“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.”
What is it that men want in this life? Many Christian men will lie to you about the “virtue” they are pursuing when they are really only interested in money; but because they have no money, they pretend like they are spiritual. They will tell you this world is not about the material items we possess or the money we make, yet they will go out the very next day and burn themselves into the ground trying to make tremendous amounts of money. Now there is nothing wrong with making a lot of money or working hard to pile up resources, the problem arrives when money becomes the sole focus of our lives or when we trust in money to save us.
We need to have more than just the desire for material wealth because we will find it hard to focus on God at the same time. This is what Christ meant when He said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:24).
Greed is addictive because making money feels good, buying items feels good, and the idea of not having to work a job we hate anymore because we saved enough money or developed enough income streams sounds incredible.
Anyone who tells you money cannot buy you happiness is stupid. For most people, quitting their job would bring happiness, which could be brought about by the acquisition of enough funds. Everything that you enjoy in life, more of it can be acquired with more money. It is delusional to think otherwise. While money itself does not bring you happiness, money can be used to acquire whatever makes you happy, including free time. The only people telling you that money will not make you happy are people in the church with no money or superbly wealthy people who have not worked through the great existential questions of life.
Even if you believe money can’t buy happiness, you cannot deny that poverty cannot buy anything.
Contrary to what you hear in the church, it is possible to be wealthy and not greedy. All you have to do is avoid fixation on money and resist the urge to place wealth above God.
Greed itself is not limited to money. Man can be greedy for power, pleasure and even food. Greed is an intense desire or craving for something. The problem is that we are typically desiring and pursuing something worldly while forgetting about God. This is a difficult principle because we often do not “emotionally want” God nor do we want to do what He says, and for this reason we have all participated in greed in one form or another. This greed must be eliminated from our life.
Mantra
Correct the mind to correct the actions. I am avoiding Greed in my Life.
Application
Get to the root of your greed. Ask yourself multiple times why you want the items you are intensely desiring, because often the first answer does not go all the way to the root of the problem. Many people are greedy for money not because they are evil, but because they have great insecurity after being raised poor, or they are terrified of being bankrupt and on the streets.
Men fear the results of what will happen if they do not have money, so they pursue wealth with a burning passion.
Many men also want money because they know it will give them access to more women. These are cases of a faith problem (deep), not a greed problem (superficial). We lack faith in God to provide us with what we need, so we become greedy and pursue wealth instead.
Some men have damaged egos due to being raised with few possessions, so they chase money to fill the void and protect their ego from that intense level of shame. Perhaps we hate mindless jobs with a passion and we hate the people we work with, so, ironically, we work extremely hard so we can get to the point where we can stop working. Our hatred of our fellow man and our distaste for the work of our hands drives us to acquire wealth so we can end our career and live with freedom. The underlying problems with greed are often not directly related to greed itself.
Start correcting the deep faith problems that have resulted in a greedy mindset or behavior. You have to increase your level of trust in God.
Never expect overnight results in any endeavor of personal change. All you can do is make one small improvement at a time, and eventually those will add up to make the difference in your life. Start by correcting your thoughts. Every change begins in your mind, in the seat of your being. Correct the fallacies of the mind and you will see an accompanying change in actions.
You must separate the idea of acquiring wealth from your ego or fear, because fear is the emotion that drives you on and perpetuates your irrational way of thinking. Cast aside those emotions and build wealth not because you are greedy, but because you have shown yourself worthy of being entrusted with riches.
Tactic I – Reclaim Rationality
Detach from yourself and all your emotions.
View wealth and possessions like the amoral tools they are.
Ask yourself what it is you truly want in life.
Lay out concrete steps to achieve your goal and do so without becoming emotional.
Remain unemotional and remind yourself constantly that God is in command of the world. But never use that as an excuse to avoid working hard.
