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.
“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.”
“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.”
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.
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.
Most men never execute their own sin because it lives beneath their mind in the unconscious. Their sin is so ingrained in their lifestyle that it is committed passively. This should not be a shock as it is more natural to sin than to be righteous. Almost all sins are simply perversions of natural drives. Pornography is a perversion of the natural sex drive of man and promiscuity is founded on man’s biological need to reproduce with as many women as possible. Lying is a way to avoid pain, a manipulation of the most basic survival instinct of man. Stealing is a form of fear of poverty, greed, or insecurity. Gossip comes primarily from insecurity, which is why it is mainly considered a “women’s sin”. Greed is an exaggeration of the desire to be safe and secure monetarily.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
All these sins lie in the unconscious part of man’s mind. They are automated because they are so deeply rooted in the natural aspects of man. This is how habits function. Negative habits are detrimental because they are actions that either do not benefit us or harm us and they are performed automatically. The automated form of sin is the most insidious, because it can eat us alive without us even knowing it is there.
The only way to begin to bring our sin to the surface and finally execute it is to follow the sin to its root cause.
We must learn our own selves and psychology if we are to see why we behave and commit the sins we do. Sin is almost certainly related to your personality and weaknesses. Trace your sin to the core. Your sin is a reflection of who you are, what you fear and what you desire. If you are going to execute your sin, you must first know yourself.
Mantra
Kill the source of sin, then kill the sin.
Application
Outline your personal weaknesses. What do you fear? What do you desire?And what are the small and seemingly insignificant desires and fears that live within you? What problems does your personality type encounter regularly? Answer these questions and you will begin understanding your sin. The enemy knows how to manipulate your needs and convert them into evil. Recognize and short circuit this process and you can win the war against the self. Your sin is dead if you are willing to lay the ax to the root of its tree.
Even better would be to correct the weaknesses of your personality so that they are no longer a target for attack. You cannot be tempted by greed if you are no longer insecure about poverty. The sexually satisfied husband or man who knows how to transmute the sexual energy has no need to seek an outlet through other women. You have the opportunity to win, and eliminate one sin at a time forever.
Also be aware that if you eliminate a sin, but forget to put a sentry on guard against the return of that sin, it will inevitably come back.
Remember the story in scripture of the demons who were cast out of a person but eventually got back in? They got back in because the person had not worked on themselves and invested in their own spirituality (Matthew 12:43-45). The sin will attempt to return because of your personality and particular weaknesses, but you must stay in command of your mind and do not let the evil near it. Never give evil a chance to take root in your mind again.
You have the weapon of vigilance on your side.
Always be aware of the evil, and do not let it near you.
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Weak men emphasize grace far more than they emphasize action.
The religious world is plagued with the weak man’s mindset. Every Christian understands the necessity and importance of grace, but the weak man uses grace as an excuse to do evil. The weak man uses grace as a way to justify his lack of spiritual progress. He wallows in his “brokenness” and begs God to do all the work for him. God does save us by His will and by His grace, He does all the heavy lifting of removing our sins, but we still have a duty to behave as men and not use grace as a reason to avoid behaving righteously or the work of improving.
The beta focuses on his emotions, how he feels and how “church” makes him feel instead of focusing on the work he needs to do for the God of heaven and earth. He sings songs to make himself feel good rather than to serve God. The weak man uses grace to justify his weakness. He mistakenly thinks if he actually improves that there will be no place for grace to fill his life and make him feel warm and fuzzy inside. This man is a disgrace. Christians already have a reputation for looking weak and pathetic, and these men who are constantly emotional and effeminate do not help this perception.
Over-emphasizing grace relieves us of the responsibility to work on our character flaws and be obedient to difficult commands.
Many men think they do not have to do anything besides accept grace and then they are good to go. This is the foundation for the sinner’s prayer or “accepting Christ as our savior”, or any other concepts of salvation that oppose the Bible, are found nowhere in the Bible, and do nothing for our salvation. These are the concepts of weak men. Pathetic men want to say a one-lined prayer or theatrically call out to Jesus and “invite him into their hearts”, because that definitely works and you see that in the Bible. Have you ever seen a highly masculine man invite Jesus into his heart? This is weak man’s grace.
Mantra
Grace is sufficient, but my work is also required.
Application
Christianity is not just about grace. It is founded on grace, and would be nothing without the grace of God, but there is still a great deal of work that we as men are still required to do. We cannot sit around and wallow in emotions and talk about how ‘bad’ we are – that is weak man’s grace. Contrary to popular belief, we do not need to go forward to repent at every youth rally. Boys who go forward at those events are more interested in having girl’s breasts pressed against their chest when they hug than they are about changing their actions.
