Putting On Manhood cover image

Putting On

Manhood

The Courageous Journey to Biblical Maturity

James J. Holden

MORNING JOY MEDIA

Spring City, Pennsylvania

What people are saying about Putting On Manhood:

“I just finished reading Putting On Manhood and can tell you I really enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing this challenge to men to become more like Christ by becoming the men of God HE has called us to be. Putting On Manhood is a direct yet engaging challenge to men as disciples of Christ to live out the reality of what it means to follow Jesus. I recommend this book to every man who is serious about his relationship to the Lord. Christianity is not about where we go and what we do Sunday morning but how we live our lives. This practical volume gets to the everyday issues men face in their family relationships, work environment, and personal challenges through Jamie’s personal experience and biblical training in the things of God.” — Dr. Stephen R. Tourville, PennDel Ministry Network Superintendent.

“I was blessed, challenged, and encouraged as I read this book. In every man’s life there are many seasons, circumstances, tests, and trials that try to strip us of our God-given armor. This book is a reminder to the men of America to put on manhood!” — Brian Pruitt, Founder & CEO, Power of Dad Ministries.

“In Putting On Manhood, Jamie Holden writes as he lives, with an openness, transparency, and commitment to see men stand up and put on Manhood! Jamie’s stories are real and down to earth. He brings each principle he teaches to life and ends each chapter with thought-provoking questions. Putting On Manhood will help you and your ‘band of brothers’ pull out the weeds of your past and live a life that is worthy of your calling!” — Tom Rees, HonorBound Men’s Director, PennDel Ministry Network.

“A tremendous resource for men or your men’s group! After reading it, you come away with an understanding of the passion Jamie has for men’s ministry and the importance of the Mantour. A glimpse into a man’s world, the struggles and victories of being a godly man, with a great workbook to share with a small group of men trying to walk the walk.” — Thomas J. Sember, Conference Speaker & former New York District Men’s Ministry Director.

“Putting On Manhood by author Jamie Holden should be a part of every man’s literary diet. Using enlightening illustrations, doctrinal non-negotiables, and a transparency that’s both refreshing and captivating, Jamie has laid a groundwork for men to take a huge leap forward in their journey toward Christ-like living. This book will break through the shallow surface and get to the heart of the matter, it’s time to become a man!” — Anthony Pelella, pastor of Medford Assembly of God, Medford, NY, & author of The Bodybuilder: Where Physical Discipline and Godly Discipleship Collide.

“The Apostle Paul challenged the church at Corinth to become all that God was calling them to be by saying, ‘When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me’ (1 Cor. 13:11). Jamie Holden’s book, Putting On Manhood, is a great resource for individual men and churches to move toward spiritual maturity and true manhood.” — Bryan Koch, pastor of GT Church, West Lawn, PA, & coauthor of Follow: Learning to Follow Jesus.

This book is dedicated to three men who have been examples to me over the years of what it means to put on manhood and live as a godly man. Thank you Tom Sember, Tom Rees, and Daniel McNaughton for investing in me, challenging me, and believing in me. I appreciate you all for your friendship and support!

I also dedicate it to two very special ladies:

My mother, Kathy Holden, who invested her entire life into supporting me and raising me to follow God. I miss you and I hope you would be proud of the man I have grown up to be.

My big sister and best friend, Adessa Holden. Thank you for your constant support. I couldn’t have asked for a better sister to grow up with. I appreciate you so much and look forward to all the adventures God still has for us!

Finally, I thank my father, Jim Holden, for allowing me to share my full testimony in order to help other men avoid the same mistakes and pitfalls both he and I have made in our lives. I appreciate your willingness to share your part of our story!

INTRODUCTION

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me (I Corinthians 13:11).

I firmly believe God is doing a new and mighty work in the hearts of men. The theme God is speaking to me over and over is that it’s time for men to stand up and put on manhood.

The word God has given me to share with men today is that he isn’t looking for followers who are staying stuck in their childish ways. He is looking for men! He is seeking men who will lay aside their childish ways, whether it be addictions, struggles, generational iniquities, sins, or attitudes. God is looking for his men to stand up and say “I am putting on manhood!”

Every man will have to make this decision at some point in his life. I know I did. I grew up with a mom who modeled to me daily what it means to serve God wholeheartedly. My mom loved God with everything inside of her, and she raised my sister and me to follow God and serve him with total abandon. My dad was the exact opposite.

Shortly after my mom got saved, my dad began attending church with her. He went up for an altar call and accepted Jesus into his life. But he never put aside his childish ways. He never changed and became a different man. He just said a sinner’s prayer and kept living the same way.

My dad went to church every week. He became a respected man in the church, eventually becoming a board member and elder. But he wasn’t serving God. He was going through the motions. In the privacy of his own home, he was an abuser. He was a master manipulator. He was a diagnosed pathological liar. He was not what everyone thought him to be.

I grew up in this situation, with a mom who was devoted to God and a dad everyone called a godly man. As many young boys do, I idolized my dad. He could do no wrong in my eyes. Sure, emotionally he abused me, controlled me, and a few times, hit me. But hey, I deserved it; it was my fault. That’s what I thought. Admiring him the way I did, I slowly grew up to be just like him.

When I was twenty, our lives exploded. Through a series of events, I came to find out my dad was living a double life. He had secrets. He had another life. He was not who everyone thought he was.

