Spartan Christianity

Happiness – The Unnecessary Emotion

Happiness.

Happiness is one of the most overrated emotions in religion as a whole. Everyone in life is pursuing the elusive combination of brain chemicals, yet no one ever seems to find them.

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Isaiah 53:3

“For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”
Ecclesiastes 1:18

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4

People assume that what God wants for them is this good feeling that happiness provides. The truth is that how we feel is irrelevant and should not even be considered as part of the picture because emotions only muddy the waters of logical thinking.

The lust for happiness has become increasingly popular over the years, as human beings have become less and less happy over time.

Entanglement with the world (2 Timothy 2:4), self-absorption (2 Timothy 3:1-5) and the breakdown of community institutions have contributed to this famine of happiness. People are no longer participating in the activities that provide purpose to the individual. People are more solitary than ever before, yet they do not want to be. Some men think isolation brings happiness, but it only forces them to reflect on themselves and their life which causes sorrow. To escape this sorrow they medicate through television and social media, reinforcing the idea in their minds that isolation is what is making them feel better. Virtual existence grows into a disease that decays the mind. Those who live in a virtual world endlessly pursue happiness and find it not.

Happiness is extremely popular with liberals both moderate and radical.

Liberals tend to place far too much emphasis on emotions in general, but they especially pursue happiness, and it pervades their worship service shifting the focus away from God and onto their own feelings. They pursue happiness and manipulate worship to their will in order to achieve it. This is not only wrong, but the pursuit of happiness in worship is in vain. If we are chasing happiness, we are running in the wrong direction. A prostitute can bring happiness for a few minutes. So can heroin or a line of cocaine. This is because, again, happiness is just a chemical reaction in the brain, so don’t worship it.

Was Christ happy while He was on earth? I am not convinced that He was, as the scriptures note He was a “Man of Sorrow and Acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). However, Christ was filled with purpose despite a lack of earthly “happiness”. He endured temptation over thirty years and worked with human beings on a constant basis, which is a feat in itself. There does not seem to be any reason to believe that Jesus was overwhelmed with emotions all the time. Jesus was on the earth for one reason: to save the world of men.

We as men must be filled with a meaningful purpose that overrides any given emotion at any given time. It should not matter how we feel, we should be able to do what is right and be able to keep to our purpose. Purpose is infinitely more important than happiness. Finding and maintaining meaningful and beneficial purposes for our lives should be what we do every single day.

Mantra

Emotions do not matter.

Application

Get rid of the idea that happiness is required in your life.

It is a luxury that will not always be present in your life. When you pull a double shift on Saturday, fight with the wife, are mad at the kids, get two hours of sleep then show up on Sunday for a slow, dry lesson and all the songs you don’t like, are you happy? No. Can you worship in spirit and truth regardless (John 4:24)? Absolutely.

KEY: We do not have to be happy to go to heaven, but when we get to heaven we will absolutely be happy.

You must fill your mind with purpose. Focus on God, family, doing meaningful work to the best of your ability. These actions bring purpose and as a byproduct they occasionally bring happiness. But trying to achieve happiness alone should never be your goal, it is a self-centered action and almost never profits. You must focus your mind on taking actions. Action will always be more important and more profitable than emotions. Gather strength for yourself. Do great work. Avoid the trappings of emotion. Be a Man.

Gossip – Verbalized Insecurity

Gossip is not just a problem for women. Gossiping is a problem for beta men in the same way that many women struggle with lust, their desire just comes from a different source.

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
Ephesians 4:29

“A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.”
Proverbs 16:28

“Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas.”
Charles Stewart, Biographer.

Nonetheless, we will still gossip, because gossip is easy. James tells us that no man can tame the tongue because it is an unruly evil filled with deadly poison (3:8). He also tells us that the man who does stumble in word is perfect and able to control his whole body, (3:2) which suggests that sin of the mouth is the most difficult to control. This is true because it is possible to speak without thinking, as most people are very skilled at doing. The mouth gets ahead of us. We make statements before our mind has time to register what we just said, and before we have time to think about how our words sound from the perspective of others. This is why our mouth is the source of so much evil, emotional pain and psychological suffering.

But what makes us gossip?