Men are interested in action, taking action and avoiding unnecessary or detrimental emotions because they know that emotions delude reality and are not a reflection of it. If a man is not firmly grounded in his principles of logic, he has the responsibility to first set aside all emotion and uncover the truth of who he is and what he believes. Once he is firm in these facts, he can then add back emotion to supplement the logic if he wants.
We must tone down our emotions because of the fact that emotions do not equal reality.
Emotions are not to be trusted or built upon, they are unstable and weak when used as foundations. Emotions are good fuel for your vehicle, but you have to make sure you are driving in the right direction first.
Catch yourself when you are getting too emotional about some event or situation and ask yourself a few questions.
In worship: “Is it right to be this emotional right now? Is this emotional momentum about me or about God? Am I thinking about grace, or merely feeling about grace? Are these emotions improving the worship to God, or merely improving how I feel about the worship to God?”
When You Become Angry: “Is this emotion productive for this situation? Can I control myself with a hot emotion like this? Would I make better choices if I wanted and cooled down before moving forward?”
When You Become Fearful: “Am I behaving like a man when I panic? Is this situation that important in the long-term? If the worst-case scenario happens, what will I lose? Can I think of situations that are far worse than mine currently? Can I detach from this emotion?
These are important questions to just a few situations where emotions rush into the mind. These questions also differentiate between usefulness and selfishness of emotion. Do not focus on your feelings because they are not always indicative of righteousness. Emotions do not automatically equal sincerity. The only way to prove sincerity is through actions, and sincerity is especially proven when you take action without emotional backup.
Reject your feelings and force them into submission until you know what you believe.
Weak man’s grace is selfish, and you must be reject the desires of the self at times.
What kind of worship are you offering to God on a regular basis? Are you focused on worship or on yourself? Most people in the religious world focus on themselves during worship instead of on God. They are more interested in their own emotions than they are with offering praise to God.
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
There are terms to describe this distinction between worship types, it’s referred to as “vertical worship” (Where worship goes “up” to God) or “horizontal worship” (where worship moves laterally from person to person or stays within the self). Vertical worship places the focus on God and on serving Him in the worship. This is noble and preferable to horizontal worship which places the focus on the individual, on all the members of the church and how everyone is feeling emotionally about worship. Vertical worship tends to be primarily preferred by conservatives, (including radicals) while horizontal worship seems to be primarily preferred by liberals (also including radicals).
Worship is a service, and as such it should be directed towards God and not ourselves.
The only time it seems fit to observe yourself during worship is during communion. We enter the house of God not to increase our own emotions, but to present worship and service to the Lord.
Key point: This service does not always have to include enjoyment on our part. For years Christians have shoved down the throats of their children this idea of enjoying worship. This is absurd – “enjoyment” is an emotion and God never commands us to have specific emotions. While there may be times where worship is enjoyable, it is not a requirement. God commands action not emotion, this cannot be stated enough.
Did we mention that worship is not about you? It has everything to do with God, and almost nothing to do with us.
We as human beings will have our humanity and our nature infuse worship. We as humans get bored, and therefore we will occasionally become bored in worship – boredom is a feeling, an emotion. There will be instances when we will not feel like worshiping just like there are days when we don’t feel like going to work. We will dislike certain hymns (the ones the song leader will choose to lead every single Sunday without fail).
Men must sing when they don’t feel like it.
We must pray when we are not emotional.
We must worship despite how we are feeling at the time.
To suggest that we need to be in a certain emotional state in order to worship properly is dogma and propaganda that exists both in liberal and in conservative circles. Emotion should be cast aside and ignored as a requisite for worship. What does the Lord require of you? To worship in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24). That is all the Word of God says. To say we must feel a certain way for worship to be acceptable is an addition to the Word of God, a despicable power move by theoretical Christians (Deuteronomy 4:2; Revelation 22:18-19; Proverbs 30:6).
Another popular tactic used by individuals attempting to rationalize their emotional hysteria is this: “But my emotions make worship better”.
Make it better for who? For you or for God? The answer is simple, emotions make us feel better and have nothing to do with God. Take a restaurant for example: imagine you are going out to eat and you sit down in a restaurant and look over a menu. A waiter comes and takes your order: you order steak and baked potato, nothing more and nothing less. 20 minutes later the waiter comes back with a steak that has been smothered in a strawberry sauce and your potato is stuffed with mushrooms. You say to the waiter, “Hey, what happened to my order? I asked for steak and potato and that is all”. To which the waiter replies, “Well I just really like strawberry sauce on steak and mushrooms in my potato, it makes it better and I just like it”.
