Honesty – Delivering the Truth

Honesty is missing in the church because the truth is painful for both the man who speaks it and the man who hears it. A man is always looking to avoid or reduce his pain, so he sacrifices virtue for the sake of comfort. He throws away righteousness for the sake of safety. We cannot behave this way. There is no character growth in the comfort zone. No one ever improved himself through pleasure. Character is not developed in ease of life. Your character is developed when you make decisions with real world consequences.  

“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight”

Proverbs 12:22

“Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.”

Proverbs 19:1

“Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices”

Colossians 3:9

Back to the principles of honesty, one reason we must be honest is because the adversary is dishonest. The devil is a liar and the sons of the devil are liars (John 8:44). 

Lying is the verbal manifestation of cowardice. 

The liar is a worm of a man and he is the living embodiment of all that is despised by masculinity. There is no excuse for lying. Neither are there excuses for “white lies”. No evil can be justified in a way in which the evil is removed. Even if evil is done for a “good reason”, it is still evil. Even if we are lying to “protect others”, we are still lying, and in truth, we are likely only protecting ourselves from pain. Therefore, we must be completely honest at all times.  

This is not to say we should embrace brute honesty, for that profits very little unless used on specific personality types that respond well to the blunt truth.

We should be merciful and gentle when we administer the truth to an individual, just as a doctor is gentle when he administers an injection to a patient. The doctor does not ram the needle into the patient’s arm as hard as he can, there would be no profit in that. We ourselves must be strategic in the way we verbally package the truth: never diluting or sugar coating it, but never soaking it in vinegar either. 

Christ was always honest with others, always prioritizing the truth over the emotions of the person who is hearing the truth. He knew that a person offended by truth simply has too much ego to accept what He had to say, at least in the moment in which He said it. We should evaluate the person we are speaking to. How big is his ego? How well can he accept the truth of a statement? The answers to these questions then give us an idea of how to package the truth. And it varies from circumstance to circumstance.

Perhaps this person needs to have his ego brought down a few notches, and so you decide to give him the full, blunt truth as Christ did with the Pharisees on occasion (Matthew 12:34, 23:27). Perhaps the individual is hypersensitive to words and will completely shut down if he is given the truth in a blunt way, so you cloak the truth he needs with words of encouragement or complimentary statements to soften the hit. Whatever you decide to do, you must be strategic. But above all, you must be honest.

Be completely Honest in all that you do” ~ Marine Boot Camp: Introductory Speech

The honest man also does not avoid situations in which he must confess to what he has done. He does not hide the truth or attempt to justify what he did, he merely confesses, accepts punishments and improves himself as a result. This is painful. Remember that pain almost always equals growth. Do not hide or cover up the truth because that is for the weak. 

Mantra

Be completely honest in all that you do.

honesty

Application

To use honesty strategically is the primary idea of this section. This section was similar to “Truth” so you can refer there to get a different perspective on the same concept.

Strategic honesty involves assessing the person you are speaking to and gauging how you should deliver honest statements to him.

You must always be honest no matter what. How direct, confrontational or “offensive” you are will vary from person to person. Some people need to be punched in the face with truth before they will ever make a change. These are the same people who never change an unhealthy lifestyle until they are diagnosed with a disease. 

Other people will never change if they are hit with a painful truth. There is a difference between sugar coating the truth and delivering a hard truth in a soft manner. You must use your knowledge of people to determine how you will act. No matter what, you must be honest. 

If you are caught in a fault, confess it. Never be dishonest or you will damage your reputation and character. Those are invaluable pieces of your individuality so do not lessen their worth. 

Never hide what you have done wrong.

Never lie. 

And never deceive. 

Be the bearer of truth and a beacon of honesty in a weak, effeminate and dishonest world. 

Conduct yourselves like men.

Homosexuality – No More Pandering

Unlike the common statements made in the secular and religious world, the Bible has much to say about homosexuality. Never let it be said that “But the Bible doesn’t talk about homosexuality” because it most certainly does.

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Leviticus 18:22

“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

Leviticus 20:13

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Romans 1:26-27

“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

Jude 1:7

“Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine”

1 Timothy 1:8-10

Homosexuality is not new, but stupid people in the religious world treat it as if it were some brand new evil concocted by liberals and hippies.

