ManUp Moment - Jay Cookingham

When God says He wants to be our Father, our Abba Father (dear father), He means it! He wants to place us as sons in a desperate world needing them.

Wild animals do not like being in a cage. They pace around a cage, full of bottled-up energy, with no way to release it. They’re confused, frightened, not understanding their lost freedom. However, if you keep an animal caged too long, they forget what kind of animal they were, they lose their aggressiveness. The cage becomes too comfortable and sometimes… they die in captivity.

Did you ever wonder what Jesus sounded like? In John 7:46 we read this incredible statement about Jesus. The chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest Jesus, but they returned empty-handed… they heard a frequency from Jesus… that kept them from arresting Him. They told their bosses when they returned without Him in custody. “The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

Jesus calls for our hearts to be on the same frequency as His, sounding off with His love, touching other people’s lives, with good works motivated by mercy!

There is a frequency to our lives… this is crazy cool, all human beings have a frequency. Everyone, everything on planet Earth… gives off a frequency. However, we humans have a noise problem… a noise pollution problem. There are far too many voices speaking at once in our head. Voices of doubt, uncertainty, confusion, and fear… that distract and fog up our thinking.

Jesus calls us every day to follow Him… to follow Him in the wild places. Jesus is always calling us out.

There is a very old Africa saying in the form of a question… a question with a deep intimate longing… the saying is… “Will you walk with me?” Will you walk with me? Not around the block, not across the street… will you enter my life, my world and journey with me? This is the call to follow Jesus, to enter the world of the Messiah and journey with Him, not at a distance but up close and personal.

We are chosen to be followers. The Greek word for follow means to… to join someone as a disciple and it means to be in the same way with… implying intimacy, going the same way, living the same way as the Master!

Among you it will be different… what will? Life will be different… following Jesus changes the way we see life.

Remember the first time you realized that God, the creator of everything, was real and loved…you?

We need the Word before the world. We must filter the news, the events, the conspiracies… everything the world presents as “truth” through the TRUTH of God’s Word.

Waiting on God is an active faith seeking to be with Him, what a blessing it is when a waiting son or daughter and a waiting God meet… power is released.

The act of forgetting is a sacred sacrifice where we shake off every hindrance, everything that keeps us running the race with freedom.

The truth is that we are not called to safe, ordinary lives. We called to follow, pursue, and chase after a Holy and powerful God.

Your hunger… your appetite is satisfied by what you feed it… Sounds obvious right? If we are not hungry for the presence and purposes of God, then you can be sure we are hungry for something else.

Worship is a life that is centered on God’s heart, and what He thinks is good.

Warriors bow our knee to only one King, the one who can make us free. God’s redemptive power frees us to stand when others retreat, and to lead with others shrink back.

Father God did not battle for our hearts to turn us into slaves or worker drones. He didn’t leave us as orphans.

One of the greatest battles a man faces is his past. We often allow those past events that haunt us… our mistakes; our failures and sins… affect our choices and decisions.

I love being completely surprised by grace.

This Scripture tells us that joy comes in the morning but doesn’t say that my troubles would disappear overnight. It’s not a formula that promises that you’ll feel happy at sunrise.

Henry David Thoreau had this to say about our past “Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.” The Apostle Paul said this way in Philippians 3:13 “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.”

One of my best days as a parent came when all my kids could dress themselves. The day they could purposely put articles of clothing on was… freedom. I didn't care if those articles of clothing matched or inside out… I was just glad they were on! Thankfully... throughout Scripture, God has laid out our wardrobe.

Since I lost my wife Christine to cancer in 2019, this verse in Matthew 5:4 has been huge in my moving forward. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” You can mourn and celebrate at the same time; one does not negate the other. In fact, I believe mourning IS a form of celebration, solemn for sure, but an active honoring of the lost loved one.

When life or the enemy punches us in the mouth… we must learn how to counterpunch.