I went to my email today and as I was throwing away all the unwanted pieces of binary garbage, and I came upon one that I have watched for while. It was a site that is all about self protection. Not exactly "martial arts", although it could be part of it, but it was about the mind, body, and actions of what you should do if attacked by someone. I have read these before, an have taken a little martial arts training. This was different. It is more about commitment. In fact the founder said in his intro statements to one of his classes that if he had a 55 gallon drum of "commitment" and could just inject everyone there would be no reason for the class. This made me think. He then showed several videos of just your average person with "commitment", not muscle men or martial artists, just average "Joes", showing horrifing things, and yes, it definitly proved his point.
Watching these very brutal videos, affected me for weeks. But what the founder of the program said, that is so true, "the person that is attacking you, is already commited to something and it could be to kill you and your family or more. Remember there are people all around us all of the time. He or they could attack and kill you and your family and then move on to the family next door and so on. They have decided in their heart minds and souls to do whatever they have to do to get what they want regaurdless of you, your family or anyone else.
Here is the sobbering side of the founders ideology. You must be more committed that they (the attackers) are not going to harm you or your family or anyone else. So much so that there is nothing you will not do to stop them....dead. That includes hitting them with a 2x4, or a brick, or the fireplace poker or pulling their eyes from their sockets etc., etc., not to be to graphic. I will leave out the other training ideologies that were even more gruesome.
I started to think about what it would look like in reverse...as a Christian. Or to put it another way, what are we willing to "do", for another person to save them from hell? Remember what Christ said,"We are not contending against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" Eph.6:12. So the martial arts, or boxing, or being a good sniper, would not be OUR weapons in general not that there wouldn't be a time they would not help. So then exactly what are our weapons then? Now this is not saying that we don't ALSO have to have physical weapons, but our primary weapons as Christians are the spiritual ones.
As I started to mull this over in my mind, I asked the question to myself, "why don't we as Christians have this same attitude towards fighting for our own souls, our family's souls and the souls of others? I think it comes down to a couple of principles:
1. We do not believe in prayer
2. We do not believe in God
3. We have a misguided idea that IF we pray then that should eliminate OUR physical action to the problem
4. We do not believe in Hell
5. We do not believe in satan
So what does this have to do with fighting, and ripping eyes out? Everything.
How many people have you met that really take this seriously, and really believe it? Well I guess we would have to define "believe". In our Christian culture of today, the predominant view, is that it is a verbal thing. If we verbalize that we believe in God, then there you go...you do. It is not based in what we do. For instance, on the topic of abortion. Out of the 400 million people in the U.S. 70%+ state that they are pro-life. Yet when it comes to voting for the policies that would eliminate the killing of unborn children the Christians are the ones that vote against it....it would HAVE to be the Christians that vote against making it illegal! Either that or there is a vast majority that are really not Christians at all. Christianity and pro-life have been synonymous ever since, and before, bible times. Remember God sending the Israelites in to destroy a community that was sacrificing their babies to a demon god. But now we feel that we can redefine what Christianity actually means. As if it is a relative title.
To believe in something is to not only think in your head you believe, but to put your proverbial Christian currency where your mouth is and act. Christianity is not about how you feel it is ONLY what you do. Like the Good Samaritan. He did not just think in his head that he needed to pray for this person, which he probably did. But, he acted on his belief in The Lord, his belief in actual good and evil, and his belief in doing Good was his responsibility....he was completely "committed" to God and to what it meant to be a follower of him even to the point of possible harm himself! Remember he was still on the same road where they robbed and wounded the other guy! He was totally committed. Your beliefs are only as good as your commitment. Beliefs are only words when they stand by themselves, commitment is the actions side of true belief.
There are those that would say, "we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". Thats true but we must constantly fight. Just like in the beginning when I told you about the martial arts guy and what he said about commitment. When St. Paul said,"I have fought the good fight...". He fought his whole life. Because he BELIEVED. He believed with his thoughts AND his actions! Our commitment MUST be of that intensity, that we are willing to do whatever it takes to save souls including our own. Through our first and most lethal weapon of all, prayer. When God makes it possible (not comfortable, but possible) to do something physical we do it! Whether that is walking, running, jumping, fleeing, spending money, or all of the above. The only restraints we have is what we refuse to be committed to do. Remember, having belief in God does not mean you will not have doubt.