Let us go back in time and take a look at some of the early recorded instances of homosexuality in the Bible. 

Perhaps the first recorded instance is with Sodom and Gomorrah. There is also the strong possibility that the people of the world during the time of Noah were deeply embedded in homosexuality. The ancient, evil city of Sodom is where we get our word “sodomy”. That city was destroyed by God for its evil. 

Later on in the Bible we find out that cult prostitutes were in the land of Israel, and they were a blight to the Israelites.

Whenever Israel left God, it was because pagan worship included sex. The reason we keep mentioning this fact is because sex itself is the prime reason that Israel forsook God again and again. If you ever hear some perplexed soul asking the popular question, “I don’t know why Israel kept associating with the pagans especially after they had seen God do miracles. What was wrong with those people? Did they ever learn anything?” Sex, friend, it is because if they left God they were rewarded with sex. That fact is one of the few useful bits of information I acquired during my college years. But not only were there female prostitutes, there were also male ones for the effeminate Israelites. 

People choose homosexuality today for more reasons than simple “orientation”. I argue that one of the reasons men practice homosexuality is because it is the only way they can get any attention from the world.

In the modern world a homosexual is deified and praised for “coming out”. They are lavished with attention and commended for their “bravery”. This type of response propels more people to come out as deviants. They may not even have strong homosexual desires, but they are strongly attracted to all the attention they would acquire if they practice homosexuality. Because these people were getting zero attention in their daily lives, they think they will be the center of the universe if they are homosexuals. 

A man can be a complete nobody who is worthless to the world and who feels no sense of belonging to anyone. But the instant he says he is attracted to other men, the world worships and praises him.

Homosexuals have their own support and celebration groups and the new man gets more attention than he has ever received in his life. Being homosexual guarantees attention for men who were otherwise too worthless to gain that attention themselves. This is addictive and is the business model of social media. 

Before we continue to make notes about homosexuality, let us observe a very important point: The religious world makes the mistake of separating homosexuality from other forms of sexual deviance. Homosexuality is not worse than fornication (sex outside of marriage) or adultery (sex where one partner is married to someone else), it is simply less common. All forms of sexual immorality are evil. 

There are whores in the religious world, and this is just as much of a problem as homosexuality. 
There are adulterous men and women in the church, and this is just as much of a disease as homosexuality. 

Look around you the next time you are in the church. You are almost guaranteed to see someone who is dealing with homosexual urges. Do you cast him or her out or do you help them live righteously? There are people who have same-sex urges just as most men deal with temptation from women other than their wives. We should not treat these temptations as different entities. Sexual temptation is sexual temptation – all sexual immorality is wrong and all of it should be destroyed. Adultery, fornication and homosexuality are forms of sexual deviance and are sin. 

Now that we have examined the Biblical position on homosexuality, let us understand why it is not masculine to be homosexual.

To help clarify this, I will extensively quote an author who explains this perfectly. This is Jack Donovan from The Way of Men whom we have referenced before. 

“The Tactical problems presented by the appearance of weakness as a group explain, to an extent, the visceral response many men have to displays of flamboyant effeminacy. The word effeminacy is a bit misleading here, because it really isn’t about women.The dislike of what is commonly called effeminacy is about male status anxiety and practical concerns about tactical vulnerabilities, and it is more accurate to discuss dishonor in terms of deficient masculinity and flamboyant dishonor.”

Donovan continues,

“Flamboyant dishonor is an openly expressed lack of concern for strength, courage and mastery within the context of an honor group composed primarily of other men.” 

“I’ve observed this in the few brief introductions I’ve had to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, in gyms where everyone rolls with everyone. Men find out quickly who is good, and who isn’t…The only way to improve your status within the group is to try harder and get better. Flamboyant Dishonor is a little bit like walking into that room full of men who are trying to get better at jiu-jitsu and insisting that they stop what they are doing and pay attention to your fantastic new tap-dancing routine. The Flamboyantly dishonorable man seeks attention for something the male group doesn’t value, or which isn’t appropriate at a given time. At the primal level, flamboyant dishonor presents tactical problems for the group. By outwardly and theatrically rejecting the core masculine values, particularly strength and courage, the flamboyantly dishonorable male advertises weakness and propensity for submission to outside watchers. Any student of human (and in many cases, primate) body language will be forced to recognize that the postures, gestures and intonations of males generally regarded as effeminate are in fact postures, gestures and intonations that communicate submissiveness.”

