Erwin McManus, pastor of Mosaic Church Los Angeles, says he wants to guide this generation out of being devil-blaming into warriors of peace who take ownership of their lives.
McManus says The Way of The Warrior: An Ancient Path to Inner Peace, is “the most important book” he’s ever written, and will equip readers with the weapons they need to fight like a warrior and conquer their fiercest enemy (themselves) to take back their lives.
“I was driving through Hollywood with my wife and I actually just had this internal narrative. I heard this inner voice say, ‘the warriors aren’t ready for battle until they have come to peace, it’s just the way of the warrior.’ I can’t explain it,” said McManus in an interview with The Christian Post, “but I heard it and I looked at my wife and I said, ‘I know what my next book is, I know what the first line is.’ And that actually is the first line of the book.”
“I felt like the book came to me, it just sort of felt like an explosion of things inside of my soul. All the unexplainable acts of violence and rage with school shootings, the conflicts across the world, the acts of terrorism and then here in our congregation I come across 20-year-olds who are dealing with panic attacks and stress and anxiety and depression and worry and suicidal thoughts. [Those] have become normal as a part of the internal struggle of this generation,” he said. “I felt like we’re reflecting on the outside world what’s going on in our inner world, and the world is raging with war because there’s a war raging within us. So in a very unique way, I wanted to fight for world peace by fighting for inner peace.”
In his book, McManus highlights teachings from biblical heroes such as Adam, David, Solomon and Elijah, and unveils eight dynamic codes of the warrior he believes are a timely message for this generation.
“So much of the book surprised me as I was developing it. I felt like chapters were unwrapping themselves to me. I format this book as an old samurai mentoring a young samurai and teaching them how to live life where violence doesn’t take over their soul but they only live to create peace,” the pastor explained.
In the shortest chapter of the book, which introduces code five, McManus teaches that the warrior “owns defeat.”
“That chapter talks about ownership. I think it’s one of the most important concepts in the entire book. [It says,] if you do not take ownership for your life, you will become powerless to change your life. If you don’t take responsibility for your failures, you’re never going to be able to step into the [next] level of success,” he maintained.
McManus added: “We have a false framework in our culture where we either try to deny failure and say, ‘there’s no such thing as failure’ or we always blame our circumstances or society, or the government, or the church, or our parents. So we keep blaming everyone else for the condition of our soul. And even if other people in the world are responsible for the wounds and the brakes in us, we are responsible for who we become from this point forward.”
The El Salvadorian native explained that he took that framework and directed the readers to take ownership of their lives if they want to change.
McManus pointed out that one’s fiercest enemy is themselves because most people are quick to blame the devil for things they just won’t take ownership of.
“One of the nice little nuances of Instagram is that young pastors and preachers are always posting short clips of their messages. What struck me is that almost every millennial pastor I know, at least all the ones I’ve seen, passionately talk about the devil and they blame the devil for every problem in everyone’s life,” McManus said. “What I think is dangerous is that conservative churches go, ‘Yes, they believe in the Bible.’ And actually what they don’t realize is happening is that they found a biblical way to abdicate responsibility for their life.”
“They blame everything on the devil and so they are powerless to change,” he declared.
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SOURCE: Christian Post, Jeannie Law
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