Skill Versus Talent – Develop Marketable Skill

Talent is the ability that is given to you naturally , skill is what you earn through hours upon hours dedicated to the development and actualization of your natural ability. Talent is a foundation, skill is what you build upon that foundation. 

“Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men”

Proverbs 22:29

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.”

Ecclesiastes 9:10

It is possible to become highly skilled at almost anything you want, but most men do not take advantage of this fact.

Most average men are skilled in watching football for long periods of time. Other men are skilled at chronically criticizing their wives (which for most men is a projecting of a lack of self-esteem and self-respect). Most men are skilled at nothing because they do not take the time to venture outside of the comfort zone and into the land of focused effort, so they remain mediocre for their entire lives. They then wonder why life didn’t turn out the way they wanted – why they are not rich, famous or successful. It is because they did not put any effort into any endeavor in life. 

We as men can build skills that are marketable and then accumulate an abundance of wealth, but most men do not do this. They do not take the time to focus their mind or work hard to develop those marketable skills. 

Skill. Welding.
Boys go to college and major in an easy subject rather than a profitable one.

They waste their four years of “education” in social clubs, drinking parties and other idle revelries that do not profit (Proverbs 14:23). They graduate from college and reality hits them: they have not developed a single marketable skill in their four years of college. Everything they know could have been learned through self-education on the internet. The fact that MIT posts hundreds of lectures for free online is evidence of this.

These boys are doomed to a job they will hate for the rest of their life unless they acquire profitable skills at some point. Reality sets in and the joy of life leaves them, or they ignore this emptiness by watching football and blaming circumstances and chance for how their life turned out. 

If you want to avoid this meaningless life, build skills now, and build skills that make money in the modern marketplace.

No one is going to pay you to make origami or send text messages. Playing beer pong, being able to regurgitate meaningless information on a scantron and brag about your liberal arts degree will not earn you a single red cent. 

If you are in college, you have the opportunity of a lifetime to build skills – and not just any skills, but skills that can earn money. And not just skills that earn money, but ones that can allow you to set up your life where you are bringing in money while you are sleeping or away from work. This should be the goal of a man: to never again have to trade your time for cash. 

Skill. Pottery making
In college, you have more free time than ever in your life unless you lie to yourself and use the popular phrase of the weak: “I don’t have time”.

Learn to write, code, copy write, cook, build or sell items. Do not waste your college years or young adult years indulging in far too much social interaction than is necessary. Build a skill and learn how to sell it. 

You do not have to build skills, you can always party it up now and blame everything but yourself for why you are a failure and nothing more than a mindless drone later in life. Marketable skill is the primary separator between the guy flipping burgers from the guy building mansions or packing out stadiums with his music. You have the power within you to be one or the other if you are willing to develop some work ethic and exchange your time for skill, rather than exchange your time for pleasure. Make the masculine choice to start building skills today.

Mantra

To possess Skill is to possess Worth

Skill.

Application

Acquire some decent habits. You need to be training yourself on some kind of skill every day. 

Stop heating garbage meals in the microwave and learn how to cook, people will pay for that skill. 

Learn how to build furniture. 

Learn languages. 

Go learn to build electronics or to code computer programs.

Any skill you work to develop is better than whatever nonsense you are currently wasting your time on.

You do not need to revolutionize your life right now, you just need to build and work on marketable skills every single day. You must be a good steward of your time by using it to develop skills. 

Get a journal where you will write down the skills you will create. This can be combined with your habit journal, and together they will give you written, visual feedback on how consistent you are with keeping to your skill building every day. 

All you have to do is practice a skill every day, and accumulate enough days of practice to make you a professional at what you do. Once you are a professional, sell your ability to the highest bidder. You have no choice but to be successful, and no excuse for being a failure. 

Train yourself. 

Focus your mind

Conduct yourselves like men.

Death

“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.”

Revelation 21:4

“And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”

Ecclesiastes 12:7

“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;”

Ecclesiastes 3:2

Every man approaches death with every day that he lives. We have been physically dying from the start of life. At some point we truly realize the reality of our approaching death and we are forced to come to grips with it. Whether or not we actually do get a grip on the truth of it is up to us. 

Most people never get a grip, so they ignore death, treating it as something afar off and never preparing for the day when they must die. Every day, we as men have to prepare for the reality of our death. There is nothing we can do to avoid this engagement. We have a few years to gain mastery over our mind, to command our thoughts towards life and death and then to live a noble life. It is difficult to act rightly if we are constantly overwhelmed by fear of death. 

