Passion of the Heart

 Ephesians 5:33 “Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

     The other day I noticed a young lady at the store. She was attractive to be sure but her attire, left little to the imagination to say the least. I was rather surprised by it honestly and did my absolute best to ignore her from that point, but the whole situation got me thinking. God has blessed me with a wonderful woman, a woman to whom I will soon be joined in marriage. In her I experience such a joy and love that I am literally incapable of properly describing it. I just don't have the words! Now we enjoy our closeness as much you'd expect but we've kept ourselves from developing a 'physical' relationship. We have taken the time to develop a relationship based on our mutual understanding and love, of respect and a cherished closeness. Just sitting with her and enjoying her presence is more fulfilling than any momentary thrill I've ever experienced from the sight of an attractive woman. Having this knowledge at hand I can't help but wonder, why are we so obsessed as a culture with sex and sexuality when I real relationship is so much better?

     Part of it I think, is sheer laziness. The world today doesn't care much for waiting or working towards a goal, we want it now and if possible even earlier. The satisfaction of an actual relationship takes time, a lot of time! My fiance and I have been together for over three years and the closeness and affection we now enjoy was not come upon quickly or easily. Much like how we've deadened our pallets with fast food and pre-prepared meals, we've glutted ourselves on sex and sensuality thus ruining our appreciation for the real thing. We've found that love takes too much effort, too much time, too much sacrifice and so we've settled for the easy fix of sex and lust and called it love.

     Having left real love behind we've come to another aspect, overpowerment. Love is deep, fulfilling, lovely, and beautiful, but it's a subtle thing. Sex is right out there, full of endorphins and raring to go! No work, no mucking about with respect and understanding, and no subtlety at all. You don't need to know someone for years, and you don't need to think deeply to enjoy the pure physicality of a sexual encounter. It seems like, to most people, sex has become the pixy-stick of the emotional world. No need to bandy about with subtleties and complex cookery, I want sweet so why not just down a tube of sugar!

Romans 1:20-25 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God,they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts,

and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man; and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

     Finally we have the heart of the matter, sin. God says this so we do that. Sex was supposed to be a number of things: the culmination of the marriage relationship, the physical example of the couples melding in spirit, the means for procreation, and an enjoyable bonding between the husband and wife. Sin has taken this beautiful thing and reduced it to mere animal pleasure. All of the wonderful meanings and nuances removed for the sake of pleasure. It's as if someone took a beautiful song and reduced it to merely a baseline, a dull repetitive thump with no real meaning and no real point. God gave us this great gift and we've taken it to use as we would have it, not caring the worth we're destroying. Sex, like much of the good in this world, has been taken by sin and used as a distraction, a fleeting pleasure to blind us to the hell we live in and keep us from seeking God. Sadly for those who seek this path they will find that sex alone does not satisfy. Talk to those who have let it take hold in their lives and you'll see how they've arrived at a place they never sought out. Sin drove them on and when that pleasure dimmed, pushed them ever onward, deeper and deeper into greater depths of depravity. Every step seeming less extreme as they approached it till they no longer thought strange what they once thought unthinkable.

   So what is sex and sexuality to you? What is the sight of a woman or man to you? Is it something to be saved and savored, to be given as a prized gift to your one love? All these women and these men who parade around displaying all they have to any who looks, what will they have to give to their spouse? People wonder why relationships don't last, well, what reason do they have to stay? What more can they get from you that you haven't already given? My fiance and I have not yet been 'together', we're saving that for our marriage bed, but I can tell you now that I would no longer want to live without her. Our relationship has had the TIME it needs to form, so that when we do come together after we wed, it will be so much more than it would have been before and something to add TO the relationship, not something that forms the basis for it. When I look into her eyes and see the love she has for me, when I work out the love I have for her, why on earth would I trade that for a single moment of fleeting pleasure? Why would you?

Proverbs 5:17-18 “Let them be only your own,

And not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth.”

Whispers of a Fallen Heart

     We don't make decisions in a vacuum. As much as we'd like to be, we are not objective. The Christian understands -or should- that the spirit and the flesh are at war. In the unsaved, the unrepentant, this isn't really an issue; the flesh pulsates with desires and the mind more or less seeks to fulfill them. In the Christian though, in the life of the redeemed, there is a battle. We are free from the abject domination of sin but the old man isn't dead yet, or rather he's dead but doesn't know it. The real problem is that without practice, without prayer and much effort, it can be difficult if not impossible to distinguish our own thoughts from the whispers of fallen flesh.

