spiritual sunday

Men, You CAN escape temptation

One mile off the shores of San Francisco, is “The Rock” – Alcatraz Island. Shark infested waters surround the sea-pounded rocky coast of this tiny island, making it an ideal place to keep criminals isolated from the rest of the world.

To attempt an escape would certainly mean death. Armed guards, dangerous waters, not to mention the difficulty of trying to blend into society when your face is on wanted posters in every post office in the country.

But in 1962, three men disappeared from the island. They found a way of escape. They made sleeping  dummies of themselves of plaster and paint to fool the guards, they made a raft out of rain coats, and disappeared into the night. The case has been open with the U.S. Marshalls for many years, with very few leads.

These men were criminals, and they found a way to escape their fate.

Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.  No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.
1 Corinthians 10:12-13

Sin can imprison us.

We can get caught in cycles and habits that are destructive, and can hurt our relationship with God.

For a long time, I struggled with porn and masturbation. I know that may sound ridiculous to many of you that I would consider it a sin, and maybe that’s a deeper discusion for another time. The principle, though, remains the same.

I had an addictive, habitual activity that was harming my relationship with my spouse, was harming my relationship with God. We can all identify with that  – whether the sin is a bad attitude, or uncontrolled anger, substance abuse, or sexual sin, we have all been caught in our own Alcatraz at some point.

Even for many years, when I was “clean” and not acting out on those impulses, the temptation was still there. It was constant – like a bombardment of pressure to let my thoughts be unrestrained, and my actions be unrestrained.

It’s important to know and understand that being tempted is not sin.

To have a desire to do the wrong thing pop into your head is not a sin.
To have an immediate rush of hormones dump into your system when you see a pretty girl is not sin.
To feel your blood pressure rise and your fists clench when someone says something hurtful to you is not sin.

Sin is when you let that thought have unchained and unfettered access. Sin is when you allow that lust or that rage to feel at home in your brain.

When we do that, we are cultivating a garden where sin grows – like the mushrooms that grow in my shady compost pile.

Temptation comes for us all in different ways, and often many times a day.

But God’s promise – is that with every temptation, there is a way of escape.
There is a way out.

You don’t have to do the thing just because you have been tempted.

That way of escape is going to look different for each of us, and for each temptation.

For my battle with porn and lust, I had to discipline myself to think differently. The way of escape looked like me changing what kind of media I consumed. There were TV shows and movies and commercials I had to stop watching. They may not have been porn, or even that immodest, but if I found myself thinking about the women in the shows a certain way, or constant hearing about or seeing sex or women in bikinis, it was feeding a monster in my brain. That way of escape involved, just like the prisoners on Alcatraz, a lot of preparation. I couldn’t just expect to beat the temptation in the moment, I had to prepare for it in advance, by starving my mind of stimuli. There were many other changes and escape routes that I had to put into place in my life, but those certainly helped.

I have a friend who struggled with losing his temper. His way of escape is often just excusing himself from conversations and going outside for fresh air. It’s almost comical sometimes to see him walk away from a situation. It can be frustrating if you are trying to talk to him, and he has to leave to cool off. But it keeps him from saying things he shouldn’t. That battle may be easier for him in the future. As he builds the discipline of disassociating from his own anger, he’ll have the strength to build his own self-control.
We all make wrong decisions, choose less than best, and get caught in bad habits. I’m not judging anyone for that.

Many of us settle into it. We accept it, and try to justify it.

But what if we tried to rise above it? What if we tried to escape it?

What would our life look like if we put in the effort and the energy and the initiative to actually take that way of ESCAPE that God promises us?

Manlihood.com provides personal development for men. Our goal is to help enrich men’s lives and to help them become better men. We believe spirituality is an essential part of that component. We understand that not everyone subscribes to a judeo-christian belief system, but we know that a large part of our audience is encouraged to be better men through the paradigm that we share. Our hope is that all men can see and learn to experience fulfillment through faith in Christ, but we also know that not everyone will. Our secondary hope is that by sharing these Spiritual Sunday posts, that even those who may not agree, would be able to at the very least, understand our mindset, and possibly even find something helpful and applicable to their lives. We’re not banging on our Bible or cramming Jesus down anyone’s throat. We are simply processing these experiences through the lens of faith, and inviting all to look with us.

You’re not gonna make everyone happy.

More accurately – there will always be someone who doesn’t like you or what you have to say.

Paul wrote a letter to the church in Galatia, which is in what is now known as Turkey. That region had been populated by “Gallic Celts.” Christianity was spreading across the Roman Empire, and even into the fringes.

Paul was issuing a rebuke to the church, who had started to listen to preachers who told a much different story of Jesus, of redemption, and it was causing dissension in the church.

For the record, the spurious information being taught was that in order to be right with God, these barbarian turkish celts were going to be required to follow Jewish customs. They were taught that they couldn’t eat cheeseburgers, bacon, or pork rinds, had to cut the foreskin off their penis, and any number of other rules that were not meant to apply to them.