Old people say that young people do not consider death.

I consider mine every day, multiple times per day, and you should as well. You must consider your death every day without fail and try to understand how limited your time is. This will keep you focused because you know there is only so much life to live, after which you must give an account of how you used your time. In reality the old are the ones who do not consider death and spend much of their remaining life fighting to delay the inevitable end. Also, many people live as if they were already dead. Their lives are in a state of death. The robotic lifestyle of most religious individuals is a representation of this fact. 

We decay as we live by the process of aging, and we spend a fortune trying to delay this aging. Every kind of skin product and every “special” diet are tools people try to use to preserve their youth. No man accepts how he ages, he always wishes to stop it or slow it down. Every attempt to slow aging is just action taken because of the fear of death. We fear death because we do not know what lies beyond it. 

As Christians we hope there is an afterlife, but do not be confused, no one has died and then come back to tell us what is really on the other side.

This is why it still requires an element of faith to be a Christian and have a hope for the promise of life beyond death. Christians do not want to hear this, they think you can know for sure what lies beyond the doors of death. If that is true and you can know what happens after death, why are we still afraid of dying? 

 We want to think that we have been told exactly what will happen upon death, but really, we still do not know, and this is why we are afraid. This explains why we have “hope” regarding the afterlife and not “knowledge”. If we knew what was coming, there would be no need for faith. 

We believe that the Word of God has been revealed to us and in it are descriptions of a paradisiacal afterlife. This not only gives us hope beyond this present life, but lessens the fear of death for some men.

Death can spring out of any place at any time and snatch us from this life.

Often we make the mistake of assuming we have time on our side. We never think that we will be a casualty in a car accident, or that we will die in some ridiculous event that had a 0.1% chance of happening. We always think we will live to a ripe old age and pass away in our sleep. This is not the case, our time could be over today. This could be your very last day on the earth. As you put down this book and get ready to head to work, you could be T-boned by a semi that ran a red light and be killed instantly.

That is a dark idea to meditate on, but it is a possibility. A car wreck that kills you is a small possibility, but still something that happens to random individuals every day. They only had a “small possibility” of being killed in a wreck too. And how many of them planned on and prepared for their death that day?

We must also meditate on the fact that our loved ones will die, this is an even darker thought.

The thought of the death of our wives or parents is very dark and brings tears to the eyes, but that is a day that is coming and we must prepare for it. Even if they live to a ripe old age, they will likely die before you, and you must be ready to handle that sorrow. Your wife may die before you. Your partner for life may be snatched from you before you are prepared. 

This is one of the highest points of human suffering, to lose those we love to the abyss of death, not knowing where they are or if they are okay because “God Judges the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). We as Christians believe they are in paradise, but we still fear because we do not know exactly where they are in space and time. This is a natural fear, it does not project lack of faith. 

We must be mentally ready to handle a funeral and final goodbyes to our family members.

We must be equipped to handle the sorrow while still conducting ourselves like men on that day. The most masculine men I have ever known have been ones who lose their wife and yet are still at the worship service the very next Sunday. They do not take time off from their highest responsibility to grieve or be sorrowful, there is plenty of time for that. They mourn publicly, grieve at home, and maintain their faith to the highest caliber. 

Death is more real than anything we experience. Death is the only thing we cannot avoid. We can cancel meetings and appointments. We can delay, postpone and procrastinate about everything else in life, but we cannot delay death. It is coming for us all, and we must be ready mentally and spiritually for that day. 

Mantra

Death comes to all men.

death

Application

Conquering the fear of death is a Long War. To begin with, you must think about death every day. Just bring it into your consciousness and accept the reality that this flesh is temporary. Eventually you will start to ask yourself questions about the nature of death and about what is beyond death, this is where you build your faith. You can either fear death and stop thinking about it, or you can use the reality of death as a way to motivate yourself into righteousness. 

Accepting the reality that we do not have that much time left to live helps to keep us accountable to ourselves and to God.

When we get to this point in our thinking, death becomes a tool and is useful to us rather than something that promotes fear and dread. The only people who dread death are the people who do know what is coming after death, and that is all of us, regardless of what you hear in the religious world. 

By meditating on your death, you bring yourself closer to the acceptance of it. We believe that death is not the end. Death should be the most perfect thing in the world to a Christian, because it means that man has put aside his flesh and has gone to a perfect world the likes of which could never be described through language. Paradise is on the horizon for the faithful follower of God.

After you come to grips with your own death, you must immediately turn your mind to the deaths of those you love, and conquer that fear.

