The Value of a Mentor

 

Titus 2:6-10

 

 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.   Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.   Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

 

Often, we need to ask who is the audience, to whom the speaker is addressing.  Let me assure you it is not the older woman, nor the wife, it’s the older men.  Some men were blessed to have a dad that was a spiritual man and taught his sons the values and precepts found in the Bible and lived them out in front of his sons in the home.  But those numbers seem to be few in regard to the number of men that attend church.

 

Then there are even a few in number, that we're blessed to have men who mentor them.  Men in the Church have been taught that Iron sharpens iron, it takes men with a heart to invest in the lives of another man so that they can also be in the field of discipline other men.  My first mentor was a very successful oilman, name Jack Archer, Jack had another name in the Oil industry, it was dry hole Jack.  Twenty-one failures before he hit the one that made him a millionaire, and it was not long before we crossed paths that Jack and ten other businessmen came to the understanding that Jesus was all they needed, and Jack and the other ten ask him into their lives as Howard Butt, shared with them at Laity Lodge.  Jack was a great mentor, and he taught me what he knew, God loves me.  I had heard that for years but Jack, not that far ahead of me in his new walk was able to help me understand that truth, and apply it to my life.  He also introduced me to reading the works of C. S. Lewis and others Oswald Chambers and George McDonald. 

 

Jack was not the Bible teacher, that Ken Ryan was, nor a man who had learned to walk by faith as was Greg Hood, who beat into my thick head and heart 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”

 

If you are a man who walks upright in the world, what does that mean, Oswald Chambers, give this example; “To “walk and not faint” is the highest stretch possible as a measure of strength. The word walk is used in the Bible to express the character of a person— “.  If you have that walk, mentor a younger man, ask the Lord to send one, and wait till He does.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice