V – Do

Concealed Carry Daily Prayer

More than two-thirds of Americans pray and a majority pray every day. According to a 2014 Pew Research Center survey, 55% of Americans say they pray every day, 16% say they pray weekly, and 6% pray monthly: add them together for a total of 77% of USA citizens say they talk to God in prayer.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Spiritual Fitness in the USA Military ]

And according to a LifeWay Research survey, most Americans who pray (83%) think at least some of their prayers are answered. Their topic of prayer focuses mainly on their family and friends (82%) or their own problems (74%).

Chart: What People Pray For

Depending on God for guidance and protection are common themes of everyday prayer. And since carrying a firearm for self-defense is such a high responsibility, it makes sense to turn to the highest power to request divine care in properly meeting that commitment.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Jeff Cooper’s Principles of Personal Defense ]

Here’s a prayer by SemperVerus® you may want to say when you arise every morning:

Concealed Carry Daily Prayer

My Father in Heaven, your will be done.
 
I pray today that I will love you with all my passion, character, intellect, and muscle and that I will humbly love the people with whom I come in contact.
 
Help me to be a disciplined peacemaker—a wise discerner of good from evil—proactively alert and aware of my spiritual and physical surroundings.
 
I pray I will never be forced to use my weapon. But if I must as only the last resort in self-defense, make me courageously fast and accurate to stop the attack.
 
Amen.

(Concepts for this prayer are taken from Matt. 6:9-14, Mark 12:30-31; Heb. 12:14; Phil. 1:9-11; 1 Pet. 5:8-9; and 1 Cor. 16:13-14)

[ Read the SemperVerus article, A Prayer for Church Security Team Members ]


Invite SemperVerus® to present its 5 main strategic principles—prepare, aware, be, know, do—to your organization to inspire and motivate your members.

Join the SemperVerus Brotherhood™!

SemperVerus™ Brotherhood/Sisterhood Launches to Help People ‘Stay True’

Comprised of 5 Catalysts + 1 Tactical Agent:
Prepare, Aware, Be, Know, Do, +Self-Defense

SemperVerus™ (Latin for “Stay True”) is a new dynamic motivational communications operative that has as its mission to inform, inspire, persuade, impel, and invigorate men and women to personal life-changing positive commitment, decision-making, and responsible self-defense awareness. It accomplishes this objective through its website and Twitter stream (semperverus.com and @semper_verus), publications, reminder wristbands, the SemperVerus Brotherhood™ and SemperVerus Sisterhood™ pledge, and group presentations.

“The best antidote to a culture shifting to bad behavior is to re-normalize good behavior,” says social observer and author Seth Godin. SemperVerus (the “V” in Verus also stands for the Roman numeral 5) believes the best way for a person to avoid drifting off-course into bad behavior—deviating from his or her life’s “true north” of fulfillment, happiness, and civic well-being—is by attending to 5 transformative catalysts that culminate in 1 tactical agent:

I.    Prepare:  putting your life into proper condition and readiness to successfully handle material and spiritual foreseen and unforeseen circumstances.

II.   Aware:  heightening attentiveness to be alert to—and anticipate—dangerous potentialities and temptations, as well as edifying opportunities.

III.  Be:  developing rich personal leadership character of exemplary moral and ethical quality.

IV.  Know:  becoming a life-long learner to clearly, and with certainty, apprehend situations from which to benefit personally and others.

V.   Do:  resolving to intentionally and skillfully act to accomplish positive and fruitful outcomes.

+    The sum total of these 5 catalysts cultivates the strategic and tactical agent of Self-Defense: the intelligent ability to responsibly protect yourself from menacing spiritual and physical threats.

The SemperVerus website blog is a regularly updated source of developmental information and curated resources for personal leadership and self-defense, with articles focusing on the Prepare, Aware, Be, Know, Do, and Self-Defense categories, such as:

  • A list of links to organizations that support the Second Amendment.
  • A list of links to self-defense training resources.
  • A list of links to mobile apps for instruction in dry fire, self-defense, survival, travel, personal leadership, and more.
  • A list of important judicial decisions regarding self-defense law.
  • A collection of every USA state’s constitution article that establishes the right of armed self-defense for its citizens.
  • The 4 basic rules of gun safety and links to basic gun safety videos.

As a motivational impetus, SemperVerus invites people to join the SemperVerus Brotherhood™ or SemperVerus Sisterhood™, where adherents are invited to pledge to stay true to common virtues as outlined on the website (semperverus.com/brotherhood).

SemperVerus is also the publisher of the pocket-sized booklet, The Case for Biblical Self-Defense (ISBN 978-0-692-08979-8; 26 pp.; $10; available by emailing staytrue@semperverus.com). For those who consider the Bible to be their authoritative guide for life and personal behavior, this booklet answers in the affirmative the question, “Is it biblical and in accordance with Christian faith to be ready to employ lethal force to protect your life from an imminent and wrongful life-threatening attack?”

Contact SemperVerus (staytrue@semperverus.com).


Invite SemperVerus to present its 5 life-changing success-generating components—prepare, aware, be, know, do—to your organization to inspire and motivate your members.

Join the SemperVerus Brotherhood™!

The 4 Basic Rules of Gun Safety

An image of the four gun safety rules

Col. Jeff Cooper (1920–2006) was a US Marine, the creator of the modern technique of handgun shooting, and an expert on the use and history of small arms. He introduced the concept of the mental alertness color code which indicates the degree of peril a person is willing to act upon and which facilitates a person to move from one level of mindset to another (situational awareness) to enable the person to properly handle a given situation.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Checklist: Matters to Consider When Deciding on a Handgun ]

As a way of encouraging universal firearm safety, Col. Cooper also advocated a simple 4-point set of rules anyone can understand:

  1. EVERY gun is loaded until proven otherwise.
  2. Point the muzzle ONLY at what you want to destroy.
  3. Put your finger on the trigger ONLY when you’re ready to fire.
  4. KNOW your target and what’s behind and around it.

Make Your Bed, Change Your World

Buy the book Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World through this affiliate link with AmazonAdmiral William McRaven (Ret.) thought commanding the raid on terrorist Osama bin Laden’s compound would be the pinnacle achievement of his 37 years as a Navy SEAL, until he gave his 2014 commencement speech at the University of Texas at Austin that went viral. His topic, a lesson in personal responsibility, spoke to millions worldwide and became the bestselling book Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World.

His premise reflects the principles of SemperVerus living: make the right choices every moment of every day, no matter how seemingly minuscule, in order to not deviate from your course; in order to Stay True!

SemperVerus Wristband black text on red