Tag: Christianity

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. 

morning

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.

Adultery. Sex

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.

The Wager of Faith

Men of faith wager their lives on the existence of an afterlife. Is that a good gamble?

“But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”.

1 Corinthians 2:9

There is an old philosophy from Blaise Pascal that acts as a fail-safe for our faith. It’s called “Pascal’s Wager”. It states that what you believe about the afterlife is a gamble, because you cannot truly know what will happen after death. The main point is that one should behave as if God exists, because the possibility of eternal punishment outweighs any benefit of atheism.

So the atheist wagers that there will be no God, and no afterlife.
The Believer wagers that there is a God and as a result there is an afterlife. 

Both cannot prove what they think in the present moment, that is why it is a wager. Pascal argues that The Christian’s wager is better or safer than the atheist’s.

If the atheist is wrong, he goes to hell. If he is right, he goes to non-existence. His wager is a win-lose scenario, a 50/50 chance of his gamble working out in his favor. 

For the Christian: if he is right, he goes to heaven and eternal pleasure. If he is wrong, he goes to non-existence.

His belief is a win-win scenario, a 100% chance of the afterlife working out in his favor, because there is nothing wrong with non-existence. In fact, some might find the idea of non-existence more pleasing than the idea of heaven. This is a result of the way that weak people in the Church have decided to describe heaven. In reality, men don’t want to sit around singing “Days of Elijah” on an endless loop for all time. That is how the Church describes heaven. That is one reason why men don’t find the idea of heaven very motivating. Some may even leave the Church because of this.

This entire wager is a buffer for us as weak men. We will doubt our faith, doubt God, doubt the afterlife, but this wager can be a tool that we use to combat the doubt. I know there are some pusillanimous people who will freak out when you try to use anything besides mindless “faith” and emotional “belief” when it comes to your motivation to do what is right. Many days you will have to conjure up some sort of external motivation. 

Hell deters us from evil. Pascal’s wager deters us from leaving the faith. Use this tool to maintain the faith when you are particularly weak. 

Mantra

Faith has no downside.

Wager. Gamble

Application

Use the wager to beat your doubts. When your emotions begin to fail you, use your rational mind to maintain the faith. Pascal’s wager is designed to appeal to the rational mind. Use the wager to remind yourself that your “gamble” about the afterlife has the best possible outcome. 

It is in your best interest to behave as if there is a God. No immediate pleasure is worth eternal punishment. Always be mindful of that.

Conduct yourselves like Men.

Read On

Dealing With Hypocritical Church Members: Correcting Hypocrisy II

Correct the self first, then correct others.

Included at the bottom of this page is the protocol for dealing with three types of hypocritical Christians.

“Better is open rebuke than hidden love.”

Proverbs 27:5

“As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.”

1 Timothy 5:20

“The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”

Proverbs 29:15

“Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.”

Proverbs 9:8-9

“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”

Revelation 3:19
Hypocrisy

Three problems have arisen because of the ways people interpret the teaching of Jesus about hypocrisy.

One

No one corrects anyone in the Church because they are afraid of being hypocritical, thinking that they themselves must first be perfect before they can criticize anyone else. 

Two

Individuals have acquired the classic “You cannot judge me” attitude, and assume that everyone has some form of hypocritical trait which prevents them from passing any judgment. 

Three

People think that they have no beams at all and are therefore free to criticize and rebuke anyone they want.

Let’s break down each of these reasons.

1 – The fear of rebuking and criticizing hypocritical brethren has been a longstanding fear in the Church. The results of this became apparent in the last sixty years with the baby boomer generation and the”no spanking” parenting movements.

Congratulations, not disciplining children resulted in the worst generations to exist.

Men must take the offensive position and correct the wrongs they see in others. We do not have to be flawless to point out flaws. The teaching of Christ seems to point at people who are rebuke others for the same sin that they themselves are engaged in. A drunkard rebuking another man for drinking, for instance.

2 – The world has confused the idea of “judge that you be not judged” with the fallacy of “do not judge at all”. We judge people by our very nature, it is not something we can avoid. Humans are constantly making judgements about our fellow-man based first on how he looks, and secondly on how he acts. We do judge other men, and the reality is that we are allowed to do so. The text simply says that the standard we use to judge others will be used to judge us. There is difference between not judging entirely and using a fixed standard to judge which we also apply to ourselves. Are we measuring up to our own scrutiny?

3 – Some individuals have come to think they are perfect. They are hypocritical, stupid and know nothing. This unfortunately tends to be older women first. Older men maintain a close second place followed by middle-aged women and lastly middle aged men. Young men and women who think they are perfect are simply classic narcissists. It is almost impossible to deal with any of these toxic types.

The purpose of the teaching of Christ is to guide us towards being more self-aware of our own behavior.

We need to conduct thorough examinations of ourselves, taking inventory of our character and of where we fall short. Through this we can begin to improve on these weaknesses which improves our character overall. Through years of this focused application and the teaching we may wake to find ourselves significantly improved from our earlier state. Then others come us for advice and guidance on how to improve their own lives and weaknesses.

Correct the self first, then correct others.

Application

Dealing with the Three Types of Hypocritical Church Members

One: People who are afraid to rebuke others want to be liked, and no one likes the man who rebukes others. This is simply human nature. These people must be instructed on how to deliver a rebuke that does not seem like a rebuke.

The difference between a rebuke that a man will take to heart and a criticism that will cause you to be hated by the man is all in the delivery. The delivery must be tailored to the personality of the person you are speaking to.

Aggressive, egotistical types need an aggressive criticism, because they understand that type of power.

