CIRC Blog

Let’s face it—men today are under severe attack. The battle line against biblical manhood is clearly drawn and fiercely contested. More than ever, men who want to follow Christ are asking:
 
• Why is it so hard to live an authentic Christian life?
• Who will show me how to thrive as a father, a husband, and on the job?
• What should I do when I’m being tested to the breaking point?
 
Fortunately, the Bible preserves crucial details about the powerful lessons learned by men who have already faced and answered these questions. In How God Makes Men, renowned expert on men’s issues Patrick Morley takes you into Scripture for a first-hand encounter with:
 
• Ten epic stories of the Bible’s most talked-about men
• Ten proven principles—based on their failures and successes—that show how God works in a man’s life, and how you can cooperate with Him in yours
• The huge promise that you can become the man God created you to be
 
Don’t settle for less. Join Patrick on this epic adventure of becoming God’s man. You’ll discover how to prevail in tough times and release God’s power in every area of your life.

Q&A with Patrick Morley, author of How God Makes Men

Q) Pat, you’ve been involved in men’s ministry for over 30 years. What do you see going on with men today that made you want to write this book?

A) I love my work, and we are seeing amazing results. Every day we see men coming to Christ and growing as disciples. That said, we need to do a reality check. We live in a counter-Christian pop culture that ridicules men in general and Christian men in particular. The battle line against biblical manhood is clearly drawn and fiercely contested. As a result, legions of men struggle to sustain what they started and finish the race. It’s as though they’ve enlisted and been issued a weapon that they’ve never learned how to clean and shoot. They’re sitting ducks on the day of battle. That’s what made me want to write How God Makes Men.

Q) Why are there so few role models in our culture? Where can men look to find examples of godly fathers, husbands, and working professionals?

A) There are TONS of men out there who are getting it right. They’re just not famous. They are quietly working out their faith by seeking God’s plan in the company of a few like-minded men. God’s plan is made up of strikingly relevant, time-tested lessons written down and preserved for us in the Bible. It pulsates with stories about men who released and sustained the passion of their faith. They became the men God created them to be. However, it’s shocking how many of these life-changing principles are gathering dust. It’s as though we’re afraid to tell men, “Following Christ is harder than it looks and takes longer than expected. But God does have a plan, and it comes packed with real answers and genuine hope.”

Q) In How God Makes Men, you pick 10 men from the Bible who can serve as mentors to men today. How did you decide which 10 to include?

A)I was interested in showing men just how relevant the lessons learned by men in the Bible are to them today. So I picked 10 men who are particularly relevant for today and developed 10 highly desirable principles about biblical manhood from their lives. How did God mold and mobilize these men? What were the obstacles they faced? What held them back? How did God get them uncoiled? And what was their part? In each of their epic stories, we can see the hand of God at work—shaping them, leading them, making them into the men He always planned for them to become.

Q) Which biblical hero is your favorite, and what do we learn from him about living a powerful life?

A) Wow! That’s like asking me which of my children I love the most! How about, I love them all equally but for different reasons. From Abraham, we learn about faith—that God makes men by showing us how we can believe Him anyway in the face of what seems like impossible circumstances. Joseph teaches us about perseverance—that God makes men by orchestrating even the toughest circumstances of our lives for a greater good.

Moses teaches us about transformation—how God makes men by taking us through a humbling process that fundamentally changes the way we think. From Gideon we learn about real strength—and see that God makes men by turning our weakness into strength in such a striking way that only He can get the glory.

The sobering story of David reminds us about discipline—how God makes men by doing whatever it takes to correct and restore us when we go astray. We can turn to Solomon to learn about true happiness—that God makes men by making it impossible for us to find lasting happiness in any pursuit apart from Him.

From Nehemiah, we learn about how God calls men to action—that God makes men by turning what breaks our hearts into a passionate calling to help redeem some broken part of His world. In the story of Job, we gain insight into suffering—that God makes men by allowing us to gain through suffering what we can gain no other way.

When we come to Peter, we learn the compelling principle of discipleship—how God makes men by a process of calling, equipping, and sending us so we can call, equip, and send others. Finally, through the passionate story of Paul, we learn about surrender—that God makes men by forging us into humble servants who are increasingly surrendered to the lordship of Jesus.

Q) Why did you include the success and failures from these examples?

A) I think God knew that no man would be able to relate to a “perfect” man in the Bible. By showing their flaws, we can see that these men are not so different from us. In fact, after a thorough reading of the Bible, we can conclude that if God didn’t use flawed men, He would have any to use!

