A verse you have likely heard your entire life is John 14:6, “I am the Way, the Truth and The Life and no man comes to the Father except through Me”. What I tend to find when this verse comes from the pulpit is that it just passes right on by most people and they “check out” of the service. Perhaps if we replaced some of the words, not as an attempt to change Scripture, but as an effort to clarify its meaning, then we could better understand this verse.
The Way: Instead of “the Way” we will call it “the Path”. A path is an established roadway of sorts made by continuous travel. Christ tells us that He is the Path, implying that it is through Him that we arrive at a certain destination. This is further demonstrated at the end of the verse when He explains that no man comes to the Father except through Him. The conclusion being that Christ is the Path to God.
The Truth
Christ says that He is the truth. Follow this pattern of thought with me for a moment. What is the truth but the opposite of a lie? And what is a lie but a falsehood? A falsehood is a fake, it is the opposite of reality, therefore, truth is reality. No Christ is the Path to God, and He is also the Reality. He is the One who existed from the beginning of the age. He is the consciousness that many of the “spiritual but not religious” group think exists in the universe (John 1:1).
During the trial of Christ, Pilate asks Him the pivotal question, “What is truth?” (John 18:38), but unfortunately Pilate did not stay long enough to hear the answer. We know that the Word of God is Truth (John 17:17). Meaning the Word of God is reality itself and in it is no falsehood (Hebrews 6:18, Titus 1:2).
The Life
Colossians 3:4 demonstrates that Christ is our life. He is our existence and our focus, or He should be. Christ as the Life is the defier of death who defeated death once and will do it again for all of His faithful.
The Light
One additional note is that Jesus is the Light. John 8:12 says that “I am the Light of the world”. The light is something that clarifies and reveals. The light can clarify and reveal The Path, and God’s word “is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).
In summary, in John 14:6 Christ says “I am the Path, the Reality and the enemy of Death”, and in addition to this He is also the illuminator, the clarifier of truth. Remember who you are serving – it is He who is the defier and destroyer of death.
Comparing ourselves to others often does not do much good unless we have the correct mindset about it. This applies especially to women who tend to compare themselves to other women to see how they “measure up” against the standards. For men it tends to be slightly different. When men compare themselves to other men, it is for constructive reasons, and this makes comparison valuable.
“Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”
“A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”
When men compare themselves to other men, they are usually comparing themselves to the best in the world.
Musicians compare their skill to the best musicians in the world.
Writers compare their work to the best writers.
Athletes compare themselves to the best in their favorite sport and so on.
This comparison is performed so men can see what exactly it is that the professionals are doing in their training so that they cannot imitate them and try to get those results as well. In this way, comparison is highly valuable.
Comparison becomes a detriment when we start judging our self-worth based on how well we stack up compared to the professionals. This is where women tend to go wrong in their intra-gender comparisons, and why social media is such a detriment to their self-esteem.
Some men realize that they are not as skilled as other men and conclude that they are not valuable.
This is not the way comparison should work. There is only a small minority of men who think in terms of self-worth, and they need to learn to reject this impulse. Comparison and evaluation are tools to help us improve ourselves, not objects of self-punishment that should make us feel worse about who we are.
It is true that our income is based primarily on our skill level and the demand of the market for that particular skill. But our intrinsic worth is not defined by our skill level. We will not waste time telling you that you are special, because most likely you are not. “Special” is what moms tell their kids they are even if their kids are average at best. Your soul makes you valuable, it does not make you special. Everyone has a soul. Therefore, having one does not make you special.
Even though you are not special, you do have value, and you can improve that over time by gaining practical, marketable skill.
We improve ourselves by imitating the masters of our chosen craft. We want to play guitar like the greats or play sports like the legendary men, we do not want to learn and train like average performers. Therefore, comparison is necessary in order to take inventory of our weaknesses and progress and to make sure that we are staying on the path of improvement. What comparison should not be is a pity party where we cry because we are not on the same level as other great men. Comparison should be about extrinsic skill, not about intrinsic worth.
Mantra
Compare, correct, grow.
Application
Compare your skills to other great men, not your individual value. When you compare yourself to a master of a craft, all you should be doing is evaluating your current skill level based on a reference point. Therefore, eliminate any conflations of skill and self-worth that you may have in your mind.
Skill does not equal self-worth, though skill does equal marketplace worth. Mentally separate marketplace value from intrinsic value.
You must take a detached, stoic look at where you are currently so you may improve. Learn skills, techniques and mindsets from the professionals. They achieved success in their field based on a specific formula, so you must copy that formula and try it out for yourself. While that formula may not work for you exactly, you have the option to tweak it slightly and try it again. Change the formula to suit your individual skills and weaknesses.
First, find a master of the craft that you want to imitate, he can be spiritual or worldly.
As we have mentioned before, you need to have secular role models when it comes to work and career because most men in the church believe they are virtuous for being mediocre in the workplace or in their personal skills.
Examine everything the master does with extreme focus. If he is a world class guitarist, examine the smallest things such as the angle of his fingers on his right and left hands. How does he hold the pick and transition from string to string? How high above the fretboard do his other fingers rest? How is his posture and leg positioning? What types of breathing patterns does he employ? Does he look at his right or left hand, or is he able to play without looking at the instrument at all? How does he blend skill with emotion? What does he do to control excess string noise? What is his training regimen? These are just a few of the questions you must ask about the master. Dive into the smallest details and master them because those details will add up to make all the difference in the world.
