✝️ A Life Invested. A Life Wasted: The Tale of Two Ancient Kings

Good morning, my brothers! Solomon, the wisest and wealthiest king who ever lived, spent decades chasing every pleasure this world could offer: women, wealth, wine, wisdom, and works. Yet at the end of his extraordinary life, he declared it all “meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Today, we'll explore why the shiny things of this world leave us empty and how to reorient our hearts toward what truly satisfies. Let’s go!

This week’s manly topics (6-min read):

🌲 GROWTH Enthusiasm is often equated with youth but is our lack of passion for God’s things a result of age … or affection? We look at the lives of two men who knew God, lived full lives and ended up in very different places for an answer.
📰  NEWS Funny that the unconscious part of each day is probably the most important to our physical and psychological health. Let’s acquire some new habits that will make each night’s sleep as rejuvenating as it God intends it.
🎁 OFFER We encourage the men of the MTM fraternity to stay informed but how to do that when so much of the “news” is engineered to drive us insane? The Pour Over is daily news source that reports from a distinctly Christian perspective. Details below 👇

GROWTH
The Empty Victory

A few years ago, I had the chance to spend a few days at a small conference with Super Bowl Champion Steve Weatherford. He was the punter for the New York Giants when they won Super Bowl XLVI. I was excited to meet him and hear what it was like to reach the pinnacle of professional sports. I expected stories of celebration, fulfillment, maybe even a little swagger.

But what he shared stopped me cold.

He said the night of the Super Bowl was one of the most depressing nights of his life. After the confetti, the parties, the interviews, and the trophy, he sat alone in his hotel room and felt nothing. Empty. He’d spent his entire life chasing that moment, and when it came, it didn’t deliver. It didn’t fill the hole in his heart. It didn’t give him peace. It didn’t give him the satisfaction he so craved.

That came later, when he surrendered his life to Jesus.

A Tale of Two Kings

Steve’s experience mirrors one of history’s most profound cautionary tales. King Solomon, who inherited David's throne around 970 BC, received a divine gift of wisdom unmatched in human history. God also blessed him with immeasurable wealth, power, and prestige.

Solomon had it all:

• 700 wives and 300 concubines (he learned the hard way why God ordained one man for ONE wife!)

• Palaces and gardens of legendary beauty

• Wealth beyond counting (his annual income was 666 talents of gold—about 25 tons, worth over $1.7 billion in today’s value)

• International acclaim (the Queen of Sheba traveled thousands of miles from modern-day Yemen or Ethiopia just to witness his wisdom)

• Peace throughout his kingdom

Yet by the end of his life, Solomon had drifted from the God who blessed him. His foreign wives turned his heart toward their idols. The kingdom that had flourished under his leadership was primed for division. And in the book of Ecclesiastes, we hear the hollow echo of a man who had everything yet found nothing of lasting value:

Contrast this with Solomon's father, King David. Though deeply flawed (an adulterer and murderer at his worst), David finished his life focused not on himself but on God's eternal purposes. In his final days, rather than lamenting his mortality or clinging to his throne, David poured himself into preparations for the temple his son would build. He gave generously from his personal treasure, inspired the nation to contribute, and offered one of Scripture’s most humble and beautiful prayers:

David understood what Solomon would eventually learn, too late: the world and its pleasures pass away. Only what’s done for eternity lasts.

The World Is a Liar

The apostle John put it plainly:

The world promises satisfaction and delivers hollowness. It promises significance and leaves us restless. It promises love and gives us cheap imitations that vanish fast.

The world is passing away. That’s not poetic language. It’s reality. Everything you can touch, buy, post, or achieve is temporary. The money, the applause, the status, the stuff: it’s all fading. And if your heart is wrapped around it, you’ll fade with it.

The Love That Lasts

The only thing that endures is the love of God. Not the sentimental, watered-down version the world sells, but the eternal, sacrificial, holy love that sent Jesus to the cross.

Why is this love so important? Because love is not just a divine attribute: it’s the very reason for creation itself. Before time began, the members of the Trinity existed in perfect, shared love. Out of this love, the Father ordained a material reality from which He would create a bride, the Church, for His Son. As Revelation reveals, history is moving toward a cosmic wedding day when Christ will be united with His beloved people forever.

This is no abstract theology. It’s the ultimate meaning of existence. Love is not something God does; it’s who He is. And when He made you, He designed you to participate in this eternal love story.

That’s the love we were made for. That’s the love that fills the void. That's the love that never fails.

When we love God above all else, we don’t just receive His love—we begin to love like Him. We stop chasing bright, shiny objects and start seeing people. We stop hoarding and start giving. We stop performing and start abiding.

