It’s not that simple (The Over Simplification of winning)

While in a meeting the other night one of our leaders was taking us through Israel’s time in Egypt.  A familiar story to us all; the topic of being free through partaking of the Passover Lamb came up, and we spent time talking about how it looks to break free through Christ.  One of the brothers responded to us all by saying, “If we just listen to Sermons all day we will win the battle.”  If only it were that easy I thought…Is it?
Many Christians listen to many sermons, yet still struggle with pornography and lustful inclinations.  I commented by stating the obvious, yet un-reported fact that King David and Solomon wrote parts of the Old Testament yet struggled.  Go figure, you can even write the Scripture and still be stuck in sexual immorality while doing it!  So just listening to a sermon alone will not cut it.
It amazes me how many ways there are to, “get off Porn,” in the Church culture.  You can pay thousands of dollars to take courses, go to conferences, retreats and order DVD’s that will set up on the right track.  But will they?  For some, these are the beginning of a new life, and for others, it’s a waste of time and money.
There is no substitute for the body of Christ.  None!  Everything we need to walk in healthy ways are for us in the Church.  And you know what, there free!  Can you seek the Glory of God free of charge?  Yep!  Can you take in the Word for no cost.  There are ministries you can find accountability.  Confession to your fellow human comes without price, as does the encouragement to cut off the area(s) that are dragging you down.
The utter failure for most suggestions on how to get off of Porn is that it isn’t just one thing that will do the trick.  It takes a community to help us change.  As you seek to get involved at your fellowship you will noticed deeper issues that you have.  Fear of getting to know people (or having them know you) or anger.  Maybe you will find that you have a critical spirit towards your Church.  These are they that hold us from experiencing the change we seek.  We want things to come easy.  But this battle will not be easy.  It was never intended to be.  What is required is a total commitment to your termination, and a full submission to the Lord of heaven and earth.  What is holding you back.  When you look within, you will find things far more scary than pornography.

Anime – The Subtle & Insidious

This is a difficult topic to write about.  But it is life, and for some, it has been a real part of there lives to which my heart grieves to hear there stories.  Rape is nothing to mess around with.  But with that said, for those who research our pornified culture and trends online it isn’t hard to notice that there is a genre of rape fantasy which is accessible to those wanting it, and also stumbled upon to the curious.  There are a bit softer versions of this degregation porn on the popular tube sites on the internet for free, but there is one expression on this that I want to share, if for anything, for parents to be aware.  Secondly, I find it always important to look into our own hearts and find the need for courage and compassion.  Not that we might have it, but we need it in our world that has become very tricky to navigate in.
It’s always good to remember that all of us, including our offspring live in a physical world and a virtual one.  With students spending as many as 7 to 9 hours of a day being spent on the internet, it seems vital that we continue to learn to navigate this rough terrain.
Rape themes come in the most tortuous ways online.  Would you believe it, you can get rid of all the human pornography in the world and you wouldn’t touch this!  The makers of it are in the family of entertainment that has brought us Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z.  Yes, it’s Adult Anime, or A.K.A. Japanese animation for adults.  I certainly don’t mean to say that all Anime has rape themes, for that is a un-truth.   But the same country that brings us Anime with it’s interesting characters of fun loving young animals and people, gives us sensuality on bizarre level like never before.
Anime in general depicts young people in it’s shows.  They fight off monsters and can be quite likable, but most popular Anime characters, that are human looking, appear around 12-18 years of age.  As you navigate through the various Anime online you find that there are sensual themes in many.  These young ladies (teens), have voluptuous breast, and skirts that are so tiny that you can, at times, see there undergarments.  It seems all to weird that these are high school kids lusting after one another.  Some go so far as to show everything but genitals.  Most would deem it pornographic for sure.  You might ask how this is legal.  But from what I have read online, Japan has a different set of laws and philosophy on the nature of sex in general.  You must remember that not all countries feel the same way as the U.S. about sex.
But hang on, this is only the beginning.  It is easy online to jump from Anime, to it’s adult counterpart officially known as Hentai (meaning pervert).  This is a word that basically means Adult Anime.  The themes can be somewhat similar to it’s less sexual parallel.  But it is important for us to understand that the material in Hentai is very extreme.  The characters look still 12-18, there voluptuous breast got even bigger, and the violence get’s…well, move violent.  Rape is a common theme in Hentai; and the most vicious kinds that I will not mention in detail.  My heart breaks and is grieved by it as if I watched a clip on war or killings being done.  Most girls seem to fight the sex in Hentai, meaning they verbally say, “NO.”  Yet the male or beast, continues to invade.  What does this communicate to a kid who is watching?  This is what I do not understand;  It is illegal in this country for kids under the age of 18 to watch pornography, yet there is no regulation to this material online.  Though it might be also illegal to watch them due to copy-write laws, it is freely distributed by many sites with no age restrictions!  So confusing.
To me, this is a form of child pornography. Many of the clips or shows depict young women, under 18 engaging in the most heart breaking sexual situations.  In my own conspiracy theory brain, I see how kids that watch a certain kind of Anime can become somewhat desensitized to it’s themes that crossover into it’s adult counterpart, Hentai.  Sensuality is in Anime, violence is is Anime, but it goes Godzilla in Hentai!  It is also insane to think that the most hard core of porn on the internet is in animation form!  Cartoon like!  I am reminded that Jesus spoke of the thief as coming to steal, kill and destroy lives.  What is the impact of this material on a young life?  I have only looked into this material for the past two moths, can you imagine years watching this?
What I have learned is that Japanese Adult entertainment is loaded with the rape theme. Whether in animation form or not, it is commonly portrayed in videos.  Watching the animation version seems a bit less deviant to me as it’s a cartoon looking person, but there is such similarity between the two.  Girls can look very young with the man groping her, unwillingly.
We are against sex trafficking, yet the ideas of coercion seem self evident in so many of the Japanese material which is online and available for free!  Seems so confusing don’t it.  Can you put yourself in a kids shoes to navigate through the mixed messages!  But it’s something we are used to in this country.  Though murder is against the law, we can watch plenty of shows with it’s theme.  We must learn to regulate what we take in.  Asking the state to do it for us might not be the answer we are looking for, yet it would be nice if this kind of material I am writing about here was regulated better in my opinion…at the least… for kids.
Remember that as parents we need to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.  We need to create a positive and healthy online environment for our kids, so look into internet filters or routers.  Companies have heard the cry of many parents and overseer’s and in response have created many tools to  help navigate this world of pitfalls.  http://www.toptenreviews.com/software/security/best-internet-filter-software/
Lastly…
I often ask how could anyone get off on this kind of smut.  Many in the Christian community certainly would not be transparent on such a admission.  But in reading David Ley’s material on this subject, I was really interested in this statement.
“Some women who have experienced the tragedy of sexual assault go on to be tormented by tremendous psychological turmoil over sexual fantasies of rape and forceful sex.  They feel angry and upset with themselves, confused that they and their bodies are responding with sexual arousal to a fantasy similar to an event that was so traumatic and devastating.

