Desperate Joy

  Image by  chanwit whanset  from  Pixabay "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." - 1 Corinthians 2:14 There is a war going on in our hearts and minds between the natural man and the spiritual man. This battle is also described as being between the flesh and the spirit. For those of us who are in Christ there is an old nature and a new nature, and they are in constant conflict. What the Bible is saying here is that we need spiritual discernment to reject the old, fleshly, natural part of our selves and to embrace our new, spiritual, holy nature. We live in a physical, natural reality that we perceive with our five senses, but we also live in a spiritual reality. We often miss out on the spiritual reality because we lack spiritual discernment.   We allow those fleshly, temporal things to distract us from our relationship with God an...

  "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  The Psalmist declared. Each and every one of us has been hand-crafted by God. He shaped us and formed us while we were in our mother's womb. We are made in his image and likeness. We are like scale models of God, we don't quite live up to the original, but we can see the similarities. This is one of the most important and amazing truths revealed in the Bible. In a previous post we discussed that this image has several aspects, we looked at just three: we are moral, relational, and rational. Underpinning these three is another important aspect that is just as important, if not more important. Because we are created in God's image, we possess a free will. The other three aspects do not work unless the engine of our free will is driving them. We are the only creatures on earth that God made with a free will. We can choose. We may choose to obey him, and we may choose to disobey him, we can choose to do right or to do ...

  In the last two posts we saw how marriage and birth both reiterate and recapitulate the Gospel.  Every time a child is born and a couple is wed, the Gospel is preached. The reason we feel such gladness around these events is because they are images of deep spiritual truths that God wants us to know and understand.  These events give us a glimpse of our eternal home.  We are wired to feel joy at a wedding and when a baby is delivered because we have been wired for eternity. Our sexuality is an essential aspect of marriage and child bearing, and our sexuality is by definition rooted in our bodies as male and female.  This means that the wondrous story of everlasting life and redemption is told in part through our bodies, both as males and females, through our masculinity and our femininity.  The male body has its part to play in telling God's eternal story, and the female body has its part to play as well.  Both are essential.  Both are good and b...