     Now when I say “flesh” I don't only mean the literal body. The body has many faculties and systems that are affected by the fall but when I refer to the “flesh” I mean the whole of our sinful being. It's desires and drives are fueled not by God, but by sin and base 'need'. For example: God created marriage and in marriage gave us a wonderful gift, ie. sex. Now in purity that is a relationship that comes after marriage and provides a meaningful and important bonding to the couple, as well as being highly enjoyable. Sin has taken this gift and twisted it. Fallen man see's no need to follow the precepts of God, and even beyond that, actively wants to disobey. So we see that people don't wait till marriage, they don't see that relationship as holy or sacred, they don't give it ANY respect. We see what we see in our day; sexuality out in the open and society allowing any and all activities to be mingled into the act. Now sex doesn't have to be boring and monotonous, but I believe that anything we seek to do in our marriage bed should maintain the holiness and sanctity of the sexual relationship between man and wife. So the flesh wants to be satiated, while the spirit wants that right relationship and to serve God. In our day, though I'm certain there was plenty of tempting sources in the past, we have -especially in this area of life- nearly unlimited sources for sin. The flesh WILL whisper to you, it will lie straight to your face and make you believe that you want something that you don't -if- you let it. And this is only ONE aspect of life!

     A common tag-line for today is to “follow your heart”, heck we hear it from Disney all the time. It's believed that we can only do well by letting our hearts guide us but what does God have to say about our hearts?

Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things,

And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

Hmm, now that doesn't really meld with the modern thought does it? “Deceitful”, “Wicked?” But I thought that our hearts were a true guide, and the true source of who we are. Isn't that what everyone always says? Everyone is wrong. Anyone who is really honest, or anyone who's ever tried to change something in their life can tell you that our hearts do NOT listen to us. They seek only themselves and their desires, giving neither care nor thought to what may be right or wrong. How many people today struggle with “who they are”? How many people spend their whole lives trying to “find themselves?” How many people can't even begin to understand and cope with life because they simply cannot understand themselves? Let's go back to the Word:

Jeremiah 17:5-6 “Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man

And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD.

For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, In a salt land which is not inhabited.”

Wow, and it goes on to say:

Jeremiah 17:7-8 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD.

For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river,

And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green,

And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit.”

     Our hearts will guide us AWAY from righteousness, if we let them. Temptation is a dark companion, a shadowing hanger-on that we have to bear to our graves; but remember Christian, our God is greater! Pray, read, study, work, seek, strive, FIGHT! The world and our own fallen nature are not our allies, they seek our destruction daily. We like to think that were strong, but were not. You cannot win this war alone, nor can you trudge through the mire with only your boots to protect you. Humanity was not made to be 'free', we are servants to God or to Sin. We have a choice to make. Do we struggle daily under our own power ignoring the shadowed whispers -or worse- listening to them, or do we seek God and the salvation only He offers?

Joshua 24:15 "And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD,

choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve … But as for me and my house,

we will serve the LORD."

Triage

      A simple thought today, but one that is hard to accept and harder to live. Those of us who call ourselves “Christians”, seem to have a hard time with separation these days. The world around us is so... shiny and wondrous and exciting, why not enjoy what's there? However, God has called us to be more. Not everything is bad but not everything is good either, where do you draw the line? Some claim that being a “mature” Christian, they're strong enough to enjoy things that may weaken or tempt or affect others. That they can enjoy and endure with no ill effects. Bull. We are not called to be so strong that we can enjoy the world without fault, we're not called to be strong at all but to be strong in Him!

1 Timothy 6:11 “But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.”

      I'm not saying we can't enjoy hobbies or that we have to listen only to hymns and read only the Bible. What I'm saying is that like a surgeon working on a diseased limb, we have to decide if what we have before us is worth holding on to. Personally I try and take time everyone once and a while to go through my media and belongings and remove what doesn't pass my current spiritual mustard. I'm a geek and I'm part of that culture, and I love that, however there's much to that culture that is not of God. I've tried to cut out pretty much all horror movies, my games have followed suit for the most part, I've become much more particular about my music. We have to remember that the Bible informs us on every aspect, EVERY aspect, of our lives.

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy; meditate on these things.”

      Can you really say, honestly before God, that everything you enjoy meets this test? That tv show where the characters speak of little more than sex? That movie where the killer is the hero and revenge is seen as noble? That song with a curse every other word? Are the people in your forum building you up towards Godliness? The grace of God that Christians live with allows us freedom from an overbearing law, we must work out ourselves between us and God what is right in our lives; but we are not devoid of standards. Be honest and true, no matter how it may hurt, and take a fresh look at what you fill yourself with today.

Matthew 5:29 "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

Stories Instead of Scripture

         In this day and age we have innumerable resources for information. Between the preponderance of books and documentaries and the giant (though often questionable) library that is the internet today's Christian has really no excuse to be uninformed. Unfortunately it comes as no surprise that much of the material that exists today is at best, suspect if not outright misleading or false. It occurred to me today that there is another form of misleading material that we may not think of right away, media that takes the place of someone's legitimate interest in God.