Sexual fantasy about rape is exceedingly common among women, with as many as 25 to 65 percent of women endorsing some form of this fantasy, at least once in their lives, in one form or another.”  David Ley

This really throws a wrench into thoughts and ideas that we have doesn’t it?
Can you imagine being a feminist and having such thoughts?  Very paradoxical wouldn’t you say.  But is it?
The Bible tells us that the heart of man is wicked.  “The heart is the most deceitful thing there is, and desperately wicked.  No one can really know how bad it is!”  (The Living Bible)
From the moment were online we already are infected with a virus, but it’s in the mind.  You see, fantasy in the mind can be independent of even our beliefs.  That’s what I gather from David Ley’s quote above.  What that means?; even though I might admit that something is morally bad and have not experienced the trauma of it in actually life, my heart independent of my belief could desire to engage in it; I can be tempted.  Today’s online Porn perpetuates this in my opinion.  Though I know it is bad to rape, I find these themes tempting, especially when presented, subtly, the way it is in Anime/Hentai. Think about it another way.  Why do we love to watch action movies?  We find them exciting, un-realistic for sure, yet in our hearts we find that the themes of winning and loosing resound within our hearts.  We know we can’t do what is on the screen, but oh, how cool it is to wish!  There is something that resounds in us.  Isn’t that the same with pornography?  Sex is so fun and exciting.  Can’t we do the same with sexual themes as well as action and adventure?  Though nobody tries to do what Thor does, we fantasize about it don’t we.  And so pornography is another way for us to fulfill an idea too.  Don’t people do that with erotic novels as well or sports?  We long for something.  We can easily go to places in our mind.  As radio and TV have in the past, today’s online experience helps us to imagine.
In 2001 at the U of Vermont, research was done and found that 80% of married women fantasized about someone other than their husbands at one time and 98% of married men fantasized about someone other than their wife at one time.  So it would seem to be a very common temptation that most have.  That statement is from a Christian perspective though.  If you believed polygamy or polyandry was ok, then desiring another would be the first step to asking the person on a date!
The Christian Scriptures tell us that all temptation is common and experienced by all of us (1st Cor 10:13).  Not saying that all of us have had this particular fantasy, but just that we are human when tempted.  It is “normal.”  Pornography simply put, gives us a resting place for our deviant minds to act out, without actually acting out.
Porn trends are trends of our hearts!  Yikes that’s a hard truth to hear.  The tiniest of percentage of porn viewers actually go out and commit rape, yet how many watch it globally?  Millions maybe?  377 million viewers per month visit just one of the most famous adult tube sites available on the net according to estimates on 3wsnoop.com!  There are many, many viewers of pornography.  And many kinds of porn.  Most consumers do not look at rape porn, but of course, some do.
But even beyond that I realize that the Bible itself could be viewed in such a frame as well, with it’s Song of Solomon or characters like Samson.  Certainly there are places where women are not treated the best.  Actually many were sex slaves or concubines.  And the greatest men of the Old Testament had them.  The Bible never tells us that what they did was right, but they did do it.
So how do we change this trend?  How to cut the human heart that is so filled with madness?  That is the question. How to transform a heart to think differently?  This is what is needed.
Jesus promises to do this.  A world of people like Jesus would be a safe place.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  Ezekiel 36:26
For parents;  be aware of your kids who might enjoy Anime.  Be involved in what they like to watch and help talk to them about the themes.  You need to know the answer to why some things are wrong and other things are permissible.  Without this kind of engagement, our kids are left to figure out the maze of the virtual world, and with it, its themes, whichever form they come in.  And there are unfortunately some seriously scary ones.