Interesting.

The man who rejects the Honor codes of the group can obviously not be trusted to ‘snap to’ in a state of emergency. Dishonor is disloyalty. A man who not only refuses to be as strong, courageous and competent as he can, but who flaunts these codes theatrically for all to see is a weak link. He makes his peers seem more vulnerable for tolerating vulnerability, and more cowardly for tolerating cowardice. He brings shame on the group, and with shame comes danger, because public displays of weakness and cowardice invite attack”

“This tactical reasoning goes a long way towards explaining why men who function successfully within male honor groups make a big show of rejecting and distancing themselves from males who are flamboyantly dishonorable. By expelling effeminate males from the group or by gaming them and pushing them to the fringes of that particular group, the group projects strength and unity. The group demonstrates that ‘we do not tolerate unmanly men here’”

“When men reject effeminate men they are rejecting weakness, casting it out, and cleansing themselves of its corrosive stigma”

I have nothing to add to this assessment of homosexuality presented by Jack Donovan.

Mantra

I am not my urges.

homosexuality

Application

Stop treating homosexuality differently than other forms of sexual immorality. Men will struggle more than women with homosexual desires because of the taboo nature of homosexuality. It is almost popular to be lesbian while it is shameful to be a male homosexual. 

The religious world must cultivate relationships that help others bring themselves to repent and live righteous lives. You cannot force people to repent. We tend to forget this fact. Relationships are the key vessels for evangelism and for inspiring others to come to repentance. If you want to reach someone, you must build a relationship with them. We cannot take God and sell Him door to door like a vacuum cleaner. People do not care what you have to sell them, even if it is salvation, unless they have a relationship with you. 

Many men become homosexual for the attention and relationships.

The church should work to provide the attention and friendships they are looking for without the sinful behavior. But the church can only do this if the members stop treating homosexuality like it is the only sexual sin in the world. If you want to wage war on homosexuality, you must also wage war against extramarital heterosexual sex and lust. All these enemies are allied and you must destroy every single one of them. 

Men cannot continue to pander to sexual sin. Whether homosexual or heterosexual, sexual immorality must be absolutely annihilated from our lives and the church.

We have a bad habit of not addressing sexual sin regularly, and as a result, people think it’s “not that big of a deal”. When people think something is not a big deal, their behavior devolves at a rapid rate. It doesn’t take long before they are snorting lines of cocaine off a hookers chest. Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration (but I do not think it is that much of a stretch considering the state that most youth groups are in).

If you struggle with homosexual urges, get some help froma  trustworthy and supportive source. You might be able to win this battle alone, but you may also need a counselor. See a professional, not one of those nonsense “certified” counselors in the church. Those men spent exactly one weekend doing some online training and printed out their certification on construction paper to make it look fancy. They have no practical experience or training and cannot help you. See a real counselor.

You must be intrinsically motivated to change.

It is not enough to want to change for family and the church, you yourself have to believe that there is a better life available to the man who rejects sexual sin and lives with sexual discipline. 

With a professional you might be able to find out what started you on this path and discover what the root of your struggle is. The same principle applies for heterosexual sin. Understanding why you have a problem is one of the most valuable tools you can have in your war. 

Secondly, see someone in your church or in nearby churches who has dealt with the same temptations. This may be difficult as men are usually not willing to admit they want to have sex with other men, but there will most likely be someone who wants to help you through your struggle. Having a friend or helper in your struggle will be a massive aid to you if you are too weak to win on your own. Just be vigilant and do not let that friendship turn into a homosexual escapade. If you fear that this could happen, avoid getting help and fight the war as a soldier on your own. This is a nasty battle, but you can win. 

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Existentialism

What is the reason men exist?

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.”

Ecclesiastes 9:13

The weak in the Church think that faith is never questioned. In reality we are always wondering about and questioning our faith. The only people arrogant enough to think they have everything figured out are the atheists. Questions about the faith will inevitably lead many to ask questions about the purpose of life. Here is an oversimplified definition of existentialism: Asking questions to try to discover why it is that we exist. It is not immoral or irreverent to ask such questions. 

