Christianity Archives - Page 5 of 8

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.

Obedience

“Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.”
Romans 1:5

“If you love me, keep my commands.”
John 14:15

How you emotionally feel about any of the commands of God is irrelevant. You may not agree with them. You may not want to do them, or you may even hate them at times. However, none of your thoughts matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not you obey through action. All that matters is whether or not you do what you know you must do.

The discipline to follow through with the commands of God is key. The ability to do what God says when we do not want to is a fundamental principle of Spartan Christianity.

Saving yourself for marriage is not fun.

No one who has undertaken that goal has enjoyed it. It is not meant to be enjoyed, that command exists for a purpose. Avoiding drugs and alcohol is not fun. These mind altering chemicals seem like they would be medicine to treat the misery of life. Alcohol could take you away from the pain, drugs could give you the best high of your life, but we cannot use them because we would be unable to be vigilant of the enemy. The command of sobriety is difficult. Few who keep that command enjoy it.

Obedience is a verb.

No one cares how you feel about it. As a man, you aren’t called to feel anything, you are only expected to act. You are only required to take action. You are not required to feel happy about it. Many of the commands are heavy and difficult, and feeling happy about them is something that will never happen. What you can guarantee is that day after day after day you will be grinding away at the discipline of obedience through action.

Mantra

Feeling is irrelevant, only obedience matters.

Application

Simple, do what God commands without getting caught up in how you feel about it. Sideline those emotions. Shut down those thoughts. Put ‘feelings’ in the trash can and focus solely on the action of obedience. You can feel any way you want, what matters is your obedience.

Conduct Yourselves like Men.

Temptation

He who is not tempted is of no value to the devil.

This is what I think about when people brag that temptation is seemingly non-existent in their lives. In the first place, the type of person who talks about their lack of temptation is obviously not intelligent enough to be of much use to the enemy. Not being tempted is nothing to brag about. Men think they are showcasing their “natural goodness” by way of not being tempted, but the opposite is true. The devil has no need of such weak, egotistical individuals. He already owns them.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various temptations knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience”.
James 1:2-3

Hypothetically, Satan has a hit-list, a hierarchy of importance on which he ranks the most valuable players in the Church and plots to destroy them. If you aren’t tempted, you aren’t on the list, if you aren’t tempted, you should be worried.

If you are tempted, it is your job to destroy that temptation.

You can redirect the temptational energy, fight the temptation with willpower, or run from the temptation. Jesus was strong enough to crush temptation face to face using scripture. Are you strong enough to do that?

If you are weaker, or are worn down from temptations already, you will need to use the escape method to remove yourself from the presence of the temptations. Use the redirect method when the temptation is so strong that it causes huge surges of energy in your system. Take that energy and turn your focus onto something productive. Build. Create. Work.

Be aware of your weaknesses. The devil and his demons are cowardly, they will never hit you where you are strongest – they will always look for the chink in the armor. Any little crevice they can worm their way into in order to destroy you. Be aware of your weaknesses, and what sins you are inclined to commit based on your personality. Awareness is key in all aspects of dealing with temptation. Be aware of yourself. Be aware of the enemy, and use temptation to strengthen yourself for the future.

Temptation is the stress that produces growth of the mind, if you allow yourself to be trained by it. The willpower muscle must be used in order for it to grow. Temptation will either crush a man or make him more powerful, and you have to decide today which one it is going to be.

Mantra

I crush the temptation before me at all times.

Application

Awareness is always the first step in solving any problem. Becoming aware of the temptation is key, then you can analyze how the temptation is attacking you and how you can most easily destroy it. Or you can decide that it is too powerful for you and you can run away.

Make no mistake, the way of escape is a useful tool, but it requires you to have humility and accept that you are not strong enough to overcome temptation and must therefore flee from it. So when you are tempted, look in the immediate environment, there is a way of escape there somewhere.

Stockpile the mind with scripture. The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit, making it both useful for defensive measures and offensive maneuvers. This was the tactic used by Christ when He was tempted in the wilderness, and undoubtedly the tactic He used all the other times He was tempted which are not recorded.

Use temptation for growth.

Every time you resist temptations, you increase your experience in dealing with temptation, making it more likely that you will be able to resist temptation in the future as long as you don’t get comfortable and lazy.

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Morning

The morning hours are the most valuable of the day. Don’t waste them.

“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first-fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”
Proverbs 3:9-10

“All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the first-fruits of what they give to the Lord, I give to you”
Numbers 18:12

Every morning of a new day is the beginning of the time we will receive for the day. If we live through the day, we receive 24 hours to do everything we need to do. Whether or not we are good stewards of that time is up to us. Many people plop in front of the television first thing in the morning. They watch the news and fill their mind with garbage. The news is not even a proper reflection of reality, yet people watch it anyways.

You waste your morning self-medicating with mindless shows. You hate your job, hate most of your life, so you choose to distract yourself with television. How is this man better than a drug addict? Both waste time, money, health and life pursuing a moment of medication induced pleasure. Is your life so horrible that you must distract yourself from it constantly?

Or you can be among the 99th percentile of men who reject this waste of the prime morning hours.

You can be the man who uses the morning to get work done, to get ahead on disciplines, to become better. This can be done regardless of whether you are a “morning” or an “evening” person. Discipline supersedes personality. Use the morning to get ahead on reading your Bible, whatever your allotted reading length is. I always recommend starting with anywhere from 10 verses to one chapter. No, it is not a lot, but it beats everyone who is reading zero chapters or verses a day.

Stop wasting your morning. The morning hour is a chance to get ahead of the competition. While they are in their warm beds, all snuggled up, you are improving. You are working and focusing on the things that matter in life.

Spirit.

Discipline.

You start making every morning effective and you start winning.