Paul had enough – Jesus was never meant to be just for Jews. Jesus never told people they had to become Jews. To follow Jesus, no one was required to follow a bunch of laws and customs just to fit in. Anyone could come to Jesus. And a life changing relationship with Jesus is meant for all people, regardless of race or culture.

That’s the context – but the verse that jumps out to me is this:

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:10

Let’s get this straight right here and now.

We can live our lives trying to please people.
We can do everything in our power to try to make people like us, or make people happy.
We can follow all the rules, dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, and we’re going to find out a very hard truth.

You will never please all the people.

There will always be someone who will have expectations of you that are not reasonable.
There will always be someone who will talk about you.
There will always be someone who wants you to look, act, or talk a certain way.

While there is a degree to which we should try to get along with people, and a degree to which we should build a reputation, and love and serve people…  the honest truth is – it’s God’s opinion of us that matters, and no one else’s.

Do the right thing because you want to honor God, not because you are worried what someone will think.

Do the right thing because God tells you to, not because man tells you to
Do not strive to please men.

Strive to please God.

Manlihood.com provides personal development for men. Our goal is to help enrich men’s lives and to help them become better men. We believe spirituality is an essential part of that component. We understand that not everyone subscribes to a judeo-christian belief system, but we know that a large part of our audience is encouraged to be better men through the paradigm that we share. Our hope is that all men can see and learn to experience fulfillment through faith in Christ, but we also know that not everyone will. Our secondary hope is that by sharing these Spiritual Sunday posts, that even those who may not agree, would be able to at the very least, understand our mindset, and possibly even find something helpful and applicable to their lives. We’re not banging on our Bible or cramming Jesus down anyone’s throat. We are simply processing these experiences through the lens of faith, and inviting all to look with us.

New Year, New Me!

We’ve all heard this instagram horsecrap before. Somebody gets all fired up and hope and optimism around the New Year – maybe they read a book from a motivational guru, or they are just convinced that it’s time to make a change.

We often look at it with skepticism, because we’ve seen that same person do this EVERY January. By February they’re pounding fiery cheetos and acting like a douche all over again.

While we may not be a fan of fair-weather life transformation, the start of something new, a new year, a new decade, certainly seems like a convenient time to evaluate our lives. How do we measure up?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started a diet on January 2, only to find myself caving in by the end of the month. I can’t begin to count the number of years I’ve vowed to turn over a new leaf, and found myself digging through the trash to find the old leaf. 

We know that God is a God of second chances.

All through scripture, and history, we see stories of God giving man a chance to be redeemed, and start fresh.

The entire picture of Jesus, being born, dying, and coming back to life is what Christianity is all about. Our first ritual, baptism, is a picture of that – to die to our old ways, to be buried under the water, and to come back to life.

New year or not, getting a clean slate and a fresh start is at the very core of what it means to walk with God.

Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.
2 Corinthians 5:16-20 MSG

What does a fresh start look like for you?
Are there things you need to stop doing?
Do you need to ask God for forgiveness?
Do you need to make a clean break with behaviors or attitudes?
Are there things you must start to do that you have not been doing?

I know that for everything we are not, and everything we break and screw up, God can bring forgiveness, wholeness, and freedom. We’ve got to come to Him humble and ask Him, and then as He changes the inside, we work together with Him on the outside.

Then I let it all out;
I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.”
Suddenly the pressure was gone—
my guilt dissolved,
my sin disappeared.
These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray;
when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts
we’ll be on high ground, untouched.
God’s my island hideaway,
keeps danger far from the shore,throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.
Let me give you some good advice;
I’m looking you in the eye
and giving it to you straight:
“Don’t be ornery like a horse or mule
that needs bit and bridle
to stay on track.”
Psalm 32: 5-9 MSG

As we look at our fresh start, my encouragement to you is to make a plan. Be diligent with that plan. Don’t just try to wing it. 

The plans of the diligent lead to profit
as surely as haste leads to poverty.
Proverbs 21:5

If there are changes you want to make, take the time to work through a plan of action. If you want to change the way you behave, you must change the way you feel, and to change the way you feel, you have to change the way you think. That takes effort, intentionality, and discipline.

Don’t stay where you are, if there’s more out there for you. Don’t be content with a less than best version of yourself, when God has even better for you. Don’t just expect God to be your fairy godmother and bibbidy bobbity boop you into your new life, either. There’s a grand and glorious work to do – and He wants to do it with you.

Manlihood.com provides personal development for men. Our goal is to help enrich men’s lives and to help them become better men. We believe spirituality is an essential part of that component. We understand that not everyone subscribes to a judeo-christian belief system, but we know that a large part of our audience is encouraged to be better men through the paradigm that we share. Our hope is that all men can see and learn to experience fulfillment through faith in Christ, but we also know that not everyone will. Our secondary hope is that by sharing these Spiritual Sunday posts, that even those who may not agree, would be able to at the very least, understand our mindset, and possibly even find something helpful and applicable to their lives. We’re not banging on our Bible or cramming Jesus down anyone’s throat. We are simply processing these experiences through the lens of faith, and inviting all to look with us.