Tag Archives: Sex

True Purity

20 Mar

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. James 3:17

In this world of sexual explosions and the pressures of looking sexy instead of wholesome, it’s tough. Nearly every television program promotes casual sex and nearly ever TV commercial tries to convince you that purchasing their product will guarantee absolute “sexiness”.  Movies not only indicate that casual sex is acceptable, but that “everyone” does it, AND they show you how it’s done – in living explicit color. Secular music not only encourages sexiness and casual sex, but violence to go with it.  In this culture of 2010, purity takes on a whole new meaning, if you follow the cultural mores. But, being bombarded with cultural “rights and wrongs” isn’t the hardest part of purity.

Purity is a state of mind. Purity is recognizing what is Biblically acceptable and building up from there. Purity not only involves the sexual area of our lives, but the mental and spiritual areas of our lives. Purity is how we perceive everything.

I believe thoughts are the most difficult area of our live to draw into purity. We watch the impoverished and judge . . . “if they would only” . . . they wouldn’t be in that mess. We see the rich . . . “if they would only” . . . other people could have a chance. Race prejudice, wealth/poverty prejudice, religious prejudice, regional prejudice, birth defect prejudice, hair color prejudice – prejudice for prejudice sake. Impure thoughts toward a person or group of people we don’t even know, yet we judge them and call it righteous.

Then there are the spiritual impurities. We feel it is okay for us to judge, banish, and ridicule those who have faith in areas that are not the same as ours. We feel that it’s okay to judge people with our same faith and beliefs, but who aren’t part of “our” church, so they must be less spiritual, less valuable, and perhaps they aren’t “saved” because they aren’t “US”, AND they are making the same comments about us and our church.

How do we get to the point that Mother Theresa was at, where she saw Jesus in the eyes of every person; no matter that the state of their life was? How do we get to the point that Billy Graham was at when he went into the prison and hugged Jim Bakker, when the entire world was condemning him for using God’s people to build his own kingdom? I think of the pictures of soldiers in Iraq who are rocking dead children covered in blood. How do we see past the “enemy” to the child God made; past the outside that is filthy and drug ridden; past the hooker walking the streets, aged well past their years. How do we step into their lives, for just a moment, and see the pain in their lives that caused them to make the choices they have. How do we see past the outside? Purity.

Purity allows us to see through the eyes of Jesus.

Purity allows us to love for the sake of the broken.

Purity allows us to give people chance after chance, even after they have failed many, many times.

Purity is HOPE.

Purity is LOVE.

Purity is Jesus inside of us.

I pray daily for Purity.

Written by Linda J Humes

Written on 3-19-2010

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The Effects of Our Consequences

30 Jan

Dominoes

“And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.  Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” 1 Corinthians 12:26-27 (KJV)

Behavior – Consequence – Effect

We make choices every day; good choices, bad choices, inconsequential choices – just choices, or so we think.  “I’ll do what I want, it’s my life.”  I’ll do what I want, it’s my body.” It is your life, it is your body, but it is not a separate and disconnected entity.

Drugs, alcohol, sex, violence, thrill seeking, the momentary pleasures that grasp a life and start a domino chain of destruction that spider webs into the lives of countless people you never even consider.  Then there’s suicide, the final decision a person makes that they feel will end the pain in their life, and in that moment of final silence, it devastates tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people.

Choices.  Addictions.  What happens to the person caught in the addiction trap?  At first it may be fun, pleasurable, then consuming, overwhelming, controlling, and then . . . . . our choices lead to consequences.

People begin to avoid you, your work product begins to fail, if you ever get up and go into work.  Your family, as much as they love you, begins to avoid you.  Spouses leave, keeping you from being with your children.  Your friends, who have always been there for you, refuse to talk to you.  Those who completely trusted you are no longer there.  The respect you had earned disappeared.  Still you spiral down and down and it’s everyone else’s fault, so you say.

If you are fortunate enough to be stopped by law enforcement and given the chance to get clean of those addiction, given another chance at life, given another chance of proving you can be that original amazing person, it will take years.  Years incarcerated, years working twice as hard as others to earn back the trust, the respect, the joy of reuniting with friends and family.

As you fight to regain back what you once had, do you see the effects of your consequences on others?  Do you recognize the emotional battle your family and friends fought as they watched you fail, struggle, grow, fail, struggle, grow?  Do you see their tears and the guilt they feel, wondering if there was something that they could have done to have kept it all from happening?  Do you see the money and time and emotion spent every month to be sure that you have a way to stay in touch and have a few treats.  Do you recognize the nights they spend in prayer and tears, hoping and believing that when this part of your journey has completed that you will find your restoration and not be tempted to give up the struggle to fight back to wholeness and fall back into the temptation of an old lifestyle.

I suspect that you may recognize the consequences of your behaviors, but have you taken the time to understand the wide spread effects of your consequences on so very many others?  Family.  Friends. The kid next door.  Co-workers.  Police Officers.  EMTS.  Nurses.  Prison Guards.  The person who found you near death, or worse, dead.  The person you hurt in a violent rage.  The person you killed in a car accident you don’t even remember having.  The person you stole a precious family heirloom from, to sell for that next “fix.”  The person you pulled into you addiction whose life is following your same path now.

Please hear my heart, in love.  Lord please let my words change the path of someone, many someones, who do not recognize what the consequences of their actions could be, and what the effects of those circumstances will be.  Turn them back.

Behavior  –  Consequence  –  Effect

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