Ego, and here is why. When was the last time you spoke well of someone you were gossiping about? Most likely the answer is never. Our ego only wants to talk about others when we have something negative to say about them. That way our ego is elevated and we are made to feel better because we can push ourselves up on the rubble of another individual’s damaged reputation. We can compare ourselves to other men and have the classic thought of, “Wow, I’m not as bad as that guy” as if that justifies our patheticism and mediocre lives. We are plagued with evil, yet all we have to do is think, “Well, at least I’m not Hitler” and our lives are validated and our “small sins” are justified.

Ego is the source of all evil. Ego is the “bad pride” that is focused solely on self and pleasure, and gossiping brings small, subtle pleasures to the ego. It doesn’t feel amazing to gossip, it feels just good enough that we keep doing it over and over. Gossip is nothing more than verbalized weakness and insecurity; we must terminate this habit of gossip as soon as possible.

Mantra

I am controlling my tongue, it does not move without my consent.

Application

The problem of gossip is rooted is a lack of control over our tongue. The absence of verbal discipline is the foundational problem from which gossip creeps out and damages our own reputation; because beginning at the time when we first gossip, we are forever known as a gossiper, even if only among other gossipers. And who is to say that those gossipers will not turn around and speak about you behind your back?

Gossipers eat their own.

We must enter into every civil dialogue with a high level of consciousness. This is the point where our meditation practice starts to pay us some dividends, as we can become more self-aware and realize the distasteful ways we conduct ourselves in public.

Observe yourself and the way you speak to and about other people.

Examine yourself in a detached way and evaluate your character as a bystander to your own life. When you are conversing with people, imagine yourself having an out of body experience and watching yourself talk.

How are you coming across to others around you?

In what ways are the men you speak to interpreting what you are saying?

How will their personality and personal experience color the way they perceive what you are saying?

By asking these questions we can immediately turn ourselves off to the habit of gossip, because it looks so abysmal, so distasteful and corrupt when we examine it from the outside that we no longer want anything to do with something that would mar our character so greatly. So become aware of your dialogue and examine it critically.

Upon achieving constant awareness of ourselves, we still must strive to control our tongues because our pleasure-loving ego is still going to urge us to gossip about other men in a small scale struggle for power. In this rare case, awareness alone is likely not enough to purge the problem. In this case we must literally bite our tongues.

We must physically condition ourselves to associate gossip with punishment. This seems somewhat barbaric to weak men, but it would be better to endure some physical pain now than to endure the spiritual pain that would be the result of a lifetime of this evil. Jesus taught to eliminate evil at the source even if it is painful because it is better to enter heaven maimed than to have a perfect body and be cast into hell (Mark 9:45).

Prime your mind and become self-aware before you enter a conversation or better yet, before you walk out the door to participate in a public function (Church/Work etc.).
Detach from and observe yourself as if you are floating above your own body.
Physically Bite tongue when necessary.
Gain power over time by employing restraint early.

We must get a grip on this sin of the tongue.

Gossip is a foundational evil that must be extracted and burned. Teaching ourselves that gossip is painful is a simple and effective way to make this happen. So bite your tongue. Discipline your mouth. Control your mind. Do not speak about people negatively behind their backs. Conduct yourself with honor. Be a Man.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Why Are You Watching The News

Most people watch the news. Why do they do this? In the eye of the rational man, the negative effects far outweigh the benefits. When watching the news many people are deluded to the reality of the world. What is worse is that most people then become entangled with the world and the affairs therein. Their own spirituality becomes deluded because of how attached hey are to earthly events. This is a great evil, and this is an enemy to masculinity.

“No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him”.
2 Timothy 2:4

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!”
Psalm 33:12

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ”
Philippians 3:20

Can you remember being upset at the news last week, last month or last year? You probably can. But can you remember exactly what you were watching that made you upset? Probably not. So what exactly did watching the news profit you? The world did not end. Life went on. Practically nothing has changed in the American Government as far as radical differences. You got upset and perhaps ruined your entire day without acquiring any type of benefit for your character. The morning hour must consist of you becoming primed for the day, not you ruining your day by taking in a negative visual diet first thing in the morning. It’s like eating jellybeans for breakfast. Televised news is a waste of time because it doesn’t reflect reality. News stations aren’t interested in facts, they are interested in viewers.