Humility is a trait missing in many men. Lack of humility signifies lack of confidence. Most men boast in order to compensate for an inner feeling of insufficiency. Lack of humility pervades the religious world and is highly concentrated in the youth groups (which should be abolished). Fathers no longer raise their sons to esteem others as equals or to admire men of character. In fact, most fathers are completely disengaged with their sons and would be shocked if they found out what their sons were doing behind their backs.
Fathers do not correct their sons during “adolescence” when they exhibit far too much pride. Nor do fathers prepare their sons to anticipate the biological changes of puberty and help arm them for the constant warfare of sexual discipline. This is because most fathers do not take time to think. They merely impregnated a female and created an offspring, and this does not magically make them good fathers. If men are to learn humility from anyone, it should be from their own father.
You must understand in your own mind that humility is not self-deprecation, even though that can be a byproduct.
Humility is being able to view yourself exactly how you are, not better than you are. Humility is how you view your own importance with respect to the importance of others. Do you think you are the next great thing? Do you think everyone is interested in hearing about your life all the time? You are not humble if you think in this way. Any man who thinks they are great is nothing more than the result of social media-induced egocentrism.
The humble man treats others as if they were better than him, though he does not self-deprecate. Ahumble man does not overestimate his worth or importance, he is acutely aware of his skills and abilities but his ego does not exaggerate them. The humble man does not oversell himself in a job interview, but he still looks for opportunities to advance in career and personal work.
People enjoy being around humble men.
People especially enjoy being around men who are truly excellent at everything they do, yet are still humble. It is one thing to be an average man who is great at nothing and be humble, anyone can do that. It is another thing to be a renowned businessman, builder, thinker or writer and still be humble. Men are drawn to other men who exhibit excellence tempered with humility. No one wants to be around the man who boasts about his career, especially when he is likely not skilled at what he does.
The humble man gives credit to others in his group and team, even if he did the vast majority of the work.
He looks for opportunities to share the credit even if the project was not possible without his involvement. Deep humility distills the need for validation and discards it. The humble man does not feel the constant need to be praised because he has self-esteem.
This image of the humble man is an extreme ideal, and is achieved by almost none, but it should still be striven after. In all things, even if ideals are lofty and appear far off, they should still be aimed at nonetheless. By pursuing huge ideals, we propel ourselves to greatness at any endeavor we choose, even humility.
Mantra
I am behaving with humility.
Application
Pride is a sneaky and deceptive disease. It lies dormant, grows under the skin and bursts out overnight. It is very difficult to recognize pride in yourself because it is a silent disease. Pride is the high blood pressure of the soul – it’s symptomless until it bursts an artery.
Pride is constantly looking for holes in your character to ooze out of. Humility shuts the pride-disease down. Humility begins by programming the mind to be humble first thing in the morning, this is done by using Mantras. Your humility continues to grow day-to-day by becoming more conscious of the disease of pride and crushing it.
Two-thirds of the battle for humility is crushing pride and forcing it into submission to your will.
You must fill in the sinkholes of character before building structures of achievement. In your pursuit of greatness, possessing consciousness of your flaws by your self-awareness is your greatest tool. With this you obliterate vice from the face of the earth, you drive it out from your land.
The last one-third of humility is programming the mind to act with honor, and this is done simply by preparing the mind to be humble before you are in a situation where humility is required. You must stock up supplies to go to war with your pride and beat into subservience.
Tactic I – The Foundation
Detach from yourself. View yourself as a movie character you are watching from the outside.
Examine your personal abilities objectively and with a critical eye.
Realize you are not special.
Work Harder
Tactic II – The Social Setting
Be conscious of yourself when you are in social settings. Observe your interactions in a detached manner – again, as if you were watching yourself as a movie character.
Be prepared to be kind to others and treat them with respect.
Admire others instead of yourself.
Remember you are not special
Crush your pride.
Develop your humility.
Prepare your mind for war until the end. You win or you die.
Is it possible to be spiritual but not religious? The answer depends based on how you define the terms “Spiritual” and “Religious” doesn’t it?
