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The War Against The Self

The self is one of our many enemies. We must fight daily against its weakness, insufficiency and selfishness. The self must be brought under subjection. The self is primarily manifested in the flesh, so when we war against ourselves, we are actually fighting against our flesh. Secondarily, we fight against the weakness of our minds, because any glitch we have in the mind will manifest itself in the body. The body is merely a messenger for our thoughts and a vessel that represents the cumulative results of our mind’s work. Therefore, even though we mainly wrestle against our own flesh and blood, the war must begin in the mind. Once the mind is under control, then the body can be brought under control.

“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 6:11-12

“The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways”
Deuteronomy 28:7

“The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright; their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked.”
Psalm 37: 12-16

We make the mistake of assuming that the enemy is primarily in the outside world, when in fact there is already an enemy living a parasitical existence within us. We must aggressively engage in the war against the self.

Many temptations come from within our minds (James 1:14-15). The primary enemy is within. Therefore, we must first defeat the enemy within before we can defeat the enemy without. We can never defeat an enemy outside the walls of our mind while simultaneously fighting treachery inside our mind. The internal war is won before the external war is won. We must focus on the enemy that is our own self, then we may conquer the world.

You as a man are responsible for declaring total war on any and all weaknesses that you have identified in yourself. You must adopt a vicious attitude towards weakness and sin. Become increasingly disgusted at your own behaviors and declare total war. Burn your weakness then sow salt in the fields and rubble.

Mantra

Crush personal evil into oblivion.

Application

The mind is odd because it can be defeated by itself. Two opposing forces can collide in the recesses of our minds, both originating from our thoughts. This is what is happening while we are thinking or internally debating about something. Two opposing opinions or desires are buried in bloody combat. The victor is whichever desire is fed the most thoughts. The thought that is thought about the most often is the one that will win and take root in the mind. Therefore, we must encourage the correct thoughts and think about them more while discouraging the negative thoughts by replacing them with something else.

Whenever your mind shifts to evil or to something you do not want to do, you must immediately replace that though with something else.

You need to do this before the thought can take root in the mind and grow into a tree. Think of thoughts like tiny seeds that can grow into an entire tree within seconds. Take anxiety for example: How many times have you felt perfectly fine and within a few moments of thinking you are in a nervous frenzy about some uncertainty in the future? That is because negative thoughts in the mind can grow at lightning speed and send you spiraling into defeat. You must not allow this to happen. You must increase your self-awareness so you are better at catching these thoughts before they can even start to grow.

When the battle of the mind is won, war can then be waged in the body.

The body of man is overrun with lusts of all kinds. Sex consumes the vast majority of man’s thoughts and personal lusts. He also lusts for power and money, but primarily because these tend to bring even more sex to the one who holds them. Skills and status are also lusted after, and these again bring sex. The lust for sex is the primary driver of man. All invention, creation and construction are the results of sexual energy. This energy must be redirected into business and power.

Men spill their seed using pornography or prostitutes when they could use that energy to create wealth of power instead. You should avoid confronting this lust head on. Try instead to redirect it to other outlets. If you war against the lust of the flesh and repress it, it will find a way to force an outlet because it is too powerful of an energy source to be contained. Suppress then redirect the strength of the enemy into anything that will gain more power for yourself.

Suppression, not Repression, is key.

Everything can be viewed in terms of sex, because as men, this is our greatest battle, and this battle pervades all other spiritual battles we face. Few make it out alive because they try to war against their own biology. Men use dams to redirect the power of a river, you must use strategically placed dams to redirect your own sexual power into constructive and creative endeavors. This requires leaving the house and building success using the power of the enemy against him. This can be done.

If this war is won, all other wars can be won.

Place armor on your mind.

Gather your thoughts to the task at hand.

Wage total war on yourself and unleash your raging fury upon your imperfections.

