I’ve begun to notice a certain genre of Christian in my local Church who avoid taking a stand for anything. Instead of clearly separating right and wrong, they are ambiguous. They allow certain behaviors to slide under the table. They ignore the stupidity of others to preserve relationships. they get their feelings hurt if they have to correct anyone.
These men care more about preserving relationships than about behaving morally. They would rather let a person wander off a cliff than correct him. Allowing someone to fall off a ledge because you do not want to correct them is not love, it is hate. It is easy to behave that way. It is easy to take the middle ground and do nothing for those around you. Any man can do that.
What is difficult is taking on the burden of correcting others. It is difficult to be the “bad guy” who rebukes the sinner in the presence of all (1 Timothy 5:20).
There is no nobility in indifference. There is nothing honorable about not choosing sides. Those who refuse to take sides are simply trying to avoid offending others. It would be better for you to offend others than be a weak, shell of a man who stands for nothing.
What you must do is decide to stand for what is right. Whether it is religious, political, or otherwise, you need to take sides. We as humans are built to go to war and fight. We are designed for “Us against them” interactions. Humans thrive in tribalism, though that word has been corrupted by modernity. Men need something to fight against, and you can start by fighting against stupid ideas. You can start with attacking those who decide to remain indifferent. Attack those who stand for nothing. This is the way of the warrior.
Men stand and fight. Those who stand idly by are worthless.
One of the main points we try to continually hammer at Spartan Christianity is the idea that love and obedience are actions, not emotions. We continually see throughout the Bible that God demonstrated love towards us by taking action that benefitted us. So also we take action that benefits God. 1 John demonstrates this idea well.
It is not enough to say we love God, it is not even enough to feel it. Without action, there is no love.
1 John 2:3-6 ~ “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
One of the reasons that John’s first letter was written was because there were groups of people in the church who were propagating two major lies about Christianity.
The first lie was that Jesus never actually came in the flesh, but was simply some sort of spirit. They made these statements because they believed that all physical matter was inherently evil, so there is no way Jesus would inhabit an evil flesh. John would go on to say that anyone who denied Christ came in the flesh would be an anti-Christ (II John 7, I John 2:18, 22).
This incorrect idea about physical matter led to the second error in Christian teaching at this time which was the idea that because the flesh is evil, it is completely separate from the soul. So while the flesh engages in sensuality and sinful pleasure, the soul actually remains untainted. These Christians were living their lives exactly how they wanted to, engaging in orgies, drunkenness, and anything else commonly associated with godless individuals. (This sounds like the Catholic church).
John refuted these two incorrect ideologies by first assaulting the position that Christ did not inhabit the flesh and then attacking the resultant secular lifestyles of his target audience. This is why you see the constant reaffirmation of the idea of walking in the light, abiding with God, and obeying His commandments.
News flash: if an individual is not living the way God intended, he is not a Christian.
This disqualifies many Catholics who live their lives however they please and then try to pay for their sins through indulgences. Other denominations are also not exempt from this habit of justifying immoral behavior through a misunderstanding of the law of God.
I John 3:4-6 ~ “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.”
One thing to note when John says that “Whoever abides in Him does not sin”, he means that these individuals do not actively go out and engage in orgies and drunkenness on a regular, habitual basis. Obviously, this passage is not suggesting that somehow after becoming a follower of God that you magically stop making mistakes. We are going to make errors, that is why we have the Advocate (1 John 2:1-2). The point is to avoid purposeful, planned, or habitual evil behavior.
It is somewhat funny that John has to tell his audience that the man who commits sin commits lawlessness. We tend to think of the ancient Christians as astute Bible students who hold firmly to the principles they were taught.
But we forget the most important point about those early Christians: they were human beings.
And as such, it is guaranteed that they would make a substantial number of errors in their faith. Those people were no different from us. They were human beings and so are we (a profound statement, I know).
One of the critical passages of this book is 1 John 3:18: “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” Can you find a clearer statement in the world of the idea that love is not demonstrated through emotion, feelings, or words, but through action? Back up just two verses and you will see again how love proves itself through action. Specifically through Christ’s action towards us as people. “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
The idea you should keep in your mind at all times is that Love is not emotion. It is an action. Your emotions will fluctuate daily, but regardless of how you feel, you can demonstrate love through action.