The main problem is not watching the news, the problem is that most people become entangled with the world when they watch the news.

They become sour and miserly, they complain and act so negative that they repel everyone they are around. This is not the way Christians are going to convert people. If you are carrying around a cloud of anger and negativity fueled by “current events”, then you are not allowed to complain about people not wanting to listen to you talk to them about the gospel. You seem to be no different from them, filled with depression and anger, so why should they listen to you? You are not acting as though you possess the soul-saving gospel.

According to the Justice Bureau Statistic and distilled by the Pew Research Center, violent crime is down 79%, with 29 violent crimes committed out of every 1000 people ages 12 and up in 2017. This is a reduction from 79.8 crimes in the early 90s. The FBI Reports a 49% decrease in violent crime, with 747 violent crimes in the early 90s, and 382.9 crimes in 2017.

Source: Gramlich, John. “5 Facts about crime in the US”. Pew Research Center, Jan 3, 2019

If you let the mainstream news outlets be your source for what is going on in the world, then you would likely believe that crime is going up because that is all that is reported.

This is not the case, America and the world are actually becoming less violent. The news outlets are dying with the development of the internet and podcasting, so news outlets are forced to do anything to keep your attention. They focus solely on crime and the negative aspects of life because they know this is what gathers attention in the modern age. Outrage culture is addictive, people simply enjoy being angry and negative. All the negativity is based on lies and skewed data.

The state of the world is not so important that we should constantly be worried about it. The state of the nation is not as important as the faith, believe it or not. Throughout history, everytime the home-base nation for Christianity fell, Christians just moved somewhere else. In the broadest sense, Christianity went from Rome to England and then to America. If America continues down a path of immorality, it seems as though Africa is the place where Christians will move since Christianity flourishes there. Christianity always survives the collapse of nations. In fact, it is not even scratched.

Mantra

This world is temporary.

Application

Keep your faith as the most important element in your mind. Your faith cannot be touched if you do not allow it to be. You have likely become entangled with the world, as we all have. The modern faith is easy and convenient for most people to maintain, which is why their faith is so weak, it has not been put through the furnace to be strengthened.

We can lie to ourselves about the difficulty of life and faith but the reality is that having faith and living life is easier and more comfortable than it has ever been in history. And we are more entangled with the cares of the world than we ever have been in history. We must reject this.

We cannot purge out every semblance of the world from our life, it is not possible. However, at the very least we must put our faith first, which is more than most Christians do. Remember how many of them read their Bible daily?

Get out a notebook and start making daily disciplines for yourself.

You must read the Bible daily and pray. If you are not doing this you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself serious questions about the quality of your faith. You have the mind of God sitting on your shelf and you aren’t using it.

It is of the utmost importance to go to bed a little later or wake up a little earlier in order to get the Bible reading in. Great men of faith in the Bible prayed three times daily (Daniel 6:10-28). That may be too much to ask of you right now, but it is a goal we all should have. Are you concentrating on the Word every day without fail or are you a loser who just so happens to wear the name of Christ? Today is the day you end your negative practices. Reject the entanglement of the world.

Cut off the news, it is doing you no good.

If you want to know how the world is faring, read actual statistics, do not listen to other people report on what is happening. Read an unbiased international news source reporting on American events. At the very least read both sides of a political argument and search for the facts.

Gather your strength. Focus your mind on the church. Reject worldliness and its accompanying filth. Harden your resolve to obliterate the enemy from your mind. Be a Man.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Freedom and Restriction

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
Galatians 5:13

“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”
1 Peter 2:16

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. – “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
John 8:32 & 36

“Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free.”
Psalm 118:5

Does faith limit our freedom? Most religious people will say “no”, because to say “yes” is to suggest that God is robbing them of something we need or deserve. This is where most religious people are wrong.

When a coach or nutritionist gives us a specific diet plan, is he taking away our freedom of eating choices? Yes he is.

We are no longer allowed to eat the things we enjoy, but we do this for the greater good of our health. We give up the foods that diminish our health and fitness but taste great in exchange for foods that do not taste as great, but provide longevity, health and the improvement of body and mind. Now e no longer have dietary freedom, we have given it up for the long-term rewards. We give up immediate gratification for delayed gratification.