Conduct yourselves like men

Tribalism is Good & Necessary

There is an innate need in man to be part of a society or small group of men. Modern society has attempted to destroy tribes or downplay them by advocating for complete openness and the lack of groups. Groups have become “offensive”, thus we have globalism. Tribes have become archaic. This modern globalistic, feminism-driven trend must be rejected. The church itself is a brotherhood, and therefore it is an exclusive group. Tribalism is a good and necessary part of living. Colleges are tribes. Clubs are tribes. Biker gangs are tribes.

All these groups are separate from other groups. They have their own code and identity.

The church can satisfy the need of man to be part of a small group while at the same time granting salvation to those men.

“There shall be twelve stones with their names according to the names of the sons of Israel. They shall be like signets, each engraved with its name, for the twelve tribes”
Exodus 28:21

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
Proverbs 17:17

“Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.”
1 Peter 2:7

Unfortunately, the religious world has become increasingly effeminate as feminism has seeped its way into the church.

The biblical model of headship in marriage is no longer taught in the church because preachers are afraid of women screaming at them about their “chauvinistic interpretation of the bible”. What more evidence do you need to support the fact that men in the church have become emasculated than to state that men are actually afraid of women? Because religion has become effeminate generally speaking, men are becoming less attracted to it over time.

Returning to the discussion of tribes: Even introverted men need to be part of groups, even if they feel the need to be involved with those groups less often. The group is necessary to the human being because it provides a sense of purpose and belonging. In a world devoid of any purpose and with some people even promoting purposelessness, the tribes become more important.

Many Christians will be uncomfortable with the word “tribes” because it can connote cavemen-style tribalistic gatherings where men eat raw meat and try to make fires with sticks.

This is not the case, as you will see when you examine the twelve tribes of Israel in scripture. Each son of Jacob created his own unique lineage that had thousands upon thousands of members. Every man knew exactly which tribe he was from because it was a large part of his identity.

Levites knew who they were, and they knew that the priesthood was a part of their unique tribe. No other tribe was allowed to approach the altar or to directly commune with God in the way that the High priest and the priests of the tribe of Levi were able to. That was a high level of exclusivity, and that exclusiveness applied even between brethren, since everyone in Israel was related (minus salves, sojourners, and other people taken from destroyed cities).

This should show us that there is nothing wrong with separation between peoples and exclusivity in a manner of tribalism. The modern world wants everything to be available to everyone no matter who you are. If you belong to a globalist world, you belong to nothing.

Globalists believe you should be able to join any exclusive tribe you want without even having to conform to their standards!

How ridiculous is that? How silly would it be for a man to join a club of men where the requirements for entrance were that you needed to be able to run 2 miles, be able to lift 100 pounds, and be able to operate a firearm and then say to the other club members, “You know, I really can’t meet any of your requirements, but I want to join anyways”?

But you can see this principle playing out in the church even today. You no longer have to live righteously to be a Christian anymore. You can be a public homosexual or living in open adultery and you will still find churches that will accept you. These churches are weak and they live in defiance of the Will and Word of God. Therefore, we must reject these churches and their way of conducting themselves. They are not part of our tribe. They have chosen the favor of the people over the favor of God.

It is not wrong to impose standards and exclusivity in the church in a manner that looks like tribalism.

We already do this everywhere in life! If a man wants to gain entrance to a college, he needs to have certain standardized test scores and go through a process of gaining admission and then pay for the schooling. He cannot effortlessly walk around the college taking classes and doing whatever he wants without going through these steps. This is because the college institution is hypothetically exclusive because it has entrance requirements. And once a person gets into college, they have to maintain a certain GPA in order to stay there. The same principle applies to Christians. The church has entrance requirements and a specific standard of behavior necessary for remaining in it.

The exclusivity of the church must be preserved. It is a tribe of men, even though many churches have become social clubs for eunuchs. We must restore the exclusive nature of the assembly in the churches where it has been lost, and we must hold the standards of righteousness at all cost. You cannot live in evil and try to claim membership to the tribe of Christianity, you must obey the standards to be included in this brotherhood. You must conduct yourself like a man.

Mantra

I Live righteously and belong to the Tribe.

