God Has Not Given Us a Spirit Of Fear

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

2 Timothy 2:17

I have heard this verse thrown around a great deal this past year. I think it is important to understand the context of what Paul was saying. In fact, it goes beyond thinking – I know it is important to examine the context in which passages are written. Otherwise, we run the risk of misapplying the verse to a situation where it is not related.

During the 2020 Pandemic, people threw around this verse talking about how we “shouldn’t have a spirit of fear“.

“We shouldn’t be afraid. God has not given us a spirit of fear”.

I agree with the sentiment but they are misapplying what Paul was saying in this verse.

When people were using this verse they were talking about being opposed to wearing masks. Saying that, “If God wants a virus to take me out, then a virus will take me out“. I was as opposed to mandated masks as much as anyone, even as a scientist, but that does not mean I throw caution to the wind thinking that “whatever God wants to kill me can just go right ahead and kill me“. That is the mentality of hyper-conservative people who think that every move of the left is an attempt to stamp out all freedom. While on the complete opposite side of the spectrum you have the “masks at all cost” people.

I do not like extremists when it comes to group beliefs. I like personal extremism and intensity, but when groups get together and concentrate this extreme energy into a mob, it is not good for anyone. Previously I wrote in two separate articles that beliefs radicalize when they place the belief itself above God. Groups radicalize when they do the same thing.

Related: Radical Liberalism.

Related: Radical Conservatism.

All of that is beside the point. No matter what side of the political or religious spectrum you fall under, applying 2 Timothy 2:17 willy-nilly is inappropriate.

A Bible professor once made the statement in a lecture, “When studying the Bible there are three important things. Context, context, and context. The immediate context of the verse, the immediate context of the book and who it was written to, and the context of the book in relation to the rest of the bible“.

We often do not like looking at the context because that means we have to do a little background research about the book, chapter, and verse we are studying. It means we cannot take our first impression of whatever the text is saying and believe it right off the bat. It is easier to do that because it liberates us from the work of thinking. But the consequence is that we frequently misunderstand the bible.

Therefore, the context of 2 Timothy is this: the book was written by Paul to Timothy who was at a church at the time. The central theme of the book is “Christians must endure hardships for the cause of Christ“.
spirit of fear


Back in the first century, this meant literal persecution. So when Paul is telling Timothy and the church that “God has not given us a spirit of fear“, it was specifically related to Christian persecution.

While it would be incredibly easy to call a pandemic “persecution“, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Last I checked the government was not putting Christians to death. And the majority of the population still had access to food and water. At the risk of sounding flippant, there was not much real suffering on a global scale. Sure, there was death and starvation, but it was a small percentage of the world. Most people still had food, water, and shelter and never lost these things.

We did not have the degree of persecution that Paul or the first century Christians were dealing with. They were being tortured and killed for their beliefs. And Paul still needed to write to them and encourage them that God had not given them a spirit of fear.

So let’s understand the context of these verses. Yes, it is true that God has not given us a spirit of fear. But this verse specifically means that we should not be fearful regarding the hardships of Christianity. And I would not call a virus a hardship that faces Christianity.

6 Ways Christian Men Can Be More Sexually Arousing

There is a huge discrepancy between arousal and attraction. Religious men love to conflate the two and make them the same thing. But this conflation is not limited to just Christian men. Perhaps 80% of men in the entire world unknowingly combine the two completely different phenomena of attraction and being arousing.

So, what is the difference? At the most basic level, attraction is how well fit you are for a long-term relationship while arousal is how well you can generate genuine sexual arousal in your wife.

You do not have to be arousing to be attractive, but if you are arousing you generally are attractive as well. This is because the trappings that go along with arousal (career success and mastery to name a few) are also attractive for long-term relationships.

Most marriage books teach you how to be attractive, not arousing.

They teach you how to be a good husband and take care of your wife over the long term, but they do not teach you how to get her engine going. This is primarily because most religious men simply do not know how to arouse their wives.

You can be the most attentive, loving, caring, and wonderful husband in the world and still be unable to make your wife physically crave sex with you. That fact is what they do not teach you in those marriage books. She may feel a desire for you emotionally and as a result, want to have sex with you, but she will never viscerally crave a sexual interaction.

