What does The Influencers have to do with seeing so many men’s lives changed?  Because that is what we are seeing every where we go.  In Tulsa, Northwest Arkansas, Orange County, Bakersfield, CA., and Chino Prison. We have another saying we share with our men, “When God shows up, he shows off!”  This is truly happening in Bakersfield, California in one church where the men are experiencing a revival like none I have ever seen outside of the phenomenon we knew as Promise Keepers.  This revival is on a local level in a local church that is seeing life in Christ like they have never seen before.  Their church in the last four years has grown from 500 to 2500, and the revival of their men has been one of the key elements in their growth.  All we hear from them is about the changed lives, changed marriages, and the close brotherhood and unity of the men that they are enjoying.  They have over 200 men in Journey groups and they see more and more men coming into the presence of Jesus through this process that continues to amaze us all. About two months ago I stood on a makeshift rickety platform on a soccer field in Livingstone, Zambia in southern Africa, and watched a large group of men receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior and several hundred Christian men line up to be anointed Men of God.  Today they are wearing wristbands that have printed on them, MAN OF GOD”.  They started their first Band of Brothers men’s gathering last week and are planning on introducing The Journey to their men as a part of their journey to intimacy with Christ. Everywhere we go we find that men are the same.  Around the U.S., in Egypt, Brazil, Zambia, Ireland, and Germany.  Changed lives in men who felt unworthy spiritually, and who were defeated and discouraged.  Who feel emasculated, like women are running everything, and they don’t know what their roles are anymore in their culture.  We have the great privilege of creating environments for men where they can come into the presence of the Holy Spirit and he can help Himelf to their lives.  They are truly being changed and set free.  It is an amazing sight to see. I love what I am having the privilege of doing at my age in my 66th year of life and in my 41^styear of ministry.  I’m married and deeply in love with my high school sweetheart who has been my wife for 43 years.  I get to be in ministry with my friend Rocky Fleming who has been my best friend since we were both 19 years old, which is for the last 46 years. And I have the great honor and privilege of ministering to God’s men in such a time as this.  The world is in a crisis and it is intensifying every day.  We have our work cut out for us, but He is with us; we are His plan, and while our heart and our flesh may fail, he is the strength of our heart and our portion forever. Pete McKenzie Influencers West