A Call to Biblical Manhood

During one of our many lake district trips in first year, there was a small disney section of a local shop, where Jo bought me a small Peter Pan figurine. I found it this morning as I was leaving the house, and I remembered why Peter Pan was selected. Not because it is incidently my favourite Disney movie, no. It was because I was (and I guess still am to a certain extent) just a big kid, frequenting toy shops, buying many a toy gun, and yeah, just basically acting childish. We bought Peter Pan as he was like me, a boy who never grew up.
And that is the way people want men to be now isn't it? Sat at home, doing nothing. The lazy man, the childish man, that is the man that most people want to be. The more femanine man perhaps. I don't know about you, but when I walk into a clothes shop nowadays, I find it increasingly harder to distinguish which section belongs to which gender. Men's sections are full of tight-fitting t-shirts, skinny jeans, cardigans (or mandigans as some of my CU friends call them). Even mankinis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mankini#Men.27s_bikini), guyliner and manscara now exist (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039275/Introducing-Guy-liner-Manscara--new-metrosexual-make-just-men.html). Such products once exclusive to women are now part of a meterosexual culture.
A meterosexual is a man, who is heterosexual, but is feminised in his dress sense and indeed make up sense, and that seems to be the role model of today: people such as Russel Brand are today's heros. The place of a masculine man is falling.
What does the Bible think of this? Have a think for a second, what does it mean to you to be a Biblical man? Well, I will tell you.
Read Ephesians 5: 25-33: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27so 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. 28In 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, 30because we are members of his body. 31 "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." 32This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

To be a Biblical man, we must lead, self-sacrificially, just as Christ did for the church. It is not a time to be lazy, put on our manscara and stay playing the playstation all day. We are to lead as Christ led. To work hard, to build up those around us, to pray and study God's Word and encourage others. It is a hard job to be a man.

What needs to change in your life to glorify God as a man?