I DON’T WANT TO GROW UP

Recently, I was driving to the church gathering on Sunday when my younger brother had asked me a very interesting question, “How come in Peter Pan 2, Peter is still a little boy and Wendy is a grown woman?” After thinking about what he had asked, I replied to him, “Because, Peter Pan is a little boy who doesn’t want to grow up, so he lives in Never land to escape the reality of one day having to become a man.” While we all laugh at the Peter Pan story, I believe that Peter is a prime example of what’s wrong with most boys today. 

ARE YOU CURRENTLY LIVING IN NEVER LAND?

Like Peter, most boys today are irresponsible, carefree, and only concerned with attaining pleasure for themselves. They don’t want to grow up and become men, rather, they want to be children forever and play in Never land for the rest of their lives. This type of behavior may be cute when a boy is 2 years old, but at the age of 22 they are some things that have to change.

We live in a society which prolongs the childhood of boys in a state called adolescence. During this adolescence, boys spend most of their time playing videos games, smoking weed, getting drunk, and going to clubs chasing after emotional broken women.

While this lifestyle may seem “fun” at first it will ultimately prove to be the downfall for the maturation of these boys, because they never grow up and end up being immature thirteen year old boys in 35 year old bodies. And this lifestyle is not only destructive to the lives and futures of these boys, but it’s also displeasing and highly offensive towards God.

THE CALL TO PUT AWAY CHILDISH WAYS

There comes a time in a boy’s life where he has to grow up and stop living in the ignorance and sin of his youth. When Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he provided a universal principles to little boys everywhere teaching them of what it looked like to grow up and become real men,

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.” – 1 Corinthians 13:11

The key phrase in that verse is “When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” Paul was not saying that someone had to force him or beg him to stop living like a child, but it was his own conscious decision to put away his childhood passions and immature desires in order to enter into manhood.

The bible teaches that when Paul became a Christian, God drastically transformed his life. God turned Paul from an Jesus-hating childish murder into a real man who loved Jesus, loved the Bible, and loved serving God’s people. That transformation that Paul describes in that verse is available for all boys who desire to be real men, through faith in Jesus Christ.

THE CHALLENGE

I want to initiate a challenge to boys everywhere to grow up, put away the sinful ways of your past, give your life to Jesus, and become a real man. Don’t be like Peter Pan by trying to remain an immature child forever. It is not cute and God is not pleased. The world has enough boys who can shave, it now needs real men who are desiring to make a change.

 “Reject Passivity, Accept Responsibility, Lead Courageously, and Invest Eternally”