For some people, the death of others is easy to accept while their own death is extremely difficult, and for others it is the reverse. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, you must follow the same pattern you used when fighting to accept your own death. You must meditate on the death of your family, because at any time they could be taken from you. How are you going to react if that happens? Will you be a man or will you die?

These applications are not dark and depressing. For some Christians they are sorrowful, but meditating on death gives you the ability and perspective necessary to be extremely thankful for your family while you still have them. Thinking about death makes it less likely that you are going to waste a saturday watching football for ten hours and will instead spend at least a small amount of time with your family, because you are acutely aware of the fact that your time with them could be over at any second. 

The stoics used the thoughts of death to keep them grounded in reality and to help them live a good life. 
“Memento mori” –  a reminder of death.  

Death is a tool to help men live a good life, as long as we as men are thinking about it properly. 

Gain strength of the mind. 

Remember that you will die. 

Be a virtuous and righteous man. 

Behave with honor and integrity. 

Conduct yourselves like Men.

Life – Taking Advantage of Time

“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

James 4:14

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Philippians 1:21

Life is an allotment of time given to man by God for the purpose of obeying His commands. Some would call life a “gift”, I do not dare to be so naive. Life should be called a test instead of a gift. It is a gut check, a test of internal resolve and personal commitment. When men join the military they go through boot camp and are hit with all kinds of chaos from multiple angles. Some men “survive” and move on while others quit and go home. Some of these men go to advanced warfare training to become a special operations commando. Before they make it to special operations, they endure ridiculous amounts of discomfort. Only those who really want to endure can force themselves to continue. 

Eventually these men realize that nothing can hurt them. 

The training officers cannot hurt them. 

Hours in ice cold water cannot hurt them. 

Extreme lack of sleep cannot hurt them. 

Physical exercise that puts the highest possible demands on the body cannot hurt them because the mind is stronger than anything material. 

Physical training is the gut check for those Men. 

Life acts as the gut check for regular men. For those soldiers, extreme difficulty is compressed into a few months. For the common, our difficulty is spread out over all the decades of our life and we never have to endure something so painful as a boot camp. Life is a long, slow war that demands the best from men. The only question is if men can endure all the way to the end of life. 

Key: All of life simply is a long delayed gratification experiment. 

Can we give up the pleasures we want now for the rewards we want later? Can we endure immediate discomfort for the sake of future enjoyment, or are we too weak? 

God has issued commands that are painful to men. God’s commands cause immediate discomfort with the promise of a later reward. There is not a man of flesh on the earth who thinks that saving oneself for marriage is fun or enjoyable. Few men are not tempted by mind altering drugs that would take them away from the pain of the present life. We as men must choose this discomfort and curse the pleasure of sin (Hebrews 11:25). 

You have been given a certain allotment of time to live your life. What are you doing with that time?

Are you wasting it for the immediate pleasure of life? Hebrews 11 states that Moses chose to endure affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasure of sin. Most people point to this verse to show that sin does not bring lasting enjoyment. What most Christians deny is the fact that sin is enjoyable. Sin feels great. If it did not feel good then we would not do it. The only question is whether or not you will endure a similar affliction with the people of God or if you will give in to the sin. 

The sin will be great immediately, but it will bite you in the end. Righteousness will be painful in the present, but bring enjoyment and satisfaction in the end. The small sins add up to affect your character negatively just as small acts of righteousness compound and reward you with a return on the investment. 

You have to choose one of these paths. Not choosing a path is the same as choosing the path of evil – apathy is death. Apathy breeds stagnation. Stagnation breeds disease. Disease breeds death. Choose rather to be a Man and to progress.

Mantra

I am spending my time with frugality and wisdom.

Life. Time is Running out.
Life – Time is Running Out

Application

Treat the time you have been given the same as if you were given money. Would you waste all the money in your bank on nonsense or would you use it wisely? Invest your time today for the benefits that come tomorrow. Endure discomfort today knowing that you will be compensated for your sacrifice. Examine your life immediately and look at how you are spending your time. 

Treat your time the same way you would treat your money and budget it. Write down the things you invest time into and see what you can cut out to replace with more beneficial and profitable investments. Half the work is budgeting the time, following through is easy when you determine in your mind what is worth spending time one. 

Use your time budget to break down your spending habits and trim the fat from your days. 

Write down what you are doing every waking hour. 

Note how you are spending your time hour by hour and you will be shocked at how much time you are wasting. 

