Spartan Christianity

There is a disease growing in the Church. It is complacency combined with irreverence which together form an overall lack of seriousness regarding religion.

The Church has become a social club where individuals focus primarily on their own enjoyment with little thought for anything else. Young men show up to Church dressed for a backyard barbecue while young women show up dressed like they are going out clubbing.

What happened? Parents thought that simply being Christians and bringing their kids to church a couple of times per week would be enough to keep them on the path of spiritual discipline.

This is not the case anymore. The young see the lack of seriousness from their parents and carry on the tradition of lackadaisical faith in their own lives. The older generations enjoy pointing fingers at the younger generations and complaining about them.

The older generation forgets that they are responsible for raising the younger generation.

They have three fingers pointing back at themselves.

When a young child behaves poorly, it is a reflection primarily on the parent, not on the child. We all know and understand that children are born uncivilized. It is the responsibility of the parents the teach them how to behave in a civilized society.

Thus when we see a lack of seriousness in the Church, we need to look at the parents who did not firmly instill values into their children to determine the root cause of the problem.

The lack of seriousness we see in the Church is the result of poor parenting. It is evident that our perception of God and the Church is a reflection of our perception of our parents, primarily our fathers when it comes to how we view God.

If the father is a strict disciplinarian, the child views God as the Punisher of evil who gives no grace or mercy to anyone, and who is viewing earth from heaven just waiting for someone to sin so that He can destroy them.

If the father is too merciful, turning a blind eye to a child’s poor behavior, the child views God as handing out never-ending grace and mercy no matter how evil an individual is. The child will then convince himself that everyone is saved because God is all love.

If the father is absent, either because of work or because he is literally gone, the child views God as absent and distant and will likely end up as an atheist.

Our idea of the Church reflects our mothers and their relationships with our fathers.

If marriage is to reflect Christ (the husband) and His Church (the wife) then we can see how seriousness has faded over the years. Children have less respect for their parents and in turn, they have less respect for the Church. They speak to their mothers however they please, and thus view the Church as something not to be respected.

Marriage itself has become less respected and revered and is seen as an empty contract that can be cast aside at a moment’s notice for any reason.

Therefore, the relationship between Christ and the Church has become less respectful as well. This respect must be restored to the Church.

We forget that we are coming to a memorial service for Christ.

No one would show up to the funeral of their father or mother in shorts and a t-shirt.

Then why do we feel free to show up to the memorial service for God the Son dressed like we are headed to a birthday party?

Unacceptable.

We need to reverse this lack of respect and seriousness in the church by instructing our children about the seriousness of the faith we hold. They need to understand that a lackadaisical approach to faith and Christianity is no better than having no faith at all.

The lukewarm church is spewed from the mouth of God. Education begins at home. “Raise your children in the way that they should go so that when they are grown, they may not depart from it” ~ Proverbs 22:6.

Treat your faith with seriousness and respect. Worship God with reverence and Godly fear, for He is “a consuming fire” – Hebrews 12:28-29

Ephesians 6:11-12 “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Deuteronomy 28:7 – “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways”

Psalm 37: 12-16 – “The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright; their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked.”

The self is one of our many enemies. We must fight daily against its weakness, insufficiency, and selfishness. The self must be brought under subjection.

The self is primarily manifested in the flesh, so when we war against ourselves, we fight mainly against our flesh.

Secondarily, we fight against the weakness of the mind. Because any glitch we have in the mind will manifest itself in the body. The body is merely a messenger for our thoughts and a vessel that represents the cumulative results of our mind’s work.

Therefore, even though we mainly wrestle against flesh and blood, the war must begin in the mind. Once the mind is under control, then the body can be brought under control.

We make the mistake of assuming that the enemy is primarily in the outside world while an enemy is already living within us as a parasite. Many temptations come from within our minds (James 1:14-15). The primary enemy is within.

We can never defeat an enemy outside the walls of our minds while simultaneously fighting treachery inside our minds. The internal war is won before the external war is won. We must focus on the enemy that is our own self, then we may conquer the world.

Application

The mind is odd in that it can be defeated by itself. Two opposing forces can collide in the recesses of our minds, originating from our thoughts. The victor is the one who is fed the most thoughts. The thought held the longest in the mind is the one that will win and take root in the mind.

Therefore, we must encourage the correct thoughts, because the thoughts that win will be the thoughts that become our life. It is even established in the scientific fields that we have extreme difficulty forcing throughs out of our minds and not allowing them to bubble up. But we also know that evil thoughts can be crowded out by consciously inserting good thoughts.

Practical tactic: Choose the thoughts you want to have in advance and when unwanted thoughts begin to bubble up, replace them with the thoughts you want. Force negativity out of your mind by filling it with positivity.

When the mind is won, war can be waged in the body. The body of man is primarily overrun with lusts of all kinds. Sex consumes the vast majority of man’s thoughts and personal cravings. He also lusts for power and money, but primarily because these tend to bring even more sex to the one who holds them.

Skills and status are also objects of lust.

The lust for sex is the primary driver of man.

All invention, creation, and construction are the results of sexual energy. This energy must be harnessed and controlled because there are very few ways to use it properly.

Men spill their seed using porn or prostitutes when they could instead use that energy to create. You should avoid confronting this lust head-on. Try instead to redirect it to other outlets.

If you war against the lust of the flesh to repress it, it will find a way to force an outlet because it is too powerful of an energy source to be contained.

Redirect the strength of the enemy into anything that will gain more power for yourself. This is how you defeat the flesh. Everything can be viewed in terms of sex, because as men, this is our greatest battle, and this battle pervades all other spiritual battles we face.

Few make it out alive because they try to war against their own biology. Men use dams to redirect the power of a river, you must use strategically placed dams to redirect your own sexual power into constructive and creative endeavors.

This requires leaving the house and building success using the power of the enemy against him. This can be done. If this war is won, all other wars can be won. Place armor on your mind. Gather your thoughts on the task at hand. Wage total war on yourself and unleash your raging fury upon your imperfections.