Is it possible to be spiritual but not religious? The answer depends based on how you define the terms “Spiritual” and “Religious” doesn’t it?
For the purpose of this article, we will use the following simple definitions:
Religious: A worldview based on a clearly defined code (e.g. The Bible)
Spiritual: Emotional feeling. Some presence of a warm fuzzy sensation in the heart.
(Do you have an alternative definition you would like to suggest? Leave your definition of spiritual and/or religious in the comment box below).
Let’s walk through a few chunks of articles on the idea of being “Spiritual but not Religious”, which we will now refer to as SBNR for short. Barna writes:
“But even though more and more Americans are abandoning the institutional church and its defined boundary markers of religious identity, many still believe in God and practice faith outside its walls”.
How are these individuals practicing faith? Do they believe in God but not in the Bible? A reasonable assumption would be that these people don’t believe the Bible came from God or that perhaps the Bible is not a book of mandatory laws that should be followed. Because even a cursory reading of the Bible lets an individual know that there are behavioral regulations and religious requirements for a Christian.
For example, the religious individual must bridle his tongue (James 1:26) and he must “visit orphans and widows and keep himself unspotted from the world (James 1:27).
So we have groups of individuals who believe they can find God somewhere outside of His church, which just so happens to be composed of the people. Barna Continues:
“This group still actively practices their faith, albeit in less traditional ways. They maintain an active prayer life (83%, compared to 83% of practicing Christians), but only read scripture half as much as the average practicing Christian (26% compared to 56%). In addition, they are much less likely to read a book on spiritual topics (9% compared to 36% of practicing Christians), and never attend groups or retreats (compared to 24% of practicing Christians). This all points to a broader abandonment of authoritative sources of religious identity, leading to much more informal and personally-driven faith practices. They are certainly still finding and experiencing God, but they are more likely to do so in nature (32% compared to 24% of practicing Christians), and through practices like meditation (20% compared to 18%), yoga (10% compared to 7%) and silence and solitude (both 15%). “
This portion of the article serves to reinforce the idea that the SBNR group does not actively read the Bible. This could be due to a lack of belief in the Scriptures as God-given or for some other reason. One possibility is that while reading the scriptures, an individual must come to the conclusion that God requires Action from him, and that is undesirable to the SBNR individual.
The SBNR man wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it.
He wants freedom from the Law of God at the most basic level. He wants to feel “spiritual emotions” but avoid taking any spiritual action. Continuing:
“we also know from past research that Christians who do not attend church say it’s primarily not out of wounding, but because they can find God elsewhere or that church is not personally relevant to them.” – Source of past three excerpts.
Barna.com
Here we begin to find the heart of the SBNR individual.
“Church is not personally relevant to them”. This one line shows a misunderstanding that people have about assembling at the church – religion has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. It does not matter if church is “personally relevant” to me or not because it was never about me to begin with.
This self-centric idea about the nature of religion is the source of the emotionalistic, SBNR mindset. That quote from Barna shows that individuals do not truly care about God, but are more interested in themselves, or believe that God is within them already. If they want to use their freedom to be more interested in themselves than God then that is up to them, but they should not conflate emotionalism and ego-centrism with spirituality.
“As we’ll see below, though, the “spiritual but not religious” hold much looser ideas about God, spiritual practices and religion”.
SBNR individuals want to avoid discipline and difficult obedience in favor of emotionalism.
“But to be spiritual but not religious is to possess a deeply personal and private spirituality.” – Source of past two excerpts.
This “private spirituality” has nothing to do with anyone other than the self. It is devoid of God. That is what people have chosen to do with their freedom.
Amy Hollywood writing for Harvard Divinity School outlines the position of the SBNR individual and their basic idea about religion well:
“To be religious is to bow to the authority of another, to believe in doctrines determined for one in advance, to read ancient texts only as they are handed down through existing interpretative traditions, and blindly to perform formalized rituals. For the spiritual, religion is inert, arid, and dead; the practitioner of religion, whether consciously or not, is at best without feeling, at worst insincere.” –
The only individuals who think that Christians have blind faith are the ones who have not taken any considerable amount of time to understand Christianity. It requires more faith to believe in atheism and evolution than to believe in a God.
