Christianity Archives - Page 25 of 38

Commitment

Commitment is a decaying attribute of men of the world.

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”
Psalm 37:5

Very few people are truly committed to the Church. Most are just there because it is tradition passed down from generation to generation. The tradition is maintained because it is easy. There are no real trials, no pressing threats, nothing that makes it difficult to be “Christians”.

Because of this, there is very little real commitment in the Church. People are committed to the Church in the same way that people are committed to spin class. They come into worship and “do it” because it makes them feel good, but if they had to face a real struggle for one second on account of their faith, they would leave.

Men are barely committed to their wives. They are more committed to watching football on Saturday than they are to building their marriage. These men are more committed to their morning television than to relationships.

They are more intimate with sports than with their wives. This is a disgrace.

The ease of life in the modern world has made it so that commitment is not necessary anymore. No one has to make a long-term commitment to anything. Every problem can be fixed quickly with a few “easy” payments of $19.95.

Men commit for good while the beta commits based on his emotional feelings at the time. As soon as the task becomes difficult, the beta quits. As soon as true challenge presents itself to the masses, the betas are purged.

The man commits for the long term. Man commits to action every day without fail. The man commits to work every day on a goal worth achieving, and in doing so he sets an example for men to come. The man who commits is a man among betas.

Mantra

Men never fail their commitments.

Application

The action does not have to be huge, it just requires commitment. Getting to the gym and doing just three sets of an exercise every day is more than you have been doing before. Commit to keep your habits every day, without fail, and then over time build on them and make them longer. Consistency is more important than being a flash in the pan.

Write down the habits you want to build. After this, look at your habits and pick the easiest one to start. Look at that habit and figure out what action you could take right now towards that goal and start doing it. If you want to start reading your Bible, read small sections instead of jumping immediately into one of those “read your Bible in a year” programs. As great as those are, right now you may not have the discipline or commitment necessary to to maintain that much reading. Focus on small blocks of reading instead. If your Bible has heading, read one chunk from heading to heading. Be consistent in the reading every day. That is much better than not reading at all.

Be consistent in the tiny details of life if you want success. Be a man of commitment.

Conduct yourselves like Men.

Hatred

Hate is the opposite of the action of love, therefore, hatred must be an action.

“Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness”.
1 John 2:9

“Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart; though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.”
Proverbs 26:24-26

We hate most people in the world. Why? Because we sit and do nothing for their souls. The Church has done a great job telling us that love has little or nothing to do with emotional feelings, yet they have done an abysmal job preaching the same ideology about hatred.

Hate is the opposite of the action of love, therefore, hatred must be an action.

And it does not have to be a “hate crime”, or an active attempt at bringing evil on someone else, in fact, the most deadly hatred is passive.

We walk by hundreds of people every week who have no idea about the gospel. If they continue to live their lives the way they are now, they will end up in hell, no doubt about it. We know this already, yet what do we do? Nothing. We have the knowledge and power that would pull them from the depths of hell yet we sit on it, we don’t share it, we keep it to ourselves. This action is hatred. It is hatred and sin disguising itself as something innocent. If we do not share the gospel, we hate other people.

Does this mean we should stand in the middle of Walmart to evangelize? I don’t think so. While that wouldn’t be wrong, it almost certainly would be ineffective and therefore a waste of time just like door-knocking in the 21st century. That evangelism should be strategic and relationship based, rather than “business based” as it has been for so long.

People still think these old evangelism strategies are valuable!

Just know, these are the same people who kept their money in a bank that gave them 0.25% interest instead of investing to get 5-8% interest. How are their retirement accounts looking these days?

Hatred is a silent killer. All it needs is for you to be content and comfortable doing nothing with your faith, and doing nothing for the people around you. This is the general law of hatred. It’s not some big Hitlerian show of evil. It’s subtle, and it will result in the death of souls if we do not do something about it. Boys think hatred is an emotion. Men recognize hate as an action.

Once hate is recognized as an action, preventative measures can be set up against it.

Mantra

Hatred is an action, not an emotion.

Application

Awareness is always the first principle of improvement. You must become aware of your hatred for others before you can end it. Be aware of how you think about other people who pass you by. Think about their souls. Think about what would happen if you were them and they were you. Your soul would be lost at the end of life if someone didn’t have the love to tell you the truth.

After becoming aware, do something to stop it. Build relationships with people, and on those relationships share the gospel. This is how you defeat hatred.

It will be very difficult to share the gospel without a previous relationship with someone.

People aren’t going to invest in stocks they hear about for the first time without doing research. Why then would they invest in your faith if they know nothing about you? This is one of the reasons door-knocking has become less effective. Because in the 21st century human beings have never been so connected yet so lonely. That loneliness has to be counteracted with real relationships with people.

When you build relationships with people you are showing that you care about them as individuals, something that is not conveyed by banging on someone’s door and giving them a pamphlet. On the strong foundation of a friendship, share the gospel. You will find this yields a much higher rate of return than the classic methods still used in religion today.

Conduct Yourselves like Men.

Prayer

It is a disgrace to only go to God when we have exhausted all other options. “All I can do now is pray”, they say. Well you should have been praying all along! Prayer should be the first option, not the last resort.

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
Mark 11:24

“Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. Do not be rash with your mouth, And let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; Therefore let your words be few. For God is in heaven, and you on earth; Therefore let your words be few.”
Ecclesiastes 5:1-2

We are permitted to speak to the Creator of the universe. We can open our mouths and utter words to God Himself. This is a tremendous privilege. What do we do with it?