Review

Praise for How God Makes Men

“Don’t we all sometimes feel like there’s another man coiled up inside us who desperately wants to get out? In How God Makes Men, Pat Morley is going to show you God’s way to help you release that man. This isn’t just a book. It’s a skeleton key to unlock God’s master plan for your life. Read it. Apply it. Let God change your life. You’re going
to love this book!”
—Mark Batterson, New York Times best-selling author of The Circle Maker

“Pat Morley knows men—what they want, what they need, and God’s way of helping them get it. Now he has written a watershed book that clearly explains God’s role in changing men’s lives. After unpacking ten timeless principles of how God forged our Bible heroes, Pat will help you connect the dots to your life today. I highly recommend How God
Makes Men for your personal reading or small group.”
—Dr. Tony Evans, president of the Urban Alternative and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship

“There are all kinds of help out there to encourage us to be better men. But nothing compares to the manhood wisdom drawn directly from God’s Word. And that’s what Patrick Morley richly blesses us with in How God Makes Men. I highly recommend you drink deeply from it.”
—Robert Lewis, founder of Men’s Fraternity

“I believe that men are under attack in our culture. Television and other media feed us a steady stream of weak, complacent men—but that’s not the kind of man you see in Scripture! All through the Bible, we see stories of bold and brash men who followed God’s call into some incredible adventures. In How God Makes Men, Patrick Morley reminds us that God still makes those kinds of guys.”
—Dave Ramsey, New York Times best-selling author and nationally syndicated radio-show host

“This is not a book. It’s a gift. Patrick Morley has taken what decades of faithful ministry to men has taught him and laid this wisdom atop the incredibly poignant, true stories of men in the Bible. What God is up to in your life and mine has everything to do with our learning obedience and a faithful walk with Him…while He writes our story. Because of God’s grace, our story even has a chance to be epic. Depending on what you and I need right now, this book will be either an encouragement or a necessary kick in the pants.”
—Dr. Robert Wolgemuth, best-selling author

“Pat Morley is a masterful teacher of men. How God Makes Men is his most ambitious project since his best-selling Man in the Mirror twentyfive years ago. It’s a fascinating blend of the thousands of up-close-and-personal conversations with men in a variety of circumstances in a turbulent world matched with the stories of ten Bible heroes and how they faced their own strikingly similar issues. There is nothing quite like it!”
—Bob Buford, founder of Leadership Network and author of Halftime and Finishing Well

“God takes strong men, breaks them down and makes them weak. No man wants to go through this, but this is the path to being used by God. Pat Morley has experienced this and understands the process. For the man who is broken and confused, How God Makes Men will bring hope, healing, and biblical clarity. I read it, highlighted it, and marked it up. That to me is the acid test for a valuable book.”
—Steve Farrar, author of Point Man

“No matter how much you already know—or don’t know—about God, this captivating book is going to help you grow leaps and bounds in your relationship with Christ. Pat clearly demonstrates how God makes a man by using the personal stories of ten great biblical characters to show us how we, too, can adopt ten life-changing principles
that are the trademark of God’s man. Pat’s knowledge and passion to help every man be the person God created him to be makes How God Makes Men a must-read!”
—Kyle Vann, energy consultant and retired CEO of Entergy-Koch LP

About the Author

Patrick Morley is one of America’s most respected authorities on the challenges and opportunities facing men. The author of many books, he is best known for The Man in the Mirror, with more than three million copies in print. He and his wife, Patsy, live in Winter Park, Florida.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface

When I travel and meet strangers, someone will often say, “You work with men. That must really be hard.”

My response is always the same. “You’ve got the wrong guy! I have the best job in the world. Every day we see men coming to Christ and growing as disciples. God is powerfully at work in men’s lives!” With that said, we need to do a reality check. Men today are under severe attack. A counter-Christian pop culture ridicules men in general and Christian men in particular. The battle line against biblical manhood is clearly drawn and fiercely contested. As a result, legions of men struggle to sustain what they started and finish the race.

Because I get to work with men as my vocation, I’ve been watching this battle play out and intensify at an alarming rate. Every week at our Bible study, I meet men who have professed faith in Christ but who, for the last five, ten, fifteen, or more years, have been living by their own wisdom. Many were told, “Just pray this prayer and everything
will turn out okay.” But it hasn’t. They enlisted and were issued a weapon they’ve never learned how to clean and shoot. These men are not bad, just confused.

Most men I talk with feel like there’s another man coiled up inside of them who desperately wants to get out. How about you?