Dis-respect of Women

I was overjoyed to be able to share, last Wednesday, to a group of public high school students here in the Tucson area.  My job; talk to the freshman boys about the problem with disrespecting there fellow female classmates.  I find it so ironic, that I get to do this.  All I can remember as a young boy was listening to heavy metal and thinking of how to get closer to the girls I was infatuated with at the time.  I was horrible, I think, from what I can remember.  I wrote nasty letters at times, and certainly had potty brain.  You know what that is right?  It’s when a young man’s brain can’t stop thinking about bad things with his female classmates.  So you can see how odd it was for me to share with the class.  But that was 30 years or so ago now.  Much has changed, and the 23 years of marriage I have experienced has been such a joy!
I was very excited to share my stories with the young men. But first I needed to get them off on the right footing.  Many don’t know about the women’s suffrage movement in North America or the lack of respect for women world wide that takes place today.  Statistics tell us that 1 out of 3 women in the world face violence or sexual violence at least once in there lifetime.  Even if the statistic was 1 out of 6, it’s horrible.  In the U.S. intimate partner violence between ages 16 and 24 experience the highest rage of violence, triple of the national average!  Campus assault studies estimate 1 our of 5 college women experience completed or attempted rape during their college years.  Way, way, way too much.  A study reported in New York Times that 1 in 5 adolescent girls become the victims of physical or sexual violence, or both, in a dating relationship!  Insane!
So as the world becomes more tolerant of many lifestyles, we still have a big problem with our hearts.  They suck.   They did years ago, and they still do.
So I asked these students what they thought it would be like to grow up in a culture where the odd’s are somewhat against them.  Many girls will be hit or sexually abused.  Don’t be too quick to blame things like porn for this.  For starters, porn has always been in the world.  Second, today’s technology maybe more to blame for the porn then anything else.  The young men could see the predicament girls are in.  It’s tough to be a young woman today, or any time in history!
As a kid I can recall some moments that my family is not too proud of, where violence happened.  We learned from it and are stronger people today.  But in the moment when watching violence against a mom, sister or girlfriend can be hard core traumatic.  Too many girls are vulnerable to this assault.
We learn from our families, friends, and entertainment culture don’t we.  I challenged the students where they get there ideas of girls from, and what ideas do these cultural teachers teach them!  What do we learn from our parents relationships.  Many do not enjoy one another.  And some even detest the other.  Even worse is when they show it through verbal assaults in public.
It was interesting to share with them what I had seen amongst friends in High School dating relationships.  Some were downright toxic.  So I wondered, “do the students that I was talking to have friends in toxic relationships as well?”  More than likely, a percentage do.
To challenge the kids on our culture, I read off a bit of Queen Latifah’s famous lyrics to U.N.I.T.Y.

Instinct leads me to another flow
Everytime I hear a brother call a girl a bitch or a ho
Trying to make a sister feel low

Many of the young men knew who she was.  Of course, they think of her as an actress and not so much as a rapper, like in my youth.  But they got the picture;  Queen Latifah had a message and it was if you disrespect me, I’m going to respond!  She was tough.  And I only wish that toughness was in more young ladies.
What many did not understand, was that lust is a form of disrespect.  Q.L. got it, but many young men don’t.  They think it’s OK to see a girl walking down the hall of there school and shout out what they want to do to them.  I understand, I did it too.  But what was wrong with me, was a heart issue, and that is what I shared with them is revealed in the young men who say what they say to the girl walking in the hall.  So it was my joy to let them know that when you disrespect a young woman, what you are declaring to the world is that you have an issue with your heart.  It’s corrupt, it’s evil, it is non-loving, it is selfish to it’s core and in order to change it, the first thing you need to do is see it for what it is.
My heart for these youth was that they understand the real danger underlying the disrespect of female students in there school or lives.  The real danger is that you can’t just turn off dis-respect. Selfish Lust in the human heart will not just go away when they find someone they really love!  There is no easy switch to turn it off or on, it is a learned behavior through family, friends, and culture that will not just vanish when you find someone you love.  One day I really wanted to love a person.  She was awesome, sweet, loyal, loving, kind, but I didn’t know how to be those things.  I wanted to be, but there was too much time of being educated in the ways of dis-respect that I was admittingly unable to go a different direction.  For me it took breaking up with her, and having to leave the state, just to be taught a different way for a time.  I needed to re-learn, a new education, and a new teacher.
I commend the school for having the opportunity for someone (let alone me) to share with the students.   This topic is so important.  When I have had the opportunity to go into the Jr. High schools, young ladies tell me that they are asked for nudes by there fellow boy classmates. This is a regular trend.  Lust has always been the human condition, but technology has made young men bold to ask.  Sexting it is called.  It is easy to do.  Snap a picture and send it.  Done.
What technology has done is made it very easy to fulfill lust in the heart.  Also, create a less risky condition that tempts us to give it a try.  For me to ask a girl for a picture of her nude in 1985 would have meant she needed to go find a camera, take a picture, go to get the film from a market and then hide it, and give it to me.  Way to risky for most, even with the lustful influences in our lives.
We are in constant growing pains with the technology today.  So fast does it come out that we can’t seem to socially figure out how to manage it before it takes it’s toll.  We have a human condition and a multitude of ways to express it.
Lastly, I shared that there is something that is forfeited when we give into lustful, dis-respecting inclinations.  It’s love.  And that is profound.  Because love is the best thing on this planet to experience and few experience it or much of it.  Too many do not know Love.  What examples of love do they have?  I encouraged them to find it, search for love.  It will be the best treasure hunt they will ever be on.  And if they do just that it will run them to no other person than Jesus, from the little country of Israel.  It did for me!  A love that is so compelling, so complete, so intense that I couldn’t rap my head around such love.
If we were all more like Him.