The plague of beta-males in the Church have diluted prayer.

You walk into Church and what do you hear in prayer?

“Oh Lord God Jesus we just thank you just thank and thank just you are so wonderful just guide us and fill us just help us and just challenge us” et cetera, et cetera.

Bosh and twaddle. Senselessness. This type of prayer is a disgrace. Prayer is not a chick flick for your emotions. If you are going to get emotional in prayer, do so at home. Only at that point can you suggest that those emotions are legitimate and not meant for show.

Don’t be the emotional beta.

Do not conflate your emotions with spirituality, the two are not the same.

Are you praying each day? Probably not. You probably come crawling up to God only when you have fallen into abject darkness. You speak to Him when you are in need, and forget Him when you need nothing. This is the most shameful form of prayer.

It is a disgrace to only go to God when we have exhausted all other options. “All I can do now is pray”, they say. Well you should have been praying all along! Prayer should be the first option, not the last resort. We should be ashamed of ourselves if we do this. Prayer is a tool that we should take advantage of always.

Speak to the Lord daily as Daniel did. Praying three times per day and continuing to do so even when praying would cause his life to be in danger.

Mantra

Pray instead of a Mantra.

Application

Prayer should be a keystone habit for Christian people. Daniel prayed three times per day, same time, same place, out of discipline. Were there times he probably did not feel like praying? Sure. It is human nature to not always want to do things, but Daniel prayed nonetheless. And so dedicated was he that those who plotted to bring him down knew exactly how they could trap him. They knew he was fully committed and faithful in prayer. Daniel’s enemies knew that the only way to trap him was to use his God.

Jesus gave the model prayer to us to use it, not just so we could look at it. Use the model prayer if you cannot make your own. Use that prayer until you have developed the habit of praying every day. One small prayer every day, that is where you start. That is how you become a Man.

Conduct Yourselves like Men.

Dedication

Dedication is the only path to lasting growth. And dedication is the only way to continue to improve.

“Dedication is the only way to lasting growth.”

“Blessed is the man, Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night”
Psalm 1:1-2

Have you quit reading yet? You’ve likely allowed yourself to slip in your discipline. A whole month in and the habit starts to grind on you. It is no longer a fun self-improvement tool, now it’s a chore. It is no longer a way to grow and get better continually, it is something that is annoying. You are tired of growing and progressing. Or maybe you aren’t.

Dedication is the only path to lasting growth. Being dedicated when heaven doesn’t even seem worth it. And dedication is the only way to continue to improve. Even the peace and glory of heaven is not enough to keep us motivated. Because of this, you must conjure the power from within yourself to remain dedicated when you would want nothing more than to quit. With all the pleasures in life, why would you deprive yourself of them for some goal you don’t even want?

The dedicated soul must embrace the fact that his motivation will die many times over. His dedication will be the only thing that keeps him alive and pushing.

Men are dedicated. Boys are carried about by emotion. Men act regardless of how they feel. Boys depend on their motivation.

Mantra

Dedicate every day to progress.

Application

Override the voice in your head that tells you that you aren’t feeling like doing what is right today. Shut it down. Immediately turn your thoughts to something else, it does not matter what.

I don’t feel like writing this passage today, yet here I am. How you feel is irrelevant, your action is all that matters.

Get up. Get moving. Crush goals and improve. Because if you can improve and grow on days when you don’t feel like it, imagine the limitless power of growth you will have when you do feel like working. Be Dedicated. Reject Emotionalism. Take Action.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Burnout

Feeling burnout with the gospel?

“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Galatians 6:9

Have you become weary with the commands of God? Are you worn out with everything He asks of His servants? Do you feel tired of going to church week after week after week. If you are, do not worry, it is normal, It is going to happen. The weight of the law begins to take its toll on your mind.

You don’t bear the gospel the way the weak emotional liberals bear it, or the way the radical dogmatic conservatives bear it. You bear it in truth, trying to examine the law with your own mind and make your own decisions about what it says and what it means. For this reason many people degenerate into emotional liberalism or dogmatic conservatism because it is so difficult to think for yourself and to decide about faith for yourself. To continue trying to “work out your own salvation” (Phil 2:12) will eventually cause you to burnout.

Burnout isn’t a problem, it’s part of the process of growth.

You aren’t having your spiritual growth handed to you, instead you are working for it. You aren’t being spoon fed the gospel like a fat baby, you are digging into it using your rational mind, and it is difficult. The work is overbearing. The effort is titanic. Yet you must do it.

To degenerate into emotionalistic liberalism is not the way of men.

To degenerate into dogmatic conservatism is not the way of men.

Both of these doctrines minimize the use of the rational mind. One points to your emotions to justify what you think, the other looks to tradition to justify actions that may or may not be Biblical. Use your own mind like a man. Overcome burnout with dignity. Burnout will pass away with time and give way to new growth. It is like a forest that catches fire – it burns, then it grows back on the rick soil made from the ashes of the past.

Mantra

This weariness is only for a short time.

Application

Unfortunately, overcoming the burnout seems to be one of those situations that requires you to just wait out the sorrow; the same applies to depression. That doesn’t mean you stand around doing nothing – you have to constantly add new knowledge, skills and strength every day. When you add new knowledge and wait out the siege of the burnout, you can overcome and move on. And when the burnout comes back again, repeat the process. Your goal is to endure the temporary state of being burned out and shorten that period of time by adding new knowledge.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Watch this video Series on Burnout.

Page 25 of 38

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