Comparing ourselves to others often does not do much good unless we have the correct mindset about it. This applies especially to women who tend to compare themselves to other women to see how they “measure up” against the standards. For men it tends to be slightly different. When men compare themselves to other men, it is for constructive reasons, and this makes comparison valuable.
“Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”
“A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”
When men compare themselves to other men, they are usually comparing themselves to the best in the world.
Musicians compare their skill to the best musicians in the world.
Writers compare their work to the best writers.
Athletes compare themselves to the best in their favorite sport and so on.
This comparison is performed so men can see what exactly it is that the professionals are doing in their training so that they cannot imitate them and try to get those results as well. In this way, comparison is highly valuable.
Comparison becomes a detriment when we start judging our self-worth based on how well we stack up compared to the professionals. This is where women tend to go wrong in their intra-gender comparisons, and why social media is such a detriment to their self-esteem.
Some men realize that they are not as skilled as other men and conclude that they are not valuable.
This is not the way comparison should work. There is only a small minority of men who think in terms of self-worth, and they need to learn to reject this impulse. Comparison and evaluation are tools to help us improve ourselves, not objects of self-punishment that should make us feel worse about who we are.
It is true that our income is based primarily on our skill level and the demand of the market for that particular skill. But our intrinsic worth is not defined by our skill level. We will not waste time telling you that you are special, because most likely you are not. “Special” is what moms tell their kids they are even if their kids are average at best. Your soul makes you valuable, it does not make you special. Everyone has a soul. Therefore, having one does not make you special.
Even though you are not special, you do have value, and you can improve that over time by gaining practical, marketable skill.
We improve ourselves by imitating the masters of our chosen craft. We want to play guitar like the greats or play sports like the legendary men, we do not want to learn and train like average performers. Therefore, comparison is necessary in order to take inventory of our weaknesses and progress and to make sure that we are staying on the path of improvement. What comparison should not be is a pity party where we cry because we are not on the same level as other great men. Comparison should be about extrinsic skill, not about intrinsic worth.
Mantra
Compare, correct, grow.
Application
Compare your skills to other great men, not your individual value. When you compare yourself to a master of a craft, all you should be doing is evaluating your current skill level based on a reference point. Therefore, eliminate any conflations of skill and self-worth that you may have in your mind.
Skill does not equal self-worth, though skill does equal marketplace worth. Mentally separate marketplace value from intrinsic value.
You must take a detached, stoic look at where you are currently so you may improve. Learn skills, techniques and mindsets from the professionals. They achieved success in their field based on a specific formula, so you must copy that formula and try it out for yourself. While that formula may not work for you exactly, you have the option to tweak it slightly and try it again. Change the formula to suit your individual skills and weaknesses.
First, find a master of the craft that you want to imitate, he can be spiritual or worldly.
As we have mentioned before, you need to have secular role models when it comes to work and career because most men in the church believe they are virtuous for being mediocre in the workplace or in their personal skills.
Examine everything the master does with extreme focus. If he is a world class guitarist, examine the smallest things such as the angle of his fingers on his right and left hands. How does he hold the pick and transition from string to string? How high above the fretboard do his other fingers rest? How is his posture and leg positioning? What types of breathing patterns does he employ? Does he look at his right or left hand, or is he able to play without looking at the instrument at all? How does he blend skill with emotion? What does he do to control excess string noise? What is his training regimen? These are just a few of the questions you must ask about the master. Dive into the smallest details and master them because those details will add up to make all the difference in the world.
Once you have answered all the questions you can think of, start applying the knowledge that you have learned one technique at a time.
Test the methods of the master and by doing so you will learn whether his techniques are idiosyncratic or universal. If they are unique to the master, you must adapt the skill into something suited better for you personally. If they are universal, you can transfer those skills directly to yourself.
Focus on one skill at a time, never try to lump half a dozen skills into one practice session. Maintain focus on the one skill until you have raised it to an acceptable skill level. This is called Periodization of Training. One a skill is mastered, move on to another skill. The accumulation of small masteries will be what makes you great in your chosen field.
““When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.”
