“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” – 1 Corinthians 13:11
Perhaps you have been so blessed to have “real men” in your life. When we hear the term “real men” (at least for me) my brain begins to think Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. While I am sure you can find virtue in most anything if you look hard enough. However, I am far more certain that you will find better examples of “real men” in the Bible, than you would ever find in Hollywood. The Bible gives us a clear picture of what a man should be, he should be: self-sacrificing, honorable, blameless, responsible, sober minded, courageous, faithful, humble…..he should be an imitation of Christ. When you contrast this kind of man to that of a child the difference is staggering. You don’t have to be around a four year old very long to understand that you will be hard pressed to find within him responsibility, honor, sober mindedness, faithfulness, and a tendency towards self-sacrifice. They are children; and they think as children! This is to be expected, but men are not children, and they are not to act as such. Paul wrote “when I became a man I put away childish things.” There was a knowledge within him, and he had a wider, deeper understanding of the world around him. A child can barely tie his shoe, a man can tie the shoe, buy the shoe, tell you who makes the shoe, and why you need to wear the shoe. Men have a much wider and deeper understanding of this world, and because of such they are endowed with a greater responsibility than that of a child.
If you take the above scripture in context, what it is really trying to say is: whilst we live and breathe on this earth our spiritual understanding will ultimately be only fragmented compared to God’s. We as humans are surrounded and entrenched in the here and now; and what we see we see by the eye of faith. How can our limited minds that are so engrained in the natural hope to understand the entirety of the spiritual? It cannot be, no more could a child of four grasp the concepts of this world the way a man of thirty four could. They are too young, they have no concept of money, much less the idea of bills and taxes. However, there comes a time when a child becomes a man and they understand; in like manner, when we die and go to heaven we become men and understand the ways God clearly.
So what then, does this give us the freedom to behave as children until death? Satan would have that to be the truth of it all, but Christ has left us a more perfect truth, and a better way. He has made for us a heaven to go to heaven in. Jesus wants us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. There will always be truths past our understanding and ways beyond our comprehension, but God wants us to “press towards the mark.” Before we can meet God and know him in His entirety we must first be in fellowship with Him on this side of eternity. That takes action and commitment that is in no way childish. We must crucify ourselves and be resurrected unto new life. We must live and love the way Jesus would. There must be a death before death. They are a mirror imagine of the one another. We must die physically in order to meet God, and we must die spiritually before we meet God. It is true, we can never truly understand all the mysteries of God until we are in heaven, but before death we must put away the spirit of an adolescence and take on the spirit of “real men”. The spirit of The man, Jesus Christ. The devil would have us to always be children and “walk as babes” but Christ calls us to attain the Holy Ghost within, be a man, and walk as though we have not attained; for we have not, but we press. “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure:” One day we will all stand before God naked and open, and see him face to face. Do you really want to go to that meeting carrying with you a life of childish decisions?