The question of sincerity in religion is actually legitimate. It is understandable why the SBNR individuals think that formal religion is full of hypocrites, because that is the only thing that gets headlines. You never hear about good deeds Christians do, you only hear the negative or the evil. A Catholic priest molesting a boy gets headline national news, and everyone lumps all religion into one pile and blames it universally (Spartan holds the view that Catholicism is separate from Biblical Christianity). When a church donates thousands of dollars to foreign countries, no one blinks an eye. Is it any wonder why people hold negative views of religion as a whole?
To think religion is just a bunch of blind rituals , again, is an idea built on a misunderstanding of religion and/or of lumping all religions into one pile.
Moving to the final source before we observe what is really going on in the hearts of many people who are spiritual but not religious, Peter Baksa, a writer for HuffPost makes some interesting statements to which we will respond with respect:
“The core of most all religions are built on a spiritual foundation, but remember that Man invented religions and so it is subject to his flaws. If a religion says that it’s alright to beat up a woman for a trivial reason or that you must wear a silly clown hat every other Tuesday, does that make it spiritual? Or even moral? No, of course not. So where, then, does being religious part company with being spiritual?” –
HuffPost, (an obviously solid, logical and bipartisan news site as proven by the articles on the right side-bar).
This portion of the article sets up a straw man that does not exist. Any individual could respond to any belief with the same “logic”, including the belief in science. If science says that dwarves are popping out of holes in the ground in a Lord of the Rings fashion and then proceeds to provide no proof or examples, that does not make the statement scientific. Anyone can make a straw man, and it will be just as logical.
And Peter, the religion of beating up women for trivial reasons is called “Islam”.
The author makes the bold assumption that man invented religion.
For Christians, God designed religion and the church and had outlines for it before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). While it is true that there are many made up religions that certainly deserve to be scrutinized, all religion does not fall into that category.
Baksa continues:
“Religions attempt to gain access to a higher power in the hope of improving your life’s condition. This usually means sending out your prayers to the deity of your choice, hope that you’re heard, then have the firm belief that something will happen. Spirituality involves the attempt to focus your mind to gain access to the higher power within yourself in the hope of improving your life’s condition.”
This is an overly simplistic reduction of religion. My main disagreement is the projection of the author’s definition of religion on all religious people (Peter’s definition of religion is three paragraphs down).
“That deity that everyone’s always trying to pray to in order to make their lives better? It is, and always has been within yourself. It’s just that most people do not have the confidence in themselves to believe that they can access such a power, that they can channel their own solutions (and most do not understand enough of quantum mechanics to realize it is possible)”.
How do you know the “deity is within”?
The problem with the vast majority of these SBNR articles and the previous statement from the HuffPost is that the writers are projecting their own definitions of spirituality and religion onto other individuals. Unless terms are defined, there can be no discussion. Peter does well by giving us his selected definition of the term “religious”:
“Religion ‘is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols which relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.’”
These are all quite “heady” definitions and discussions of spirituality and religion, but I think the essence of what it is to be a SBNR individual is much simpler. It is an issue of mindset and of the heart and it will be addressed here.
What Spiritual but Not Religious Really Means – In The Depths of the Human Mind
Beyond any of the definitions of what it is to be spiritual or religious lies a particular attitude. This attitude is restless and does not want to obey or be disciplined. It wants freedom, yet does not know there is freedom in discipline, and freedom in the Truth (John 8:32). It wants the benefits God has to offer without any of the sacrifices He requires. This is the same attitude that wants abs in “3 minutes per day” on an ab coaster. It is the same attitude that wants sex without the commitment of marriage. SBNR wants Christ without the Cross (Matthew 16:24).