As long as man has existed in imperfection, war has existed.
Blood has filled the earth since the days of Adam. Therefore, it is absurd to think that war would just vanish over time. War is in the nature of man. Every beauty pageant model who states that she wants world peace reveals how stupid and naïve she is about the world and the way it works, and she unveils a complete lack of understanding about how war is irrevocably intertwined with man’s DNA. If men cannot wage war on themselves and on their weaknesses or imperfections, then they turn to literal war. And men should feel no regret or remorse while doing so.
The church does not like to admit the fact that men have killing instilled in their very nature.
Men have the will to kill and to be killed built into them. They are machines of war if and when they need to be. They are programmed to be able to compartmentalize civility and exchange it for savagery in order to destroy and kill all foes. God knows this because He made us, and He has led His people through wars for hundreds of years.
The conquest of Canaan and the wars against the inhabitants of Canaan during the period of the kings and the period of the judges are evidence of this fact. God used His people to purge Canaan of wicked men. Over and over again God told his people to utterly destroy people from the face of the earth. That old-school, wrath of God content of the Old testament is one of the reasons why more masculine men gravitate towards the Old testament and conservatism, while more effeminate men gravitate towards the “less strict” New testament and religious liberalism. Have you ever met a masculine man attending the local “Jesus, Jeans & Java” meeting?
Most of us will never have to use our warlike instinct.
For most men, desire for war has shriveled up due to lack of use. This is unfortunate because that same energy that is used to destroy other men in war can also be used to destroy our own weaknesses. Many of us would not be able to handle physical war, because even though we desire it we still cannot stomach it. We would be sick and disgusted at killing other human beings because we are too soft and weak. We would break under the pressure of the high level training, or we would develop psychological trauma from prolonged exposure to death and violence.
Make no mistake: by no means do I suggest that we all could handle war. Most of us do not have the strength to handle it. However, that does not mean we do not have some level of desire for war or violence built into us. We can see this from boys at the youngest stages of life. They love to destroy and break toys. They are extremely violent against one another. Boys will hit, bite and steal the properties of their neighbors. They are what man is in his raw state, before he is “civilized”, or before his mother and school teachers teach him how to be a good little girl. Make no mistake about it, however, He is a man of war instilled with the warrior spirit from his birth.
Key: If wars have been started and led by God, then we know that wars cannot be morally wrong.
Most wars of the Old Testament were examples of God using His selected nation to execute His judgement on the heathen nations in order to eradicate evil. In the modern age, it is likely that God uses the highest power nation that follows Him to eradicate evil in more providential ways, though any discussion on providence is purely speculative.
America has been fighting against assorted evils for years, more recently against the products of radical Islam, which is a vile and evil religion that deserves to be eliminated from the face of the earth like the cancer it is. The US has been destroying the evil, radical muslims who chronically rape and torture women. And this destruction of evil for the sake of the good is what draws more men into war. Men feel an obligation or duty to go to war for a cause greater than themselves. War is Biblical, justified and is programmed in your very being.
Many people hate war, they are even opposed to it. Make no mistake, I am not saying we should always dive head first into bloodshed. War should be the last resort we use against evil, but it should still be used. We should not be so merciful and peaceful that we become unwilling or unable to use violence to impose our will on others. War costs lives on both sides, so we must be absolutely sure that we are combating evil itself before we embark. Anti-war advocates are somewhat justified in their hatred of war, for war is still wretched and vile, but it is a tool that is necessary and has been used for thousands of years. There is no end to it. War is a tool to eliminate incurable evil.
Mantra
War is a tool of the righteous to eliminate evil.
Application
There is not a real application to this principle unless you want to go to war. It is commonly called “serving the country”, but make no mistake, you are also serving your desire for war. There are different types of men who go to war. In the 1943 book “The Psychology of the Fighting Man”, Edwin Boring lists out the types of men who generally join the army:
Some join just because it is a Job.
Some join out of a sense of Duty.
Others join because they recognize within themselves a murderous instinct that they need to exercise in a way that is morally appropriate.