Application

There may come a day when churches split rapidly in constant succession. The result will be many small churches that meet in houses just as in the first century. Our objective, if that day ever comes, is to use that split to our advantage to restore the exclusivity of the church. A Christian man must live his life in accordance with the code of conduct laid out in the Word of God. If he refuses, he is ejected from the church until he decides to change his lifestyle. This expulsion is in accordance with Scripture.

If you are currently in a church that allows individuals to live in open sin without any type of reprimand or expulsion, you need to leave it. That church would rather avoid confrontation and please everyone than do what is right in the eyes of God.

Leaving your church is difficult and may be painful, but your current tribe does not care about doing what is right, they only care about avoiding the pain and extreme discomfort that comes from telling someone they are wrong or openly expelling them from the church. Leave a church that is weak, because if persecution ever arises again, it will obliterate that church and you will be caught in the crossfire. Men who build their faith on emotions will be destroyed the instant that they are punished or even inconvenienced for the faith. You must leave that church and relocate to a strong church before that day comes.

If you need to form your own church, then do it.

It sounds strange to suggest starting a church in the home or in another building, but if no one around you is maintaining the church correctly then you have an obligation to change that fact. It is not too inconvenient to meet in someone’s house to commune and worship with men who are concerned with putting God first rather than putting convenience first, this has been done for thousands of years.

Whatever the cost, you must maintain the church and keep it exclusive. This is the task of man.

Strengthen your mind.

Embrace the changing world and bend it to the church.

Protect the church.

Conduct yourselves like men.

Ideals – Mental Images of Perfection

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.

God Will Allow You to Touch the Hot Iron

God will allow you to touch a hot iron. There is an idea in Christianity that God is nothing but love and goodness and would never want anything bad to happen to His children. Unfortunately what we have done is taken our own weak parenting strategies and placed them on God even if they are not accurate.

Because most parents never want their kids to get injured or hurt and will do anything to protect them, and they assume God will be the same way.

They think:

God would never let me do something to ruin my life! God won’t let me feel emotional pain or sorrow! No way! God is a loving God and would not let those things happen to me.
Emotionalistic Christian #1

The reality of the matter is that God will allow us to touch a hot iron.

If we are on the path to doing something stupid, He will allow us to do it. If we are about to do drugs, He will let us. Or if we are in compromising situation with another woman, He will allow us to have sex with her. He does not approve of any of these choices, but He allows them to happen.

This is because God never impedes our free will as individuals! He never overtakes our mind and forces us to do anything that we have not chosen to do with our rational mind. He will not miraculously pull us from an unfortunate situation.

Throughout all of history, God has allowed people to make their beds and then lie in them.

Look at the nation of Israel which is an example for us (Romans 15:4, 1 Corinthians 10:11). Just examine how many times God allowed the children of Israel to commit sin and then suffer the consequences of it.

Time and time again Israel would choose to worship pagan gods and participate in all kinds of sex rituals with the people of Canaan. And time and time again God would allow them to be captured and oppressed for many years.

So just because you decide you are going to be a panty-waist parents who never spanks their kid or allows them to suffer the consequences of their actions does NOT mean that God is the same way. The God of the universe will allow you to commit adultery and then allow your life to be damaged because of it.

God wants you to use your own rational mind and free will to choose to follow Him.

He wants you to choose to do what He says even when you do not feel like it. And because of this He also allows you to make stupids decisions and pay for them for life. How many people in the Bible made decisions with their own free will and paid for it with their life?

Annanias and Saphira lied to God and died.
Nadab and Abihu worshiped God indirectly and were killed by God.
Uzzah was good-natured and tried to protect the Ark, but he touched it and died.
Judas was allowed to kill himself out of self-inflicted grief.
The son of David and Bathsheba died because of David’s sin, though David was penitent and was a man after God’s heart.
God opens the earth and swallowed those who rebelled against Him (Numbers 16:10 & 16:32).
Everyone but Noah and his family were killed in the flood.

We must realize that we too are capable of the evil that was written about in biblical times. And we too can suffer the consequences of our bad choices, though God has promised to wash away our sins and remember them no more (Hebrews 8:12).