Why Pornography Thrives

A growing industry 

Economic pressure– The great risk of dating today.  Too much to loose in dating. Much to gain in staying single and focused on work.
Tolerance at all cost– Risk of offending is big in our culture.  Who wants to stand out as the intolerant one?
Moral relativism/Lack of critical thinking– There is no objective truth (yet that statement is an absolute!)
Evolution– We actually are products of random mutation over long periods of time.  I am a more knowledgeable monkey, so why not act like one?
Abortion/The Pill/Medicine– Technology gives rise to reckless behavior in hopes to cover up the biological consequences of sex and sexual anarchy.
Narcissism– The product of hyper economic competition plus survival of the fittest mentality, creates hyper individualism.  Why help another?
Hedonism– Pleasure at all cost to the other.  Sex makes us happy and therefore it is good to our culture.  It feels good!  The goal is to be happy, and sex produces it.
Religious education- “Don’t do that,” teaching only has moved the religious culture to pursue other means to find answers to intimate needs and desires.  It is very tough to share sexual thoughts or convictions within a religious community.  Safe to be secret and private.
Patriarchy– Men have been the leaders of objectifying and exploiting women.  Porn can be a product of how men see women.  We have been the teachers, leaders and disciples to women of the world of what they are good for and how we would like to treat them.
Womens liberation – There is a branch of feminism that is pro-porn and sees the adult industry as a way to pursue pleasure on there own terms.  Not only pleasure, but the ability to work in such a industry being an act of independents and equality with men.
I’ll arrange a sentence with all the subjects above and maybe it will give us a good understanding if it fits what we experience in this life.
Now we can!  We are animals, so why not go with the flow!  Relationships are hard and tiresome, it’s easier to do what I want.  I haven’t felt good in a long time.  I know it’s wrong to do that, but I cant say it really is wrong, is it?  It’s my right to do what I want with my sexuality!  Wow, that girl (guy) is hot I’d like to _______ her (him)!!!
I think we can all relate to some part of that short paragraph.
There are many issues to talk about when it comes to the issue of Pornography and why it thrives.  These certainly are not the only ones.   My blogs look into these topics a bit deeper and hope to create good dialog and thought, especial within the Christian culture.
https://runninglight.wordpress.com

Male Leadership and Sex

I get the privilege of weekly teaching at the Salvation Army long term rehabilitation center in my city.  We meet with 70 men.  My colleague, Peter, & I had one of our fiery discussions on lust, sex, porn, love & the Bible.  For many of these men it is new to discuss all of these topics in a large group setting.   But to say the least, they are awesome times, for them, and for us.

This specific time I am recalling and would like to write about deals with the topic of sex.  The meeting was alive with men asking questions and us quickly responding with Bible passages and life applications.  It went something like this:
You mean having my girl dress up is wrong?  What’s wrong with spicing things up?  Isn’t that normal?
Peter & I – Do you think there is a problem if you need to ask your girl to dress up due to her not doing it for you anymore?
But what if your girl wants to spice things up?  What then?
To be clear, this blog is not about wearing lingerie or really for that matter spicing things up in bed.  It’s about male leadership, and this is where our topic went to this day and it was beautiful!
Peter and I ask them where they think women get the idea of spicing things up or having to focus so much on there appearance continually?
They pondered…but couldn’t find an answer though they were thinking.
We continued to share what our culture is like for women by looking at how we have viewed them growing up.  This didn’t take long for us to realize that as growing boys (teens) there wasn’t a time where we did not objectify women!  We always valued them for there looks and what they could bring us.  All remembered times where a girl would walk by and we would say something or continue to stare.  Most of us starting watching porn or seeing porn in a magazine at young ages, and the music entertainment culture was mostly about getting sex.  We learned well.  Growing up objectifying women has it’s ramifications even in the lives of women.  They learn too.  And this was the point that Peter and I were trying to make.   Maybe the reason so many women might say yes to the desires of men is because this is the way of the world.  Women have been taught what men want.  Why do women strip…men pay for it…why do women do porn…because men buy it…why do women dress they way they do…to land a man.
Now when I think of the experience of sexual intimacy, this can be seen too.  How many women have had a man ask if they could have sex this way or that way?  Usually it is a way that a woman does not feel comfortable with, but due to the man’s unbridled lust, he leaps out in faith to ask her in hopes to fulfill it.  This can go on and on and cause insane mental abuse on a woman.  But most woman have learned that this is just the way it is in the world of men.  This is normal.  But in this situation, the men in the class let us know that there women like it, and ask for it, so why is it wrong to give it to them?  But just because we’ve been socially conditioned for objectification and lust is that good reason to continue to perpetuate it?  Does there come a time where you as a man say to the girl, “Hey, I want to love you, not lust you!”  “This sex thing is not primarily about my orgasm.”

The orgasm has become today’s secular sacrament.  Dinesh D’Souza

I love what God says to the men of days of Hosea the prophet.  He lived around 755-710BC and was a prophet to Israel.  The book is radical, and you should read it for yourself.  You might be surprised to find this kind of book included in the Holy Scriptures.  But they are a insane testimony of the reality of life, and God’s view on us who live it out.  There is the most incredible love in the book, and the saddest turning away from the beloved.

“Love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery…”  Hosea 3:1

In chapter four we see God’s heart to us men concerning our social & family leadership with women.  It’s so hard core to hear this, as it’s from the perspective of God, who is watching.  We are forever being tapped.