Once you have answered all the questions you can think of, start applying the knowledge that you have learned one technique at a time.
Test the methods of the master and by doing so you will learn whether his techniques are idiosyncratic or universal. If they are unique to the master, you must adapt the skill into something suited better for you personally. If they are universal, you can transfer those skills directly to yourself.
Focus on one skill at a time, never try to lump half a dozen skills into one practice session. Maintain focus on the one skill until you have raised it to an acceptable skill level. This is called Periodization of Training. One a skill is mastered, move on to another skill. The accumulation of small masteries will be what makes you great in your chosen field.
““When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.”
As long as man has existed in imperfection, war has existed.
Blood has filled the earth since the days of Adam. Therefore, it is absurd to think that war would just vanish over time. War is in the nature of man. Every beauty pageant model who states that she wants world peace reveals how stupid and naïve she is about the world and the way it works, and she unveils a complete lack of understanding about how war is irrevocably intertwined with man’s DNA. If men cannot wage war on themselves and on their weaknesses or imperfections, then they turn to literal war. And men should feel no regret or remorse while doing so.
The church does not like to admit the fact that men have killing instilled in their very nature.
Men have the will to kill and to be killed built into them. They are machines of war if and when they need to be. They are programmed to be able to compartmentalize civility and exchange it for savagery in order to destroy and kill all foes. God knows this because He made us, and He has led His people through wars for hundreds of years.
The conquest of Canaan and the wars against the inhabitants of Canaan during the period of the kings and the period of the judges are evidence of this fact. God used His people to purge Canaan of wicked men. Over and over again God told his people to utterly destroy people from the face of the earth. That old-school, wrath of God content of the Old testament is one of the reasons why more masculine men gravitate towards the Old testament and conservatism, while more effeminate men gravitate towards the “less strict” New testament and religious liberalism. Have you ever met a masculine man attending the local “Jesus, Jeans & Java” meeting?
Most of us will never have to use our warlike instinct.
For most men, desire for war has shriveled up due to lack of use. This is unfortunate because that same energy that is used to destroy other men in war can also be used to destroy our own weaknesses. Many of us would not be able to handle physical war, because even though we desire it we still cannot stomach it. We would be sick and disgusted at killing other human beings because we are too soft and weak. We would break under the pressure of the high level training, or we would develop psychological trauma from prolonged exposure to death and violence.
Make no mistake: by no means do I suggest that we all could handle war. Most of us do not have the strength to handle it. However, that does not mean we do not have some level of desire for war or violence built into us. We can see this from boys at the youngest stages of life. They love to destroy and break toys. They are extremely violent against one another. Boys will hit, bite and steal the properties of their neighbors. They are what man is in his raw state, before he is “civilized”, or before his mother and school teachers teach him how to be a good little girl. Make no mistake about it, however, He is a man of war instilled with the warrior spirit from his birth.
Key: If wars have been started and led by God, then we know that wars cannot be morally wrong.
Most wars of the Old Testament were examples of God using His selected nation to execute His judgement on the heathen nations in order to eradicate evil. In the modern age, it is likely that God uses the highest power nation that follows Him to eradicate evil in more providential ways, though any discussion on providence is purely speculative.
America has been fighting against assorted evils for years, more recently against the products of radical Islam, which is a vile and evil religion that deserves to be eliminated from the face of the earth like the cancer it is. The US has been destroying the evil, radical muslims who chronically rape and torture women. And this destruction of evil for the sake of the good is what draws more men into war. Men feel an obligation or duty to go to war for a cause greater than themselves. War is Biblical, justified and is programmed in your very being.
Many people hate war, they are even opposed to it. Make no mistake, I am not saying we should always dive head first into bloodshed. War should be the last resort we use against evil, but it should still be used. We should not be so merciful and peaceful that we become unwilling or unable to use violence to impose our will on others. War costs lives on both sides, so we must be absolutely sure that we are combating evil itself before we embark. Anti-war advocates are somewhat justified in their hatred of war, for war is still wretched and vile, but it is a tool that is necessary and has been used for thousands of years. There is no end to it. War is a tool to eliminate incurable evil.
Mantra
War is a tool of the righteous to eliminate evil.
Application
There is not a real application to this principle unless you want to go to war. It is commonly called “serving the country”, but make no mistake, you are also serving your desire for war. There are different types of men who go to war. In the 1943 book “The Psychology of the Fighting Man”, Edwin Boring lists out the types of men who generally join the army:
Some join just because it is a Job.
Some join out of a sense of Duty.
Others join because they recognize within themselves a murderous instinct that they need to exercise in a way that is morally appropriate.
The church wants to avoid and repress this warlike nature of man, but you need to examine yourself and find out if you have this desire to kill other men. If so, the military is a great opportunity for you to use your personal psychology in the best possible way: to eliminate evil men from the face of the planet through warfare. You are not murdering the enemy, you are killing the enemy. The word “murder” implies that there is an innocent party involved. Extreme evil is not innocent. Radical muslim men ar enot innocent. You are killing men as if you were killing animals, because those evil men have behaved in such a way that they have relinquished their rights to be treated like humans, so they must therefore be eliminated like the cancer they are.
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.”
“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”
“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.”
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.
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”
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.
