Author: Bruce Pagano II (Page 25 of 51)

Bruce Pagano is a blogger and podcaster living in the Treasure Valley area of Idaho. He is married and has four children, a retired US military veteran, a licensed clinical professional counselor, and has over 14 years of ministerial leadership experience. Most of his writing focuses on manhood, leadership, relationships, and faith issues. His writing can be found at www.brucepagano.com and his podcast at www.foldingchairtheology.com.

How Community Heals

October 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

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In the book of Mark, Jesus is asked: “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “…Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31

I use to believe that obeying the Greatest Commandment, to love God and love your neighbor, began with learning how to love God and allowing that love to compel you to love your neighbor. This common model is one that many Christians operate under. I am not arguing that we shouldn’t live under them, we must. However, this two-fold commandment begins with learning to love God and then allowing that love to prompt us to love our neighbor.

Loving God as a singular command is fairly abstract. It may take some time to learn to love Someone that is invisible and intangible. And because figuring out how to love an intangible God can be difficult, we may approach loving our neighbor with an attitude of duty. I have seen this “attitude of duty” lead many Christians to burnout and frustration. So what could be the answer to learning to love our neighbor without an “attitude of duty?”

I believe the answer lies in Jesus’ new command, to love each other, and thus in community. In John 13:34 Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

Jesus could have asked us to do our best to love each other. He could have even left it at “love your neighbor” since that pretty much covers everyone. But instead, He made sure to tell us that He was giving His followers a new commandment. I’m confident that Jesus gave us this command (“…love one another”) so that we would have an environment to receive healing and be restored to wholeness – to equip us to obey His command to love God and love our neighbor.

Christian community allows us to learn to love others in the safety of the body of Christ. It is in this community where we practice the love Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13. Community is where the fruit of the Spirit is cultivated. It is where we practice confession and healing prayer as instructed in James 5, in the company of our brothers and sisters.

When we become healed and whole, we are able to love our Christian brothers and sisters as He desires.
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The essential elements of community allow the Holy Spirit to bring us to a place of healing and wholeness. When we become healed and whole, we are able to love our Christian brothers and sisters as He desires. As we learn to love, we become better equipped to love our neighbor, which is the outward expression of our love for God; in essence we are loving the Lord our God, with all our heart, soul and mind. We are able to care for widows and orphans in their affliction, which becomes a natural outpouring of the love that exists in our community.

As we become the likeness of Christ, we become better equipped for every good work of His ministry (i.e. loving others.) Growing our love for God points to and glorifies Him. This is God restoring us to wholeness as a means for caring for others and for the purpose of lifting Him up.

And it is this “real religion” that honors God and reflects wholeness in Christ. It is here we begin to fulfill Christ’s declaration in John 13:35, “By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” It is in that fulfillment that we reveal wholeness and invite others to receive the same.

Why Just “Getting Saved” Won’t Help You

October 5, 2015 / / 1 Comment

The purpose of The Whole Man is to help men find healing and wholeness in Jesus.

With that in mind, I realize that as we walk toward this purpose, there may be readers who question what this looks like. For much of my early life I searched for healing and wholeness in many places. Eventually I landed in the offices of a number of professional counselors.

Professional counseling is an important part of finding healing, but it has a threshold in what it is able to offer. It’s absolutely a vehicle to move you forward toward healing and wholeness, but apart from Jesus it can only achieve a shadow of this desire. Professional counseling is more akin to pain management than a cure. The goal is to mitigate pain, so that it is bearable to live with, but pain is never completely eliminated. This is why some people go to counseling for 20 years. As long as the ailment remains, you must continue treatment. However, when you are cured you stop treating symptoms.

This is where Jesus comes in. When we enter into relationship with Jesus, the Holy Spirit carries you over the threshold into healing and wholeness. Sometimes that happens immediately, but more often it is a process.

Sadly, in an effort to “win” souls to Christ, the church has reduced the entirety of following Jesus into a singular event, namely “getting saved.” We can see this played out by the way that Christians use time as a measure of “spiritual maturity.” Typically when two Christians meet for the first time, they don’t ask, “What is Jesus doing in your life, right now?” Instead, they ask a variant of “When did you get saved?”

How long we’ve identified as a Christian has become the defining measure for how well we follow Jesus. However, if we are to experience the healing and genuine wholeness that Jesus offers; we must learn what it truly means to follow Him. And following Jesus is much more than simply “getting saved.”

Following Jesus begins with belief and is followed by actions in your life that flow out of that belief.
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I’d like to demystify what it means to “be saved” by Christ. It isn’t magic. At the most basic level it is believing that Jesus is who He says He is, that He loves you, and then doing your best to shape your life as a response to His love. To clarify, shaping your life as a response to the love of Jesus is about choices, sometimes very difficult ones, but choices nonetheless. It has nothing to do with your ability to “be good enough.”

Following Jesus begins with belief and is followed by actions in your life that flow out of that belief. As difficult as some of these choices will be, making the choice to believe is possibly the most difficult. However, this is your first act of faith in the person of Jesus and the beginning of following Him.

My friend Thomas put together a great write up on what it means to confess and follow Jesus, so I’m going to cheat and use that. There are three parts to consider: Salvation, Justification and Sanctification.

Salvation

This is the event that most Christians refer to when they say they are “saved.” It is the most important of the three and it is intended to place you in relationship with God. Salvation is about accepting the truth of your fallen and broken state and believing that God forgives you through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

What must I do to be saved?

