Men, there is no sideline in this war we are in.

Yes, this is a spiritual war (Ephesians 6:12 NET), yes, it is easy to sit on the couch and watch a movie, yes, it is easy to get up, go to work, come home, sleep, repeat as necessary, but, is that what we are meant, as men, to do?

I submit to you, we are not.

Passivity is a very dangerous weapon the enemy has used for centuries and he has really gotten good at using it. Read on to see what I mean by rejecting passivity.

We start our text by looking into the following passage.

Romans 12:2 (NET) says;

Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.

To see this in context, I believe we should look at it in these verses, 1-8.

12 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service. ² Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.

³ For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith. ⁴ For just as in one body we have many members, and not all the members serve the same function, ⁵ so we who are many are one body in Christ, and individually we are members who belong to one another. ⁶ And we have different gifts according to the grace given to us. If the gift is prophecy, that individual must use it in proportion to his faith. ⁷ If it is service, he must serve; if it is teaching, he must teach; ⁸ if it is exhortation, he must exhort; if it is contributing, he must do so with sincerity; if it is leadership, he must do so with diligence; if it is showing mercy, he must do so with cheerfulness

In an effort to understand what is required of us, based on scripture, I believe that this gives us an idea of what we are to do and why.

We are told that our reasonable service, or the very least we can do, is to offer ourselves up as a living sacrifice, that we are not to allow the world to dictate what we do, say or think, but that we are to do what God wants us to do, testing what we hear from Him with His Word. Pretty simple, right?

Verses 3 through 8 explain to us why we are to be about our Fathers work, to paraphrase Jesus words.

God gave us gifts and placed us in certain places, so that we would do what He has asked of us. Not so that we could remain quiet and passive and watch others do what we were given the gift to do.

1 Corinthians 12:8-26

⁸ For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, and another the message of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹ It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as he decides to each person, who produces all these things.

¹² For just as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body—though many—are one body, so too is Christ. ¹³ For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Whether Jews or Greeks or slaves or free, we were all made to drink of the one Spirit. ¹⁴ For in fact the body is not a single member, but many. ¹⁵ If the foot says, “Since I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,” it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. ¹⁶ And if the ear says, “Since I am not an eye, I am not part of the body,” it does not lose its membership in the body because of that. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, what part would do the hearing? If the whole were an ear, what part would exercise the sense of smell? ¹⁸ But as a matter of fact, God has placed each of the members in the body just as he decided. ¹⁹ If they were all the same member, where would the body be? ²⁰ So now there are many members, but one body. ²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you,” nor in turn can the head say to the foot, “I do not need you.” ²² On the contrary, those members that seem to be weaker are essential, ²³ and those members we consider less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our unpresentable members are clothed with dignity, ²⁴ but our presentable members do not need this. Instead, God has blended together the body, giving greater honor to the lesser member, ²⁵ so that there may be no division in the body, but the members may have mutual concern for one another. ²⁶ If one member suffers, everyone suffers with it. If a member is honored, all rejoice with it.

²⁷ Now you are Christ’s body, and each of you is a member of it. ²⁸ And God has placed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healing, helps, gifts of leadership, different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Not all are apostles, are they? Not all are prophets, are they? Not all are teachers, are they? Not all perform miracles, do they? ³⁰ Not all have gifts of healing, do they? Not all speak in tongues, do they? Not all interpret, do they? ³¹ But you should be eager for the greater gifts.

What if your heart decided to just stop so that your lungs could pump blood? Not a very healthy thing to have happen, right?

It is the same in the body of Christ, where no one is more, or less, important than another, but all are needed and required to make it run smoothly.

Passivity is the idea that you are not needed, that your gift is nothing and that another can do what you do. This is a lie from the pit of hell itself and needs to be corrected in your life. God knew you before you were born, He made you with specific abilities, to complete His purpose. Others may be able to make up for your absence, in the same way we can learn how to grasp if our thumb is missing, but, it is never the way it was intended to be. You are needed in the Body of Christ, you are not unimportant, you are specifically designed, so step up.

As a biblical man, you must trust that God has a plan and a purpose for you, something for you to do and has no alternative plan, you are it and He has prepared you and those around you for you to be active.