Those standard books on marriage are useful for maintaining harmony in the household, improving the tranquility and various emotional aspects of your marriage; but if you want a passionate sexual relationship with your wife, it simply will not happen if you are only an attractive man. You must learn how to be arousing. And it is a skill that can be learned.

Instilled within you is all the knowledge of how to be arousing.

You likely knew this as a young man but had it educated out of you by your mother or the effeminate school systems, and it must be retaught. The feminine-centric society has misinformed you about what is arousing to women. Most men simply believe everything they are told, especially what they are told by women. But when women communicate, they do not tell the whole story with their words alone. You must train yourself to see beyond the content of their words and look into their behaviors instead. Women rarely say what they want, so you have to look at their actions.

Deep within your masculine nature, you already know everything you need to do in order to be arousing, it just needs to be reawakened. I am going to give you a starter pack of six things that without fail arouse genuine sexual desire.

This is key, the sexual desire must be genuine.

Marriage books teach you how to earn desire by trading goods or services. This is never genuine arousal; it is always negotiated. Any intimacy that is negotiated will leave you unfulfilled. You will know in the back of your mind that the intercourse was nothing more than an opportunistic exchange.

You must learn how to be arousing by being masculine and glorious. Doing little chores around the house, being affectionate, and speaking your wife’s love language are all fine and dandy, but they will not give you what you want. They have not given husbands what they are missing in life: a wife who genuinely wants to have sex with them on a regular basis.

This is because men have traded masculinity for effeminacy, and they have believed every word that comes out of the mouth of the metrosexual male. There is nothing wrong with the character of the Christians writing these marriage books, just that they are completely ignorant of how to sexually arouse a woman. And this is not the fault of women either. Most religious women have no idea what arouses them and could not articulate it if they tried. Not because they are unintelligent, but because religion has done an excellent job of repressing the sexual urge and condemning even simple thoughts of sex.

Articulation of a concept follows deep thought about that concept, and religious people cannot articulate what they have not thought about deeply, especially if the item they need to articulate is sexual in nature.

This is not the fault of Christian men and may actually be a symptom of a well-behaved life. If these men did not start having sex until they were married, then they should not be expected to know anything about arousing genuine desire in their wives. However, there is no excuse for marinating in that ignorance for decades as most men do. Men need to relearn how to be arousing and also study techniques of seduction for use on their wives. We cannot let the people of the secular world have all the fun, which is what they think they are doing. So, apply these six principles as best you can, and you will already be well on your way to arousing genuine sexual interest.

I – Arousing Men Put Their Life Mission First

Arousing

Men were built by God to work, to have a purpose. When men put their wives above this mission, they trigger many unintended consequences. Because what they do not know, and what religion does not teach them, is that their wives do not even want to be placed above their man’s mission. Their wives know when their husband has a purpose, a mission, and when he is working on it. And when her husband is being excellent at this mission, that is arousing.

When a man is excellent in his mission, his wife feels the natural feminine urge to support him in this endeavor. This is how women were designed from the very beginning. They were built to help men, and they crave this position. They were designed to patch men up, recharge their batteries and send them back into the fray. This is why women always want to know how their husband’s day went at work. They want to know if any progress was made on their shared life vision. Earl Nightingale noted that this is a woman’s way of asking, “How did we do today?”

Sure, being a good provider is attractive, but it is not sexually arousing.

It does not turn women on that you go to a 9-5 unless that job is inherently masculine or reflects high affluence. Be sure to recall the difference between the two: attraction is about the long-term potential and providing, arousal is about being sexually desirable. Being excellent at what you do is both arousing and attractive because it symbolizes good provider ability as well as masculine mastery. And it is possible to be a good provider without being a man of excellence.

If you want to be more arousing to your wife, chase excellence. And as a byproduct of being excellent, you will be a great provider. Do not pursue being a great provider directly, you will only be attractive and not arousing. You will be a good supplement to a woman’s life, but she will never appreciate what you do for her. Women cannot fully appreciate the fact that a man trades units of his life called “hours” in exchange for money. Yes, women can work too, but there is something about this concept of trading units of life to facilitate the lives of others that women will never understand about a man’s role.

This is the burden of man, that no one can truly know him.

II – Arousing Men are Traditionally Masculine

New age masculinity, which is essentially femininity with a beard and CrossFit membership, is not arousing to women. When it comes to traditional masculinity, you have to ignore what women say and look directly at their actions. More specifically, look at the types of men that women are generally (but not always) aroused by.

