PRIA punya peranan dan fungsi yang penting dalam rumah tangga, keluarga, gereja dan masyarakat. Banyak MASALAH akan terjadi ketika pria kehilangan jati dirinya dan tidak berperan sebagaimana yang Tuhan rancangkan.

Maka Allah menciptakan manusia itu menurut gambar-Nya, menurut gambar Allah diciptakan-Nya dia; laki-laki dan perempuan diciptakan-Nya mereka. (Kej.1:27)

Pria dan wanita diciptakan berbeda: Pria harus maskulin dan wanita harus feminine.

Secara fisik jelas berbeda antara pria dan wanita, bahkan komposisi tubuh wanita dan pria berbeda. (Pria 18-23% lemak; wanita 25-30%), supaya saling melengkapi!

Tetapi dunia (terutama Hollywood) memberikan gambaran palsu tentang Maskulinitas. Gambaran pria yang “cool” adalah yang macho yaitu menekankan hanya pada kekuatan dan superioritas fisik; contoh:

• Rambo; atau seorang polisi yang jago menangkap penjahat tetapi keluarganya berantakan; but it’s ok: Dar, der, dor dan terus tidur dengan siapa saja yang ditemui.
• Atau seorang eksekutif muda, sukses dalam karier; tetapi tidak mau terikat komitmen rumah tangga atau berkeluarga; hidupnya party all the time.

Sedangkan diantara orang Kristen seringkali digambarkan bahwa pria yang baik adalah “pria yang jinak”. Akibatnya banyak pria yang mengalami masalah dalam CITRA DIRI, sehingga banyak pria yang tidak menjadi pria seperti yang Tuhan kehendaki, tidak hidup dengan potensi maksimal sebagai seorang pria.

1Kor.11:7 “Sebab laki-laki tidak perlu menudungi kepalanya: ia menyinarkan gambaran  dan kemuliaan Allah. Tetapi perempuan menyinarkan kemuliaan laki-laki.”

Men – what an awesome responsibility you have! You are to reflect the Person of God to the women and children of the world.

Kel.15:3 TUHAN itu pahlawan perang; TUHAN, itulah nama-Nya.  | “The Lord is a warrior…”

#1: Tuhan menjadikan pria seorang yang PERKASA

Maz.24:8 Siapakah Raja yang mulia? Dialah TUHAN yang perkasa; TUHAN yang penuh kuasa, yang jaya dalam peperangan. (BIS) |  The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. (Amp)

Ams.20:29 The glory of young men is their strength…

Every man needs to know that he is powerful:

• Physically: laki-laki lebih kuat secara fisik dibanding wanita. Tetapi kekuatannya harus digunakan untuk hal yang baik, yaitu memproteksi keluarganya, menolong istri dan anak-anaknya. Jangan sebaliknya dengan kekuatannya justru melakukan kekerasan terhadap keluarganya
• Mentally: seorang pria juga harus memiliki mental yang kuat. Berani menghadapi tantangan.
• Emotionally – stabil, adapenguasaandiri, tidakemosional
• Spiritually 
• Morally – strong in conviction

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King

#2: Tuhan menjadikan pria seorang pemberani

• Something about risk and the unknown attracts most men.  They constantly looking for the adrenalin rush.
• There is something that is wired in every man’s soul from boyhood. Boys love to climb and jump and see how fast they can ride their bikes (with no hands). They want to see who can go fastest down the hill.
• The guarantee success of each new releases of James Bond or Indiana Jones makes it clear that man loves excitement, challenges, exploration, danger.
• Today we have “extreme sports”. The varieties of ways to almost kill yourself seem endless: bungee jumping, kite surfing, mountain biking, rock climbing, and climbing structures.

But this passion can be side tracked:

• In business he will aggressively careless
• His home life can become boring if there is not enough stimulation, so he will find outside activities to pursue to satisfy this urge for thrills.There are so many lonely women, so many fatherless children, and so few men around because man spends his entire weekend in front of the tube watching sports while his sons play outside – without him.
• Instead of becoming a strong warrior, he becomes a Vagabond.
• A vagabond is a wanderer who roams wherever they please, following the whim of the moment. Lack of commitment.
• There are many “sports widows”, losing their husbands each weekend to the golf course or the TV. Why are so many men addicted to sports? It’s the biggest adventure many of them ever taste.
• It’s no coincidence that many men fall into an affair not for love, not even for sex, but by their own admission, for adventure.

1Kor.16:13 Berjaga-jagalah! Berdirilah dengan teguh dalam iman! Bersikaplah sebagai laki-laki! Dan tetap kuat! | Act like men and be courageous; grow in strength! (Amp)

• It’s much easier to go down to the driving range and attack a bucket of balls than it is to face the people at work who are angry at you.
• It is much easier to clean the garage, organize your files, cut the grass, or work on the car than it is to talk to your teenage daughter.
• The courage to stay married when he could more easily run off with the woman from work who “really understands me.”
• Keberanian menghadapi tantangan kehidupan!

Courage to live in the adventure of faith!“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela

#3: Tuhan menjadikan pria seorang penakluk

Kej.1:28 (28) Allah memberkati mereka, lalu Allah berfirman kepada mereka: “Beranak cuculah dan bertambah banyak; penuhilah bumi dan taklukkanlah itu, berkuasalah atas ikan-ikan di laut dan burung-burung di udara dan atas segala binatang yang merayap di bumi.”

• Dalam diri pria ada kebutuhan untuk punya sesuatu yang dikejar untuk ditaklukkan (perlu alasan untuk hidup) dan untuk siapa peperangan ini?
• Dunia sudah membuat kita percaya bawah kita perlu mengejar kesuksesan.
• Men long in their very souls for significance, for something greater than individual success, material goods, sexual conquests, and even power.
• That is why men in their 40s and50s, after achieving what the world would consider success, are often struck with a sense of incompleteness.
• Midlife crisis is not about buying expensive sports cars or chasing younger women, although that’s how many men express it.
• Mid life crisis happens when it finally hits us that we have not really accomplished anything significant with our lives, that we wasted the nobility that God gave us by chasing after material goods and transitory, self-gratifying experiences.
• How come men look in their hearts they don’t discover something valiant and dangerous, but instead find anger, kekosongan, and fear?
• Men are angry, and we really don’t know why. Yang diperangi adalah anaknya, isterinya, dll. (Salah sasaran)

  After years living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion!

The King of the Beast:

• This wonderful creature should have been out roaming in the savanna, ruling his pride, striking fear into the heart of every wildebeest, bringing down zebras whenever the urge seized him.
• Instead he spent every hour of every day and every night of every year alone, in a cage smaller than your bedroom. His food served to him through a little metal door.
• His roar come down from the hills, but sound not so much fierce, but rather mournful.
• He just lay there, weary with that deep weariness that comes from boredom, taking shallow breaths, rolling down now and then from side to side.
• For after years living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion … and man no longer believes he is a man.