7.5 Start Now

If you are paying attention, you recognize that the time left in this present age is nearly over. We are living in the final days of the age of man ruling over man. A terrible nightmare is descending on this world—just before the dawn of the Second Coming and a bright new day.

How urgent are you?

When something is urgent, it is very important and needs immediate attention. What areas of your life require immediate action? What aspects of character development, of family leadership, of work, of service to God require your urgency?

If you are like most men, you probably have a long list of things that require immediate action. But Satan wants to infuse you with a mindset that puts things off and that stalls our actions. He hopes that you will be slowed in your progress and eventually fail. Our adversary is striving to build the mindset of procrastination in each one of us.

We must overcome that spirit and daily build the habit of taking action right now.

What Will You Leave Undone?

Procrastinating is being slow about doing something that should be done. It is delaying doing something until later for a wrong reason: You don’t want to, you are lazy, or some other excuse. Procrastination easily becomes a habit.

Here is how Pablo Picasso looked at it: “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”

What aspect of character development is worth putting off, to die having left undone? What leadership decisions for your family are you willing to die having left undone? Think of procrastination in those terms and you realize how serious this matter is.

“The lazy man has longings, but gets nothing: the diligent man is amply supplied” (Proverbs 13:4; Moffatt). A person caught in the habit of procrastination may have the desire. He may really want to do something. He may even see the need for action and leadership. But he fails to take action.

On the other side, the man who is diligent, who takes immediate action, will accomplish and have success. “He becomes poor who works with a slack and idle hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (Proverbs 10:4; Amplified Bible).

Never be content to slack off. Don’t give in to that preference for being idle. Your human nature wants to put things off, to sit down and vegetate. But if you are going to submit to God building godly masculinity in you, then you must be a diligent man—a man of immediate action!

Biblical manhood demands that we fight and overcome procrastination. We must be men who do the difficult things we may not want to do.

Take the First Step

To help you overcome procrastination, here is one step: Get started!

When you recognize something that needs to be changed or overcome in your life, don’t put it off.

Recognize this encouraging truth: You can be different today. It does not matter what you have done in the past; don’t let that weigh you down. Just take action! Be different today! Change things today!

Life rewards the man who gets started. Life rewards action.

It doesn’t matter what you mean to do; what matters is what you actually do.

Stand up and be a man. Call on God for courage, and confront problems. That is the only way to drive Satan out. Set your family life on the right path. Swallow your pride and get counsel from one of God’s ministers—a wonderful gift from God (Ephesians 4:11-13). Don’t allow problems to fester. Don’t pretend everything is OK when it isn’t. Take action right now to change.

Do your part in driving satanic influences out of your thinking, out of your family, out of your congregation. Do your part in submitting yourself to God—in prayer and study, in daily decisions, in counsel—so He can build you into the man He wants, expects and needs you to be!

Decide in your mind that you are going to take reasonable, responsible risks. If you don’t try, you will never succeed. And you almost never succeed on the first try. But to make progress, effort and real work are needed.

God asks that whatever we find to do, that we do it with our might (Ecclesiastes 9:10). A man should have real drive and enthusiasm for what he does. He should be driven by high goals and noble purpose. His posture, his voice, his facial expressions, his actions, should demonstrate excitement for life, with its opportunities and challenges. “[W]hatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23).

Lecturer Millard Bennett once said, “Everything great and noble in the history of man’s achievements is a story of the victory of enthusiasm over indifference, jealousy, fear, hatred and ignorance. Nothing worthwhile has ever been accomplished without it. It has ever been the inspiring force that has motivated man.”

Don’t fear failure. Babe Ruth said, “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” Don’t let past failures hinder your resolve. And do not allow setbacks to discourage you. You will face them—guaranteed. You may find something to be harder than you expected. You may get pessimistic blowback from a friend when you tell him about a change you are making. Your family may resist when you turn off the tv at mealtimes or begin holding family Bible studies. Your own resolve will flag at times. But maintain your belief in what you are doing. It’s not your goal that needs to change—it’s your lazy human nature that needs to change! It’s your resistance to change that needs to change!

Pray for God to fortify your determination, to supply you the will and the strength to keep pressing forward, one step at a time—”For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

Change is hard—extremely hard! That is why taking just one step at a time, and doing it right now, is so important!

The Men of Tomorrow’s World

When Jesus Christ returns, He will establish a world where men are men. The world He will found needs true godly men: men who can lead and love, men who can build and provide, men who can mentor, correct and teach. It needs men who are moral, selfless and cultured. Men who love God and His way of life—who rise early in the morning to pray and study, who build vineyards and tend animals, who work with their sons to train the next generation of men, who guide and teach and love their families. It needs strong, godly men who form the healthy backbone of strong, godly families, communities and nations.

This transformation is about to happen, and you can be a part of it.

This world today is languishing in its final, desperate moments before the return of Jesus Christ! Our families, our society, mankind and God are crying out for real men. God needs you to be a man. He has given you all the tools you need in order to fulfill His purpose in creating you. He wants to use you to prevent the extinction of masculinity as He designed it, and to help seed tomorrow’s world with true biblical manhood.

Every step you take to fulfill this purpose is worth the effort. Being a godly man will make you happy. Truly, serving God and serving your family and others as a man is the most rewarding and satisfying thing you can do!

Satan is trying to get us to put off the return of Christ and fail to build the character needed to help bring mankind out of the wretchedness that surrounds us. We must steadfastly resist that influence. Whatever task you have at hand, fight against the tendency to put it off. Whatever your assignment, your project, your aspect of character you are working on, take advantage of the opportunity to crush the mindset of procrastination. Be diligent! Work on it day by day. But get started!

“You may delay,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, “but time will not.”

You have read an entire book providing a vision of biblical manhood and filled with practical instruction on how to achieve that vision in your own life. Yet it is worthless unless you act! Do not hesitate—there is no time to waste! Now is the time to move. Start right now taking real, concrete steps toward your splendid future as the man you are destined to become!