Is the effeminate man sexually arousing to women? No, absolutely not. For all intents and purposes, he is a eunuch. This is why women feel safe keeping effeminate men or male homosexuals in their inner circle of (usually girl) friends. Because what possible danger could these men pose to their safety? They can take advantage of having a “man” in their group as a weak attempt to scare off attackers, and they do not even have to give one drop of sex in return for that “protection”.

Throughout history, it is the violent, masculine (but not moral) men that have posed the threat to women. If a woman includes one of these men in her inner circle, he may feel entitled to sex in exchange for his presence and protection. No such need exists if you have an effeminate man in your friend group.

Men also need to understand a bleak truth: men and women can never be friends.

If a man has female friends, he is effeminate. Even if only by virtue of the proverb, “ You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. If one of those people is a woman, you will be influenced by her and become more feminine. Men and women are not and cannot ever be friends. Either the man is effeminate/homosexual, or he is sexually interested in the female. There is no third option.

What is arousing to women is traditional masculinity. Strength, courage, honor, and mastery, as outlined in The Way of Men. Women like it when men engage in masculine behavior. This is why many sports or athletes are arousing to women. Do you think women care about the technical skill and ability of the game or do they like seeing masculine men compete against one another so they can pick out the best ones to try to lock down? Many sports are a simulation of war, and women are aroused by warriors. Warriors represent protection and security, which is one of the many currencies that women value. Be a warrior, at least in spirit, if you want to be more arousing.

Also, there is an undulating discussion in society and religion about something called “choreplay”.

Choreplay is the idea that if you do chores around the house, like a good little boy, your wife will be aroused by this and will not be able to contain her passions for you. Now, this does not even pass the sniff test. It smells like a stupid idea, but every several years or so it gains traction again.

I will tell you now, chores are good for attraction but bad for arousal. If you want to arouse your wife by doing things around the house, those tasks must be masculine. You have to repair things, chop wood, build furniture, or something along those lines. Doing chores around the house that are not masculine will not be arousing to anyone. Again, those chores might make you attractive, they will not make you more arousing.

III – Arousing Men are Physically Fit

Many religious marriage texts try to do away with the biological drive for sex and frame the act as a purely emotional and spiritual activity. While sex is certainly emotional, that is only one part of it. We cannot do away with the physical aspect of sex.

I think one of the reasons religious men want to avoid the biological portion of sex is because it is their weak point. Physicality is where most religious men fall short when it comes to arousing their wives.

It is not entirely their fault, because they have been taught their whole lives that women are looking for good men who take good emotional care of their wives. So, if a man works hard to become a good man and take care of the emotions of his wife, he will be rewarded with a fulfilling sex life. Maybe that is true and maybe it is not. But simply being a decent man will not help men get the passionate sex they really want. That passion can only come from true desire, and most men are not physically desirable to generate that passion in their wives.

Most men truly want to be wanted, desired, even lusted after by their wives.

But those feelings are not aroused if you are simply a good man. There needs to be some base element of physical attraction. The stronger this element, the better the foundation for sex. Of course, the physical attraction cannot be the only part of sexual attraction, but it is certainly more significant than most religions try to make it.

At some point, we have to reconcile the fact that for centuries women have occasionally resorted to having promiscuous sex with men they barely know. Anyone who knows anything about Woodstock understands this fact. Most religions try to argue that this is incredibly emotionally unfulfilling for women. But the fact still remains that women are engaging in promiscuity at increasing rates since the Free Love movement.

Some men have graphed this behavior across a woman’s monthly cycle and have been able to pinpoint the times when fertility, and therefore sexual desire, is at its highest. At that point of high fertility, women are more likely to be promiscuous. And religion still has to contend with the very apparent fact that every year college girls go on spring break in Costa Rica and engage in sex with the highest value male they can find. On the bright side, this fertility spike is when most married men can expect their wives to be craving sex with them, even if these men are not very arousing.

Back to the original point of physical fitness: In the most basic sense, men need to be physically fit.

Most men write this off. Just like they will try to call cowardice and poverty “virtues“, they will call the person who trains the body “earthly” or “selfish”. Because taking care of your body so you do not die of heart disease at age 50, leaving your wife and kids stranded with no support is “selfish”.