SBNR wants the benefits of Christainity without the constraints.
The SBNR individual likes what spirituality/faith/Christianity has to offer, but dislikes the restrictions placed on the Christian lifestyle. Just like the athlete gives up certain foods or activities that might be enjoyable in order to reach a level of high performance, so also the Christian must give up extremely enjoyable pleasures of the world (Hebrews 11:25) in order to receive the benefits of Christianity.
The SBNR individual wants emotion without obedience.
This individual wants to feel warm and fuzzy inside, but doesn’t want to give up any freedoms. He wants to do exactly what he wants and when he wants without reprisal in this world or the next. This individual wants all the benefit without any of the responsibility.
The SBNR individual wants Christ but does not want the cross.
SBNR individuals can “love” Christ but not do what he says. However, if a person does not obey the commands of Christ then He does not love Christ (John 15:21). A man cannot love (obey, take action towards) Christ and be SBNR.
The SBNR individual wants heaven with the Sacrifice
He wants to sneak into the gates of heaven at the end of life by “being a good person” (Not possible – Romans 3:10-12). The SBNR individual “feels in his little heart” that God will let him into heaven. He wants to go to heaven but he doesn’t want to give up anything in order to get there. He wants to have sex, drink alcohol to the point of drunkenness and mindlessly use profanity and still call himself “spiritual”.
SBNR is another form of feminism in religion. Feminists want all the alleged benefits that come with being a man without any of the negatives or responsibilities associated with manliness (which are heavy, as one writerdiscovered).
Being spiritual but not religious is not the way of the Spartan Christian. With this Article we formally distance ourselves from that ideology. SBNR is a passive mindset while Spartan Christianity is a hordcore mindet.
The Greek word translated as “joy” in the Bible is χαίρω, or chairó and the definition is: “rejoice in’ or “to be glad”. This is somewhat different from the previous topic of happiness in that it seems to reflect a choice that we make to be joyful. We must choose to be glad.
Joy is generated by gaining perspective on a situation and seeing it in the eternal timeline instead of the momentary timeline.
When we focus on the temporary discomfort, we have sorrow. When we turn our focus to the rewards of heaven, or even to the benefits of becoming a man more capable of enduring adversity, we have changed our perspective. Perspective is the tool through which we obtain joy.
The Apostles were joyful after they were beaten for preaching gospel, they counted themselves honored that they should suffer for Christ (Acts 5:41). Do you think being beaten with rods is fun and joyful? Definitely not. Viewing their punishment as a sign that they were doing something right, however, is why they were joyful. They were glad because they saw their temporary situation of pain in the eternal timeline of enjoyment.
This is a hard concept to understand, but it can be likened to physical exercise. During physical training, there is acute pain in the body. However, because we know that the pain is creating growth of the body, the pain is acceptable. A man can even get to the point where he enjoys that pain because he has associated it with improvement of the body. We must view discomfort in the same way, treating it as a growth vector rather than a stand-alone painful event. This mindset creates joy though struggle.
Some Christians believe that joy is an emotion.
That is fine, but there are some serious questions for anyone who suggests that God requires emotion from us. There are no verses saying that we must be emotionally joyful in order to enter into heaven. On the other hand, there are verses that speak about the necessity of joy. Joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).
God is not a God who requires us to feel a certain way in order to obey Him and do what is right. In fact, the opposite is usually true. God wants us to choose to obey Him even when we are not feeling good emotions and when life is not going well. God expects obedience, not emotions. There are plenty of people who have their “heart in the right place”, but a rightly placed heart without obedience will not get you into heaven.
Joy is created through detachment and perspective which are the products of wisdom.
Joy can be devoid of emotion, even though sometimes joy will sometimes produce positive emotions. Gaining these emotions should not be our primary goal since they are merely a positive benefit that comes as a result of doing what is right. It is our job to do what is right and be joyful in our purpose as men, pursuing an emotional “high” is for the weak. Focus your mind on creating joy by changing your perspective.
