I have consistently been hearing a radio commercial advertising, “Ageless Male.” It’s some type of testosterone supplement that renews men in their 40’s and 50’s to the vitality they had in their 20’s and 30’s. They claim that as a man ages he begins to lose his testosterone a few percentages each year so that by the time he reaches his 50’s he is only “half the man he used to be.”
Their final appeal is “Be the man you used to be, try Ageless Male. . .” At first glance this sounds attractive, especially when every muscle aches, your energy level feels just slightly above slug range, and it takes you twenty times of that commercial playing before you can actually clearly hear it and even remember what it said!
But think again, do I really want to be the man I was? Hopefully during the past 30 years of testosterone loss I have been gaining in other areas like spiritual, emotional, and relational maturity. When I look at what God has done in my life and where I am today because of Him, do I really want to go back? Though we may like to fantasize about the past, do we really want to go back there? And if we do, what indictment does this have upon our present condition and the past years of growth and progress. Have we not lost perspective?
Paul states in Philippians 3:13,14, “But one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Paul often talks about what he was and what he is now by the grace of God and I certainly doubt that he would want to go back.
Don’t buy in to our cultural youth glorification movement whether it be found in advertising or mirror gazing or casual conversation. If God has been at work in you then you are truly much more than the man you used to be. Paul said in II Corinthians 4:16, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” Don’t waste your investment in “Ageless Male” but trust in God’s plan of “Eternal Male”.
Tom Reynolds