The world is falling away. The center cannot hold. Everyone can feel it in their bones, even those who are far from God and participate wholeheartedly in the Antichrist system that aims to destroy souls for eternity. Today’s man is faced with innumerable options on how to “enjoy life,” but only one option transcends the material, not to improve this life, but to prepare for the one to come. The best response in these times is to faithmax.
Pickup artist teachings have long since taught the importance of maximizing your look to be attractive to women. There would be no point to learn all the pickup lines, routines, and so on if you look unkempt. Secular women love a modern, refined look, so if you wanted to be with secular women, you had to pay close attention to your appearance as if you were a woman yourself.
Over the course of decades, pickup artistry moved away from social value, status, and the art of charm to “looksmaxing,” which is being an attractive man through bodybuilding, trendy haircuts, and the like. This strategy wasn’t entirely flawed because these lustful men would be interacting with exceedingly shallow and lustful women who sought dopamine from hooking up with “hot” guys. The top 1% of good-looking men on Tinder would get most of the matches, and even if they possessed no charm, could finagle fornication from women who were desperate to be personally validated by a man approved by the world.
Unfortunately for the men who looksmaxed their way onto a woman’s bed, and for the women who slept with men they found attractive, fornication is an immoral act that darkens the soul and separates one from God, so pickup artistry, game, and looksmaxing were dead-ends that offered only temporarily pleasure to the body and—if the fornicator remained unrepentant—condemnation for the soul.
Shortcuts can be handy in times of confusion or rapid change. Looksmaxing, while used as a tool for sin, was useful for the men who desired sin. For Christians who desire salvation, but live in dizzying times where each day offers its own challenges and pitfalls, I believe a sound strategy is to faithmax. This is where we focus exclusively on building our faith, repenting, confessing our sins before God, and living in accordance to His will. Our faith must be prioritized and maximized to what the soul can handle, above all other worldly or secular pursuits that offer no profit to the life we will have after death.
To faithmax is to strive higher for God every day of our lives. A life of faithmaxing will include…
- Praying at least twice a day
- Reading at least one chapter of the New Testament daily (or at least the Church’s prescribed Bible readings of the day)
- Reading at least 10 pages of religious material per day
- Actively replacing secular content with Christian content
- Actively struggling against sins
- Starving the old man while feeding the new man with God’s grace
- Doing good deeds out of love
- Weakening our attachment to worldly things
- Watching what comes out of our mouth (profanity, judgments) and guarding against secular influences
- Participating in Saturday night All-Night Vigil and Sunday morning Liturgy (within the Orthodox Church)
The “maxing” of faithmaxing implies that you continually grow your faith and do more today than you did before. I used to pray only ten minutes a day, but now it is more. I read more of the Bible each day, read more Orthodox books, and am more watchful about committing sinful behaviors. There must be growth in the spiritual life, because if there is no growth, Satan needs to only give you a slight push so that you start going backwards. You’re either growing in zeal or at risk of falling away.
During times of relative peace, faithmaxing can be your focus, because in times of tribulation where you face homelessness, starvation, violence, illness, or persecution, you may not be able to faithmax—you will only be able to use what you have already built. You’ll be able to withdraw from the faith savings account instead of making deposits. It is simply too hard to strengthen faith practices in the initial acute stages of a new shock, which means that it’s today that you should faithmax, without delay, not tomorrow, because when severe tribulations come, you may not even have access to your prayer books to practice the faith. You may not have access to a Church or to the Eucharist. The foundation must be built now, because from a foundation comes the strength to fight what could be a long war.
For example, if you lose your job suddenly, you may be so anxious and stressed that you’ll forget to pray. There’s no way you will add new daily faith habits to your routine during such a crisis. If you get diagnosed with a terminal disease, you will experience so much emotion that the last thing on your mind is to read the Gospel of Luke. All the practices of faith must be cemented in your heart and soul before the tribulation arrives at your door with the hope that you even use 10% of it to get you through the hard time.
I have known many people who experienced states of limbo due to the fear of losing their jobs because of vaccine mandates and other authoritarian measures, but life remains easy for me. I live comfortably, have enough money to fund my internet platforms and baking hobby, and don’t have any responsibilities that have become too onerous. Materially, life is stable, but I’m vigorously trying to use this time wisely by faithmaxing. I can say that I’m doing much more to worship God than a year ago, because each month I struggle to do a little bit more than the previous month. When tribulations come to me, and they certainly will, I will use the faith I built up to help get me through. I faithmax in times of calm to survive when times are rough, and though times are not entirely “calm” right now, they are calm enough for me, and I pray to God every day that He can allow me to one day sustain the harshest of persecutions, because we don’t know what God will ultimately require of our souls.
If you’re not faithmaxing then you’re faithminimizing, faithsinking, faithplunging. There is no stillness in this world, you’re either moving forward or you’re moving backwards, and if you don’t perceive forward movement then you must immediately get to work. Visit an Orthodox Church, talk to the priest, and ask his advice on how to build your faith. Start praying. Buy the Orthodox Study Bible. You still have time, but how much time we don’t know. Faithmax today and every day so that when hardship comes, you can raise your hands in the air and say, “Lord, have mercy on me,” and not worry about what comes next.
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