Hard Truth: Even if we think the answers about life are given in the Bible, that still does not mean the answers are satisfying. 

God did not tell us to be happy about His commands, many of them are difficult and restrictive. Reject the idea that Christianity is some fun thing you get to do. No. It is difficult. Part of Christianity is the constant psychological warfare between you and your doubts.

We will be forced to think about our faith and our life in ways we never anticipated. We will have to ask the dark, deep seated questions of our mind to attempt to try to find some justification for the evil we experience. Even the extremely righteous man Job was forced to question his life, and he regretted being born (Job 3). Given his situation, who wouldn’t?

Solomon diligently sought life’s purpose, which is the point of the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon pursues everything he thinks might give him meaning in life. He chased sex, wealth and alcohol like most men. He chased food and enjoyment. Then e eventually comes to the conclusion that the only reason we are on earth is to fear God and keep His commandments. Again, that may not satisfy your longing inside, but it doesn’t have to. Chasing any kind of satisfaction on earth is moronic. 

Men question why we exist and the meaning of life. I provide a new question: Why does life need a meaning? 

Man always wants there to be “something more”, something to give meaning to the abyss of life. Because we think surely there must be something beyond this pit of pain known as life? That is the hope, but it cannot be objectively proven. This is why it is “hope and faith” rather than “reason and fact”. 

The question of the meaning of life is one that will last a lifetime, whether you have faith or not. It is not a weakness of faith to wonder why we exist even if the Bible tells us we exist for God (Proverbs 16:4). That answer will not satisfy every mind. But satisfaction of the mind does not matter. The answer to the question of why we exist does not matter. All that matters is that we do what is right. 

Mantra

Action matters more than purpose.

existentialism

Application

This is a very difficult section. No one wants to hear that there may not be a  purpose to life. But what is purpose other than another emotion? It is a feeling of traveling towards something that is worthwhile. You can feel purpose while chasing an oasis in the desert only to find that it was a mirage. 

Do not deify the idea of purpose, because even though you may feel purposed at times, it will not always be there. Most days you will have to keep working without any of the emotional backing of purpose.

This is what you must do as a man. 

Sure, you can acquire purpose in a wife and family, or you can train your mind to find purpose in faith. But like any other emotions, purpose will not continue indefinitely. This is why it is of the utmost importance to train yourself to not require those emotional boosts in every single discipline you take up for yourself. Action will always be more important than anything else. What you do matters infinitely more than how you feel. So pick yourself up. Focus your mind. Grind out the days. Be a Man.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Angels – Walking among Men?

“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”

Psalm 91:11

“The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them”

Psalm 34:7

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Hebrews 13:2

“Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

Hebrews 1:14

“Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Luke 15:10

People’s beliefs about angels are primarily speculative.

Though we do have a few places in scripture that suggest angels could be at work in the present moment, we do not literally see them. Even though we cannot prove that at this very moment, angels have active roles in our lives or in spiritual warfare, let us assume for this moment that there are angels and they are at work. How do they help us as men?

The Hebrew writer speaks about angels a great deal, using the beginning of the book to show the distinction between God the Son and the created angelic beings.

The end of chapter 1 states that angels minister to those who are going to inherit salvation. Based on this passage it seems that angels are active in some way in the lives of men. What exactly they do is something men should discuss.

An angel ministered to Christ when he was in the garden before His crucifixion. In that instance, it seems that the angel acted as a being of comfort for Christ. Therefore, one possibility for what angels do for man is to comfort them at various times.

This does not have to be active comfort but instead could be passive instead. In theory, an angel could be the cause of that sense of calm that comes over you in the middle of a moment of fear. We cannot prove this, we can only speculate. 

We know that based on scripture the angels rejoice in heaven when one sinner repents from his sin.

This was made clear by Jesus during His parable about the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-10). At the very least we can think that angels are cheering for us and are rooting for us to win the spiritual war while we are still alive. 

Theoretically, angels could be walking on Earth disguised as humans. I find this unlikely in the present day, but we know this happened in biblical times. The last chapter of Hebrews shows that in past times people have entertained strangers not knowing that they were really entertaining angels (Hebrew 13:2).

