All Men Are Builders
It's in our DNA because we are created in the image and likeness of the creator. The question is not, if you are building the question is what are you building in today's article I am going to break down how men build and what we build. Right now, there's a lot of talk of men building empires, men looking to build their own kingdoms, little kingdoms, but we are aligned under the government of God. This is also known as the kingdom of God. We have pledged our life to Jesus Christ to follow him as disciples. We are building and expanding, and we've answered the call to expand the kingdom of God in our life. We do not live by our own standard. We live by a different code and a different set of rules than what the world follows.
We follow the one who sets the standard. His name is Jesus Christ. He is our Lord, our savior, He is the perfected son, He is the model, the template, the blueprint, and the pioneer for all men. That is what we are pursuing. We are committed to raising the standard. We walk in the path of a disciple, picking up our cross daily and following Jesus, wherever he leads us. Jesus was a builder his entire life. He literally picked up tools. He swung a hammer and as a builder, he would have the mindset and the vision to look at raw earthly material and see the finished product. And then he was able to sculpt build and construct what he saw with that vision. That is what you and I are called to do as well.
You probably have heard that Jesus was a carpenter. I'm going to refer to him as a builder. We know from the region that he operated in there was a lot of stone. He most likely worked with stone, as well as wood. I'm most comfortable saying that he was a builder. We also have these metaphors in scripture where we see Jesus referenced as the chief cornerstone. So, it's more than likely that he worked with raw earth materials, including stone. He is a builder, and when he departs Nazareth and he leaves his tools and he steps into his ministry journey, he never stopped building.
You Are a Builder
All men are building something it's within our DNA. It's the way God wired us and designed us. I believe that his finger is upon us. It's in our genes and men have this natural instinct to build. I'm going to break down for you a couple different ways that you're building, whether you realize it right now or not. Right now, there's a lot of men that are struggling. I'm going to just list off a few areas here where men have some common struggles. we struggle in our are you having a hard time with your wife because the relationship is no longer meeting your expectations?
Maybe this pertains to other relationships in your life, friends or lack of friends, relationships that are strain, perhaps this is your financial situation or you're on the job situation, your career growth or promotional path that you're not happy with. Perhaps it's your fitness level. Do you know that you're not operating at the physical capacity you should be. You no longer are stewarding what you're called to do in the physical realm. You're lacking energy, and you're living a lifestyle that's sedentary.
Stop Playing the Victim
Men have a tendency to be the victim. We have a tendency to look at circumstances in our life and play this victim, this is where we point what we perceive to be uncontrollables in our life. It's easy to say,
“Well, I would do it if I had more time” or “The relationship would be better if she did this or whatever that story is that you're telling yourself right now.”
You are 100% responsible for what you have built in your life.
You are 100% responsible for your relationships.
You are 100% responsible for where you find yourself with what you have built.
How can I say that? Because I'm 100% responsible for what I've built in my life as well. So here's the question. What are men building and what are we building with?
You Build with Your Words
I shared a story in episode 10 called God had to correct my language. God had to correct what I was saying and what I was thinking about myself, because words are so powerful, and words are one of the first ways that we build. You build with your words. If you want some scripture on this, it says in the Bible that life and death are in the power of the tongue. Think about that for a moment, you have the ability to declare, decree and speak life over people, over places and over yourself. You can choose to speak death words that tear down bringing in death into your space and your sphere because of the words you choose to speak. Words are very powerful. If we look in Genesis, it says, God spoke and the material world came into existence. It formed a reality. That's a model for us as men, that when we speak, we are creating realities around us.
You Build with Your Actions, Not Your Intentions
You build with your actions. Notice I did not say our intentions. We do not build with our intentions. It's great to have good intentions. However, the intentions mean nothing. If they're not acted upon, it doesn't matter what you wrote down, what you're intending to do, what you're planning on someday getting to, or what's in your calendar app right now, until you do it, it is not a reality. We're talking about your words and your actions.
What Are Men Called to Build?
Atmospheres
You are building and creating an atmosphere around you with the words you speak. You can speak life. You can speak words of faith, words of belief, words of abundance and words that create an atmosphere around you and cause people to want to be in your presence. President Roosevelt said:
"People won't always remember what you say, but they will remember how you make them feel."
This is speaking to being in someone's presence, the emotional transfer of our words, the atmosphere that people feel when they enter our domain.
Jesus surrounded himself with the right people when he steps into his ministry and comes off his 40 day fast. The first thing he does is he, he calls 12 men unto himself, and this becomes the atmosphere that he is going to build in. He builds these men. He imparts to them. He mentors them, he models for them and he leads the way. He surrounds himself and he builds an atmosphere with the people that he chose to surround himself with.
We see that Jesus removes the wrong people from his life and from his atmosphere where he cannot build or where he chooses not to build. Jesus left his hometown of Nazareth, and he could not perform any miracle there because of their unbelief. He was removing himself from that atmosphere because that was not an atmosphere conducive for building, so he chooses not to build there. Jesus chooses to invest and create atmospheres with the men he aligns and surrounds himself with.
Relationships
You can choose to build the people and the relationships around you, whether that's your wife, your family, your kids, extended relationships, or friends. In Jude we read, “therefore, encourage one another and build each other up…”. We build by encouraging, by speaking words of life and imparting words of strength to those around us.
So how are you building those around you? And let's take a quick inventory. Think about your relationships for a moment. How are you building? Are you building, edifying, and encouraging them? Or are your words bringing forth death? Are your words bringing forth discouragement and negativity? The question is which way are you building?
Ourselves
We are called to build ourselves up. The book of Jude outlines this perfectly where Jude says, “build yourselves up in your most holy faith, edifying yourself…” Another word for building up ourselves is edify. The word comes from edifice. You're actually building a structure with your words and with your prayers. So when you pray in the spirit, when you build, when you talk, when you speak in accordance to what God is saying, you're actually edifying and building a structure around yourself. We are called to build ourselves. We are 100% responsible for what we are building.
What are you building?
What's the atmosphere look like around you?
What is the culture you are creating?
What do the relationships look like in your life?
You built it.
What does your faith look like? You're building it. These are the areas we need to get after. This is what we are building. And the question for us as men is what are we building? There is a powerful scripture from James:
“but prove yourselves, doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”
“Prove” means to be intensive, it means to respond and to act on, it has this form of taking action. Be a doer, be an action taker of the word of God.
Be, Do and Build.
