This blog is an excerpt from a message titled Responsible Men by Rev. Dr. Samuel Olajire
To be responsible is to have a clear understanding of one’s duties and obligations, accept them, and apply yourself to carrying out those duties. You have things to do. You have duties to perform. You have obligations to meet. You have expectations to meet, and you understand them. It is what you understand that you can accept. And it is one thing to accept something. It is another thing to apply yourself to doing it.
A responsible person has understanding. A responsible person accepts, and they do what they need to do. When we talk of a responsible man, we are talking of a man who understands his role at the family level, in the church, and in the community, accepts that role, and then acts on it. A responsible man is also a reliable, dependable, and trustworthy person. When you give a responsible person an assignment, you do not need to pursue them before they deliver.
There are three institutions established by God in scripture: the family, the government, and the church. The family is the oldest of these institutions. And men are the heads of each of these institutions. So there is an enormous responsibility placed on men.
Intimate Relationship with God
The first characteristic of responsible men is an intimate relationship with God. The journey into becoming a responsible man on kingdom terms begins with having an intimate relationship with Christ. This is the foundation of responsible fatherhood.
God is the creator of all things. He is the one who created us as men and in his own image. And without a fervent relationship with him, it is practically impossible to be the kind of man he created us to be. It is as we are in intimate relationship with him that we get to know his thoughts, his ideas, his will, and his mind. Without an intimate relationship with God, you really cannot know him. You cannot know his will for your life as a father. You will not be able to know his expectations.
When you are in an intimate relationship with him and you study his word very well, you get to know his will concerning fatherhood. The word of God is the manual that you are supposed to study regularly and meditate on to get to know what the will of God is for us as fathers. If we don’t know the will of God for us as men, if we don’t know our duties according to scripture, then we cannot turn out to be responsible fathers on God’s terms.
Now, having money is not equal to being responsible. A man may have money yet he is not responsible. There are men who have money but they don’t take care of their families. They delay in paying the school fees of their children. They don’t have any spiritual input into the family. There is a deficit of nurturing when it comes to bringing up children in the way of the Lord. Those are not responsible fathers. They have money, they are wealthy, but they don’t play their role in their families.
And getting married is not equal to being responsible. Marriage may actually be what will reveal how irresponsible a man is. Sometimes somebody who is not married may hide a lot of things because nobody is making any serious demand on his life. But by the time you get married, you have a wife to provide leadership to, you have things to take care of at the family level, you have people with whom to relate. If you have not trained to be a responsible person, marriage will expose how irresponsible you are. Marriage does not make anybody responsible. It is either you make up your mind, you choose to learn, to know your duties, your obligations, your assignments, accept them and do them, or you don’t do them at all.
Abraham had a good relationship with God and he believed God. The Bible says it was credited to him as righteousness. The foundation of becoming a responsible man, a responsible father, is intimate relationship with God.
Living According to Your Identity in Christ
The second characteristic of responsible men is living according to their identity in Christ Jesus. Living in accordance with your identity in Christ Jesus is an offshoot of your intimate relationship with God. If you don’t have an intimate relationship with Christ, forget about an identity in Christ Jesus.
Your identity as a responsible man on God’s terms is that you are a covenant child of God, purchased with the price of the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed at the cross. You have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and you are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a mark of God’s ownership on your life. You are a carrier of the life of Christ Jesus. You are the light of the world and an ambassador for Christ. You are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live the life of Christ.
But if as a man you cannot say that you are a covenant child, you cannot say that you have repented of sin and become a child of the living God, you cannot claim that your life is sealed with the Holy Spirit, you cannot say with confidence that the Holy Spirit dwells in you, you cannot say that you live a life based on the principles of the word of God, then you cannot claim to be a responsible man on God’s terms.
There are men, if you know how they live with their spouses, you will be ashamed of them. There are men who live in a very strange way at home. And the way they live does not show that they have anything to do with Christ or the church. Some men have not overcome the investment of darkness in their lives. For those who are spiritual, when they look at such a man, they can say clearly: this person is not yet delivered. You have not been liberated from the kingdom of darkness. You may do anything in the church. But the Bible says by their fruits we shall know them. If you carry the identity of darkness, it will show at home, it will show in the church, it will show at the place of work.
A responsible man lives according to their identity in Christ Jesus. As men, we should be victors, not casualties.
Loving Your Wife
The third characteristic of responsible men is that they love their wives. And the love in question is God’s kind of love, the agape love. It is loving people in spite of themselves. It is a duty that God has appointed unto men to love their wives. We love them at all times. It is not only when they do what we like that we love them. Even when they go out of their way to do what displeases us, we must love them.
Naturally, if somebody keeps doing what you don’t like, there is a tendency not to love the person. But in agape love, you keep loving. Because the scripture says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for the church not when we were doing the right thing. When we were lost, when we had lost direction, that was when he showed us love. So even when your wife is doing what is wrong, you keep loving her.
What is this love? Seeking the highest good of a person in spite of their weaknesses, despite their frivolities. You just want this person to do well, to end well, to keep excelling in every aspect of life. That is agape love, a love that wants to bring out the best out of the worst situation.
The standard of the love we should have for our wives is as Christ loves his church and gave himself for the church. That is not an easy pattern. That is a pattern that requires grace to cope with. And if you are not living according to your identity in Christ, this is not a kind of love that you can show. As a covenant child sealed with the Holy Spirit, you are able to do a lot of things for people in spite of them, in spite of their weaknesses, in spite of their deficiencies, in spite of their frivolities. You still go ahead to seek their highest good because you are not doing it because of them. You are doing it because of the love of Christ that is shed abroad in your heart.
Colossians 3:19 from the Amplified says: “Husbands, love your wives with an affectionate, sympathetic, selfless love that always seeks the best for them.”
Now, there are women who rain insults and abuses on their husbands from morning to night. That is misbehavior of the highest order and it is not right. But even then, if you want to turn out to be a responsible husband and a responsible father, when you see your wife exhibit such foolishness, keep your head. If she provokes you and you react, you have spoiled everything. Men, keep your head. A responsible man goes on a rescue mission for his wife and for his children. Christ came on a rescue mission, and that is the pattern.
Training Children in the Way of the Lord
The fourth characteristic is that responsible men train their children in the way of the Lord. In Genesis 18:18-19, the Bible says: “Abraham will certainly become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. I have singled him out so that he will direct his sons and their families to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then I will do for Abraham all that I have promised.”
The training of children is clearly located within the family. Abraham has been presented to us as an example to follow. Men, we have the responsibility to train our children in the way of the Lord. But as a man, if all we know is to pay school fees, provide pocket money, and carry them to school, we are not training them in the ways of the Lord.
In this generation, if you fail to train your children in the way of the Lord, the world is there to teach them in its own way. And that will not be to your advantage. They can teach your children things that will bring tears to your eyes in future, things that will be arrows in your heart, when you see your children exhibiting traits that are so bizarre, so strange.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says: “Listen O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your arms and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.”
The negative manifestations you have seen in the lives of your children are a product of negligence. If your children are manifesting wrong attitudes and wrong behavior, primarily it is because you neglected your responsibility. You thought that once you gave them money, they would be okay. Money cannot train your children in the way of the Lord. It does not have the capacity to.
If you have failed to make the right investment in the lives of your children and your children are misbehaving, fathers, go and repent. Pray to God for mercy so that they will be restored.
Proverbs 22 says: train up a child in the way he should go, teaching him to seek God’s wisdom according to his abilities and talents. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it. Train your children in the way of the Lord. That is what responsible fathers do. Train them in the wisdom of the Lord and they will bring you peace.