Note: This post is part two of a six-part series on desire. It has been adapted from my book, 10 Lies Men Believe about Porn, available now wherever books are sold.
You can find beginning of the series here.
I’ve noticed a growing interest in “manly” things in the past few years. First, it was just “Mustache March.” But now we have “No Shave November” and “Beardtober” as well. Here in the northwest, hipsters dress like urban lumberjacks and listen to bands with names like Grizzly Bear and Blitzen Trapper. We are told Chuck Norris can cut through a hot knife with butter, swim through land, and cure cancer with his tears (if he ever cried). As if that isn’t ridiculous enough, you can now buy beer bottled inside of a taxidermy squirrel. Manliness is apparently making quite a comeback.
I must confess, I love manly stuff as much as the next guy. I have a beard, I’ve been known to wear flannel, and I consider red meat to be the base of the food pyramid. But I have also learned that manly things do not make you a man. If that were the case, any woman who loves bacon, beer, and a good action movie would also qualify as a man. (I’d say if anything, she qualifies as a keeper.) So what is it that truly makes you a man?
The thing that makes you a man is your masculinity—specifically, biblical masculinity. As John Piper explains in his book Recovering Biblical Masculinity, you must understand that being a man is accepting God’s call to live your life walking in “Benevolent Responsibility.”
A Biblical Man Offers Benevolence…
Benevolence is the sacrificial giving of yourself, your strength, and your abilities to others. We see this theme repeated all throughout the Scriptures. God calls husbands to love their wives in the same way Christ loves the church, to the point of laying down their lives for them (Ephesians 5:25–27). Isaiah rebukes the leaders of Sodom and Gomorrah for not helping the oppressed, defending orphans, or fighting for the rights of widows (Isaiah 1:17). In other words, not using their masculine strength to help those who are weak.
How often do we see Jesus, our example of true masculinity, modeling benevolence in His interactions with the outcasts of society? Jesus didn’t need to touch the leper physically in order to heal Him (He healed others with words alone), but He chose to give up His rights to cleanliness and sanitation in order to give the man something he needed more than physical healing. He offered this man love and acceptance (Luke 5:12–16).
Or what about the woman at the well? The town surely knew her reputation as an immoral woman, yet Jesus still spoke with her one on one, fully aware of the inevitable gossip. On top of that, it was against the cultural norm for a Jew to interact with a Samaritan, yet Jesus ignored that custom as well. He was willing to risk rumors and judgment against Him in order to give this woman what she desperately needed—hope, salvation, and Him (John 4:1–26). This is true benevolence.
A Biblical Man Accepts Responsibility…
God will never burden you with a responsibility that is too great for you. He will, however, give you responsibilities that will challenge you to grow as a man. This is one of the main purposes of responsibility, and it’s why we see God entrusting men with responsibilities from the very beginning:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15).
The Hebrew words used here for “work” and “keep” are translated elsewhere in the Bible as “serve” and “guard.” God placed the entire garden under Adam’s authority, trusting him with the responsibility to serve it and guard it. If God had never given Adam a job to do and left him to play fetch with the dingoes all day, he would never have had a reason to grow or mature.
In the same way, God will place things under your authority and ask you to serve and guard them as well. Not because He wants to fill your time with meaningless tasks, but because He wants you to be challenged in ways that will lead to true masculinity.
One obvious example of this, for many men, is their family. Men are called to serve their families by providing for them (1 Timothy 5:8), and to guard their families by leading them spiritually and setting appropriate boundaries for their protection. This same responsibility to serve and to guard may pertain to your job, your ministry, or anything else God has entrusted you with as well.
But Men Are Afraid They Won’t Be Able to Answer the Call
Many men have an underlying fear that they won’t be able measure up to what is being asked of them. Whether it is a call for their strength and goodness (benevolence), or their service and protection (responsibility), many men fear they won’t have what it takes. You might fail. You may let people down. You could offend someone. Unfortunately, when men fear failure, they tend to avoid even showing up in the first place. They hide from conflict, run away from risk, and watch their true masculinity die a slow death within them.
If this becomes the pattern of your life, you will always feel a need to “prove yourself” as a man. The death of your masculinity will leave a void within you. Sometimes men will try to fill this void and prove their masculinity through sports or other manly hobbies. Frequently, it’s by climbing higher up the corporate ladder. Unfortunately, it’s often sought through the pursuit of a woman, which commonly manifests as an affair. Either way, you will forever be seeking external validation, because the true validation of your masculinity that you desire will remain unmet.
It’s here, in this moment, where pornography becomes the attractive answer—or at least it seems like the answer.
The less a man feels like a real man, the more vulnerable he is to the lure of pornography
One of the foundational lies behind porn is that you will never be asked to prove your worth or give anything of yourself to be seen as a man. The world of porn is full of beautiful women who seem to be saying, “Hey Stud…I desire you just as you are. You’re masculine enough for me.” In this way, porn offers you the same validation as an affair, but without the same risk. Which is why men turn to pornography to experience the rush of endorphins, the sense of untamed strength that comes with an erection, and the validation of being desired by a woman—all without taking the necessary risks of true, biblical masculinity.
It’s yet another way Satan replaces God’s solution with a cheap counterfeit that will never satisfy.
The worst part of this, is pornography doesn’t just deceives you, it actually pulls you further away from the only thing that will satisfy your need for masculine validation in your life, which is to live as the man God has called you to be. Or to put it another way, pornography keeps you from living in biblical masculinity.
Porn never asks you to give of yourself out of benevolence. In fact, it does exactly the opposite. Porn makes you selfish because the sole focus is on your needs, your wants, and your pleasure—even at the risk of causing pain to others. Furthermore, instead of offering your strength to protect others, you are participating in the exploitation of women. If you are married, you aren’t selflessly protecting your wife; you are selfishly hurting her heart. I am not trying to guilt you here. I am just pointing out the ugly truth behind Satan’s apparent “solution” to this need for validation within you.
It doesn’t matter how many belching contests you win, how thick your facial hair grows in, or how many flesh-colored pixels on a computer monitor appear to desire you—you will still need to come back to these things repeatedly to attempt to receive validation as a man. If, however, you are willing to risk yourself for the good of others and accept responsibility for what God has placed under your authority, then you will begin to experience lasting validation as the man He created you to be.
The best part is, God has already made you the man He wants you to be. You don’t need to make yourself into someone new or become stronger than you already are. You can trust that you are man enough simply because God says you are man enough.
Continue on to Part Three: Your Need for Adventure