When God gives us a plan of action directly from his mind which included rules and restrictions, did He limit our freedom of choice? Yes He did.

But this is the Key Point: We get to choose whether or not we give up our freedom.We as Christians choose to give up freedom, instead of having it taken from us by some third party individual such as a dictator.

This distinction is vital to our faith, and the confusion caused by the lack of properly defined terms damages faith and relationships. God does not take your freedom, you give it up of your own free will. You freely choose to give up pleasure now for a reward later. It is an investment. Just as an investment costs something and is painful in the present moment, it provides so a greater return in the future.

Relinquishing freedom is difficult because it is yet another one of those actions that causes immediate pain and delayed pleasure. These are the types of actions that are the least likely to be repeated. Actions that bring immediate gratification and delayed punishment are the actions most often taken. People enjoy the immediate pleasure of drinking sweet tea or eating cake, and they don’t “suffer” at all until a few weeks later when their clothes no longer fit. They will continue down this road of poor dieting nonetheless because the punishment for their actions is so greatly delayed. It is a long time before they have to suffer the consequences of their actions.

Eating healthy food is the exact opposite. Immediately it gives us punishment (or at least that is what we think) and it does not pay off for weeks or even months. If you are trying to lose weight and you change up your diet, you are not going to see results of your hard work for several weeks, this is the delayed reward and the reason why most people never get into physical shape.

Many Christians think that they need to defend the faith against people who speak against the semi-difficult lifestyle.

The Christian lifestyle does not need to be defended anymore than a nutrition and training plan needs to be defended.

Both require you to take certain beneficial actions and avoid other negative actions for the betterment of your life.

There is nothing wrong or immoral about the fact that we must give up our freedom in some areas of life. We have to give up having sex with multiple partners and simultaneously convince yourself that heaven will be better than sex (a feat that is extremely difficult even nearly impossible to do). Most Christians prove that they do not believe this based on their actions.

We have to give up drinking alcohol and taking drugs in order to be aware, sober and vigilant, even though those “pleasures” are extremely desirable, and any Christian who tells you otherwise should reconsider his pattern of thinking. We give up a thousand small things in life in exchange for the great heavenly reward. This is not easy, and it is not enjoyable.

Again, Christians think they need to defend the faith against those who say that Christianity is unenjoyable.

The Christian lifestyle does not need to be enjoyable just as an intense training and nutrition plan does not need to be enjoyable. Both include a decent dose of pain as a down payment for the infinitely greater benefits that are to come. Both limit freedom, but provide an even greater freedom in the future. There are certainly enjoyable parts of life, but the Christian life is not about earthly enjoyment.

Key Point: All of life is just one masive delayed gratification experience.

Mantra

Suffer today to enjoy tomorrow.

Application

Identify the two schools of thought concerning freedom and eliminate the one that you now know is false. Faith absolutely does limit our freedom. We give up our freedom through our own choice, it is not taken away from us by God. God wants us to decide to follow Him and do what He says, He never asks for us to enjoy it. Exchange your freedom for the delayed benefits of heaven. Exchange sex with many women for heaven. For many men, that is simply too much to ask, as nothing in the world is better to them than having sex with many women.

You must accept the reality of a limited and restricted life. Accept it and know that you are working towards a massive reward. That reward will definitely outweigh any of the so-called sufferings and difficulties we experience on the earth. So give up what you crave on earth. Reject your desires. Strengthen your mind and your resolve. Delay Gratification. Crush the enemy. Be a Man.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men

Enemies

“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.”
Psalm 138:7

“For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with words of hate, and attack me without cause. In return for my love they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer. So they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love.”
Psalm 109:2-5

“When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Proverbs 16:7

Not everyone is going to like you. This is an unavoidable fact of life. Some people will go so far as to hate you, and they are your enemies. They may not say outright that they are your enemies, most people never do. They allow their hate for you to lie dormant, waiting until they can spring up and destroy you in one maneuver. Or they think they can slowly destroy you over time, through minute attacks. These people must be avoided.

