We have all heard the expression, “Peace through strength.”  The idea is that peace comes when you are strong enough that others hesitate to pick a fight with you. On the world stage, that means that your military might acts as a deterrent to anyone who might be thinking about attacking your nation. The Kingdom of Heaven has peace as a core value but we are also instructed to put on armor every day and wield divine weapons in an ongoing battle with an enemy that will not make peace. He only comes to kill, steal, and destroy and he will not surrender or go away until he is eventually cast into a lake of fire.

One of Satan’s most effective strategies over the last forty years has been the feminization of the church.  This movement has effectively made men apologetic for being men.  The movement has condemned the aggressive, competitive, pugilistic, side of men and has called on them to become nurturing, passive individuals who should endeavor to become more like women in every way.  However, Genesis clearly states that God made them male and female. God intends for there to be clear and unique differences between the sexes.  The feminization of the church has, in many ways, taken the fight out of the body of Christ because we have condemned the very traits that make an individual a great warrior.

In many ways our faith has become passive, non-aggressive, and non-combative at every level. Certainly we are to display the fruit of the Spirit in our relationships with one another, but we should be stirring up masculine traits when it comes to spiritual warfare.  In that arena you cannot be passive or placating. Instead of eradicating those traits from the church, we should simply train our children and our adults that those are God-given traits to be used in spiritual warfare by both men and women.

In an effort to make men gentle and soft-spoken, we may have declawed the lion. Why did the “culture leaders” in America try to make men more like women and guilt trip them about their toxic masculinity rather than attacking women for toxic femininity? Although some good things have certainly come from that movement, I also believe the movement has been used by Satan to take the fight out of the church. Undoubtedly, women are extremely capable, strong,  and should have significant roles of leadership in the church.  But I believe that God appointed men to lead their families and lead significantly in the church as well.

God has placed a mantle on men that Satan wants to remove.  Statistically, if a child comes to the Lord, the rest of the family will follow suit in very low numbers – less than 5%.  If a mother comes to Christ, about 40% of those families will follow suit. But if a father comes to Christ, over 90% of those families will also follow the Lord. Take the masculinity out of man and you remove that mantle. Take the godly masculinity out of a man and he will abandon his family.

Most women find the male compulsion to shoot guns, blow up things, and kill innocent animals puzzling.  They may find the tendency of most boys to play with toy guns, swords, and GI Joe toys alarming as well.  But what if God made men for war? What if men watch movies about war because something God placed in them calls them to bravery and sacrifice against all odds?  What if they are called to war every day against the unseen enemy for the sake of their families and their nation? If we squelch the very traits that make us effective in war, we are setting ourselves up for defeat.  What we need now is a generation of warriors and spiritual ninja’s who will take the battle to the enemy and aggressively push back the borders of darkness.

Certainly aggressiveness and competitiveness can be misplaced and abused.  That doesn’t mean we should condemn those qualities but rather, those qualities should be redirected in godly ways.  The church at Corinth abused spiritual gifts about as much as they could be abused. The apostle Paul addressed the abuse rather strongly but did not forbid or discourage the exercise of those gifts. Instead, he simply taught them how to exercise the gifts in godly ways.  We should do the same with aggressiveness, boldness, and combativeness.

King David proved that the qualities of a warrior can exist side by side with the qualities of a poet, an artist, and a shepherd. David was a man who could write beautiful psalms, weep at the loss of a friend,  but also cut the head off of a giant.  Sensitivity and ferocity are not exclusive.  So…lets not be afraid to put on the armor and swing a sword – both men and women and let the church regrow her claws.