Category: God

When Romanticism Becomes Idolatry

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We all know her. It’s not us of course but we all know her. You know the one. Your friend, the one who is over all the time for coffee or to hang out as long as there is not a man in the picture. This isn’t so bad, you think to yourself, because we all do it to a certain extent. In those first few weeks of a relationship when lust permeates our thought process and we see are the wonderful attributes this man has. Yes, we all know her.

We all see her. She’s in church on Sunday and at TLC (or your form of it) on Monday evenings while she’s alone but once her man comes around she drops out. She’s beautiful on the outside but so insecure on the inside. Her convictions are solid until they are tested. You see, actions speak louder than words.

Then her new boyfriend asks her to sleep with him. She knows her God and His point of view on fornication but she shoves all the knowledge aside because someone actually loves her. Well, you see, he hasn’t actually said those exact words but we all know they are coming at some point, right? We all know she said she’d never date ‘the mission field’ but her new man has promised he’ll come to church and well, we all know how that will turn out.

She tells us he drinks a little too much. It’s okay, she continues, because she know it’s just the stress of his baby mama drama. You see, he wants to change. He just needs a little sex, a little fix-it and a lot less nagging.

So you ask her about his ex-wife. Only he doesn’t have one. You see, he got hooked up with a slutty girl and she got pregnant on purpose. She was a party girl and your friend, well, she just goes clubbing with her man now because it’s where his friends hang out. They don’t do anything there, they just go to dance and drink and relieve their stress. By the way, you tell her, she hasn’t brought him to church yet. No, she says, because he’s afraid of being judged and last week he wasn’t feeling well.

She tells you that he’s asked her to move in with him. He wants to have a big wedding and give her a big ring, only he can’t afford to right now. She knows it’s not what God would want but she knows if she just hangs out a little while longer he’ll give her the things she wants. She also mentions that he’s been too stressed out to see his child but he just needs her to pull him out of his slump.

She tells you that he quit his job and now she is the sole support of her family. You remind her of the scripture that says if a man doesn’t work he shouldn’t eat but she informs you he is trying to find himself. He’s not spending too much time with his child yet. She wonders if she should pay his portion of the child support payments so he doesn’t fall behind?

So now your friend has abandoned her belief system for her man. The Holy Spirit leaves and she doesn’t even know it. She has traded God for a man. Her heart has chosen its treasure. You mourn for your friend but her romantic notion of what love is supposed to look like has become idolatry. God says He will never be second. She missed that part I guess.

Six months later she comes to you and now she is pregnant. Now your friend is the slutty party girl and her boyfriend has moved on to the next best thing. You won’t say you told her so. You just hold her and try to be there for this next difficult phase of her life. She now has more hard choices to make. Move home to her parents house to raise a child or put the child up for adoption. Her life has been irrevocably changed.

Don’t be like your friends. Smart women stick to their beliefs. It’s the core of who they are. It’s what defines them. Remember that. No man can ever take the place of God in your life and no one can ever tell you who you are. That has to be determined between you and God. You have to be worth more than that.

Mislabeled Christianity.

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Elizabeth McCann
Elizabeth McCann

My friend Elizabeth was cooking and pulled a can of green beans out of her cupboard. When she opened it she found a surprise. The outside didn’t match the inside.

Matthew 7:16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

When I saw the picture I had two instant thoughts. “Man! I hope she had another can or she’s going to have to figure out what to do last minute to make the meal all come together.” The second thought was, “This is why people are so freaked out by us who follow Christ. We put on this label but when they get close to us they realize who we say we are isn’t always the case.”

The Lord quickly showed me the thoughts were along the same vein. Just as Elizabeth had opened the can to find a surprise, she also had to figure out what she was going to do with the contents and how she would improvise with what she had on hand. She also will never again assume that just because a can is labeled a certain way that the contents will necessarily match up. Everyone who sees this picture also experiences to an extent what Elizabeth experienced. It sounds dramatic but it really isn’t. Think about it.

How many people have you met who have a negative story about their encounter with a follower of Christ? How many have met a green bean label only to find the contents to be a little fruity? If those of us who follow Christ have too many stories to count then so does the world. And we wonder why they are put off?

At this point in the story, many will say, yes but we are only human. They are right to an extent. We are only human but are we human living to the best of our ability or are we human living below the standard Jesus laid before us all while making excuses?

Romans 2:17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth– 21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

I heard a woman on Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s show call in about an affair she had been having. Dr. Laura asked her why she didn’t leave her husband and the woman said that it was because her lover could not care for her financially as well as her husband could and because she was a Christian. Dr. Laura went nuts! She told her not to bring Jesus into this. The woman clearly was Mislabeled Christianity.