They must be withstood to the face as Paul addressed Peter in front of the whole Church. Peter was a strong, extroverted personality type that would respond best to that type of address.

Quiet introverted people need to be taken aside and spoken to quietly.

An open rebuke would do infinitely more harm than good to the introvert. This is seen with the teacher Apollos in Acts 18. Apollos taught boldly, but he only knew the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and taught him the Way of God more accurately.

While the scripture might seem to indicate that Apollos was a strong personality type (he taught boldly/refuted vigorously the Jews in public) it seems less likely that he would become a “learned man” as an extremely extroverted person.

To become a “very learned” or eloquent man and one who can debate vigorously requires a great deal of time spent alone in study. Lecturers, professors and people who engage in debate tend to actually be introverts much of the time. Therefore, it seems that Apollos was likely an introvert who would respond better to quiet admonition and instruction rather than a public address.

Tailor the delivery of your rebuke/admonition to the personality of the individual you are speaking to and you will have a much greater chance of being heard.

Two

People who think the Text says “you cannot judge me” are narcissists who only see what they want to see in the scriptures. They want to live their own life in the way they desire and still sneak into heaven at the end. This type of individual is usually a young person, as you will rarely heard older people tell you not to judge them.

It is extremely difficult to instruct this type of individual because they are likely the result of lax parenting. The primary way to get your message across to them is to first strengthen your relationship with them. People deal better with criticism when it comes from someone they have a relationship with and when the delivery is properly tailored to their personality type. Open rebuke does little for those individuals, they will just hate you for embarrassing them. Be strategic in your approach.

Three

The classic narcissists who think they are perfect need open rebukes. They have constructed a false self-image that needs to be shattered.

The old need to remember they are not perfect.

Relationship is not necessary here, for these people also think they themselves can criticize others without having a relationship with them. They need to understand their own position and they need to be instructed as to why their criticisms of others are not taken to heart. They are the Medusas who must be shown their own reflection. Give them a taste of what they give out, because they have forgotten what their reflection really looks like.

Some will humble themselves and repent, others will simply find another church that will tolerate their narcissism. In this way you have purged you assembly of these self-absorbed, hypocritical parasites and judged with righteous judgement.

Weak Faith Versus Faith Confusion

Is your faith weak? Or do you have no idea what faith is?

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Hebrews 11:6

“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’”

Luke 17:5

“He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.’”

Matthew 17:20
Confusion

Is your faith weak? Or do you have no idea what faith is? What many individuals in the Church have done is they have confused faith with an emotional state.

Faith is not emotion, it is action.

Action then in turn creates the emotions commonly associated with faith. Do not confuse what you feel for genuine faith. In the same way that you should not confuse what you feel emotionally towards another person for genuine love.

You think your faith is weak because you have thousands of questions about the nature of God.

You wonder why He is the way that He is.

Why He chose to destroy people in the Old Testament or execute a furious vengeance on people who did not obey Him.

You question your own salvation and wonder if the grace of God is enough to save even a soul like yours.

You are not sure if you will be saved because you are confused by God’s justice and the way it differs from man’s justice.

You wonder if you are wasting time in the Church, wasting time in your faith and giving up on pleasures of life solely for the purpose of faith.

All these thoughts are the attacks of the enemy on your faith.

You hold fast to the faith even when you do not feel like it, when you do not want to or even when you think everything about it is wrong. You hold fast the faith through discipline and focus because that is how a disciple behaves. This is true faith. Staying in the Church when your emotions pull you away from it is faith. Doing what is right even when it is inconvenient is faith. Faith is trusting in God’s plan even though it looks wrong to you. Faith is maintained despite everything you feel. Real faith is not an emotion, it is an attitude combined with an action.

Faith is the attitude of relentlessness, knowing you will never give up the faith. Then following it up with the action of maintaining that faith. Christianity is very difficult, very Spartan. It is not for the faint-hearted. Modern culture has made it possible to have a weak faith and be faithful because there are no real consequences to being faithful right now. When the times arises for the true warriors of Christ to rise and resist a violent persecution, the weak will fall away. The strong and faithful will remain.

All of your questions will not be answered in this world.

You will not get to the bottom of the way you feel and you will not know if your sacrifices in life have been worth it until the very end. You will not know if giving everything up in life was worth heaven. You do not even know if you yourself are going to heaven.

This is not weak faith, this is a faith that is being refined by fire.

Your faith is tested and tried through all of these assorted evils. The most faithful will survive to the end of the gauntlet and be rewarded. Maintain your faith. You do not have weak faith, you have a faith that is under assault, there is a huge difference.

Faith is action and Attitude.

Application:

Recognize that every thought, fear and worry you have in your mind regarding your faith is merely a test. The strength of your character, mind and discipline are being tested against the evils of this world.

You have to make large sacrifices of pleasure in order to hold the faith. You will not know if it is worth it, but you must maintain the faith nonetheless. You must hold fast to the disciplines that you know and blot out the evil thoughts of the adversary that pollute your mind. This life is a game of endurance, all you have to do is endure to the end and you will be victorious.

Do not question your faith if you are having great difficulty in your life, for this is merely the fire that is turning you into the strong individual that you want to be.

Every great person that you admire, whether in the faith or in the world, has undergone this transformation. A valuable gold cannot be refined without a hot furnace. Endure those moments of refinement and you will understand that your faith is not weak, it is being built into something great.

Prepare your mind for the siege of the enemy. Gather together positive thoughts and ideas that you will contemplate when you are attacked by the enemy. Create the best possible mental image of heaven to motivate yourself to that goal. Resist every evil thought of the evil one. You can win this war, it is only a matter of time.

Strengthen your mind.

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