I was devastated. I quickly went from a boy who idolized his dad to a man who despised his father. I hated him with everything inside of me. The only thing was I had become just like him.

I was a liar. I was abusive. I was controlling and a manipulator. I was domineering and degraded women. I was addicted to porn. I was following down the same road my dad went on.

Most of all, I was breaking my mother’s heart. She prayed for me daily to turn myself around and get back in line with God. She begged God to open my eyes. She tried to point out to me how much I was like my dad, and how I needed to change. But I didn’t listen to her. I couldn’t see what she was telling me. After all, I was a Bible college graduate. I had a call on my life to minister and serve. Who did she think she was to tell me these things?

Eventually though, God answered her prayers, and he showed me exactly who I had become. Through a series of events in which I totally lost control in a violent rage, I came to see I needed help. The details of that night are described in a later chapter. When my eyes were opened to my awful behavior, I was devastated by my actions. Instantly, I felt like God could never use me again since I was capable of this kind of behavior. I cried for hours. I felt hopeless and ashamed.

I cried out to God for help. I surrendered myself to his control. I begged him to help me overcome my childish ways and become a man of God. I confessed to him that I had no idea what it meant to be a godly man. I knew how to be a hypocrite. I knew how to be an abuser. I knew how to be oppressive. But when it came to being godly, I was clueless.

I’m thankful God heard my cries, and over the next few years, he did a deep work inside me. He began transforming me into a new man. He showed me how to put on godly manhood. Throughout the rest of this book, we will be discussing putting on manhood as I share the same principles God taught me.

Where did this theme of this book, putting on manhood, come from? Recently I was talking with a friend who told me how discouraged he had become with the men’s ministry in his area of the country. Morale among the men was low. Turnout was even lower. Men just weren’t connecting and growing in their walk with God.

As he spoke, I understood what he was saying. I had also been going through a period of time where I was wrestling with how to get men more interested in our ministry. I honestly felt like my ministry was failing, but as I talked with this man, I came to see it wasn’t my ministry; it was men’s ministry as a whole.

Later, another friend told me how discouraged he was at the lack of turnout at a men’s event he had planned. Even more discouraging was the fact that no one, not one man, responded to the message during the altar call.

Then a few weeks later, we participated in a big men’s convention. As men came up to our display and spoke, I began to sense the same feelings of frustration from them that I had been feeling and my friends had shared. Men were down and discouraged. Their church’s men’s ministries were floundering. Many had come to the convention alone because they couldn’t get a group of men together to come with them.

As I drove home from the convention, I asked God what was going on. What was wrong with the men in his church? Where was the disconnect? More importantly, what was the answer?

I got home, had dinner, and as is often the case after a convention, I was absolutely exhausted, so I went to bed. However, sleep was on my agenda, not God’s.

As I lay in bed struggling to sleep, God began stirring within me this message of putting on manhood. He reminded me of a statistic I often quote: four out of every ten men had no father living in their home when they were growing up. This doesn’t even include those who had dads in the home who were abusive, absent, or workaholics. Then, God showed me the era of fatherlessness that has come to roost in America. We have churches filled with men who are saved, want to serve God, and want to be godly men. Yet men’s ministry is dying, groups are shrinking, and spiritual apathy is taking over our men. Why? Men are stuck in their childish patterns. They aren’t putting on manhood.

Men say they have no time to pray and read the Bible. They are just too busy in our fast-paced world, yet these same men somehow find time to run their fantasy football teams and keep up with the latest in television, movies, and electronics. I am not talking about teenagers; I am talking about grown men, men who haven’t put away childish things. However, I don’t blame these men.

No one taught them. No one showed them the value of hard work. No man instilled in them the concept of enjoying hobbies like home repair, car repair, or gardening, activities that are productive and beneficial. They were raised by parents who used video games and TV as babysitters while they tried to meet their own needs inside. But God wants to do something new!

Men across the country are waiting for God to do something. I believe God is waiting for men to do something! Let me give you an example.

I want to get into better shape, get fit, and lose some weight. After asking God how to do it, he miraculously provided me with a Bowflex machine to use in my home, a brand-new machine for free! However, if I don’t take action and actually use the machine, it does me no good.

God wants to raise up men who are godly men. He wants men committed to him, to his ways, and to developing relationships. It is time men put away childish things. It is time to hang it up, get in the game, and become God’s man!

We need to start applying the lesson Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 13:11:

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

We need to put our childish things, our old way of thinking and acting, our natural mindset, behind us, and we need to put on manhood. In this book, we are going to learn just how to do that.

We’re going to start by looking at the need to stop letting ourselves get so easily entangled in childish things and to start running the race set before us. Then we are going to dive into how to put on manhood. We’re going to discuss:

In the final section, we’ll learn how to be men who live a life worthy of the calling. We will discuss what this phrase means, and discover how we apply it to our lives. We will learn:

That is the vision. The goal is to put away childish things and to put on manhood. We can do it together. We can grow in our walk with God, our families, and our relationships with others. We can stop letting Satan kick our butts, and we can start doing some butt-kicking of our own. Let’s get started!

Note: To make things easier for all readers, we put the group study questions at the end of each chapter for men to review on their own. For the convenience of those using the book in a small group, we have also included the study questions in the workbook section so you don’t have to flip back and forth between chapters.