• Maybe your faith is being tested to the breaking point.
• Maybe you’ve been down so long you feel God has abandoned you.
• Maybe you thought God was going to use you, but now you feel like you’ve been sidelined.
• Maybe you feel inadequate for your roles in life.
• Maybe you’re in a tough situation and see no way out.
• Maybe you are not genuinely content with who you are and what you do.
• Maybe you feel like giving up.
• Maybe you find it difficult to let go of the cares of this world.

Can you relate? If so, I’ve got some really great news for you. It’s all wrapped up in the one sentence that best describes my own life: Because God is good, your life will not turn out like you planned. That’s because God has a better plan. A much better plan. So what is this plan, and how can you make it your own?

God’s plan is made up of strikingly relevant, time-tested lessons written down and preserved for us in the Bible. It pulsates with stories about men who released and sustained the passion of their faith. They became the men God created them to be.

And you can too.

However, it’s shocking how many of these life-changing principles are gathering dust. It’s as though we’re afraid to tell men, “Following Christ is harder than it looks and takes longer than expected. But God does have a plan, and it comes packed with real answers and genuine hope.”

So in How God Makes Men, I want to share with you the most powerful principles of manhood from ten of the most well-known men in the Bible. In each of their epic stories, we can see the hand of God at work—shaping them, leading them, making them into the men He always planned for them to become. That “always planned for them to become” is for you too. And it’s one of the main features we’ll be exploring together.

How did God mold and mobilize these men? What were the obstacles they faced? What held them back? How did God get them uncoiled? And what was their part? As we spend time listening to their lives, we will come face to face with the gritty truth that can release and sustain the passion of our faith too. When added together, they’re not just ten amazing stories but one big story—yours!

Here’s the promise of How God Makes Men. And it’s a huge one. If you will absorb and embrace the timeless principles offered by these ten men, you can get past the shallow cultural Christianity that wants to gut your manhood and get to—or back to—a more biblical Christianity.

If you will let these ten men mentor you, then, like them, you will become the man God created you to be. You will release the power of God in every direction and detail of your life. You will know how to sustain the passion of your faith. And you will be well on the way to writing your own epic story. Why? Because God is way too good to let our lives merely turn out like we planned!

You always knew that one day you would be called upon to take your place on the battlefront, right? This is that call. Together, we can turn this around. This is a battle we can win. We cannot, we must not, and by God’s grace we will not fail.

If this is what you want, turn the page. I have some guys I want you to meet.

About the author

PATRICK MORLEY started a weekly Bible study in a bar in 1986 with a handful of guys—a study that now reaches thousands of men around the world every week (mimbiblestudy.com). That gave rise to the book The Man in the Mirror, and then 21 more. With over 4 million copies in print, The Man in the Mirror was named one of the 100 most influential Christian books of the last 100 years.

After building one of Florida’s top 100 privately held companies by the age of 35, Patrick founded Man in the Mirror at his kitchen table, an organization that is now an international men’s ministry, impacting thousands of churches and millions of men (maninthemirror.org).

He graduated from the University of Central Florida, earned a PhD in management, completed postgraduate studies at Harvard Business School and Oxford University, and graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary. He and his wife live in Winter Park, FL.

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People Often Ask These Questions:

• How do I fulfil my destiny?  Our destiny is bound up in our response to the Gospel. “Are you saved or lost?” That is the question above all questions. The declaration of the Gospel is “Jesus saves.” He saves from wrath, judgment, hell, bondage, the devil, and darkness. He saves us from dying in our sins. …People insure their houses and yet do not insure their eternal future. Yet we know that salvation offers so much more. Who else offers such insurance but Jesus?
• Why does God allow suffering? You could just as well ask the National Secretary of Transportation why he allows accidents on the highways. No doubt he would take exception to your accusation and point to the rules of the road. “Every time a law is broken, an accident and suffering might occur,” he would reply. People suffer chiefly for one reason—they are ignoring God’s rulebook, the Bible, and everything goes wrong. Our Creator knows exactly how He has made us and what will harm us. Consequently, out of a caring, protective heart, He says, “You shall not … ” The “you shall nots” are not edicts designed to spoil our fun, but rather they are the manufacturer’s handling instructions. God wisely knows that our psyche is unable to handle sin. Actually, it is crushed and tormented by misdeeds. It is always wise to read the instruction manual before using a new appliance. People worry about breaking a new DVD player or a new computer, but strangely, they have no worries about destroying their own spirits and souls with the poison of sin.

Would You Like To Give OR Re-Dedicate Your Life To JESUS CHRIST, But You Don’t Know HOW?

Please READOUT LOUD below Prayer and contact us @ circ.community@emoltem.com for more information.

“Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior and to yield back the life given to me by You, back to You. Take Control of my life Lord, and let only your will be done in my life from now on. Amen.”