The cult of “manhood” is still causing problems in
the body of Christ.
We are not called to fulfill any duty as men or
women, We are not called to live our lives in accordance with any set of rule.
In fact, the law is designed to bring every one of us to the end of ourselves, forcing us to acknowledge that of
ourselves, we can do nothing:
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
That every mouth be stopped, and all stand guilty
before God.
Apart from me, you can do nothing.
Most men will press other men in churches to
measure. Paul writes two things regarding this urge to merge:
“It is good for a man not to touch a woman." (1 Corinthians 7: 1)
Marriage is a choice, one in which God moves in the
spirit of man, whether to marry or not. There is no law, no custom, which
forces a man to marry. It is now by the grace
of God, if indeed God wills that you enhance your life in a marriage.
I am happy to share, though, that for the insults or the railings from some people, there were two other youth incarcerated who understood or at least respect the choice that I had made not to marry.
"It's because you have God in your life," one student told me. Another student appreciated the point that a man does not have to be married to be complete, probably wishing that he could have the same peace.
No matter what we may feel within ourselves. Flesh and blood cannot give us the life that we crave, the security so grossly lacking in our lives, cannot remove the death and trespasses that reign in our mortal bodies.
Christ Jesus quickens every man to have life, and have it more abundantly. An outpouring of this manifest of life may
lead to marriage, or it may lead to the single life. Yet time and again young individuals think that getting married will solve the problems that they are facing in their lives, the gaping emptiness of floating through life without any connection to anyone else.
Another staff member at Los Padrinos commended my singlehood. "I have a lot of guy friends, and trust me, they have grown to hate their wives." Nothing could be a clearer example of the disillusion that afflicts people looking for love, but in all the wrong places.
There is no shame if a man
or woman chooses not to marry — it's just that simple!
students thus:
For the believer, we have the Son of Man living
within us, and He causes us to “step up”. In Christ we rise up to sitting in
heavenly places at the right hand of the Father, in Christ! As He is, so are we
in this world. The life, glory, and grace all exceed the weak and beggarly
standard of the world, including “:manhood” a pagan concept which puts all the
power and pressure on the man to make it in the world. Not one of us can make it without Christ in
us. The cult of manhood is bringing men into bondage, forbidding them to live a
life of glorious ease and dependence on God the Father, for fear of appearing
weak, effeminate, or unmanly.
Like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, "manhood" is myth that has brought more men into bondage than into freedom, to live up to a standard that no one can meet, to live according to rules which no one really knows or understands.
The crude and isolated manhood of the lonely hunter or the wildman has its roots in the refined 19th century, when the German King of Prussia forced his crippled son to live up to a proud and ostentatious Hohenzollern heritage. Prince William had been crippled at birth during complications of pregancy. The doctor took forceps to bring him out of his mother's woman, which a crucial nerve in the baby's neck. From an early age, the child suffered from neurotic and psychosomatic disorders, yet he was under intense pressure to measure up to the standards of German royalty, which under the ruthless prime minister had expanded over the entire German federation.
Troubled as a boy, overwhelmed as an adolescent, and nearly insane with perceptions of stregnth, to the point that he tied his nation into a hasty an disastrous alliance with Austrian, plunged into the terrible Great War, from which the entire German people or Europe never recovered.
The myth of manhood started early for the little Prince who later forced the world to pay a great price for militarism at the expense of commerce and peace.
Man or woman, our standard is Christ, our Favor is Christ, our
Acceptance, Glory, Honor, is Christ.
In Christ, we do not have to worry about the standards that the world presses upon us:
"There is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female:
for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
"And if ye
be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the
promise." (Galatians 3: 28-29)
He is the perfect man, and through Him
every man in the body of Christ is “Too Much Man to Walk On!”