Wasting too much time watching television? You likely are. Replace it with a profitable habit. Playing too many video games? You likely are. Find a way to make money instead, you will find it more rewarding over time. 

Take a realistic inventory of your life: are you pleased with what you have done with your life? If not, take a good look in the mirror at the source of all your problems. Your life is nothing more than the accumulation of the effects of all your choices thus far. 

Do not be discouraged if your life is a disgrace to all mankind, you still have time to change.

The intent to change is the catalyst for change, but intent alone will not bring about that transformation of the self. You must begin with intent then move to strategizing. Once you build your strategy for how you will spend your time, you must implement that strategy and be consistent with it, forcing yourself to spend your time wisely through tremendous discipline.

Do not waste the time you are given, there will be plenty of time to take it easy one life ends. 

Armor your mind

Discipline your body.

Obliterate the demon of stagnation and the spirit of laziness. 

Change your life. 

Build wealth through wisdom

Gain knowledge

Read books. 

Train your body. 

Conduct Yourselves

LIKE MEN

Considering The Soil of Individual Character

There are many lessons that can be learned form the parable of the sower in Luke 8. One of the most important lessons is not about sharing the gospel, but is about the character of the soil (people) receiving gospel and then the sower’s reaction (or lack thereof) to those people.

The Parable of The Sower is as follows:

4 And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable: 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. 8 But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Christ Then Explains the Parable.


9 Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?” 10 And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that

‘Seeing they may not see,
And hearing they may not understand.’

11“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. 13 But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. 14 Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. 15 But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

Luke 8:4-15

1. The Sower Does Not Initially Consider Where He Spreads the Seed

When the sower is making his first pass through the fields and scattering seeds, he spreads them liberally and generously, not judging the soil by its external appearance. This represents how men are to share the gospel – sharing it freely and generously without judging people based on how one thinks they will react to it. This is because God wants everyone to be saved (2 Peter 3:9) even though He knows that not everyone will be saved.

Some people will surprise you with their reactions to the Bible. Some people may look like they would not be interested in hearing about the Bible when in reality they are starving for it. And other people wearing cross necklaces will be uninterested in hearing what God would require of them in their life. Heaven forbid they actually have to give something up or take action for their own salvation.

In the beginning of any type of evangelism, no judgement should be made about the character of an individual. All judgement should be reserved until people react to the Bible. At that point, Righteous Judgement can be made.

Sower. Wheat. Field.
Wheat

2. The Sower Does Not Force Bad Soil to Grow Crops

The pivotal point in the parable of the sower, and the point that is almost never mentioned is the fact that the sower does not go back and try again to throw seeds on the same bad soil. Rocks, thorns and the wayside do not produce crops and the sower knows this. He doesn’t go back and keep throwing seeds on the rocks and say, “Whether you like it or not you are going to produce some crops”. Rather, he focuses on the ground that is producing crops and concentrates all of his work there.

This lesson is one that many in the church need to hear but won’t accept because it doesn’t give them the “warm and fuzzies” that they are accustomed to having. It hurts their little hearts to think that some people do not have the character to accept the gospel, just as some soil doesn’t have the character to produce crops.

Yet how many times in your church have men continued to dump time and resources into bad soil?

Even Christ instructed the 12 to “Shake the dust off their feet” if people wouldn’t listen to the message in Matthew 10:14. Christ Himself knew resources of time and effort are better spent on individuals who are receptive to the gospel

Bad Soil – Where Many in the Church Attempt To Plant Seeds

How many times have men gone into inner cities and ghettos to try to convert people and failed miserably? They attempt to share a gospel with a welfare community only to find that these people only want an additional stream of welfare income that is financed by the church. Financing the parasitical behavior of individuals is not going to “make an inroad” with them, it will only create more more people dependent on the church.

The efficient sower considers the character of the people he is sharing the gospel with. Understand: the sower initially shares the gospel with everyone, but does not make continued attempts to grow crops on soil he knows is poor. The men who continue to put time and money into “bad soil” are the ones sharing the gospel out of emotionalism rather than with discretion and duty.

Again, it is not offensive or insensitive to state that it is more profitable to spread the gospel to some peoples than to others.

If you can convert 3 souls of one type of people in the same amount of time that it takes to convert 1 soul of another people, your time is better spent converting the 3 souls. This is not offensive, it is just a fact of life. It does not make any one type of people better than the others, it simply makes them more receptive to the gospel and you must understand that with an objective mind. If one bank account provides 0.025% interest on investment while a mutual fund provides 5% return on investment, then your money is better off in the mutual fund. I am not suggesting to view people as money or inanimate objects, but rather to simply consider the value of your time and attempt to reach as many souls as possible in the most efficient way possible.

