We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we’ll be millionaires and moviestars and rockstars, but we won’t. And we’re just learning this fact. Prophet Tyler Durden
The Male Malaise
The book makes a claim that men are becoming more apathetic, but I don’t see any convincing evidence to backup that claim, just anecdotes and a report on how men without college degrees feel….
The movement of Jesus is called to be a movement of visionaries.
And Invitation in a Time of Decline
1 and 2 Timothy document Paul speaking to Timothy during a time of decline in Timothy’s church. Here, Paul speaks truths to embrace suffering and stick together as brothers.
A God at War
We often recall God as a God of peace, which is true, but we cannot forget that God is also a God of war, which the Israelites and the Psalms have attested. We believe in the spiritual realm — there are powers against God — but God is victorious. God is skilled at war and he is a God at war.
Living on a Battlefield
If we don’t believe there are evil powers working against us, then I will simple attribute that evil to other things, like people.
The Enemy
The enemy wants to steal, kill, and destroy — including myself, my dreams, my visions. Think about your current circumstances: Is it what you want? Is it what the enemy wants? Or is it what God wants?
When you start hating sin, you stop hating yourself. When you start hating Satan, you stop hating your life.
A Soldier of Christ
Recall The Screwtape Letters. The enemy will destroy my visions in any way, including a slow, gradual path, lulled to sleep with apathy.
Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts C.S. Louis, The Screwtape Letters
The Shadow Calling: Civilian Affairs / Entangled in the Trivial / One Hundred Hours
Combining these three since they’re pretty similar.
Be careful with what I allocate my time to. It may not be sinful, but it still can be stupid — do not be a poor steward of your potential or time.
Spiritual warfare might be as simple as canceling your Netflix subscription
The hell-bound do not travel downward; they travel inward, cocooning themselves behind a mass of vanity, personal rights, religiosity, and defensiveness. Jeff Cook, Seven: The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes
The Misallocation of a Man’s Strength
King Solomon, as recorded in Kings 11:1-8, is an example of a vast misallocation of strength; a waste of God’s gifting.
God gives men strength to serve others.
Read Proverbs 31:4-9
Open your mouth, judge righteously,defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:9
Gentle Jesus, Meek and Violent
Be violent with the spirit, but gentle with the person Robert Morris, “STOP tolerating Jezebel Spirit”
Jesus was both violent and gentle.
Recall the harsh rebuke of Peter when Peter got in the way of Jesus’s destiny (Matthew 16:23), and contrast that with Jesus’s gentleness of forgiving / restoring of Peter after Peter’s denail (John 21:15-17).
Read 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 which dictates the way in which we must wage war.
Make sure you are involved in spiritual warfare, not just cultural warfare.
Takeaways
The enemy wants us to become apathetic and abandon God’s vision for our lives. We must fight such temptation and take seriously our mission to be soldiers for Christ — for God is a warrior king; Jesus was both meek and violent. Be focused on God’s vision and be aware of war in the spiritual realm.