1. Understand God desires close relationship with you. (John 3:16 & James 2:23)
2. Confess your sin condition and Jesus as Lord. (Romans 10:9, 3:10, 7:11 – leads to death and 1 John 1:9)
3. Believe in the power of His Resurrection. (Romans 10:9, Ephesians 1:19, and 2 Cor. 4:14)

Justification

The most meaningful of the three and is the experience of being made into the likeness of Jesus. Justification is about being adopted as sons and daughters of God and being made worthy to approach Him. Our worthiness is achieved by Christ’s work on the cross, in which we trade our sin and brokenness for Christ’s righteousness.

What must I do to be justified?

1. Accept by faith the gift of sonship (adoption). (Galatians 3:11, 26 and Ephesians 5:1)
2. Trust in the atonement/exchange of righteousness. (Romans 5:6, 9-11, and 1 Peter 3:18)
3. Become sealed with the Spirit in faith. (Ephesians 1:13, 4:21, and Galatians 3:14)

Sanctification

The most visible and how we live in the power of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is a continuous process and enables an active life, faith and work. It has to do with the Holy Spirit empowering you to live a life that reflects the character of Jesus, the growing of your faith in who Jesus is, God’s justice and goodness and doing the good work of the ministry.

What must I do to be Sanctified?

1. Surrender to Repentance. (Romans 2:4 and Acts 2:37-41)
2. Seek to be presented, in Christ, to God. (Colossians 1:22, Ephesians 1:4, and Romans 7:4)
3. Rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. (2 Thess. 2:13, Ephesians 3:14-21, and Acts 1:8)

Salvation and justification are singular events that happen simultaneously. However, sanctification takes the rest of your life and requires other Christians. Maybe it’s time to stop managing your pain and start looking to the cure for your hurts.

In the next post, I’ll talk about some of the things you can do to grow in your relationship with God.

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How to Measure Manhood

September 28, 2015 / / 3 Comments

Arm wrestling competition

Being physically strong, making money, having power, and not taking guff from anyone have all been etched into the measuring stick of manhood. History has provided very specific male stereotypes, a favorite being John Wayne.

For several generations, this measure of a man remained both popular and unchallenged. Today, defining a man inside of our culture has become increasingly difficult as the definition is challenged and examined. Our cultural definition now includes that a man can be metrosexual or effeminate and still be a man. It could be said that today, manhood is simply a result of one’s maleness. However, this is not true because our culture now says a woman can be a man and vice versa.

The list for what constitutes a man continues to be more confusing. When I was growing up, I was told that what makes a man is to not hit or disrespect a woman. Of course that’s a really important aspect of manhood; but I wasn’t told how a man was supposed to treat a woman. Except I was. By Hollywood.

One of Hollywood’s greatest measures of a man was that the man always got the girl. This usually included that the man had sex with her. There are so many movies where the dad gave his son an “atta-boy” shoulder slug, or an approving nod and wink, at the news of the son’s first kiss or sexual encounter. The dad was always proud of the son. This has not changed.

The band Maroon 5 recently released a song called Sugar. The music is upbeat and fun. A song that you might dance to at, say a wedding. Until you actually listen to the lyrics and realize it isn’t a song that you should have your 7-year-old son listen to. Truthfully, I’d prefer my 16 and 18 year old sons didn’t listen to it either. Before I continue, let me clarify that I’m not that “all secular music is from the devil” guy. I love music. All kinds; except Kanya, he’s his biggest fan and doesn’t need me. For a song to make my, “Do Not Play” list it really needs to send the wrong message. Sugar does just this.

Sugar really wasn’t a song I was listening to; it was my wife who pointed out the lyrics to me. Specifically the words:

“Yeah, I want that red velvet. I want that sugar sweet. Don’t let nobody touch it, unless that somebody is me. I gotta be a man, there ain’t no other way.”

If you weren’t able to put that together, “sugar” is sex. Mr. Levine is singing that in order to be a man he needs to have sex with her because there’s “no other way.”

The ability to have sex does not signal your manhood...
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Maybe you’re thinking I’m over reacting and that it’s just a song. Maybe I am. However, that is the message of the song. Sugar’s message is no different from what so many others in entertainment portray as the measure of a man. Sex seems to be the one thing that many guys agree is the measure of a man.

Your ability to have sex with a woman doesn’t make you a man. I’ve known so many boys that have had sex and never acted like a man. I was one of them and to be clear, getting married at 19 didn’t change that. In fact, having sex will often reveal areas you are lacking in before it will reveal how much of a man you are – or are not. The ability to have sex does not signal your manhood; it simply means that your body functions as it was created to.

If we take sex out of the picture, then how should we define a man?

For Christians, the place to look for the definition of a man is the Bible and to the person of Jesus. In Jesus we see the perfect joining of some of the traits that we separate or remove when defining masculinity including; strength, justice, gentleness, grace, wrath, love, confidence, humility, etc. One of the main writers of the New Testament, Paul, knew this. In 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 he says, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” Then in his letter to Timothy, a leader in the church, he writes, “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”

True manhood has little to do with what we desire or achieve.
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In both instances we see Paul framing manhood and masculinity with words that have nothing to do with pursuing profession, possessions, persons, power – or sex. Instead he tell us to pursue the things of God, that ultimately glorify Him and benefit others. True manhood has little to do with what we desire or achieve.

One of the best ways to display masculinity is to move our focus off ourselves and our desires and onto serving and standing for others, especially those that aren’t able to do it for themselves.

If we desire to be real men and to raise real men; our focus must be the pursuit of Jesus and the traits that reveal Him to others.

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