Christianity Archives - Page 8 of 8

Endure The Pain of Change

The pain barrier breaks us down every time. The pain barrier makes us stop writing when we have 500 more words in our mind. It makes us stop running when we can go faster. It makes us stop lifting when there are a dozen more potential reps. Pain makes us binge watch on Netflix or eat sugar when we are emotional. It makes us fall back into comfortable addiction of sloth and lust.

It makes us do these things because we let it.

The pain embodies itself in the darkness, and in the isolation of quiet thought it attacks. When there are no other thoughts in the mind, the darkness will rush to fill it. Pain crashes upon the mind with an onslaught of vicious lies. It gags the mouth of positive reason and gouges out the eyes of hope in an instant. Pain slays the rational mind. Darkness tells you that the end result is not worth the renovation of character.

Still, most pain only exists in the mind. We suffer primarily in our imaginations, not in reality. The fear of pain is itself a pain so great that it shuts down any movement towards growth.

1 – The process of change is painful. The first instance of pain is the blow dealt to the ego that is the result of acknowledging a wrong. Change cannot begin until one realizes that some portion of his current character is insufficient. Humility must come into the mind before any change can begin. The ego is injured, it must take a seat.

To begin the change, you must suffer the pain of humility

2 – The second part of pain is beginning to shift away from ingrained behaviors that are the results of thousands of mindless actions. Mindless eating, video games, television and social media reading. The Mindless chatter of small talk. Mindless laziness and lies. All these things become automatized and take on a mind of their own in the unconscious and subconscious.

The automaton of habit is alive, and to engage it in battle is painful. You sustain injuries. The automaton was built by your actions over time. To destroy it is to destroy a part of yourself, this is painful.

Many stop fighting right here. When you stop fighting, you die.

Eventually you see the light at the end of the tunnel, if you persevere. The tables turn and the process of change swings to your favor. The automaton weakens and shrinks. His energy source is your personal weakness and it begins to vanish away. You see the value of perseverance and discipline. You begin to see the fruits of all your labor.

To defeat yourself, you must endure the pain of repeated failure and perseverance.

3 – If you destroy the old habit, you have to build a new one through conscious effort and discipline. Consistent Discipline over long periods of time. Actions should be consciously taken until they can be done without thought, this is habit. You are the New Being of character.

Building this character requires that you suffer the pain of patience.

4 – Even though the new character trait you have build is automatic, it still must be maintained. Joints must be lubricated and cleaned. Energy sources must be maintained. Parts and pieces must be adjusted, upgraded or replaced. The new character must never be left totally unsupervised. Because at any instant, one small action can send you spiraling back to the original behavior that you worked so hard to change. Character and habit have to be sustained over the lifespan.

To do this you must suffer the pain of endurance.

The pain of a change is for a moment, and maintaining a new habit requires much less effort. The benefits of positive change last a lifetime, and are worth the pain it took to build it from the ground.

Change is not the inspirational quote from a cheap devotional book. You cannot buy discipline from a devo book that roots itself in emotionalism. Emotions will not maintain your change for the long term. This is why mankind lacks the character refinement of the past.

There is no refinement without fire, and there is no fire in society today.

We have minimal persecution, non-existent problems. We have everything we need and still think we have it hard. There is no fire, so we have to provide our own. The fire is going to burn out the impurities of character, but it is also going to hurt us.

However, do not let the pain or the fear of pain scare you away from the gigantic potential for personal growth. Walk through the fire of change today if you want to know the peace of character tomorrow.

Spartan Christianity

Don’t be “Over-Saved”

There are way too many “icky”, Over-saved Christians.

Funny – Most are aware of this

There are Christians out in the world who are infinitely annoying. These are the people who can’t say a sentence without bringing Jesus into it. These people are masters of constantly shoving emotional ideas down your throat, and they usually have an accompanying Ph. D in Self-Righteousness.

Look, we all love Jesus, that doesn’t mean we have to end every sentence with His name.

How annoying would it be if you constantly did that with your husband’s or wife’s name? Common sense tells you not to do that. And nobody is going to want to sit around with you, holding hands and singing Kumbaya if you continue to be annoying.