Men who are physically fit are physically attractive. The fastest way for a man to increase his sex appeal is through training. He will get results there faster than he can get them anywhere else in the world. It may take years for him to achieve mastery or climb the ranks in his career, but he can make a substantial difference in his physique in just 6 months of training.

Physical attraction is the base of every physical relationship.

A man will not approach and talk to a woman unless he is physically attracted to her. No relationship can begin without the element of physical attraction, and it is up to the man to maintain or even improve upon this attraction through intense exercise, preferably strength training.

Sure, a man can get away with being a runner, but the results will not make him physically attractive to the majority of women. The common man needs more muscle tissue, and every man knows this intuitively. When you see women swooning over men, they are not swooning over the marathon runner. They are swooning over the football player or the strength athlete. Muscle tissue is the signal flag for testosterone, so take advantage of your masculinity and add muscle tissue to your frame.

IV – Arousing Men are Arousing to Other Women

These next two components of arousal go together, and this first one may make religious people highly uncomfortable. Women want to be with a man who other men want to be, and other women want to be with. It is arousing for a woman when other women want her man. This is due to a combination of factors. First, when other women want her man, this proves that he is truly attractive, and not just to her.

She needs to know that her husband is not a loser, and when other women want him, this is a form of evidence for that. Secondly, it stirs up healthy anxiety in her that is built upon her desire to keep her man for herself. She acts on this desire through sex and is one of the times a woman will genuinely, physically crave sex. Women want to have sex with the highest value men, so when a woman’s man demonstrates that he is of high value, the woman will act on this knowledge by “locking him down” and having sex with him.

This is also advantageous for the man, because if he is desirable to other women, then his woman will have to take excellent care of herself. You do not see a high-value man with a 300-pound woman. She would not be able to compete with all the options available to her man in that state. The wife of the high-value man has no choice but to take care of herself and keep herself in shape. She is pushed to do so by the feminine competitive spirit in her.

The only time this is not true is if the man is incredibly disagreeable.

If a man is high value and successful in his career and has achieved mastery, he will be attractive. However, if he is highly disagreeable, he can make himself unattractive to other people he talks to. If his woman knows this, she can let herself go. Because he might be arousing, but he cancels it out by acting like a fool. However, this is principle can be highly circumstantial and has many exceptions.

Another thing to note is that if you are arousing to other women, you need to take extreme care with protecting yourself. Never place yourself in compromising situations. When it comes to your sexual discipline you must declare martial law on your body. Here are the laws:

  1. I am never alone with a woman who is not my wife.
  2. I do not talk to other women unless absolutely necessary (recall that men and women can never be friends).
  3. I make a maximum effort to avoid looking at other women.
  4. I do not talk to women online (and I am preferably off all social media).
  5. All communication with women is strictly professional. If it does not relate to my work, it is a useless conversation.

V – Arousing Men are Admired by Other Men

Women want to be with a man who other men want to be. You must be a man among men, a leader among followers, and someone who contributes great value to the group. This is especially true of the small group. Who are you in your circle of friends? Do you bring value to the table or does everyone else just carry you along?

Through effort, a man can ascend in his career, skills, and ability to think rationally. He can increase his knowledge and physical strength. The aggregation of all these skill increases results in a man’s character and value to the group. The higher the value, the more respect he will earn. The more respect and admiration a man earns, the more he is desirable to women.

Women do not want to partner with a man who is the laughingstock of the group. Women do not go after men who are in the middle of the pack unless they are forced to by necessity or age. They want the high achievers and the men who are respected by other men. Women want the tribe leaders, the warriors, and the masculine. A man who can be trusted in a survival scenario is the man other men want to be, and the man other women want to be with.

IV – Arousing Men Ascend the Ranks

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Women do not like it when their men are stagnant in life. They were designed from the beginning to help men along in their missions. If a man has no mission, no ambition, and is going nowhere, his woman will be annoyed and sexually turned off. This is when she may also begin to nag her man. A woman cannot be aroused if she is not allowed to live out her feminine purpose by supporting a man who is on the rise of power.