I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry, nor your brides when they commit adultery; For the men themselves go apart with harlots, and offer sacrifices with a ritual harlot.  Therefore people who do not understand will be trampled.

And so there it is, the perspective of the almighty.  The daughters and brides are not going to be judged…the men are!  They should be leading there ladies, but instead they were teaching them to value objectification and sexual narcissism.  So much so that they not only learned the behavior, but it was now normal.  To act like a man in his pursuit of sexual narcissism was now common for her too!  And now, do you see it in our culture?  Men lust and lead in it, women follow in this patriarchal society.  Is patriarchy to criticize?  I think that’s too easy to blame.  Bad leadership whether in a patriarchal society or a matriarchal will get us to the same place.  Leadership is the problem and specifically leadership as to what does love look like.  Wouldn’t it be cool if the guys didn’t whistle at the girls or yell out, “Your hot, come over hear girl!”  This kind of leadership keeps the cycle of selfish lust going, and when wanting to get off that wheel, it is tough…real tough.
My own life bears this out.  Though I am a Christian and love the Lord, love my wife and have, by grace, tried my best to not sexually educate in a narcissistic way, I find a deep root of yuck in me.  One that is easily satisfied by the amount of lust in the culture.  I know it’s wrong, for all I need to do is think if I want guys to yell out sexual things to my daughter!  Is strange men salivating over my daughter in the mall or at the beach cool?  Not for this dad.  And in this society it would be considered a foolish, irresponsible thing to allow someone to talk to your daughter in a disrespectful way, especially a sexual way.  But the odd thing is we allow it in all other aspects of our social life through music, entertainment, movies, games etc…
Don’t blame porn…porn is just an parody of the world we live in, a reflection of it, the good, not so good, and horrible.
It’s the human heart that is the problem when we evaluate it all.  It seems we have a default that is prone to fail.
Men, we need a change of heart and mind.  There are many movements that will help you see things different.  Feminism, the fight against patriarchy.  On another front, fight the new drug with it’s porn kills love campaign as seen on billboards in San Francisco.  Both demonize something. For one, it’s the family, social, political arrangement of leadership, and for the other it’s porn.
Jesus forces us into a different, more personal direction.  He tells us that porn and patriarchy are not the problem…YOU & I ARE THE PROBLEM.

“For out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fortification, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within and defile a man.  Mark 7:21-23

What if all us men walked in a way to love God and love our neighbors!  What a mission in life it is to promote that way.  How would it affect our culture and the way women behave?  I can only imagine for the positive.  It’s a difficult mission and dare I say impossible!  But through renewing our mind in the Bible, seeking help from the Spirit of Christ, surrendering our wills to Him, there can be a little change.  May be just enough to change the life and path of another for the good!