This is most likely an event of the past, but it is still interesting to think that perhaps we have interacted with an angel. They could simply be regular people. This, again, is mere speculation – just a thought experiment.

The Psalmist writes about angels and the Angel of the Lord many different times. Angels are comforters and aids. What they do in the modern day is still up for debate.

However, it may be comforting to you to think that you are not alone and that someone or something else is there to help. Again, this is not a very scientific belief, and there is not a great deal of evidence to build upon. For most Christians, belief in angels tends to be personal and speculative.

Mantra

None

angels


Application

None. Conduct yourselves like men.

Faith – The Bridge Between Knowledge and God

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Hebrews 11:6

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Romans 10:17

“And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Mark 11:22-24

It is difficult to find a satisfactory explanation of faith in the modern religious world. No one can nail down a concrete definition of what faith is. It is always vague, ambiguous and unhelpful to the rational mind. The definitions most Christians give are so unclear that you may not even know if you have faith or not, because you have been confused about exactly what faith is. 

Imagine a ladder leading to God. We build this ladder by gaining knowledge of God. We learn all we can about Him until a certain point where we no longer understand with our finite minds what He is and why He commands certain actions. At first we build knowledge until we can get no closer to God through our knowledge alone. The ladder we have built still does not reach God, so our faith has to cover the remaining distance. Note that faith must begin with rational knowledge (the ladder), and end with trust. 

Faith is a distant relative to trust.

It is a type of hope. We do not fully understand how there can be an invisible being who created everything, so we must have faith. We do not see how it is possible to exist for eternity, so we have faith. Some do not believe that the punishment of hell fits the crimes of sin, do they still have faith then? We do not know, therefore we hope/trust/have faith.

As difficult as it is to have faith, it is much harder to have faith in atheism. Atheism is unnatural because it violates laws of nature by its very definition. It requires ten times more faith to be an atheist than to be Christian. Any man who comes to the conclusion that atheism is a rational belief is simply trying to justify a lifestyle of no accountability and maximum pleasure. 

What we want to avoid are the weak minded habits of the religious people who use faith as an excuse to never learn anything.

Men want to just “have faith” so that they do not have to think about any difficult or complex religious idea. Faith replaces work for these men. Faith replaces the need of man to progress and improve, therefore men become fat and lazy. We must avoid this justification of weakness. Men then mistake faith for an emotion rather than a thought process. Faith is not a feeling, gentlemen, faith is a set of beliefs and thoughts that result in specific types of action and are founded on rationality first and foremost. Feelings are almost always irrelevant. 

Of course, the opposite of the blind faith man is the blindly rational man. While there are overly emotional men, there are also overly rational men who never accept anything outside science even though science shows itself to be limited time and time again because it is carried out by human beings. Any highly logical man will find religious faith difficult, and this is not evil. This makes his faith more powerful than others because once he achieves a respectable degree of faith, it is set in stone forever because it took him so long to build. We must build our faith in the same way because we are rational men who do not trust in mere emotion. 

Mantra

I trust Him who I cannot see. 

faith

Application

Faith is built by thinking, not by feeling. Therefore, we must foster the types of thoughts that lead to a bolstered faith rather than an emotional faith. The emotional faith can be destroyed in one second, it is the house built on the sand. The rational faith will outlast any siege. 

You believe in God because it is rational and because all other explanations violate laws of nature. What God has told you about Himself is what you must trust. God has told us that He is merciful and longsuffering (Exodus 34:6), that He loves mankind and does not want any of them to be lost (2 Peter 3:9). Do we believe those words of Scripture or do we allow our emotions to think for us? 

We must think rightly about God, and avoid “thinking” with our feelings. One of the benefits of faith is that it covers what we cannot understand logically, so we must use it as a tool. It is not intended to replace the work we are required to do in building our thoughts and belief in God. 

Build thoughts conducive to a strong faith. Imagine the great heroes of the faith in the Word, mimic the thoughts you think they would have had. Above all, never let your faith be damaged simply because you are feeling a certain way. No one cares about your feelings, you must do what is right regardless of how you feel. 

Ignore emotions, actions are what matter. 

Strengthen your faith. 

Harden your mind. 

Build faith through constructive thought. 

Conduct yourselves like men.

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