Acts3:6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you.

What are we giving the world? When they get close enough to look inside of our lives do they see the rotting stench of a pretend life or do they see authentic Christianity? Do we bible thumpers who say we want everyone to get their hearts right before the Lord and have everlasting life set the example by excusing why we sleep around, lie, cheat, steal, connive just as the world does?

Let’s make sure we are who our label shows us to be!

Respect

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Is it earned or given?

1 Peter 2:17 Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.

Most people have it backward and think people have to earn their respect. People do not have to earn your respect; you give your respect to everyone. People can lose your respect, but they do not have to earn it and the only way they lose your respect is only after they have shown a lack of character.

If we are to live humanely, then we are to treat each other with respect. I don’t know where we get the idea that we can treat people without respect and make them jump through hoops to earn it. How much do I have to earn and for how long do I have to work for your respect? I don’t see that modeled in the bible anywhere. Even the Pharisees who Jesus did not get along with received his respect. He may have begged to differ with their belief but he showed proper respect. Notice the people who were disrespectful of others were not thought of well in the bible. What makes us think things have changed?

I see a lack of respect today almost everywhere. I see mean people who treat others callously and it’s wrong. On the most basic level of living on this planet, it’s wrong. We are now afraid of each other. Road rage is prevalent because no one drives respectfully. We tailgate, cut people off in traffic and when someone signals to merge in a lane we speed up to block them. We don’t care about one another’s things. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine if I can get it. Teachers are told that they have to earn the respect of the student and that the student does not have to respect them until then. We bash the President without regard and call it our right, yet when the right you have in the world infringes on the right you have in the WORD then you’d be wise to choose the Word. Employers lay off employees days short of their retirement esteeming them of little value. Today we have children who threaten their parents and parents who threaten their children. Where did we get so twisted up?

The general lack of disrespect is ungodly and what does it say when we can’t even live at a humane level? Even if you aren’t in relationship with God, does it not move you that respect is woefully lacking in our communities? Think about something with me, would you go up to a group of teenagers in a McDonalds who were tearing the place up and ask them to stop? Of course not! Not only would the teens tell you off or worse take it to another level, the parents would show up and tell you off too. It’s ridiculous and it needs to change.

Respect is not earned. It is a gift freely given to each living thing on the planet. Respect can’t be bought. A lack of respect says more about the person who is being disrespectful than it does the person to whom respect is not being shown. Remember to live by a principle by the same measure you give that’s the same measure you get. It behooves us to respect others.

All I Got Was A Rock 2

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This part 2 of a series we started yesterday. If you missed it, click here.

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In that moment when Eve decided to go for the wisdom that was being offered, her flesh craved that wisdom more than her soul craved God. She opted for the momentary pleasure knowing full well that death would follow. It really is about whom you feed the most, flesh or soul. I think this is why the bible says things like, “taste and see that the Lord is good”, “my soul thirsts for you”. God knows that the flesh is hungry for things we desire that aren’t always what we need. We were created to crave both in our flesh and soul. And often our soul loses as we feed our flesh. Just like Adam and Eve lost when their flesh craved a piece of fruit more than their soul craved God.

John Bevere said, I believe it was in his book A Heart Ablaze, where he had read ancient writings of the life of Adam and Eve after the garden. In these writings it says Adam was depressed and despondent. That he spent days sitting in caves, that he attempted suicide but that God would not let him die. He had lost everything; he was for the first time alone and desolate as his soul sat starving. He rarely spoke again. How incredibly sad to lose it all! Think about when a spouse decides to have an affair the pain of that affair is inflicted on the family and the effect to their husband or wife as they pull the rug out from under their lives. The aftermath of that is also devastating if there are children as sin is always personal but never private, it affects many. The incredible sharp crushing pain to the heart. Now imagine that pain multiplied by infinity and you begin to catch a glimpse of Adam’s loss. It no longer mattered that his death wasn’t physical, he had died spiritually. I believe this is what happens when people commit suicide. They are empty internally and all that is left is flesh. They have lost all hope of anything ever filling them again.

We were all created with a soul that craves the things of God and God himself. Every single one of us needs relationship and love and acceptance. We all were made to crave those things that sustain like food can’t. Babies die without a loving touch and old people wilt away without a family. We are all created to need each other.

If in fact, we can’t help it and feeding the flesh becomes a bigger priority than feeding the soul then we are dying a slow and agonizing death. There is no long-term pleasure in the pain it causes. If we truly can’t control the cravings, if that’s in fact true, then we are living no better than the animals we profess to be above in the food chain. In the meantime, your soul is dying out because it needs the ties of humanity and to something bigger than itself to exist.

