What It Means To Be A Man

Ok, that is a bit grandiose for a title, but I'm wanting to take a swing at this one.

Brenda and I started reading through a book together several weeks back. The book is "Love & Respect" by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. Each week, we spend a little time talking through the chapter we each read in the past week, focusing in on the areas that we each marked with a highlighter pen. This began as an extension of a weekly prayer time that her and I have. It took around 16 years of marriage before I acted as the leader of my household and made this happen. A man does this if he is really going to be a man.

I was not inspired to write this just to say that, I have something a whole lot more substantial. I am convinced that one of the most important things about what it means to be a man comes from Ephesians 5:25-30. This passage informs us in how we should think, the attitude we have, and the action we take in pursuit of true manhood.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

This passage is part of the foundational passage for Dr. Eggerichs' book. And if you get a chance to go through the book, do it. From his book, my personal experience as of late, and my intent to be the best man I can be, I feel pretty strongly about this passage. I feel like it's application reaches far beyond a man's relationship with his wife. This passage can find application for men of any status, and for married men, beyond their spousal relationship.

I have come to realize that a real man, a real leader, is one whose thoughts, attitudes, and actions toward others (especially his wife) reflect the pattern demonstrated in Jesus Christ. It is so easy to react or act based upon another's offense (intentional or not) toward me, or their failure to be what I expect. This is not manly, it is childish, and is certainly not anywhere near the role model Jesus set forth for me. That passage says that Jesus so loved the church (you and me) that he gave himself up for her. It says that he pursued removal of offensiveness and failure in the church through sacrifice.

I want to be a real man. (C'mon jokers, get serious here and stop thinking of Pinnochio!) When people offend me, fail me, hurt me, disappoint me, dismiss me, or sin against me in any other way, I want to be like Jesus. He truly is the ultimate role model. He conquered hate, division, even death through loving sacrificially. I was deeply struck by Dr. Eggerichs' words: "Gentlemen, it is true you are not designed by God to enjoy contempt, but He does call you to take the hit." It is just another way of saying, "take it like a man". Yeah, I want to be able to "take the hit" "like a man" as I pursue good relationships with my wife, my friends, my church, my community, my world. Ah, idealism. Now, many of us might say, "I take the hit all the time". The challenge is to do so without being a whiny sissy about it. I know I have a big hurdle with that. It's what they call the 'martyr complex'. Taking the hit the way Jesus did then, and continues to do today, means doing so with dignity, integrity, courage, and most of all love. 1 Corinthians 13 shouts in support of Jesus-like manhood:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it his not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For nwe know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Here's to learning each day how to man up and be like Jesus.