We begin to live for what lasts.

The Battle for Your Affection

The world is loud. It’s flashy. It’s relentless. It's in your pocket, your feed, your inbox, your dreams. It’s not neutral. It’s after your heart.

And if we’re not careful, we’ll give it.

We start to believe that success is measured by how many people follow us, not how faithfully we follow Christ. We start to believe that comfort is the goal instead of Christlikeness. We start to believe that the good life is found in what we can buy, not in who we become.

Jesus didn’t come to make us comfortable. He came to make us new. He came to free us from sin, from shame, from the empty promises of the world. And He rose to give us something better: Himself.

Five Steps to Love What Lasts

If, like me, you’re tired of chasing what doesn’t satisfy, here are five steps to reorient your heart toward what matters most:

1. Audit Your Affections

Where does your time go? Your money? Your thoughts? Your energy? What gets your best? What gets your leftovers? Remember Jesus’ poignant words:

Write down the top five things you think about most. Then ask: do these things draw me closer to God or distract me from Him?

2. Starve the World, Feed the Word

You can’t love God deeply if you're constantly feeding on the world's junk food. Social media, entertainment, advertising; it’s all designed to stir up the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Shut it down. Fast from it. Replace it with Scripture.

Start your day in the Word before you touch your phone. Let God’s voice be the loudest in your life.

3. Invest in Eternity

Give generously. Serve faithfully. Love sacrificially. These are the investments that never lose value. Ask God to show you where He wants you to give your time, your resources, and your gifts for His kingdom.

4. Link Arms with Kingdom Men

You weren’t meant to fight this battle alone. The world is too strong, and your flesh is too weak. You need brothers who will call you higher, remind you of truth, and walk with you when you stumble.

Stay tight with us in MTM. Join a men's group. Start one if you have to. Find men who love Jesus more than the world and walk with them.

5. Fix Your Eyes on Jesus

The world will keep flashing its lights. But when your eyes are locked on Christ, the world starts to lose its grip. He is better. He is enough. He is the only One who satisfies.

The Legacy Choice

Solomon and David both left legacies. One showed us the emptiness of chasing this world’s treasures. The other showed us the fulfillment of pursuing God’s eternal purposes.

Brothers, we face the same choice every day. Will we spend our remaining years like Solomon in his prime … accumulating pleasures that will ultimately leave us empty? Or will we finish like David pouring ourselves out for God’s eternal purposes, finding joy not in what we can get but in what we can give?

Don't waste your life chasing what can't last. Love what is eternal. Live for what matters. And remember: the only thing that will matter 100 years from now is what you did with Jesus.

Let's be men who love what God loves. Let's be men who live for eternity.

Impending Doom

The Pour Over believes the news can be a force for good, helping people find rest and comfort in Christ while spurring them on to action.

Instead of, you know… creating division and a feeling of impending doom.

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THIS JUST IN
📣 NEWS FROM AROUND THE WEB 📣 

Sleep
“I lie down and sleep. I wake again because the Lord sustains me.” Psalms 3:5

Understanding your body’s sleep hormone, melatonin, is foundational to ensuring regular, revitalizing sleep. Melatonin is produced by your brain's pineal gland and serves as your internal chronometer, rising in the evening as darkness falls and decreasing when exposed to morning light. Unfortunately, our high-tech, highly-illuminated lifestyles disrupt our sleep-wake cycles and interfere with melatonin production leading to poor sleep (which leads to frailty and insanity.) 

Melatonin production follows a 24-hour cycle that depends heavily on light exposure. Protect and promote melatonin production by following this daily light strategy:

1. Get 15-30 minutes of direct morning sunlight within an hour of waking to properly reset your body clock

2. Maintain daylight exposure throughout your day near windows or with outdoor breaks

3. Begin dimming household lights 2-3 hours before bedtime

4. Eliminate all screen exposure (phones, tablets, TVs) at least 60 minutes before sleep (motivation to read your paper Bible or good books)

This consistent light management approach costs nothing yet delivers powerful results by working with—not against—God's brilliant design for rejuvenating sleep. Courtesy Cleveland Clinic

Style
“… whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31

• Summer heat and humidity are on their way so time to ditch the pants and don the shorts. Shorts are one item of clothing that most frequently attracts the attention of MTM wives. We want that attention to be of the complimentary and not the critical sort so, in that spirit, we offer this 8-minute short style tutorial. Pair a properly-fitting set of shorts with your new squat routine and prepare yourself for the second looks. Courtesy Real Men Real Style.