Christ says that we will be judged by our works....or in laymen's terms what we are committed to and actually do, not what we think about doing. We must be more committed to saving others then satan is to destroying them. And through Christ we are promised all things are possible.
Pray for us St. Olaf
Pray for us Blessed Mother
Pray for us and protect us St. Michael and St. George
Amen
Watching these very brutal videos, affected me for weeks. But what the founder of the program said, that is so true, "the person that is attacking you, is already commited to something and it could be to kill you and your family or more. Remember there are people all around us all of the time. He or they could attack and kill you and your family and then move on to the family next door and so on. They have decided in their heart minds and souls to do whatever they have to do to get what they want regaurdless of you, your family or anyone else.
Here is the sobbering side of the founders ideology. You must be more committed that they (the attackers) are not going to harm you or your family or anyone else. So much so that there is nothing you will not do to stop them....dead. That includes hitting them with a 2x4, or a brick, or the fireplace poker or pulling their eyes from their sockets etc., etc., not to be to graphic. I will leave out the other training ideologies that were even more gruesome.
I started to think about what it would look like in reverse...as a Christian. Or to put it another way, what are we willing to "do", for another person to save them from hell? Remember what Christ said,"We are not contending against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" Eph.6:12. So the martial arts, or boxing, or being a good sniper, would not be OUR weapons in general not that there wouldn't be a time they would not help. So then exactly what are our weapons then? Now this is not saying that we don't ALSO have to have physical weapons, but our primary weapons as Christians are the spiritual ones.
As I started to mull this over in my mind, I asked the question to myself, "why don't we as Christians have this same attitude towards fighting for our own souls, our family's souls and the souls of others? I think it comes down to a couple of principles:
1. We do not believe in prayer
2. We do not believe in God
3. We have a misguided idea that IF we pray then that should eliminate OUR physical action to the problem
4. We do not believe in Hell
5. We do not believe in satan
So what does this have to do with fighting, and ripping eyes out? Everything.
How many people have you met that really take this seriously, and really believe it? Well I guess we would have to define "believe". In our Christian culture of today, the predominant view, is that it is a verbal thing. If we verbalize that we believe in God, then there you go...you do. It is not based in what we do. For instance, on the topic of abortion. Out of the 400 million people in the U.S. 70%+ state that they are pro-life. Yet when it comes to voting for the policies that would eliminate the killing of unborn children the Christians are the ones that vote against it....it would HAVE to be the Christians that vote against making it illegal! Either that or there is a vast majority that are really not Christians at all. Christianity and pro-life have been synonymous ever since, and before, bible times. Remember God sending the Israelites in to destroy a community that was sacrificing their babies to a demon god. But now we feel that we can redefine what Christianity actually means. As if it is a relative title.
To believe in something is to not only think in your head you believe, but to put your proverbial Christian currency where your mouth is and act. Christianity is not about how you feel it is ONLY what you do. Like the Good Samaritan. He did not just think in his head that he needed to pray for this person, which he probably did. But, he acted on his belief in The Lord, his belief in actual good and evil, and his belief in doing Good was his responsibility....he was completely "committed" to God and to what it meant to be a follower of him even to the point of possible harm himself! Remember he was still on the same road where they robbed and wounded the other guy! He was totally committed. Your beliefs are only as good as your commitment. Beliefs are only words when they stand by themselves, commitment is the actions side of true belief.
There are those that would say, "we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". Thats true but we must constantly fight. Just like in the beginning when I told you about the martial arts guy and what he said about commitment. When St. Paul said,"I have fought the good fight...". He fought his whole life. Because he BELIEVED. He believed with his thoughts AND his actions! Our commitment MUST be of that intensity, that we are willing to do whatever it takes to save souls including our own. Through our first and most lethal weapon of all, prayer. When God makes it possible (not comfortable, but possible) to do something physical we do it! Whether that is walking, running, jumping, fleeing, spending money, or all of the above. The only restraints we have is what we refuse to be committed to do. Remember, having belief in God does not mean you will not have doubt.
Christ says that we will be judged by our works....or in laymen's terms what we are committed to and actually do, not what we think about doing. We must be more committed to saving others then satan is to destroying them. And through Christ we are promised all things are possible.
Pray for us St. Olaf
Pray for us Blessed Mother
Pray for us and protect us St. Michael and St. George
Amen
