Most exciting things about manhood?

Easy.

Hunting, fishing, shooting, football, basketball, baseball, most other balls, biking (motorized or mountain), climbing, diving, flying, camping, riding, cooking (hey, it’s my list), lots of things.

Oh, did I say hunting?

But what about holiness?

You want to put spiritual growth on a list of masculinity’s greatest excitements?!

Richard Phillips does in his book The Masculine Mandate. He argues from 2 Corinthians 3:18 this way:

God is increasingly working His own glory into us degree after degree, and He is doing this by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, whom God has sent to make us increasingly holy.

One of the most exciting things in my life is my growth in holiness, called sanctification, which the Bible identifies as the glory of God in me. . . . How exciting that God is working in me with the power of His Holy Spirit, to make me more like Him. What I am now is not all there is–praise the Lord. There is increased glory ahead for me, as God works in me through His word and through prayer by the power of His mighty Spirit (p. 38).

This Saturday Oxford Club for Men at OGC continues its study of Phillips’ book in chapter four, Man As the Image of God.

It’s not too late to get in on the action. Join us at 7 AM at the church office this Saturday for a bring-your-own breakfast and group discussion.

You might end up putting your experience of the doctrine of sanctification up there along side or even above dressing a white tail deer as a result.