The man who remains stagnant loses his power. The man without power has no sexual availability even with his own wife. You may start out with a great sexual relationship at the beginning of your marriage only to have it taper off within 2 years. You might sit there thinking “Why doesn’t she want me? I’m still the same guy she married those years ago”. And there is your answer! You are the same person. Instead of improving and rising through the ranks or achieving any kind of mastery in life, you stagnated. This is a sexual turn-off to women. One of the many ingredients for sexual arousal is masculine ascension. 

As men we were designed to pursue and achieve.

Work was given to us before anything else. Women were given to men to help them in their work and to help them achieve their full potential as men. Women naturally want to do this, contrary to the modern feminist narrative.

Some of feminism is built on the fact that women believe they have to take on the masculine role in society. Would women believe this if the majority of men were pursuing excellence in their lives? Perhaps, but I do not think that feminism would be as pervasive as it is today if more men were modeling themselves after masculinity and striving to be more.

Apply these six principles and you will be a better man, and you will be genuinely arousing to your wife.

The Practical Consequences of Sin

Sin separates us from God. For most Christians, that is the end of the story. The introspection and analysis of evil go no further. There is nothing wrong with this. Knowing that sin separates you from God is all you really need to know to justify avoiding sin. But there is more to evil than meets the eye. More potent and long-lasting consequences to a lifestyle of sin and self-service. There are practical consequences of sin that we need to understand.

Some Christians call themselves virtuous because they stop analyzing sin once they realize it separates them from God. They apply the same nobility to themselves that the “God says it, that settles it” group does. There is no nobility in choosing to remain ignorant.

A further study on the consequences of an evil lifestyle is extremely helpful in multiple scenarios.

It is first helpful in learning how to communicate with people of the world. They need to see that there are practical consequences to certain behaviors that God has forbidden. The rules God makes are not arbitrary restrictions designed to spoil our fun, The regulations exist for a purpose, to protect us from unintended, practical consequences of sin.

And secondly, it helps with yourself and in modulating your own behavior and motivation. I find that I am more motivated to engage in specific behaviors when I understand the depths to which I can be affected by those behaviors. If I know that I am not only avoiding separating myself from God but also am avoiding consequences that affect me in the physical world, I am one-thousand times stronger and more committed to staying away from that behavior.

The Practical consequences of sin are those which are experienced even by the non-religious.

When a man contracts an STD because he slept with multiple women who were not his wife, that is an example of a practical consequence. You do not have to be religious to understand it. Even secular people understand the risks inherent in sleeping around and they know there are unintended consequences for certain actions.

Whether you are religious or not, consequences for your behavior exist. Every behavior has a resultant effect on your life.

Now I use the STD just as an example. I do not want to jump on the bandwagon of annoying Christians whose only marketing strategy for sexual discipline is fearmongering.

We all can understand that every action has a result. This is the law of cause and effect. While religion allows us to make moral and ethical judgments about behaviors, even the secular can benefit from studying religion. By understanding what behaviors are sinful, you can inadvertently uncover what behaviors will have negative practical consequences in your life.

For example, sexual discipline is about much more than restricting sexual access to one woman. It is also about avoiding the dozens of practical consequences that result when you indiscriminately engage in sex with women.

Every command in the Bible is more than just behavioral restriction.

It is about protecting humanity from the unintended consequences of immoral behavior. Behind each command is a guard rail that prevents us from decreasing the quality of our life on earth.

If you want a peaceful, tranquil life with reduced stresses and problems, you need to study the commands of God. These commands are the blueprint for excellent living.

The secular of the world will call it restrictive, but we know better. All the behaviors that secular people engage in leave them with emptiness in their souls. These people will continue to try to fill the void with whatever they can find, but it will not matter. At 2 a.m. when they get up to go the bathroom and see themselves in the mirror, they will know the truth. They may never admit it to anyone else as long as they live, but they know their life is meaningless.

Even on earth, we can understand the benefits of self-restriction. Diets restrict us from eating certain enjoyable foods. But we know that avoiding those foods leads to better results down to the road. We know we will be fit and healthy if we eat in a specific, albeit, restrictive manner.

The same is true for physical training. We have to restrict a few units of our time and dedicate them to exercising the body. This restricts us from spending that time elsewhere. Physical training has an opportunity cost. But we all know that the benefits in the future outweigh the temporary cost and discomfort of the present moment.

Study the commands of God.

You will find in those commands, if you study long enough, all kinds of traps that can be avoided. You will earn more money (and keep more of your money over the long term) if you study the teachings in the Proverbs.

