Ideals are the ideas of perfection that are often strived for yet rarely attained by most men. For example, the ideal character is a combination of many different characteristics of great men. The Ideal Government pleases everyone and oppresses no one. The Ideal Marriage is completely modeled after the biblical examples and functions as a mighty alliance between a man and a woman. While ideals are nice to think about, the majority of them are unattainable. Christ was the only man of flesh who was able to be the ideal man of righteousness, and He was also God. These ideals are images of perfection that we conjure in our minds but will never be able to attain. But they are very important to who we are as men. They exist to direct our behavior to the highest achievable levels. By concentrating on unattainable ideals, we raise the levels of our limitations so that we can improve ourselves.
“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love.”
Ephesians 1:4
If we cannot attain ideals, then why do we think about or strive towards them?
Because the possibility of being more than we currently are is inspiring and drives us to improve our character. And even though we know we can never be the perfect man that we visualize in our minds, we can get ever closer to that ideal through training and focus. The ideal man exists to inspire, not to discourage. It is to build up the strength of our minds, inspiring us to the possibilities of greatness.
There are two types of men in the church: the first man sees greatness, wealth, health or success in the lives of other men and becomes depressed, thinking that he could never reach the same level of accomplishments. This is the weak man. He makes up 90% of men in the religious world. This man never improves or steps closer to any ideal because he thinks that anything other men achieve is based on the talents they have naturally, rather than by work and perseverance. Or worse, they believe that other men achieve greatness because they are worldly or secular. Men who say such things are simply trying to make excuses for why they themselves are failures.
The second man strives every day to become the ideal that he has created in his mind, even though he knows that he will never reach it. He hammers on himself as a smith hammers raw iron to move it closer to perfection every day. There are very few men in the church who embody this attitude and embrace the work that it takes to become a great man. It is much easier for us to merely be content with who we are as men, or to accept our current limitations. Most men would rather say, “This is just the way I am” rather than say “I can become whatever kind of man I want to be if I’m willing to work”.
I urge you to never be content with you who are as a man.
Never settle for your current level of strength, focus or emotional control. While Scripture teaches us to be content with our possessions and lot in life (Philippians 4:12; Hebrews 13:5), we are never to be content with our character or current level of righteousness. It is our job to construct personal ideals and apply maximum effort to reach them. It is our duty to reject what we currently are and to strive towards the strong ideal of the man of success, strength and faith.
Mantra
I think about what I am going to become.
Application
Place the ideal man firmly in your mind. First you must create him, and then you must concentrate on him every day. He can be fictional, but he must embody the characteristics that you want to acquire for yourself.
You need to be as specific with this exercise as possible. This may seem silly at points, but the more details you add to the ideal man you picture in your mind, the more realistic that vision will be. The more realistic your vision is, the easier it will be to model yourself after it. So ask yourself the following questions:
- What does the ideal man look like?
- How does he talk to other men? How does he talk to women? Does he talk to women at all?
- How does he dress? Effeminately or in a masculine manner?
- What does he smell like? How does he walk?
- In what way does the idea man react to stress and unpredicted events?
- How physically active is he? How strong is he?
- If attacked physically or verbally by another man, how does the ideal man respond?
He cannot be someone else’s ideal, he must be your own.
Without your own idea of what the ideal is, you will never be motivated to change or improve and work towards it. Your motivation must always come from within and must never be driven by those around you. Never make decisions based on what others want for you. Living your life in the shadows of other’s expectations is a great way to live a meaningless life and experience a painful midlife crisis. You must work towards your own goals.
The ideal man is there to be an inspiration, not a discouragement, so use him as such.
Think about who you want to be.
Focus your mind on perfection.
Strengthen your hand to do the work necessary to become the ideal.
Conduct yourselves like men.