Male Leadership and Porn



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I get the privilege of weekly teaching at the Salvation Army long term rehabilitation center in my city.  We meet with 70 men.  My colleague, Peter, & I had one of our fiery discussions on lust, sex, porn, love & the Bible.  For many of these men it is new to discuss all of these topics in a large group setting.   But to say the least, they are awesome times, for them, and for us.
This specific time I am recalling and would like to write about deals with the topic of sex.  The meeting was alive with men asking questions and us quickly responding with Bible passages and life applications.  It went something like this:
You mean having my girl dress up is wrong?  What’s wrong with spicing things up?  Isn’t that normal?
Peter & I – Do you think there is a problem if you need to ask your girl to dress up due to her not doing it for you anymore?
But what if your girl wants to spice things up?  What then?
To be clear, this blog is not about wearing lingerie or really for that matter spicing things up in bed.  It’s about male leadership, and this is where our topic went to this day and it was beautiful!
Peter and I ask them where they think women get the idea of spicing things up or having to focus so much on there appearance continually?
They pondered…but couldn’t find an answer though they were thinking.
We continued to share what our culture is like for women by looking at how we have viewed them growing up.  This didn’t take long for us to realize that as growing boys (teens) there wasn’t a time where we did not objectify women!  We always valued them for there looks and what they could bring us.  All remembered times where a girl would walk by and we would say something or continue to stare.  Most of us starting watching porn or seeing porn in a magazine at young ages, and the music entertainment culture was mostly about getting sex.  We learned well.  Growing up objectifying women has it’s ramifications even in the lives of women.  They learn too.  And this was the point that Peter and I were trying to make.   Maybe the reason so many women might say yes to the desires of men is because this is the way of the world.  Women have been taught what men want.  Why do women strip…men pay for it…why do women do porn…because men buy it…why do women dress they way they do…to land a man.
Now when I think of the experience of sexual intimacy, this can be seen too.  How many women have had a man ask if they could have sex this way or that way?  Usually it is a way that a woman does not feel comfortable with, but due to the man’s unbridled lust, he leaps out in faith to ask her in hopes to fulfill it.  This can go on and on and cause insane mental abuse on a woman.  But most woman have learned that this is just the way it is in the world of men.  This is normal.  But in this situation, the men in the class let us know that there women like it, and ask for it, so why is it wrong to give it to them?  But just because we’ve been socially conditioned for objectification and lust is that good reason to continue to perpetuate it?  Does there come a time where you as a man say to the girl, “Hey, I want to love you, not lust you!”  “This sex thing is not primarily about my orgasm.”
The orgasm has become today’s secular sacrament.  Dinesh D’Souza
I love what God says to the men of days of Hosea the prophet.  He lived around 755-710BC and was a prophet to Israel.  The book is radical, and you should read it for yourself.  You might be surprised to find this kind of book included in the Holy Scriptures.  But they are a insane testimony of the reality of life, and God’s view on us who live it out.  There is the most incredible love in the book, and the saddest turning away from the beloved.
“Love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery…”  Hosea 3:1
In chapter four we see God’s heart to us men concerning our social & family leadership with women.  It’s so hard core to hear this, as it’s from the perspective of God, who is watching.  We are forever being tapped.
I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry, nor your brides when they commit adultery; For the men themselves go apart with harlots, and offer sacrifices with a ritual harlot.  Therefore people who do not understand will be trampled.
And so there it is, the perspective of the almighty.  The daughters and brides are not going to be judged…the men are!  They should be leading there ladies, but instead they were teaching them to value objectification and sexual narcissism.  So much so that they not only learned the behavior, but it was now normal.  To act like a man in his pursuit of sexual narcissism was now common for her too!  And now, do you see it in our culture?  Men lust and lead in it, women follow in this patriarchal society.  Is patriarchy to criticize?  I think that’s too easy to blame.  Bad leadership whether in a patriarchal society or a matriarchal will get us to the same place.  Leadership is the problem and specifically leadership as to what does love look like.  Wouldn’t it be cool if the guys didn’t whistle at the girls or yell out, “Your hot, come over hear girl!”  This kind of leadership keeps the cycle of selfish lust going, and when wanting to get off that wheel, it is tough…real tough.
My own life bears this out.  Though I am a Christian and love the Lord, love my wife and have, by grace, tried my best to not sexually educate in a narcissistic way, I find a deep root of yuck in me.  One that is easily satisfied by the amount of lust in the culture.  I know it’s wrong, for all I need to do is think if I want guys to yell out sexual things to my daughter!  Is strange men salivating over my daughter in the mall or at the beach cool?  Not for this dad.  And in this society it would be considered a foolish, irresponsible thing to allow someone to talk to your daughter in a disrespectful way, especially a sexual way.  But the odd thing is we allow it in all other aspects of our social life through music, entertainment, movies, games etc…
Don’t blame porn…porn is just an parody of the world we live in, a reflection of it, the good, not so good, and horrible.
It’s the human heart that is the problem when we evaluate it all.  It seems we have a default that is prone to fail.
Men, we need a change of heart and mind.  There are many movements that will help you see things different.  Feminism, the fight against patriarchy.  On another front, fight the new drug with it’s porn kills love campaign as seen on billboards in San Francisco.  Both demonize something. For one, it’s the family, social, political arrangement of leadership, and for the other it’s porn.
Jesus forces us into a different, more personal direction.  He tells us that porn and patriarchy are not the problem…YOU & I ARE THE PROBLEM.
“For out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fortification, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within and defile a man.  Mark 7:21-23
What if all us men walked in a way to love God and love our neighbors!  What a mission in life it is to promote that way.  How would it affect our culture and the way women behave?  I can only imagine for the positive.  It’s a difficult mission and dare I say impossible!  But through renewing our mind in the Bible, seeking help from the Spirit of Christ, surrendering our wills to Him, there can be a little change.  May be just enough to change the life and path of another for the good!

With, In and Upon!

How fascinating to study the Holy Scriptures!  There is more than meets the eye… always with God.
Genesis 1:27-28
So God made man like His Maker.  Like God did God make man; Man and maid did he make them.  And God blessed them and told them, multiply and fill the earth…
Man and his helper are told by God to have sex and produce offspring.
John 15:5
Yes, I am the Vine you are the branches.  Whoever lives in me and I in him shall produce a large crop of fruit.
Christianity teaches that Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is in us, and this penetration of the Spirit within us is to produce it’s own set of spiritual offspring or fruit.
The marriage covenant established in Genesis 1-2 is to be a picture of Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:22-32).
Simply put;  Marriage, sex and the family were to be a picture of God’s spiritual work of being intimate with us.  Marriage, sex and family is a way we understand the work of God!  These are testimonies of God’s image and likeness to which we were made.  What I mean by that is God, who is and has relationship with His own being, has made us who are able to have a similar relationship on earth to help point us to Him.  Why do we long for companionship?  God is relational within himself!  He is the first cause and we, his creation are made in that likeness.
God is one of 3, a unity, a compound unity.  Without this, God would not be able to be outside of time creating the world, omni present within time, and able to, “walk in the garden in the cool of the day,” (Gen 3:8)!  Without this unity God could not be the Maker, Redeemer and Sanctifyer of mankind.  But yet, God is yet to be said to be all of them (Isaiah 54:5, Isaiah 44:17, Leviticus 20:8).
It’s amazing to think about it.  We live in homes that have mailboxes on them.  Upon marriage we establish one name to represent the entire household.  I remember when people used to put there last name on there mailbox for the mail carrier to know they were at the right home for mail delivery.  One name, many people in the home.  The basic family, is 3, father, mother and kid.  Three.  I don’t think this is coincidence!  God is a God of order.  Why does God do this?  I believe it is because God is in the business of glorifying Himself, shining himself, showing His worth to all of creation whether on earth or in the spirit world.  The Bible tells us that even the angels long to look into the matters of our salvation and the work of Christ through the Spirit (1st Peter 1:11-12)
The Holy Spirit is said to have three relationships with believers.  He would be with us, in us and upon us John 14:17, Acts 1:8).  I find this fascinating as well, as in intimacy within marriage this is the relationship too!  I am with my spouse, and at times, within and upon!  Wow, that is insane!  Just as the fist passages that were compared saw that there is fruit with both the physical world of man and woman, so there is a pointing to a spiritual fruit of God’s Spirit put in us.  Jesus spirit is in us, the Holy Spirit (1st Peter 1:11-12, Galatians 4:6, Colossians 1:27, 1st Corinthians 6:19).
Does this seem strange to you?  If so, look over the last Bible reference given, verses 12-20.
This way of thinking might also shed more light on a interesting reference to the Spirit when speaking of the physical union of man and woman in Malachi 2:15.
And did not he (God) make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. KJV
Did he not make them one? And the vestige of the spirit remains in him. And why did he make them one? He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and don’t be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. ISV
Why did God make man and woman one (of a unity, through sex)?  Offspring!  Fruit!  This is a work, a residue, a vestige of the spirit of God.  A physical, pointing to the spiritual.
God being with, in and upon is not without understanding and testimony here on earth.  It is happening everywhere!  The Bible makes incredible sense of this though it is so un-noticed among his creatures.  Its like a driver who is so used to the running of his car and the road underneath him that he forgets all together that intellect and ingenuity are behind both.  They are forgotten in light of the experience of driving.
May we not forget our Creator.
Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator.  Ecclesiastes 12:1 TLB