Anyone who has traveled to various countries and cultures to share the gospel knows that some cultures or peoples are much more interested in the gospel than others. Some countries have kings who are so accustomed to missionaries traveling to their lands and trying to convert them that they have turned it into a business. Kings of tribes will offer to hear what missionaries have to say if they bring enough gifts. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that these kings are interested only in the material gifts .

It is also not offensive or insensitive to suggest that most people are not “good soil”.
Seed. Soil. Crops. Sower.
Seeds

In the parable of the sower, only 25% of soils were good. There was one good soil type and three bad soil types – this is not offensive, it is a simple fact. And this fact lines up perfectly with the scripture that states that few men will find their way into the Kingdom of God (Matt 7:14). It also follows that most of our time is better spent investing in the good soil.

3. In The End, The Sower Is Only Concerned With The Good Soil

After Christ describes how the bad soil produces no crops, His entire attention shifts and He then speaks about the crops produced by the good soil. Understand: it is not enough for a person to merely be good soil, they must also produce fruit. This is demonstrated by the growth of the knowledge, character and faith of an individual.

People are not expected to remain stagnant.

God loves things that grow, which could be why He originally placed man in a garden surrounded by growing things. This means He also loves when His people grow. God wants improvement and He created men so that happiness, positive pride and fulfillment can only come through work, progress and improvement.

A person can be “good soil” and still not make any improvements in their character.

A person can be “bad soil” and convert to another type later in life.

4. Soil Types can Change Over Time, Though Unusual

Even though the sower does not spend undue time with the unfruitful soil types, that does not mean that the specific soils can only be one way forever. People can change what kind of soil they are.

Occasionally a man who is “thorny soil” because he is materialistic can become good soil after a near-death experience. Many people who experience brushes with death can have a newfound clarity on what matters in life. Certain life events can happen that change people’s minds, and in turn change what type of soil they are. People also have the power to change their own minds through reason and logic.

Remember that no one’s character is fixed forever. If that was true, there would be no such thing as “building character”. And also remember that it is better to work with people who have the best character and are most receptive to the gospel. If you spend 15 years converting 1 soul when you could have converted 30 more receptive souls in that same time frame, were you as efficient as you could have been?

That is not to make the church or conversion sound like a business. It is simply to state that you must consider the worth of your time and consider how many souls can be saved if you adjust your focus. consider the character of other men.

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The Antichrist – Spirit of Rebellion

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the Antichrist.”

2 John 1:7

“Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.”

1 John 2:22

“And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already”

1 John 4:3

Most people picture the devil or a great demon when thinking of the antichrist, but this is not what it really is. The true antichrist is infinitely more subtle. He does not go about announcing who he is or what his mission is. All he does is avoid confessing Christ. Maybe he pollutes the Christian faith, flanking it with propaganda. He does not have to make a great spectacle of himself, he can remain below the surface and never stir anything up to a massive degree. The diseases that are best at killing people are the ones that go unnoticed until they bring on the final onslaught of death. 

The Bible speaks of the antichrist as simply one who denies Christ (1 John 2:22), that seems simple.

The last passage says that the antichrist is in the world already. If John was talking about a great demon, these passages would be terrifying. But anyone can see by simply looking around that there are no great demons running around causing mayhem. Any demon would avoid drawing attention to himself. It seems that the antichrist is more of an attitude or set of actions that overtakes multiple individuals instead of one singular individual who brings great evil into the world. 

The terrifying thing about the antichrist is that it could be you, or it could be me. It could be anyone. Anyone who denies Christ is the spirit of the antichrist. Anyone who opposes God in his lifestyle automatically opposes Christ and His sacrifice, and by virtue of this he embodies the spirit of the antichrist.

Or maybe the whole idea of the antichrist has been blown out of proportion. There are plenty of people who do not believe in Christ and who do not confess his name. Are all of them antichrists? If so, the idea of being an antichrist isn’t as much about being a nightmare figure than it is just living in open rebellion to God. There are plenty of Antichrists all over the world, and being an atheist (form of anti-christ) does not make anyone special or intelligent. 

Mantra

Disbelief alone is antichrist.

antichrist

Application

Simply think on these things with an abstract mind. Be open to new ideas, think about them and determine within yourself whether or not they are true. Examine your actions every day and ensure they are aligned with God rather than opposed to Him.

Conduct Yourselves like Men.

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