Mantra
I am joyful, because my choices have rewards.
Application
Detach from your life and look at it on the scale of eternity. What you are going through now is worth the reward of heaven, even though it may not feel like it at any given time.
Do not trust your emotions. Feelings have no bearing on reality, so do not make any decisions based on your emotions. Be glad that you are in your situation in life. You likely know about God and Christ, that puts you ahead of the vast majority of the world. You live in the modern world, so if you do not know Christ, the probability of discovering Christianity is high due to the advantages of technology.
Life is bringing good situations to us, so we must be glad for them. Being glad does not mean feeling good. Being glad is related to being thankful and wise in our thinking. Be glad for your salvation. Give thanks for your God. concentrate your thoughts on what matters. Gain perspective and as a results you will gain joy. Be a Man.
Happiness is one of the most overrated emotions in religion as a whole. Everyone in life is pursuing the elusive combination of brain chemicals, yet no one ever seems to find them.
“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
People assume that what God wants for them is this good feeling that happiness provides. The truth is that how we feel is irrelevant and should not even be considered as part of the picture because emotions only muddy the waters of logical thinking.
The lust for happiness has become increasingly popular over the years, as human beings have become less and less happy over time.
Entanglement with the world (2 Timothy 2:4), self-absorption (2 Timothy 3:1-5) and the breakdown of community institutions have contributed to this famine of happiness. People are no longer participating in the activities that provide purpose to the individual. People are more solitary than ever before, yet they do not want to be. Some men think isolation brings happiness, but it only forces them to reflect on themselves and their life which causes sorrow. To escape this sorrow they medicate through television and social media, reinforcing the idea in their minds that isolation is what is making them feel better. Virtual existence grows into a disease that decays the mind. Those who live in a virtual world endlessly pursue happiness and find it not.
Happiness is extremely popular with liberals both moderate and radical.
Liberals tend to place far too much emphasis on emotions in general, but they especially pursue happiness, and it pervades their worship service shifting the focus away from God and onto their own feelings. They pursue happiness and manipulate worship to their will in order to achieve it. This is not only wrong, but the pursuit of happiness in worship is in vain. If we are chasing happiness, we are running in the wrong direction. A prostitute can bring happiness for a few minutes. So can heroin or a line of cocaine. This is because, again, happiness is just a chemical reaction in the brain, so don’t worship it.
Was Christ happy while He was on earth? I am not convinced that He was, as the scriptures note He was a “Man of Sorrow and Acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). However, Christ was filled with purpose despite a lack of earthly “happiness”. He endured temptation over thirty years and worked with human beings on a constant basis, which is a feat in itself. There does not seem to be any reason to believe that Jesus was overwhelmed with emotions all the time. Jesus was on the earth for one reason: to save the world of men.
We as men must be filled with a meaningful purpose that overrides any given emotion at any given time. It should not matter how we feel, we should be able to do what is right and be able to keep to our purpose. Purpose is infinitely more important than happiness. Finding and maintaining meaningful and beneficial purposes for our lives should be what we do every single day.
Mantra
Emotions do not matter.
Application
Get rid of the idea that happiness is required in your life.
It is a luxury that will not always be present in your life. When you pull a double shift on Saturday, fight with the wife, are mad at the kids, get two hours of sleep then show up on Sunday for a slow, dry lesson and all the songs you don’t like, are you happy? No. Can you worship in spirit and truth regardless (John 4:24)? Absolutely.
KEY: We do not have to be happy to go to heaven, but when we get to heaven we will absolutely be happy.
You must fill your mind with purpose. Focus on God, family, doing meaningful work to the best of your ability. These actions bring purpose and as a byproduct they occasionally bring happiness. But trying to achieve happiness alone should never be your goal, it is a self-centered action and almost never profits. You must focus your mind on taking actions. Action will always be more important and more profitable than emotions. Gather strength for yourself. Do great work. Avoid the trappings of emotion. Be a Man.