Sweep The Legs!

When I think of football I think of chopping off someone at the knees to bring them down!

Especially when I was a kid playing outdoor tackle football with the neighbors who were bigger then me!  If you can get the legs, then the’ll come down my dad always told me.  And he was right!

Just as without legs a person will fall down in a football game, so there are also legs that we stand in in our life philosophies.  If the legs get taken out, then the top will crumble as well.


Psalm 11:3 If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

We live in a world of ideas, and those ideas shape us, and dare I say, some of those ideas undercut us at the knees to where it becomes easy to fall.  I can’t think of a greater one in our day than the teaching of macro evolution.

Macro evolution, or ape to man evolution, if a fact, destroys not only Christianity, but most religious endeavors.  I grew up being taught evolution.  I am familiar with it.

To believe in the Bible’s truth statements of the creation, the fall, the curse, the catastrophe, the confusing, the cross & the consummation would seem ridiculous if popular historical science today has it right.

Why throw of religious inquiry and substitute it for secular materialism?

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do.
For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.
― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means 

Now hear me…Evolution is not the cause of us wanting to watch pornography or commit adultery, but it certainly provides the worldview to continue to do it!  But’s it’s not the only one.  People use religion as well to continue there lifestyles.  To Joseph Smith or Brigham Young (Of Mormon fame), those who practiced monogamy were in the wrong!  So in both worldviews, the evolutionist or the Biblical believer, you can use your worldview to do what you want to do.  So what are we to do?

The true undercutting of faith seems to me to be the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  Even Paul, the follower of Jesus who wrote most of the New Testament agreed!  In his letter to the Corinthian Church he writes that if Jesus is not raised from the dead then our preaching is useless and we are to pitted above all men!  What did Jesus think about lust, men & women?  What was Jesus worldview and is he a credible person to trust on issues of life & death?

This brings me personally to the choices that I need to make in life.  Is Jesus who he claimed to be?  If so, then we need to think through what we do in light of what he said.  If it seems that there is a focus to undermine the validity of the Bible, and in turn, the life of Jesus.  Well you are right.  The evolutionist and the Mormon both have done just that!  You can either see evidence for the non-existence of Jesus (The Atheist) or you can mis-represent what it is written about Jesus and what he said.  In both circumstance Jesus is not a source of truth.  And that’s what this boils down to; what is truth.  Is it ok to commit adultery?  TO watch pornography?  etc…  What is our source of truth, of right or wrong?

Its our belief system that brings us to think something like pornography or adultery is wrong.  We can change our beliefs anytime.  But we also can be renewed in our mind to see things Jesus way.

To cut out Jesus from history is to sweep the legs, bringing down the Christian worldview on sex, marriage, lust & love.

The following is a great video teaching from one of team members of Stand To Reason Ministries called Shattering The Icons of Evolution.  Enjoy!

Fighting for us! Wisdom

This week at Church we studied Proverbs chapter 9.  This Proverb is about Wisdom.  For those of us that struggle with desires that go astray, wisdom is needed.

Wisdom never sounds as good as porn does it!  Unless you have lived enough life in porn living in secret and shame of heart.  If you have been there, you know wisdom is what is needed.
The picture I see in the Proverb is that God is wanting to beckon us to him with his Wisdom.  It is pictured as an:
Architect
Nutritionist
Provider
And is verse 4, we see an interesting parallel!  “Whoever is simple let him turn in here!”  Now compare that verse with Proverbs 9:15.  What a kick in this Proverb we find competing voices for our time.  One is Wisdom and the other is porn.  Also look at Proverbs 7:7 and you can see that not only does Wisdom call out to us as in chapter 9, but also the porn life calls out too!

Now what is extremely interesting about this Proverb but not taught on is that Solomon was the most wisest man in the world, yet he was the most lustful too.  What does this mean?  

It means certainly that Solomon understood very well that there were competing passions in his life and could  be the same in ours?  He walked the freeway of foolishness and the blessings of God’s wisdom.  Can a person do that?
Both are competing for us all the time.  
Solomon says that God was passionate for him, caring to him, seeking to get his attention and show his His amazing abundance of goods.  Psalm 38:6 “We are abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house and you give us drink from the river of your pleasures.”  Gods always is showing himself faithful in our life.  Jesus is the fulfillment of this!  Oh, how God loves us and has shown us His Christ who did not live for His own, but became weak for us (2nd Cor 8:9).  God’s wisdom is seen in Jesus.  Jesus calls to us as His Spirit is in us (2nd Timothy 2:13).