The church wants to avoid and repress this warlike nature of man, but you need to examine yourself and find out if you have this desire to kill other men. If so, the military is a great opportunity for you to use your personal psychology in the best possible way: to eliminate evil men from the face of the planet through warfare. You are not murdering the enemy, you are killing the enemy. The word “murder” implies that there is an innocent party involved. Extreme evil is not innocent. Radical muslim men ar enot innocent. You are killing men as if you were killing animals, because those evil men have behaved in such a way that they have relinquished their rights to be treated like humans, so they must therefore be eliminated like the cancer they are.
Men who are impatient rarely arrive at greatness. This is because they cannot handle the years of focus that it takes to arrive at greatness. A man with a great work ethic may fail because he does not have the patience to maintain that work ethic over long periods of time.
“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!”
Patience is one of the cornerstone habits of men of excellence and strength. This can be seen in how these men react to various situations that they encounter. The masculine man does not lose his temper at trivial items in life. He does not allow small situations or problems that are beyond his ability to control cause him to lose his temper. He is not influenced by life because he himself is influencing life.
Have you seen men who lose their tempers or get agitated over miniscule things in life. How did they look when they “lost it”?
Pathetic?
Weak?
Childish?
The answer is all of the above. Would you trust this man in a life or death scenario? If they”lose it” under small pressures, how will they handle large pressures?
Though it is popular for people to brag about “losing it on someone”, that type of attrition warfare will get you nowhere, no matter how satisfying it is to give someone “the business”.
Great men have high levels of patience. They have patience in every sense of the word. They can wait for long periods of time for something they want or need.
The masculine man is unmoved by petty annoyances. He does not become upset because of other human beings. The masculine man is not even bothered when someone waits far too long to take their screaming baby out of the church assembly. The masculine man needs only to master himself and his emotions and patience will immediately follow.
Great men in the Word held patience as one of their key virtues.
Abraham waited years for the son of promise.
Job endured suffering and was written about in James 5.
Moses was the meekest man in all the earth.
David waited years on the throne of Israel.
Christ lived his entire life being patient and delaying gratification.
Also note that Christ was the only one of these men who did not amass great material wealth, because He was concerned with saving the world. The other men were very wealthy, therefore it is reasonable to argue a possible connection with the virtue of patience and wealth. Combining great virtue with faith was the way these men were able to be found worthy of possessing such wealth. God does what He wishes with the wealth of the world, but it is reasonable to say that He would not give wealth to the man whose faith would be destroyed by the possession of that wealth.
Foundational virtues must be in place before we can acquire great wealth if we are to simultaneously maintain our faith.
Patience is one of these virtues. It is a foundational building block of all other virtues, for without it we would give up or surrender to weakness. Patience allows us to build other virtues, no matter how slowly or painfully they are developed. In this way, patience is the foundational virtue. Other virtues are only as strong as the patience you have with them. So build patience first, before you build your other virtues.
Patience is masculine because men use it to resist outside forces. Strength is manifested not only in forcing your hand on others, but also on resisting those who try to force their hands on you.
Mantra
Patience is a pillar of strength.
Application
Stifle emotions. Control them and master them. You are going to feel angry and impatient at times. The first mission is to deny yourself the open expression of these feelings. If you are impatient, do not show it, you will only be showing a weakness for others to exploit. No one should ever know if you are feeling angry or impatient.
In your mind you must remember how others looked who openly expressed impatience or anger in a public setting. They exposed their weakness to the world, and you have not forgotten it. Neither will they forget if they see you expressing weakness though a lost temper. Suppress but do not repress emotion. Take your anger and channel it elsewhere.
The man who can be made angry can be defeated on the battlefield because he shows that he has no self-control and cannot maintain a level head in the midst of battle. Therefore, you must not be this man.
Convince yourself that you are in need of nothing. If you have no needs, then you have nothing to be impatient about.
The ideal man is in constant control of himself.
The moment you start to feel the impatient emotions stirring within you, detach from yourself. Take a breath and do not allow this thought to proceed from your mind to your facial expressions. You cannot allow this to happen, you must be in constant control of your mind. Suppress those negative emotions and do not allow them to express themselves. You must have constant self-awareness so you can monitor your feelings. Be aware of the moments when you are feeling impatient. It is extremely difficult to command yourself if you have no self-awareness.