People live year after year, gathering rocks in their pillowcase, always expecting a different result but never experiencing the full life that was set before them. To really want to live a life with purpose and passion isn’t all about self and selfish cravings, it’s about giving yourself what you need and thereby feeding others something more than the rocks that have been collected. If we are really going to live a life worth living then that’s about deep friendships, beautiful love, a life of service and a heart that worships God, those are the things that the soul desires. Those are the lasting things.

All I Got Was A Rock

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Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'” 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

We all remember Charlie Brown’s Halloween cartoon that we watch each year on TV. Charlie Brown could never catch a break. He went trick-o-treating with his friends and while each one got candy, Charlie Brown would dejectedly profess, “All I got was a rock.” Yet, year after year we would watch him go through the same motions again, getting dressed up, just to be disappointed, hoping that this year it would be different. He craved acceptance and to fit in and just get some candy!

In the garden while most of us would say Adam and Eve needed nothing, that isn’t exactly true. They needed air, they needed relationship, they needed food and shelter. Each of us was created with things our bodies crave. All you have to do is go on a fast and see how fast your body craves food. In this passage of scripture we see where Satan preyed on the natural temptation of a craving in Eve. Because we were created in the image of God we have a need to feel powerful and in control. We have a need to know what the secret is. Forget the fact that because we are are made in his image we are powerful and in control and we already know what the secret is, our humanity thinks this is found outside of ourselves. God created this need for craving so that we would crave him. Everyone even the atheist has a craving in his being for a relationship with something bigger than himself.

Cravings are something we all have. Temptations to indulge in the cravings come along all the time. Ask the drug addict if he’d rather have drugs than food and he’ll answer that drugs is what he craves; yet he understands his need for food, it just doesn’t satisfy his craving. Ask the dieter what they crave and it’s never a diet bar, it’s always a food item they can’t have that they crave. Sometimes cravings tell us what is missing from our bodies. The person who craves crunching ice needs to have their iron levels tested, as it’s sometimes a symptom of an iron deficiency.

The key to cravings is to master them and not have them master you. The challange becomes to rule over your cravings and put them in perspective. Just as your flesh has its cravings and desires so does your soul. Everyone was created with cravings both flesh and soul. The question becomes can we control our cravings or do they control us? Can the things that are not good for us be done away with?

I have an allergy to dairy. I break out in horrible big splotchy red welt-like hives that are so incredibly itchy. Sometimes, I have a baked potato with a little sour cream and I break out all over, sometimes I have a scoop of ice cream and I get a few welts but nothing major. See, I never know when I go to eat a dairy product what the results will be. I’ve had this allergy all of my life and so you’d think now that I am 44 I would stay completely away from all dairy products but that is not the case. Sometimes, I crave a scoop of Jamoca ice cream from Baskin Robbins. Usually, when the craving hits and it’s a couple a year, I can go a few weeks without giving into my craving but eventually I go for it. The reason I do this is because the momentary pleasure is worth the pain.

What are you craving that you know is not good for you? What do you keep going back to when you know it only result in same outcome as always? We’ll discuss more tomorrow. For now, reflect on these things.

For When It Rains

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Umbrellas are important on rainy days. We don’t think about them much any other time but when we wake up in the morning and we look out the window, and it’s raining, we look for that umbrella. We also look for that umbrella on extra hot summer days when we want to be protected from the sun. We don’t want to risk being burned.

Matthew 5:45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Umbrellas are covering. As a married woman I count on my husband to cover me. As a woman who lives in a family whose umbrella is God I count on my husband to cover us in prayer, in character, in morals and as the head of my family we walk according to his plan praying that my husband walks according to God’s plan.

What happens though when he doesn’t? We never think it will happen to us. It’s other women whose husbands get depressed, or fall and suddenly they find themselves out in the elements dragging their family behind them. It’s never us, but the reality is, sometimes it is.

What do we do then? Do you know how to access your umbrella? Do you know how to pray for your family and cover them in the meanwhile? Can you lift your husband up in prayer while he deals with his issues? Can you keep your family out of the elements when you’re going through a storm? You see, rain is going to come for each of us we all must know how to take cover. The sun is going to get hot sometimes, we need to access that umbrella.

It’s going to call for serious relationship with God. It’s going to require deep faith. It’s going to require amazing love. Can you access the umbrella that will shield you and keep you until things get back to normal?

He Anticipates My Needs

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God knows me. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows what I need before I know what I need. So this blog is pretty simple.