Importantly, you will keep the wrong women out of your life if you study the Proverbs and teachings of Christ.

practical consequences

Worldly men like Stefan Aarnio are students of the word of God. Perhaps they do not believe every word is from the mouth of God and perhaps they do. However, they are taking the time to study the Bible because along with being from the mouth of God it contains timeless wisdom. The kind of wisdom that men both secular and religious cannot afford to ignore. Ignoring the teachings in the ancient text make men prone to making errors.

Wisdom comes when study is combined with concentration, rational thought, and application. Most people skip the study component and rush right into the action. While I am certainly a fan of taking action and charging into the fray, it also pays to do a little thinking beforehand. It is important to take some time and plan out the action before pulling the trigger.

Take the time to do some study. Study the Bible, even glance through other religious texts. I do not believe that any other religious text is from the mouth of God, but that does not mean it cannot contain some degree of insight.

We have to take advantage of the knowledge of those who have lived before us. We can only do this through study and application.

Through study and wisdom comes foresight. By understanding the practical consequences of sin, we can tailor our behavior in the present. We can take actions now that will help us to avoid consequences later in life. That is true wisdom. Being able to act in the present with the future in mind. It is not the only definition of wisdom, but it is one perspective with which to think of wisdom.

The wise man looks into the future, plans accordingly, and follows up his plans with action. Even the best plans are useless without action. This is the critical component. Action built upon wisdom is the key to a good existence. Wisdom and foresight help us avoid the practical, earthly consequences of sin.

Set High Standards For Yourself

When you set high standards, you will fail high above the successes of your peers.

High Standards Produce High Performance.

That is one of the central tenants of how to be a successful man.

In the modern world, we have done away with standards. In the feminine-dominated schools, even the grading systems are being done away with. Because supposedly it would not be very nice to fail someone even if they give no effort in their class. So we let everyone pass their classes because we do not want to hurt any feelings. Sensitivity is mass-producing weakness. Weakness is being churned out at a rate that would make even the Chinese jealous.

The problem is that eliminating standards does not help people feel good about themselves. Placing guard rails between kids and every miniature failure is not making them into strong men. It is making them into weak men who have no experience with anything in life. They have nothing that has refined them or made them into anything better. Men have no standards to compare themselves to. What is a man supposed to do without a standard?

Again, high standards produce high performance. It is simple as that.


I – Training Should be Harder than War

Retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willionk has recounted multiple times on his podcast that SEAL training is designed to be more difficult than war. After leaving active duty, Jocko was in charge of SEAL training on the west coast. His goal was to make training simulations to realistic, so life-like and stressful that men would find that facing enemies on foreign soil was easy.

The standard of training was so high that when men left SEAL training and waged actual war, they found it less stressful than training. How is that for standards?

Once, when asked about the ferocity at which Roman soldiers trained, a Roman general responded to the question with the following statement:

“They train with the intensity of war, so war has little effect on them”.

Other proverbs from the centuries are equally motivating:

“A pint of sweat is worth a gallon of blood”

General George S. Patton

“It’s the losers in life who go after the things they know they can achieve. Go after something you aren’t quite sure about”

Greg Plitt, Army Ranger. Retired

“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle”

Navy SEAL Maxim

Once there was a pitcher known for conditioning his arm to throw extra pitches. When the average number of pitches thrown was 600, he conditioned himself to throw 900. So when games with extra innings came his way, he was prepared for them. The team did not even need to call in the backup pitcher. His standard of conditioning was higher than his opponents, so he outlasted them.

Whatever you aim for in life, you will likely get. But even if you do not get it, you will earn just slightly less than your goal. If you set the goal to make an A on a test if you fail your goal you make a B. If your goal is a B, you might make a C. It would be better to start with the high goal because even if you miss it, you will still be more successful than most people.

high standards


II – High Standards give you something to aim at, but they also give you a clear definition of failure.

This is one of the many reasons why so many religious people dislike the Old Testament. There was a clear standard for behavior and it was heavy and difficult. Every man knew what he had to do and was held responsible for it.

Modern, weak men latch on to the teachings of Christ because they have more gray areas in them. Note: they do not have much gray area, but there is enough for people to wedge themselves into and remove the high standard of living God requires. These men also chronically avoid the clear-cut, hard teachings of Christ.

