Men, Man Up

There’s an ongoing war within our culture. Confusion over what manhood is has plagued our cities, families and lives. The concept of a biblical man has been lost in our generation. Unfortunately, many struggle with a tangible definition of a real man.

 

Lately I’ve been on a huge Lecrae/Trip Lee kick. Below are the lyrics to the music video above. (feat. Lecrae, KB, Trip Lee, Tedashii, Sho Baraka, PRo, Andy Mineo)

Mamma wants some Obama in me / The hood want PAC / Hip Hop wanna see the Common in me / And since it’s a senseless contradiction / I end up a misfit trying to fit in / This ends when I stand up and see the hands of the standard / Holy is the Lamb / Now we’re holding you to man up / ‘Cause we’re made in His image / Start looking at what you came from

Right after Adam every atom in our anatomies had to make adamant after what Adonai is against / Let me take you back to the tree in Eden / If you read it you’ll see that Eve was deceived but Adam is the one who let it in / Standing / Leading / No, we ain’t leading / Basically little boys with muscles and a mustache / The femininity / We need a remedy / The God-man / 100% masculinity

Where are the men at / Seems like they’re all lost / None of them are on the scene / Seems like they died off / They’re extinct / But my dream is to rise up / We’re chasing the prize of the King and Divine Boss / But we fell away / Now we’re ungodly / We lose and we really got the blues like Navi / I wanna celebrate the dudes that’s beside me / Fellas let’s elevate / We’re through with the lobby

Go ahead I say boy get your shine on / And if a sucker tries to block you get your 9 home / And what I heard you got to do to be a man now / Stand up for yourself / So I took it in my hands now / And that’s the problem / We’re busy trying to solve it / All the while we’re walking dead men / Somebody bring the coffin / Voice drop / Peach fuzz / You think that you’re a man because you’re feeling yourself / You need to man up

Sex and models / Tipping bottles back / A pile of excuses right next to your bottle caps / A rolodex filled with names that you aim to please / Next to the stack of money / Building up a heart of greed / Ice on his neck / Give the jokers a cold shoulder / You’re drunk off pride plus you’re loving the hangover / You gotta whole lot of stuff that won’t amount to gain / Life will never make sense because you never made change

You got it twisted / Sick like a fever / Little man live to stack dough / Keebler / Man up / Get up out of the treehouse / Leave the cookies alone / It’s time to eat meat now / Trying to show you a new way to live now / No charge / You can call it a freestyle / Without Christ you know how your man is / You’re a boy in a man’s body like Tom Hanks in Big

Being a man has nothing to do with age / You can be a boy till the day you lay in your grave / None of us behave like the image of who we’re made / ‘Cause we’ve fallen away / It’s better known as depraved / Running from responsibility / Really we crave the easy way out of places that call us to pull our weight / Men are going through it every day / Decisions are made / Responding to the call God’s giving them from the gate

Be alert against Satan.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. [1 Peter 5:8-9]

Be alert against Temptation.

Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. [Mark 14:38]

Be alert against Apathy & Indifference.

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. [Revelation 3:1-3]

Be alert against false teachers.

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. [2 Peter 2:1]

Plain and simple, STAND UP for what you know your God has taught you to be blameless and true. Quit being pushovers and start being men of God delighting in the God you serve.

Three Weird Sea Creatures

Deepstaria Enigmatica

Not only may you never want to sleep again after seeing this undulating sheet of brown goo writhing its way across your screen, you’ll never want to use blankets again either. We’ll take a hungry great white shark over this creature any day—at least we know which end is up there.

 

Pacific Barreleye Fish

More formally known as the Macropinna Microstoma, the Barreleye Fish’s eyes are protected beneath a clear soft dome that lets it keep an eye on prey floating above and all around it. It’s also got kind of a cool fighter pilot thing going on.

 

Prehistoric Frilled Shark

Frills are supposed to be a cute addition to a little girl’s outfit. So why are prehistoric creatures like the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park, and this rare Frilled Shark, making them part of our nightmares? This bizarre-looking shark somehow manages to make even Jaws seem adorable.

The Great Commission

Almost 2 billion people (27.9% of the world) are still essentially cut off from access to the Gospel. Many of these peoples live in major urban centers. Some are more remote and rural. All continue to be largely “ignored” by the Great Commission Christian world. Let me reiterate; over 2 billion people in the world today are classified as unreached—which means more than “unsaved” but that the gospel is simply not accessible to them. Please watch the short video below and allow it to challenge you and cause you to pray about what God has in store for your life.

 

Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. [Matthew 28:19]

Red and Beautiful

What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox, and a Christmas tree? Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros). Pictured above as a star forming region cataloged as NGC 2264, the complex jumble of cosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years distant and mixes reddish emission nebulae excited by energetic light from newborn stars with dark interstellar dust clouds. Where the otherwise obscuring dust clouds lie close to the hot, young stars they also reflect starlight, forming blue reflection nebulae. The above image spans about 3/4 degree or nearly 1.5 full moons, covering 40 light-years at the distance of NGC 2264. Its cast of cosmic characters includes the Fox Fur Nebula, whose convoluted pelt lies below center, bright variable star S Mon immersed in the blue-tinted haze, and the Cone Nebula near the tree’s top. Of course, the stars of NGC 2264 are also known as the Christmas Tree star cluster. The triangular tree shape traced by the stars appears sideways here, with its apex at the Cone Nebula and its broader base centered near S Mon.

Backgrounds

I have been cleaning up my computer and ran across some old backgrounds that I made (some that I still love and others that I’m not so wild about anymore). Feel free to browse through the gallery below and open an image in up a new tab/window to make it your own background.