In order to anticipate your wants and needs a man has to take the time to know you. Not just as a woman but as his woman. He knows what would make you happy and what would please you. He knows when you’ve had a rough week and he runs the tub with your favorite bubble bath and orders a pizza and waits for you to come home to relax. He knows that you’ve always wanted to go Napa for a few days and walk around the wineries and vineyards and he takes you there to explore. See, he knows you.

More than that, it makes him happy to see you happy. As my husband says often, “If the queen is happy the land is happy.” He understands me, even when I am acting crazy or am stressed about things he doesn’t stress about. He may not understand why I act the way I do but he does whatever he can to help me pull it together and get back to living our life. He takes the time to listen to my needs and he takes the time to minister to me. He prays for me everyday and looks for ways to make my life easier. I don’t have to nag him; he does it because he loves me.

God knows me. God understands me. Make sure your man does.

A Godly Education

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tanzania

In our Children’s sunday school classes, the focus has always been kingdom living. We wanted the children to be able to lay hands on one another and pray, even in the playground. We wanted the children to know memory verses that they could call upon in times of trouble. We wanted them to know that how they acted at school reflected on Jesus. We wanted them to know that even though they were little, they could still pray great big prayers. Recently, I filled in in the Pre-K and Kindergarten class as their teacher was going to be out. When I asked the question, “I want to pray for my mommy and daddy and ask Jesus to ____________” One little girl who is 5 years old said, “let the heavy burdens fall off their shoulders and have peace.” Super surprised I said, “What’s heavy burdens?” “Stuff that makes you scared or mad or not want to come to church.” When I asked one little girl who is 4 “I want to pray for myself and ask Jesus to___________” She answered, “Help to remember to put my plate and cup in the sink, clean up my toys and be nice to my baby brother.” You have no idea how much that blessed me. When we ask the children for prayer requests we get hands raised quickly, “There’s this bully at school” “There’s this test coming up” “My mom yells at my dad to come to church” “My dad drinks too much with his friends” “My friend is sick and missed two days of school” “My brother keeps hitting me” They notice! They love! They understand Jesus will hear them and that nothing is too small or too big.

It’s often the grown-ups who get in the way. Recently an issue popped up. Our kids didn’t know the books of bible. The scramble ensued. Oh no! The kids don’t know the books of the bible. I bought the music they would need to sing and memorize but I didn’t see the point. I kept my mouth shut and went with the plan. Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis know that it lasted about two seconds. I asked a question not to sow discord but to make them think. Bibles have tabs and they have a table of contents, do we really need to know the books of the bible? Is it not more important and to our benefit to know scripture and what lies within those books? Is it not more important to know how to pray for someone or how to pray for ourselves? Is not more important to know that we belong to a kingdom in which no weapon formed against us shall prosper? Oh, it will try to knock us down but we have some promises to call upon. What does knowing the books of the bible do for you in the daily activity of your life? To me, knowing where the book of Ephesians falls in the bible is not important. What’s important is we all understand and know in our hearts and can say in our own words the premise of Ephesians 6:10-18. Just a thought.

To read more about how these kinds of things happened even in the days of Jesus read a good friend of this blog’s site, Jonnysoundsketch2. Click here.

Do Stay-At-Home Mom’s Risk Their Careers?

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This is part four of a discussion we started on Lies Women Believe.

Marina, a young mother had some valid issues to address in her comments and I wanted to bring them forward as we discuss solutions.

Marina: When I was little, I was sucked into feminist deceit thinking that women should be just as successful as men and we need to rise up and prove that women are actually superior in many areas. I now see that I don’t need to prove anything to anyone!! I know who I am and whose I am. My career focus has been dramatically changed. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying women shouldn’t work or be successful, God wants to partner with us in our desires so that He can use us wherever we are. The thing is, I have realized the source of many of my desires has come from this prideful, feminist propoganda. This has so touched my heart that I am actually considering what I can do to spend more time at home raising my child and children to come!

According to Tony Robbins, a 40 year study on 1.3 million women show that women are more unhappy today than ever before. So what is the reason for it? I believe we’ve hit on it over the last few days.

You see, when you look at how we were created and when we were created our unhappiness makes sense. In Genesis, the woman, in physical body form, didn’t come on the scene until everything was in place and ordered by God. Her body was formed out of man after he developed a need for her. She was created to be his helpmeet. She was emotion and love and sacrifice and willful and strong and opinionated. She also carries the seed and multiplies into human form, so she is hated by Satan. When you remove her from all that she was created to be, she is lost to her original design.