The teaching of Christ on marriage in Matthew 19 is an example of this. After breaking down the regulations for marriage and forbidding divorce outside extramarital sex, his disciples were even shocked at the degree of discipline Christ required. They responded to His hard teachings by saying that it would be better for a man never to get married.

Christ then doubled down on the teaching.

Instead of saying that His command was just a figure of speech, He went on to describe the degree of seriousness of the subject of marriage. Christ said that some men cut off their own testicles so they can be a better fit for the Kingdom of God. Does that sound like a low standard to you? Or does it sound like some men take their God extremely seriously and act on it?

Do not get too caught up in low-standard thinking. Christ requires more of you than you think, contrary to what you hear in the effeminate, modern religious world.


III – High Standards ensure progress.

High standards prevent stagnation and complacency. When you have some high objective to aim for, you cannot afford to be complacent. You cannot afford to stand still and do nothing. The man with standards has no choice but to improve himself. And the man with high standards has no choice but to improve himself greatly.

What gets measured gets accomplished. Without a standard, we cannot measure ourselves and our progress. With frequent, accurate self-assessment, we will continue to spin in circles, never improving very much. Maybe here and there we gain an inch, but we never make the progress we know we are capable of.

A standard is an ideal that we measure ourselves against. We should regularly take an inventory of ourselves and our abilities to see if we are stagnating or progressing. And it is critical for us to make progress in this life. To stay the same is to die.


IV – High Standards produce intensity and seriousness.

We will rise to the level of our standards when it comes to performance. The least serious Christians are the ones with the lowest standards of performance. Low standards mean low intensity. Low intensity means no growth.

We are going to behave according to our standard of behavior and what we think the rules of God are. If we perceive God as lax in punishment, we will be lax in service.

Low intensity = Low growth


It is critical that we be exceptionally hard on ourselves and force ourselves to higher standards. the most difficult times of our life will produce the greatest results. Harsh winds make strong trees. Hard years make hardy crops. Everywhere you look in nature you see that when the environment becomes more stressful, the weak die, and the strong become even stronger.


There must be intensity and effort in order to improve. We have to add heat if we are going to succeed. A million-dollar cake recipe is worthless if we do not have a stove to supply heat to that cake. We will put a bowl of batter in a cold cube and pull a bowl of batter right back out in an hour. Without the intensity factor, the best plan in the world is worthless. Without high standards, the greatest intentions in the world are meaningless.


V – High Standards Purge Low Performers.

People set low standards so everyone can be included in the group. This is common in youth and college groups at church. No standard is set, no accountability is in place, and no one improves. Because nobody needs to be left out of the group *sniff*.

When in reality the best thing you can do for people is hold them to a high standard of behavior. If they truly want to be a part of the group, they will improve. If they do not want to be a part of the group, they will quit.

It would be much better to have them quit early than for them to hang around for years just going through the motions.

Spartans would be mocked, even exiled for being fat. The standard of fitness was so high that you could lose your home for being out of shape. How is that for a high standard? But we are more “civilized” than that. We let people stay in the group no matter how spiritually out of shape they are and no matter how much they are dragging the rest of the group down.

When standards aren’t enforced, low performers remain in the Church as parasites. That is not meant to be rude, it is simply the truth. When religion becomes a fun little get-together or a social club, every parasite in the world can tolerate it. When they are no standards, no accountability, people will be parasites.

It is easy and convenient to go through the motions. A person in modern religion can go under the radar for his entire life. No one will ever ask him about his spiritual life. No one will ever hold him to a higher standard. The average Christian can be the same person at 70 that they were at 7. If you want to change this, you need to impose standards.


When no heat is applied to gold, it is not refined and the impurities remain inside of it. Without standards, impurities remain in the Church (1 Cor 5:9, 1 Peter 1:7).


VI – High standards provide a framework for evaluation and judgment.

Even though we do not like talking about judgment in the Church, it is incredibly important. We are to judge with righteous judgment. It is our job to judge ourselves. We also need to hold each other accountable since most people do not have the strength to stand on their own.


