On Being a Man

When I was a growing up, there were two things that were rites of passage for becoming a man. One was to swim across the Tombigbee River. The other was to bag your first buck and get its blood wiped on your face by your fellow hunters. Your first buck and your first time to make it across the river. These are the things that boys in my small town dreamed about. We identified those things with changing from being a boy to being a man. I am not sure why it was those two things, but that is the way I remember it. I can still vividly remember, all these years later, the first time I made it across the river. I can also give you a step by step account of everything that happened when I got my first buck. I can even show you the antlers if you want to see them. These two things did not make me a man, but in my mind they did. At the very least, these things were a part of growing up in my world.

Growing up is important. God wants us to grow up. There is a time when it is expected that we will be immature, but there comes a time when we grow up and serve the Lord as men who are mature in the Lord. Paul the apostle once wrote that when he was a child, he acted like a child and thought like a child. But when he became a man, he put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11). To put it simply, he grew up and acted like it. It is time for men in the church to grow up and take our place as spiritually mature men. Stop acting like a child. Christian men must stop living their lives like the lost boys in Peter Pan. They were boys who never grew up. I have seen this problem over the years in the church. Women volunteer to serve in the church in far greater numbers than men. Why is that? Many men are living like children. Children wait for others to do things for them. They can be quite demanding. Men take personal responsibility and do things for others. Are you spiritually a boy or a man?

It is time for men in the church to grow up spiritually. How can that happen? The Bible is central to our growth as Christians. “Desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:2). A steady diet of God’s word is essential for spiritual growth. Men, it is critical that we are spending time in God’s word. This is important in the sense of corporate worship as well as individually and personally in a quiet time with the Lord. You will stay a child spiritually unless you spend time in the Word. By necessity, the challenge to be a man of God includes a challenge to be in the Word. Men, are you regularly reading the Bible? God wants us to grow up. Get in the Word this November.

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