         There are two books I've seen recently that fit this category and that I'll use as examples, but first a disclaimer. I freely admit that I have not read these books through, mostly I've spent some time leafing through them. That being the case, it's entirely possible that I've missed some redeeming value they may have, but my point isn't really dependent on the books in their entirety.

         The first book bothers me first off because it's complete lack of logic...”A Story of God and All of Us,” by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett.

          This a novelization of the Bible...based not on the Bible itself, but on the miniseries “The Bible.” Now regardless of your opinion on the series itself (meh), this book makes no sense as we HAVE the story of the miniseries....the BIBLE! This simple obvious fact bothers me more than anything. I can only see two possible purposes for it, to make as much money as humanly possible from people's interest in the Bible, and to provide a source of “information” that is not actually the Word of God. Now as in most things I don't suggest that the second reason was one considered by it's authors, publishers, distributors etc. However we all know humans aren't the only forces working in this world. It appears as if the book's authors had the audacity to try and make the Bible more...interesting, I guess? The parts I read were filled with poor paraphrasing and nearly no grasp as to the actual point of God's Word. I remember reading about Jesus' interview with Pilot. In this section the authors wrote what Pilot was thinking, and even had him restraining himself from smacking this insolent prisoner, ie. Jesus. We don't know what anyone from the past was thinking and the Bible doesn't give any indication that Pilot smacked Him or wanted to. This of course is my second problem with this book, the authors did what everyone likes to do with history in general and the Bible specifically, they added information they could not possibly know and presented it as part of the actual account. Ultimately the only source we should look to is the Bible, these other books really only serve as a net to catch people and stop them on their way to God's Word. Think of it this way, some people can easily be steered away from every caring about God. Others however, may have a strong albeit earthly interest. The devil doesn't need to outright block everyone when he can simply provide other sources of “information” that seem like the same story but are ultimately different and do not lead to a saving knowledge of God. It would be far better for everyone who bought this book to simply get a copy of the Bible itself (statistically they probably already own one) and read not only “exciting” stories, but all of God's words to us.

          The other book I'll mention here is “Killing Jesus – The Unknown Conspiracy Behind the World's Most Famous Execution,” by Stephen Mansfield. This book contains the two hallmarks of quickly done, “for profit” books namely a large typeface and double-spaced pages. The book itself is probably half as long as it appears and also uses the familiar “dramatization” of Biblical events. This book isn't so much a deterrent from scripture as it is a parasite on scripture minded people. We don't need a book exposing the conspiracy that killed Christ because the Bible already lays out what happened! The religious elite of the time were ticked off because Jesus was undermining their authority, and since “official” Judaism of the time had long since parted ways with God's intentions for them, they failed to recognize their own Messiah. As far as I can tell this book is nothing more than another attempt to capitalize on the popular idea of religious mysteries and secrets. Ultimately I must say again that people would be far better served reading the actual Bible.

         God didn't give us a hundred different kinds of revelation. He didn't breathe out films or music vidoes. He didn't weave number based secret codes into His scriptures. The God of the Bible is not a god that makes us wonder and worry and dig and sneak and think ourselves better because we found the “truth.” God gave us His word that we might know Him! We need not think that He's keeping things from us, or that His Word is insufficient. As Paul said in his letters to Timothy, “All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching...” (2 Timothy 3:16), and of course there's Revelation 22:18-19, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.”

Dreams and Promises

It occurred to me today that our dreams our a thing we must strive, even fight for. The odd thing is that although we usually hear about fighting against the world or our circumstances, we rarely hear about fighting against ourselves for our dreams. Sometimes it's our own deficiencies that hold us back. If we are to fulfill that which we desire we must fight tooth and nail against our own laziness, fears, and worries. Not that this is easy. In fact I think it may just be the most difficult part of the battle. We can put labels on enemies, we can cast ourselves the hero in some cosmic war against our situation or our economic shortcomings, but realizing that we ourselves are to blame often comes rather late.

Personally I don't think this is a permanent problem. I think we can muscle through even our own shortcomings. As Christian I believe this to be even more true. We are empowered by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to be changed, to be more than what we were. We know that God will finish the work He begins in us. Furthermore we know that God desires our good, whether that be freedom from recurring sins or the perfecting of our fallen natures. I see in myself a propensity for selfishness, laziness, and pride and I see in the scriptures God's promise to remove those faults. Ultimately their shadows will remain until I see His face in paradise, but I can trust Him to loosen the hold they have on me.

Every day I see more and more the need to seek His face. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God … and all these things shall be added unto you...” God knows how to give good gifts to his children, we need only ask and ask rightly.