In this series titled Fantasy Island – Part II, we are going to take a closer look at the emotional aspects of fantasy. We are also going to discuss God’s will for men like you who want to grow in maturity, truth and reality, versus Satan’s plan to replace your reality with his fantasy, escapism and unreality.
Just about everyone has experience with an encounter of some kind, whether it’s women or men, young or old. I want you to see the reality behind fantasy
There is a huge, epic battle for your connection with fantasy. It goes to how you deal with reality. 
Mary Eagan, a writer for the Boston Herald, wrote this, “A couple of years ago this very smart, fun, very pretty 22-year old woman told me that she had been with men her age at least twice who could not have sex with her because she did not look like — or do in bed — what they had seen in pornography.”
How depressing is that!
Another social commentator, Todd Mullin said, “My observation is that there is precious little context for young men trying to figure this all out for themselves. Or worse yet, young men are being exploited by people who are profiting from their confusion regarding intimacy.”
Fellows, for us as God’s men or as men in general, you have to get this: you are not a static creation.
Let’s summarize the last few articles.
First, God has made you to mature and grow into your age. The maturity process is exactly that; a process. In that process there is going to be pressure, and when the pressure comes, just remember there are two stakeholders: God and Satan.
One wants to test you, the other wants to tempt you. One wants to develop you, the other wants to destroy you. One wants to use this test in your life as a stepping-stone for maturity, the other wants it to be a stumbling block for you to fall out of the process of maturity.
Second, there is the intimacy factor emotionally. You were made for intimacy. There is real intimacy and false intimacy.
Now, I’m here to tell you, “YOU CAN HAVE THE REAL THING.”
It doesn’t matter if you grew up without a mommy or daddy or if you are the son of a divorce. You can still experience having a special family, a special name, and a special love and blessing through the person of Jesus Christ.
You can enter God’s family and experience the love of a Father who will give you His time. He will dialog with you and show you affection.
In that process you will experience masculine love like you have never experienced. When you have experienced masculine love, you become secure in the love of the Father. You will then be free to stop chasing fantasy, and to start chasing the real purpose for which you were made, which is to know God and love people.
How?
Let’s bow our heads. I want to give you a chance to do this right now. I also want to give you a chance to repent and change your mind about your own relationship with fantasy.
If you have never heard this before in your life, God wants you to know, “You are my son whom I love and in whom I am well pleased.”
Know today that God wants to do that with you right now so that you can experience love, acceptance, approval and affirmation once and for all, for the rest of your life, from the loving Father who sent His Son to die for you, and to pay for all your mistakes, to make a way for you to experience love at a deep level as a man.
I know you want it and I know you need it. The question is, will you accept it?
God can’t do anything more to let you know that He loves you. He sacrificed what was most precious to Him to give you what would be most precious to you, love from a father.
Will you say yes? Is that your desire? Do you want your relationship with God to ?? right today and to know love at a deep level in your soul?
All you have to say is, “God today I accept your love; I accept my identity as your son. I don’t want to be merely a creation of God. I want to become a son of God. I accept you into my life and I accept you for demonstrating your love for me at a deep level by sacrificing your son Jesus, for sending Him to earth to tell me that there is no greater love than one man laying down his life for another.”
“Jesus, thank you for showing me what real sacrificial love is. I accept you in my life. I accept my place in the family of God as a son of God. Lord, help me to feel in my soul the love that you have for me demonstrated in your sending of Jesus.”
Some of us have lost sight of God’s love. On an emotional level, we’re acting very immature. You know you don’t want a relationship with fantasy, and in fact, you want a better relationship with reality, but you need power and perspective. You need a certain Person back in your life in a powerful way.
You need to add this into your conversation with God, and tell Him, “God I’m sorry for trying to escape my reality, and in the process, leaving my relationship with you. I want a relationship with you, but that means embracing the difficulties and realities in my life, knowing that they are a test and that you want to develop me. You want the things in my life to be a stepping-stone to maturity. Lord, I’m back. I want the process. Give me your Spirit. Fill me with your Spirit so that I can have courage to embrace the process, to win the change, and become something of greater value than what I am currently now. I accept the process. I’m sorry for chasing fantasy and I ask your forgiveness.”
Lord, I pray that you will be with all of us in this reading. Help us to live by the Spirit by keeping us involved with the Spirit. Help us to do life with you. Help us know that when bad or negative things come, it’s like cocoa powder. It might taste a little bitter, but the process isn’t yet complete and you are baking the final product of a strong Godly man.
WatchFantasy Island – Part II where men’s expert and pastor Kenny Luck shows us that the real issue of fantasy does not exist at the level at which we see the behaviors. It is rooted in deeper emotional issues and conflicts within a man. Kenny dives into the man-specific emotional causes that propel men into fantasy.
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Related Articles:
Men Are Built For Intimacy – The Fantasy Island Series II
Unfailing Love Means An Unstoppable Life – The Uprising Series II
Repelling An Attack – The Fantasy Island Series II
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Kenny Luck is the founder of Every Man Ministries and the men’s pastor at Saddleback Church. His 20th book – SLEEPING GIANT: No Movement of God without Men of God – is the proven blueprint for men’s ministries, and was recently released through B&H Publishing. Watch and read more of Kenny’s teaching here at EveryManMinistries.com.
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