Desperate Joy

  God's love works backwards from ours. When we are looking for someone to love, we look for somebody attractive, someone who meets our standards of beauty.   They have to have the right face, height, shape, and size.   Preferably someone with plenty of money and a good job.   We look for status, affluence, and attractiveness. We want to find somebody who will satisfy and fulfill us sexually, and someone we can satisfy in return.   We want to have our needs met.   Our ideals of love and sex are tied to our emotions and the chemical fireworks that go off in our brain when we meet someone attractive. Once we find someone who can check off all the appropriate blocks, then we gradually give that person our love. Even as we give that love, we hesitate.   If we don't feel that love reciprocated, if they don't love us as much as we love them, then we will take our love elsewhere.   If, for some reason, we feel our own love dim and grow cold, then...

  As a Christian young man, I was taught that God's plan for sex was for it to only be between a man and woman in marriage, but I was never taught why.  I wanted to get married if for nothing else than to satisfy my cravings for sex without sinning.  While that is not necessarily a bad reason to get married, it is certainly at the lowest level of aspirations we can have when it comes to marriage.  It is like buying a car so that I can enjoy the AC because it is really hot outside.  There is certainly nothing wrong with enjoying the AC, but a car was meant for so much more than that. One of the purposes I have had with this blog lately has been to dig into this idea of "why."   Why is it that sex is supposed to only be between one man and woman?   Why is it important that we keep ourselves pure until we are married, and while we are married, keep our marriage bed pure?   God has a great and glorious vision for our sexuality that has been blurred ...

One of the things that amazes me in this world is how spiritual reality is woven into nearly everything. In John 15 Jesus describes himself as a vine and we are branches who "abide in him". The vine exists to teach the truth that we are to abide in Christ and draw life and nourishment from him. In Psalm 23 the Lord is described as a shepherd and we are his sheep.  This teaches us to humbly follow Christ and depend on Him for provision and protection. It may be that the sole reason that God created vines, shepherds and sheep is so that they could be used as illustrations to help us understand our relationship with God.  One of the most dramatic and powerful images that God has created for expressing the truth of who he is and how he relates with us is the institution of marriage. There are layers of eternal, spiritual truth that God has woven into marriage that are revealed throughout Scripture. We have been in a series of sorts looking at what the Bible teaches about sexu...

  Abortion has been in the news lately as the Supreme Court readies to hear arguments around the abortion ban the state of Mississippi recently enacted. It is an important case during an important time. I pray for God to give the justices wisdom as they make their decisions. Abortion is certainly a thorny issue, but as I have argued in this blog, the Bible teaches that God is a God of life, he cultivates and cherishes life, and faithful Christians should always come down on the side of life. Abortion has been a central pillar of the sexual revolution and has opened the door to more and more uncleanness. But there is an issue that has preceded abortion in history that has had its share in the loosening of sexual morals, and that issue is birth control. This is the third post in a series on the topic. My sister is a physician's assistant, day in and day out, she is working with people to try and improve their health. She often laments that her patients refuse to make even simple chan...