If you want a surefire way to turn off everyone you meet from Christianity, be one of these annoying people. No one wants to sit by you in Church, you are annoying.

Let’s spell out what happens when other people interact with over-saved people.

After talking with the over-saved individual, they assume that if they become a Christian they have to act like them. That person thinks they will have to be over-saved as well. That instantly kills any desire that they have to become a Christian. They think, “If I have to become as annoying and fake as this guy who can’t go two seconds without talking about how Jesus did something miraculous in His life, then I will just not bother with this nonsense”.

The same principle applies to other religions. People see Muslims blowing themselves up and they think, “If I have to blow myself up to be a Muslim, I think I’ll pass on that one”.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t talk about Jesus, we definitely should, but even Jesus did not constantly talk about Jesus.

He realized the need to develop common ground with men through stories they could relate to before he added spirituality to the lesson.

I enjoy talking about Christ just as much as anyone, but I also realize you can burn out the conversation extremely quickly if you can’t leave Jesus alone. The same applies to every topic of conversation. You would quickly burn a person out if all you ever talked about was football. No one would want to hang out with you because you can’t go two seconds without talking about the game. Unless you are also one of those annoying people who can’t go two seconds without talking about the game. In that case Jim is by the water cooler, you guys can stay over there and talk about sports.

It’s not wrong to talk about Jesus, it is just annoying to not be able to go one sentence without forcing Jesus down someone’s throat. There are strategic ways to share the Gospel to other people without drowning them in your emotional highs.

The main problem with over-saved people is how fake they seem.

They don’t act like humans, they put on the facade of being immune to daily troubles and persecution. They are overly nice in a very forced, unnatural way. There is a fine line between an encouraging Christian and a Christian who is probably trying to sell you something based on their forced optimism.

You can find plenty of these people in mega churches. Now personally, I don’t really care what you believe, and you obviously don’t care what you believe either if you go to a mega church. You just work out your own salvation with trembling and fear. Or in Your case, with fog machines, rocks bands and strobe lights. All we ask is that you try to show some civility when sharing the gospel.

You wouldn’t run around promoting infatuation and adolescent “love” as solid grounds for a marriage relationship, yet you think that your emotional high is what makes your faith real.

The moral of the story: Don’t be over-saved because you will be really annoying and thus will convert very few people to Christianity. Focus on being a real person. Christianity is not an act, it’s a lifestyle. Christianity is not something we do, it’s something we are.

Spartan Christianity: Hardcore Christian Principles

What is Spartan Christianity?

Christians are not “Hardcore” anymore.

There are many great characteristics about the Church and the people in it, and you are welcome to read about those on some other site. However, there are many Christians who have made Christianity a laughing-stock around the world because they have no good reason for why they believe anything that they do about God and the Bible. They just talk about a bunch of nonsense, defy science and human nature with their beliefs, and make themselves look completely stupid. That is where Spartan Christians come in.

We are tired of hearing nonsense answers to questions about Christianity.

We are tired of being told to “Just pray about it”. So here is our oath to you: We will give you the straight answer to any faith question. That is the Spartan Way. If we don’t know something or we think there is no answer, we will tell you. We won’t give you three paragraphs in a poorly written article before leaving you with an answer that makes you even more confused than you were before. Some things can’t be answered. The secret things belong to God.

If you want the perfect blend of Christianity, logic and science, you’ve come to the right place.

If you are a Christian because you parents told you it would be a good idea and you should remain a Christian “because it’s right“, you’ve come to the right place. Prepare to have your faith strengthened tenfold with actual reasons to believe the Bible. Forget the mindless emotionalism and blind faith your parents gave you.

The “Spartan” in Spartan Christianity is an adjective, not a noun. We aren’t from Sparta and we aren’t even Greek. “Spartan” is simply adjective that means “hardcore”. When a gym is spartan, is cuts the nonsense and gives you what you need – nothing but hard training. When training is hardcore, it is called “Spartan”. This could just as easily be called “Hardcore Christianity”.

You are now aware of Spartan Christianity. Commit to the same level of intensity that Spartans had, and concentrate that intensity on your faith.

Spartan Christianity: Hardcore Christian Principles.

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