1 Cor 5:3 – Paul judges another man because he has a standard by which he may judge and by which he also judges himself.


Matt 7:1 – This verse does not teach the “don’t judge” doctrine that the world thinks. but rather to judge with righteous judgment. Righteous judgement is a result of equal standards by which judgment can take place (John 7:24). If we agree that we have a standard by which to judge actions (i.e. the Word of God) then we have the capacity to make righteous judgments,


We need clear evaluations

The eminently qualified marine and Christian. The marines and other branches of the military have performance evaluations that every member must go through. In these evaluations, a person is ranked based on how they are performing in various areas of their careers. this lets them know where they are performing well and where they need to concentrate and improve.

We have no such evaluation in the Church, but it would be highly useful. Perform your own performance evaluation on yourself. How are you performing in the various aspects of your spiritual life? Where are you succeeding and where could you improve upon?

Be ruthless when you evaluate yourself, No one ever became successful by lying to themselves about where they were or about what their strength is. Be honest and hard on yourself, this is the only way to improve. Evaluate yourself ruthlessly and set high standards for your behavior.


Restrain Your Sons

1 Samuel tells us that Eli did not restrain his sons. They would abuse their position as priests and take what did not belong to them. They would take meat from the sacrifices of the people. Then they would have sex with women in the temple itself.

God would later tell Eli that his sons would die on the same day because of their wickedness. And God specifically let Eli know this would happen because he did not retrain them.

The responsibility of a father is to remove wild behavior from his sons. We all grow up wild and uncivilized. Especially as boys, we are violent and cunning. These talents should be out to productive uses rather than be abused.

We learn from our fathers about how to interact with other people, especially other men. They teach us manners and the proper way to behave. At every turn, if you have a present and good father, he is correcting your behavior somehow. He does not have to do this forever, only until you can manage yourself with a reasonable level of efficiency.

What is the result when fathers do not restrain their sons? You likely see the result every Sunday at your church services. you will see children who obviously have no father in the home.

And make no mistake, just because there is a male in the house does not mean there is a father in the home.

There are many kids who just run wild. They have no discipline, they have no father restraining their behavior. It is obvious that they do whatever they want whenever they want. There is no discipline. For most of us, behaving like most kids today would result in the beating of a lifetime. And the cumulative result of those beatings is that we are decent men.

Eli did not restrain his sons.

They ran wild. They did whatever they wanted. Eli had no problem rebuking Hannah for drinking alcohol in chapter 1 of 1 Samuel (a false accusation for which he also had no proof). Yet for whatever reason, he was not willing to restrain his own sons. Later in the book we see that Eli confronts his sons for their behavior, but by then it is too late.

The roots of their behavior had already grown into the tree of their character. there was no going back to repair who they had become. They were men of the world, the hypocrites that are deplored by religious and non-religious alike.

We have a responsibility to restrain our sons as well as to restrain ourselves. If you want to raise a son who is well-behaved as an adult, you have to guide and restrain him while he is young. It is impossible to make up for lost time with regard to discipline. Once the young men grow up, they are who they are. Whatever they are is what you have made them into. If you do not want them to be atrocious little minions, discipline them.

One of the 12 rules in Jordan Peterson’s first book is to not let your children do anything that would make you dislike them.

Because if you dislike them, the rest of the world will certainly dislike them as well. If you dislike your children, you will take out your frustration on them. This will lead to you treating them worse and them becoming estranged from you.

There are not many kids I like. too many people in my generation have opted to not discipline their children. They have decided to “talk about decisions”, or discuss the various wrong with their kids. Because that is highly effective.

What never fails is a simple stimulus-response equation for correcting behavioral difficulties. Kids will quickly learn that certain behaviors (stimuli) lead to a swift strike on the behind (response).

I have often jokingly suggested that there should be a deacon in the church in charge of spanking kids. He can conceal carry a nice wooden spoon in his suit and whip it out whenever there is bad behavior being displayed by kids. Everyone knows those kids who need it. At my church, an old woman was knocked to the ground by a bunch of rampaging children. She broke her femur, and the kids still run around every week.

Free-market spanking is one of the things the Presbyterians get right.
restrain


Though having a deacon over child discipline is funny to think about (and somewhat strange), it could never be enough to correct the behavior of children. they need their father. Those kids would just learn to be well-behaved for an hour or so and then they would go right back to being little devils.

If you have sons, restrain them. If you were not restrained as a child, now is your time to correct your behaviors and become a man. There is far more at risk when it comes to raising sons than we realize at first glance.

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