So before you try to mold God into your image of what you think He should be, remember that He will allow you to jump off a building if you so choose. God does not control people like puppets, He allows them to do whatever they want. He allows them to touch the hot iron.

Patience – The Calm Man

Men who are impatient rarely arrive at greatness. This is because they cannot handle the years of focus that it takes to arrive at greatness. A man with a great work ethic may fail because he does not have the patience to maintain that work ethic over long periods of time.

“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
Ecclesiastes 7:8

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!”
Psalm 37:7

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”
Romans 12:12

Patience is one of the cornerstone habits of men of excellence and strength. This can be seen in how these men react to various situations that they encounter. The masculine man does not lose his temper at trivial items in life. He does not allow small situations or problems that are beyond his ability to control cause him to lose his temper. He is not influenced by life because he himself is influencing life.

Have you seen men who lose their tempers or get agitated over miniscule things in life. How did they look when they “lost it”?

Pathetic?

Weak?

Childish?

The answer is all of the above. Would you trust this man in a life or death scenario? If they”lose it” under small pressures, how will they handle large pressures?

Though it is popular for people to brag about “losing it on someone”, that type of attrition warfare will get you nowhere, no matter how satisfying it is to give someone “the business”.

Great men have high levels of patience. They have patience in every sense of the word. They can wait for long periods of time for something they want or need.

The masculine man is unmoved by petty annoyances. He does not become upset because of other human beings. The masculine man is not even bothered when someone waits far too long to take their screaming baby out of the church assembly. The masculine man needs only to master himself and his emotions and patience will immediately follow.

Great men in the Word held patience as one of their key virtues.

Abraham waited years for the son of promise.

Job endured suffering and was written about in James 5.

Moses was the meekest man in all the earth.

David waited years on the throne of Israel.

Christ lived his entire life being patient and delaying gratification.

Also note that Christ was the only one of these men who did not amass great material wealth, because He was concerned with saving the world. The other men were very wealthy, therefore it is reasonable to argue a possible connection with the virtue of patience and wealth. Combining great virtue with faith was the way these men were able to be found worthy of possessing such wealth. God does what He wishes with the wealth of the world, but it is reasonable to say that He would not give wealth to the man whose faith would be destroyed by the possession of that wealth.

Foundational virtues must be in place before we can acquire great wealth if we are to simultaneously maintain our faith.

Patience is one of these virtues. It is a foundational building block of all other virtues, for without it we would give up or surrender to weakness. Patience allows us to build other virtues, no matter how slowly or painfully they are developed. In this way, patience is the foundational virtue. Other virtues are only as strong as the patience you have with them. So build patience first, before you build your other virtues.

Patience is masculine because men use it to resist outside forces. Strength is manifested not only in forcing your hand on others, but also on resisting those who try to force their hands on you.

Mantra

Patience is a pillar of strength.

Application

Stifle emotions. Control them and master them. You are going to feel angry and impatient at times. The first mission is to deny yourself the open expression of these feelings. If you are impatient, do not show it, you will only be showing a weakness for others to exploit. No one should ever know if you are feeling angry or impatient.

In your mind you must remember how others looked who openly expressed impatience or anger in a public setting. They exposed their weakness to the world, and you have not forgotten it. Neither will they forget if they see you expressing weakness though a lost temper. Suppress but do not repress emotion. Take your anger and channel it elsewhere.

The man who can be made angry can be defeated on the battlefield because he shows that he has no self-control and cannot maintain a level head in the midst of battle. Therefore, you must not be this man.

Convince yourself that you are in need of nothing. If you have no needs, then you have nothing to be impatient about.

The ideal man is in constant control of himself.

The moment you start to feel the impatient emotions stirring within you, detach from yourself. Take a breath and do not allow this thought to proceed from your mind to your facial expressions. You cannot allow this to happen, you must be in constant control of your mind. Suppress those negative emotions and do not allow them to express themselves. You must have constant self-awareness so you can monitor your feelings. Be aware of the moments when you are feeling impatient. It is extremely difficult to command yourself if you have no self-awareness.

Suppress emotion.

Be aware of self.

Command your mind.

Conduct yourself like men.

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