Yes, the first mornings are difficult. It is hard to change from instant comfort and self-medication in the morning to discipline and work right out of the gate. However, the power you gain from the continued discipline, and the satisfaction you feel from taking action outweigh that difficulty ten to one.

After the first few days, it becomes easier to string days together, it becomes easier to get out of bed, the discipline takes over your mind. Eventually, you string together enough effective days to notice that you are changing in small ways.

Your general Bible knowledge is a tiny bit better.

Your attitude is a tiny bit better.

That cornerstone of success, your mental state is a tiny bit better.

Ignore every individual who reports massive change in life and attitude, that is hyperbole and emotionalism. Improvement always comes one infinitesimally small brick at a time. Add up enough of those bricks over a long enough time, and you have built a structure of character that is impressive to behold. Everyone will think it was “one moment” or that you were an “overnight success”, but you know the truth. You are the cumulative result of every action you have taken up to this point in your life.

As hertical as it is to say, just reading the Bible won’t “change your life”. This isn’t some mom-blog built on a foundation of emotionalism. God gave you all the tools to change your life in His word, but YOU still have to do the work. Nothing changes that. So make it happen first thing in the morning, every morning, and become better. Become a man.

Mantra

The first hour of the day does not belong to me.

Application

Give the morning to the Lord every day, this is simple. You don’t have to feel like doing it, you don’t have to want to do it, you just have to do it.

Read a chapter of the Old Testament, and Chapter of the new testament, and repeat a Verse ten times for memory. Do this every single day. Is it a ton of reading? No. Is it doable? Yes. And it is infinitely more than the “Christians” who are doing no reading, which turns out to be about 80% of them³. You must do this every day. No one is asking you to move a mountain. Wake up a little earlier and give those first fruits to God.

If you cannot manage that much reading, aim for 10 verses from each old and new testaments, and repeat a verse for 10 repetitions. Once you become comfortable with that habit, then add more reading. That is how you win.

Study The Aggressive Verses at spartanchristianity.com

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Adultery: Ignored in Christianity?

“He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.”
Proverbs 6:32

“You shall not commit adultery.”
Exodus 20:14

The Modern Church is almost to the point of ignoring the tremendous evil of adultery. If you find a Church liberal enough, you can maintain your adulterous relationship and still feign “Christianity” while clapping along to “Light the Fire”. I call these the “Adulterer’s Haven Churches”.

The man who cheats on his wife answers many questions about his individual character. He has shown that he has no integrity. He has behaved like a savage.

Adultery is not the way of Men, it is the way of impassioned boys who have no control over their penises and accompanying passions.

Here is a philosophy about adultery you will not hear about in many places: If you cheat on your wife, you don’t have the right to tell her. No, you do not deserve to tell her.

Answer me this: why would you confess to her what you have done? Don’t use the common lie of “it’s the right thing to do”; it isn’t.

If you tell your wife what you have done, all you are doing is alleviating yourself of the guilt you feel inside, and simultaneously breaking the heart of your wife.

You would only confess to get rid of the guilty feelings inside, making that “confession” and completely selfish maneuver. You don’t deserve to tell her, you deserve to go to the grave carrying your guilt alone.

Do not commit adultery. It was a simple command. The sexual needs of man have been manipulated by the world to create many great evils, adultery being one of them. We cannot sit around and pretend that having multiple sex partners is not a temptation, because it is. This is another problem with the classic teachings you hear from people. They pretend that being chaste is desirable, yet give no real, living reasons why chastity is good. Their own lives don’t represent the benefits of chastity, therefore no one will care what their mouth has to say about chastity. Who wants to listen to the miserable married guy who has sex once a year talk about the benefits of chaste conduct?

You must be a man and learn to redirect these sexual desires. We’ve talked about it before: convert all negative emotions into constructive endeavors. You must do this in order to survive the onslaught of temptation in the world.

Mantra

Keep your penis in your pants.

Application

This is simple, do not commit adultery. Yet every time we are commanded to do something, we instantly want to break the rule. This is human nature and the tendency for free will to move towards evil. As with all evil, adultery begins with thoughts of the mind. Thoughts become reality if given enough time to develop. “Desire when it has conceived brings forth sin” (James 1:15).

You have to win this fight early. You must give no mental ground to the Devil. The second an evil thought enters the mind, you must crush it instantly, and then redirect your mind to some other kind of work. These thoughts have no place in your mind.

You cannot be friends with other women.

I know this is an extreme stance to take and many will disagree with me. It can be difficult to accept this, and it is okay if you choose to ignore it. Just know that in this case, I am an extremist. And when it comes to sexuality, extremism is the high ground, and it is the safest path.

Friendship can become sexual in an instant, especially if you have been in a prior relationship for some time and the fire has died down. The new person seems extra funny and exciting. You start to think she is more than just a friend, that she is interested sexually. You start noticing her body more. The slide down the slippery slope begins. Eventually you are thinking about and visualizing having sex with her. At this point you have gone too far (Matt 5:28).

The reason Christ tells us not to think about having sex with women is because He knows that “Thoughts Become Things”.

Thought becomes action. Action becomes a habit. Christ the neuroscientist knew that we cannot tell the difference between imagining sex and actually having sex.

You cannot even get to this point in your relationships with women. Do not be alone with women. I would urge you to consider avoiding all contact outside of evangelism. Be honest with yourself, look in the mirror and you will know why you interact with women. Very few men talk to women unless they have an angle.

You have to understand yourself as a man. Your sex drive will get you into a massive amount of trouble if you are not extreme about controlling it.

I am a lover of freedom, but the way I govern my body should resemble a totalitarian dictatorship. You must declare martial law on your body. You must rule your body and mind with an iron fist.

Be a man; Do not have sex with someone who is not your wife.

Conduct Yourselves like Men.

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