She finds herself today out of order. She finds herself today, both mother and father, both working and sustaining. Her apron strings long to have children tied to them but her demands are many. She’s painted herself into a corner and yet pride and obligation keep her from her true destiny. Her number one need is security but she finds herself in a world where the only security she has lies in her own abilities.

The biggest thing corporate America will tell her is that she will risk her career by taking a time-out for her family. That statistic is, that in fact, she will make less money and have less ladder climbing ability over her overall career than a women who stuck it out. Hey, facts are facts.

Ask yourself, should you make your lifelong decisions based on financial gain? Are there some things that are more important than money? It would seem that the 1.3 million women who participated in the study that Tony Robbins talks about, will tell you that there’s got to be more to life than what we’ve been given over the last 40 years.

I tell this story all the time but it bears repeating. When my son Anthony was 5 and my daughter Casey was months old, my neighbor came home with a new car. A working mom, her kids in daycare, they were going to Greece that summer for a 10 day vacation. I was beyond jealous. We shared a car and weren’t going on vacation. I determined that day to get a job because I was missing out on the good life. After I put Casey down for a nap and fed Anthony, I was rocking him to sleep. He would nuzzle my neck and play with my hair while he yawned and talked. That day he said, “Mommy, you always smell so comfortable.” It stabbed my heart. Who would rock him to sleep, who would smell comfortable to him? No one but me.

My mom was a working mom. She got to hear about our first word and first step, she regrets she missed her time with us. I was a stay-at-home mom, I could tell you a million stories. The only thing that I regret is that my kids grew up. It was the most fulfilling, happy time of my life. I have a career now and I’m happy with that. Women: you can have it all. I promise you, I am proof of that. I have to now tell you the bad news. You can’t have it all at once! Make wise choices.

A Good Reputation Is Better Than A Fat Bank Account

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Ecclesiastes 7:1 A good reputation is better than a fat bank account. Your death date tells more than your birth date. 2 You learn more at a funeral than at a feast – After all, that’s where we’ll end up. We might discover something from it. 3 Crying is better than laughing. It blotches the face but it scours the heart. 4 Sages invest themselves in hurt and grieving. Fools waste their lives in fun and games. 5 You’ll get more from the rebuke of a sage Than from the song and dance of fools. 6 The giggles of fools are like the crackling of twigs Under the cooking pot. And like smoke.
7 Brutality stupefies even the wise And destroys the strongest heart. 8 Endings are better than beginnings. Sticking to it is better than standing out. 9 Don’t be quick to fly off the handle. Anger boomerangs. You can spot a fool by the lumps on his head. 10 Don’t always be asking, “Where are the good old days?” Wise folks don’t ask questions like that.
11 Wisdom is better when it’s paired with money, Especially if you get both while you’re still living. 12 Double protection: wisdom and wealth! Plus this bonus: Wisdom energizes its owner. 13 Take a good look at God’s work. Who could simplify and reduce Creation’s curves and angles To a plain straight line? 14 On a good day, enjoy yourself; On a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days So that we won’t take anything for granted. Stay in Touch with Both Sides 15 I’ve seen it all in my brief and pointless life – here a good person cut down in the middle of doing good, there a bad person living a long life of sheer evil. 16 So don’t knock yourself out being good, and don’t go overboard being wise. Believe me, you won’t get anything out of it. 17 But don’t press your luck by being bad, either. And don’t be reckless. Why die needlessly? 18 It’s best to stay in touch with both sides of an issue. A person who fears God deals responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it. 19 Wisdom puts more strength in one wise person Than ten strong men give to a city. 20 There’s not one totally good person on earth, Not one who is truly pure and sinless. 21 Don’t eavesdrop on the conversation of others. What if the gossip’s about you and you’d rather not hear it? 22 You’ve done that a few times, haven’t you – said things Behind someone’s back you wouldn’t say to his face?
23 I tested everything in my search for wisdom. I set out to be wise, but it was beyond me, 24 far beyond me, and deep – oh so deep! Does anyone ever find it? 25 I concentrated with all my might, studying and exploring and seeking wisdom – the meaning of life. I also wanted to identify evil and stupidity, foolishness and craziness. 26 One discovery: A woman can be a bitter pill to swallow, full of seductive scheming and grasping. The lucky escape her; the undiscerning get caught. 27 At least this is my experience – what I, the Quester, have pieced together as I’ve tried to make sense of life. 28 But the wisdom I’ve looked for I haven’t found. I didn’t find one man or woman in a thousand worth my while. 29 Yet I did spot one ray of light in this murk: God made men and women true and upright; we’re the ones who’ve made a mess of things.