Many people outside the church will hate you because your righteousness is a spotlight on their immorality. Religion makes worldly people look bad and feel guilty or dirty about their own irreligious lifestyle. This causes them to badmouth you or attack your character. They will label your church as a cult and you as an extremist. This is to be expected. Also, do not make the mistake of thinking you are so great if worldly people hate and speak badly about you because our Christian forefathers had it much worse than we do.

Even worse than acquiring hatred from the outside world is the fact that many people in the church will hate us, even our own brethren.

We wear the name Christian, but that does not protect us from human nature. Not everyone is going to get along. People have egos. People have opinions and traditions that, if you speak against them, will cause that person to hate you. Human beings are still human beings even though they walk in a church building every Sunday in their best dress.

You must be an astute observer of human nature and the way in which humans behave. You must learn to read people and have an idea of what they may be thinking or planning. This requires vigilance. This requires awareness about the people around you. You must raise your resting level of consciousness and be aware of humans. There are multiple small wars going on at all times, many minuscule power struggles between people. These are the foundations of relationships and make up all of interpersonal communication. You must become proficient at communication and at reading these power struggles if you are to succeed in mitigating the amount of enemies you deal with.

Even if you can avoid human enemies, you will never be able to avoid spiritual enemies. Satan is the enemy. His angels are the enemy. Plan to crush them.

Mantra

Enemies are unavoidable, but loving action is a choice in my mind.

Application

We must love our enemies. Remember: Love has nothing to do with how you feel, and everything to do with how you act. You may dislike another person greatly, but you can still act lovingly towards that person. However, we must hate the devil and everything he stands for and tries to do. Satan worms his way into everything and he must be opposed at every front, he must be strategically defeated.

Be vigilant and aware of the human beings around you, be sensitive to their aura and the way they seem. As humans we have the ability to tell when other humans are “off”. Your instinct will be right more often than not. It is possible to tell most enemies simply from aura, other enemies who are skilled in acting and manipulation may be harder to detect. If you detect that someone may be vexed with you, you have a couple options.

1 – Approach the brother. Some personality types respond best to direct confrontation. You must go to them directly, clear the air and try to make it right. This must be done regardless of whether your own personality is comfortable with confrontation or not. Simply approach him and ask if you have offended them in any way. Press them until they tell you what is on their mind.

2 – Try to make it right through successive small actions. Other personality types are very uncomfortable with confrontation and will deny everything if you approach them about their feelings toward you.

(Remember: Others will operate on emotion, we ourselves must avoid this at all costs).

Take a few small, nice actions towards this person and see if this clears the air. If this fails, go to a close friend of your “enemy” and ask them if the individual has mentioned having problems with you. This person will know if their friend is truly your enemy, or if their displeasure is targeted at someone or something else. Non-confrontational individuals are very likely to confide in a close friend, but tell nothing to everyone else they know. You must be strategic in how you handle this individual.

3 – There are some enemies who are simply trying to damage the church. They sow division and engage in small interpersonal wars. To defeat these enemies, you need the masses on your side. You cannot defeat an enemy like this unless the church agrees that he is an enemy. You need evidence that he is sowing discord among the brethren or engaging in warfare. Take the evidence to the elders of the church. If the elders will not listen, slowly acquire support from the rest of the church until you can approach the elders again with the support of the people. A divisive enemy must be removed from the church or he will destroy it.

Enemies in the spiritual realm must be found and annihilated.

You cannot see these enemies, but you can feel their effects on your life (Ephesians 6:10-12). You must be aware of these effects if you are to detect the presence of evil. This philosophy borders on mysticism and speculates about the whereabouts and activities of the good and evil spiritual realms. If you believe in the presence of angels and demons, this is where they would be active. If not, then you almost certainly believe that the devil is responsible for all the evil in your life. You must be aware of him and keep him out of your home and mind. You are at war with the devil and his army, so gird your loins, fortify the fortress of your mind and be a man.

Eliminate every access point the devil has in your home. Barricade points where he can worm his way in. this means setting up filtering software on all computers, televisions and phones. Do not even allow the microscopic spores of evil to settle in your mind. By removing the enemy’s access points, you have taken the spiritual high ground and are well on your way to keeping the enemy at bay.

Even after fortifying your home, you must be “on patrol”, constantly monitoring the fort for other ways the devil is attacking you. Applied knowledge is power, so always have intelligence on everything that goes on in your home.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

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