Do you see the problem here. The opinion of the server should not influence what he delivers to the table. Yet so many religious people do the same when it comes to worship. God listed in His word or left examples of what he wants in worship, yet we (the servers) decide to add what we think will make it better. When it comes to giving service to God, to focus should be on Him and never on ourselves.
The same emotionalistic tactic is applied to musical instruments in worship, clapping and hand-raising.
People are doing what makes them feel good and they do not care about focusing on God. This is proven by the fact that no one ever fact checks their own behavior with scripture. Take the hand-raising example – you have one main instance in scripture where the idea of lifting holy hands comes from, and it is in 1 Timothy 2:8. The first question should be “What does it mean to lift holy hands? Do I lift one hand or two? Where do I place my hands? How were hands raised in the 1st century when 1 Timothy was written?”
But none of those questions are asked because people are solely interested in doing whatever increases their own emotions while disregarding the principles of God. If Those individuals truly cared about raising hands for God’s sake, they would be neck deep in the scripture trying to find out what it truly means to “lift holy hands”. But instead they just do whatever they see fit, usually after seeing some other religious person raise their hands in a way they liked. This is a learned behavior that has little to do with scripture and much to do with emotionalism and socialization. Avoid doing anything for emotional reasons – that is not the way of men.
This is all not to say that we must mechanically walk through the various rituals and traditions of worship while having our minds far away from God, that would be equally wrong.
We would be honoring God with our lips while our hearts would be far from Him (Matthew 15:8-9; Isaiah 29:13). But also understand that the word “heart” that is used in scripture is not speaking about emotion. If you open your selected Hebrew study tool (BibleHub.com is recommended) you will find that the word translates “heart” in Isaiah 29:13 originally meant “Mind”, “attention”, “innerman” or “will”. Also in Matthew 15:8-9, even the Greek word translated as “heart” actually meant “mind”, “character”, “innerself”, “will” or “intention”.
Do any of these definitions sound emotional to you? No. Each definition is all about the mindset of a man. The masculine man concentrates his mind, attention, will and inner self towards God in worship. If we are participating in horizontal worship and concerned about our own emotions, then our attention is not on God – that is the end of the story. To suggest horizontal worship is anything else but emotionalism masquerading as spirituality is simply an attempt to justify one’s own behavior.
Mantra
Worship is only for God, and it is only about God.
Application
Purge the idea that worship is about you from your mind. Worship is about God.You go to a restaurant to be served food; how would you feel if the servers only cared about himself, how he was feeling, and how he was doing relative to the other waiters? You would be upset, because you are there to be served, and this fact has nothing to do with the servers besides the fact that they are the media through which that service comes. When it comes to worship, we are the server. We are providing God with worship, we should not be concerned with how we are feeling. Rather we should be concerned about whether or not our worship is done in spirit and truth.
We worship in spirit and truth, not emotion and truth, and not truth and emotion.
Spirit. Truth. With these we Worship God. We worship truthfully and with presence of mind, not thinking about food, sex or work. This is difficult and do not let any Christian tell you otherwise. It is becoming more and more difficult to keep our minds centered., in worship because our minds are conditioned to modern life with it’s constant distractions. The world itself is even a distraction and this is a tool of an enemy to keep us occupied in parts of life that do not matter.
The ability to focus is rare, and should be practiced if we are to distill thoughts when we enter into the House of God. Once the thoughts of the world are purged, we must turn our complete focus to God. We are serving God, not being emotionally served by the worship service – this is the key point.
Tactic I – Prime the Mind
Detach by taking all thoughts and writing them down. Observe them objectively. Your mind can be calmed simply by writing down everything you are thinking.
Once the mind is calmed, orient it in the direction of God. Start saying that you are about to enter the presence of God for worship on the first day of the week.
Prime the mind by listening to small spiritual snippets online or by listening to hymns.
Be prepared and in the mindset to worship God before you even enter the assembly. You do not want to have to waste the first several minutes of Sunday morning worship by having to get into the right mindset.
Enter into worship with a reduced sense of self.
Increase your presence of mind but direct your thoughts away from your own life, and instead direct them onto the life of Christ and onto God Himself.
Always remember that you are here to serve, not to be served.