Have you ever heard the phrase, “If it don’t work at home, don’t export it?”  We’ll I hate to inform you of this, but the Bible is filled with those that did not live such good lives as we might think, yet they wrote what is in the Bible!  Go figure.  God uses who he wants.

It’s interesting but we usually think of the men that God used as first being Holy don’t we.  Read this passage below:

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.  2nd Peter 1:21 KJV

But I find it interesting that the NIV translators decided to express the meaning of the passage this way:

For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.  2nd Peter 1:21 NIV


NIV seems to translate the passage in a way that helps us understand that these men where not Holy in the sense of being perfect in character, they were holy by how they were used by God.  God used these guys.  And some were much messier than others;  Solomon being one of them.

Another interesting aspect of this Proverb is that Lustful sex is used by God to show (a picture of)
the negative in human behavior.  This is not the first or the last time the Bible uses sexual language to communicate bad behavior that isn’t necessarily sexual.

When Jerusalem is being taken over by foreign enemies, we read that:
Jerusalem has sinned gravely, therefore she has become vile.  Jerusalem is a lady!  And as you read on, she has shown her body to the enemies to sleep with them, allowing the enemy to feel them up and down!  Radical for sure.  But the context is the destruction of Jerusalem a city.

Solomon seems to do this years before in this Proverb.  Wisdom says come in here so we can draw close, yet so does the harlot as well.  Which will I choose?  What will my behavior be?

Can God use you as a person who sins?  The clear answer is yes.

Yet how do you make the right decisions when it is so difficult in our culture?  The best answer I see from this Proverb is understanding what is competing for your mind, and seek to make choices that would move towards God’s ways.  God’s ways are always better.

“Taste and see that I am good!”  Psalms 34:8

Sex is amazing.  Pornography can be so very exciting. To not admit it is to put my head in the sand to the obvious.  God understands the pull that sex has on us and so he uses it to help show many kinds of bad behaviors.  This battle we have does not move God.  He understands it fully and is ready to give us an alternative.

I don’t try to say over and over, “I hate porn…I hate porn…,” hoping that it will sink in.  Instead I come to God honestly and tell him that there is something about it that I like, yet kill it in me, and replace that secular seed with your pleasure.  God must do it!  If it is not God that changes us, we will become proud and self righteous.  God is concerned about His righteousness, so we shouldn’t compete with Him.

“God will make a way of escape!”  1st Corinthians 10:13.  His wisdom which is seen greatest in Jesus, is it.  Help us Lord to follow your lead and say yes to your invitation to dine with you.

Living Hope

Tonight my non-believing friend said this to me, 
“Always hope.”
It got my thinking of the love passage in scripture,
“Love always hopes, Love keeps no records of wrong, Love endures all things, hopes all things, believes all things…Love never fails. (Capital letter added for emphasis.)
For many of us wives, we have known a love that does fail us and some days it’s hard to hope; its hard to believe again that our husbands could be changed, and believing only lets us down the next time they look at porn or break another promise to us. In many ways it’s easier to not hope…for then we can never be disappointed. 
But I believe God doesn’t call us to put our hope in a human being; surely even the most regenerate heart WILL fail and this is why we need the righteousness of Christ (His perfect life of obedience, credited to me before the Father, despite my sinfulness, therefore making me accepted by God,) to cover us.
But we as wives can “always hope” by putting our trust in the “Living hope,” (see 1 Peter 1:3)
Tonight I was thinking that this “love passage” is not only a call for us (the church) to love others as Christ has loved us, but more importantly a picture of how Christ, our Living Hope, loves me. Take some time to read the full passage in (1 Corinthians 13).


4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Now let’s look at this again in view of Christ…
Love- (a person- our living, resurrected Savior) is patient with me.  His love is not conceited or self seeking, He doesn’t think of Himself but instead thinks of me (insert your name here.)  He is kind to me (despite me having once been His enemy.)  He is not rude to me, despite the nails I hammered through His feet, and He does not turn me away.  He forgives me (despite having every right to resent me); He receives me with open arms and takes me back when I repent. 
He is never happy when I fail, and He rejoices in the truth. His delight is in my victory and joy. 
Love-my Savior bears all things for me, (including a cross and the wrath of the Father.)  He took what I deserved, and gave me what He deserved.  He believes in me,  and sees what I can be (not what I am.) 
He hopes in all circumstances, because He is Living Hope; He, Himself has the power to do something about my life.  He has endured all things on my behalf and His love (for me, and the Father) has never failed.  He has never broken a promise, or lusted after a woman, He is fully worthy of my trust. 
Love-(Jesus)-never-fails.
Notice the tense of that verse: Love never fails- meaning, never has in the past, isn’t failing you now, and won’t fail you in the future.
Do you believe He loves you Beloved?
He does.
Romans 15:13 says:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

May you abound in hope this week dear sisters. May you believe in the greatness of our great and powerful God.  He has the ability (and desire) to turn the heart of stone to a heart a flesh. 
Will you ask Him to do this work in your life (and the life of your husband)?  Are you willing to believe in His life changing love for you (and your husband?)  Do you have hope?
Please respond with how your feeling and lets “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ,” together.
Love,

Bethany