Missionary Wife Falls

Unfortunately, we are now going to be discussing a friend, a very dear friend, someone so close it was originally thought 20 years ago that she was my wife!  So we put distance between us physically so that assumptions would go away but not mentally.  We have remained in close contact up until a few months ago.

Through the years, her husband became a very good friend as well of mine. He used to own one of the Munich hotspot techno bars!  He was a mess back then - PTSD from what went on the Balkans, too much death.  He was at the site where my cousin Bernard was executed in Bosnia - he told me things which have not even appeared in the Hague trials about what happened.  So yeah, blood brothers.

You might remember my mentioning many years ago about a wife, whom decided against her husband's wishes to go on the mission field and leave him with the kids.  He was a bit outraged, she really did not care less and told me from Chile that she may well not return.

Return she did, in time to have two more children, brought about by a couple's weekend for marriage counseling away.  Okay, I thought it was funny - and true according to him.  She was devasted and wanted to abort them ... and I thought, what has happened to my friend?

So, you know Kris, I confronted her.  It seems in Chile she had become romantically involved.  It wasn't serious, she left him behind, but it was physical.  We prayed together about this and I encouraged her to never return to Chile and only go on mission trips with her husband after this.

All was well for a number of years, but well, last August I got a note from her that she was leaving the church - too much gossip and evil things were being said about her husband.  So, I encouraged the both of them to find another church.  There are plenty of offerings in my little town.

And, silence.  Occasionally, I would get a recipe from her but never any real communication.  The husband was growing increasing upset and at one point was arrested for for hollering at the oldest son.  It was bogus, but it made him wake up and start to evaluate what was going on around him.  Why was he reacting this way?  It was too weird.

Then Thursday, he and I talked on the phone for many hours.  It seems she has been having an affair dating back to August with the same man, it is now out in the open and the husband has been pushed out to make room for this new guy.

I only learned this when I called him, because she had sent me nude pictures of herself.  The first ones were inappropriate, by evening time, they had become quite - uhm, heartbreaking.  My dear Elspeth had broken.  (yes, her real name!)

I as floored!

But, I meditated on this over the weekend.  Warning signs were there:

• her personality change
• willingness to kill her children
• the affair in Chile husband still does not know about
• the stresses of more children
• the stress of a PTSD husband
• the stress of poverty as he lost his job
• the willingness to offer her body, for ... what?

And she crumbled because she had walked away from her faith, the church and her friends.

God gave us friends to help support us, a church to help guide us and a faith built on rock.

Equally, God gave us a task to represent Him and when we fail and fall into sin, He will strip away our blessings.  It is painful to know, to witness, to comfort the casualties ...

I do not know what to do or say.  I can only offer distant statements of shock and sorrow for my vet friend.  She is not really talking still to me, so nothing I can do there.  And perhaps it is best I go away from her life ...

Prayer, lots of prayer.

Culture according to Big Bang Theory

My youngest daughter has gotten hooked on the TV show, The Big Bang Theory.  I therefore catch snippets of reruns as I am usually cooking when it is on.  The other day they are revolving around the concept of dating and sex.  The nerdy guys are clueless, the females in question not sure having sex with them is "right".  (and she has never been on a date, so this kind of stuff does worry me!)

So, one of the guys is on date number three and learns that the female expects them to have sex since this is the important date.  Really?  Is this what the California perspective has dropped to?  See you three times and then I have to decide to have sex with you or drop you?  Really?

I know from a 1970's study they found that if you spent 50 hours in total with someone, across a short period of time, you could expect to either be in bed with them or "friended".  I remember laughing at that one.  But, I observe, make measured estimates and I would guess that 50 hours was certainly true for teenagers and singles I have seen in the church through the decades.  But near as I can tell, if you truly are a nerd, it might be closer to 5,000 hours - at which point you are friended anyways so it is all a mute point.  And if you are created hopeless, well, you will never actually understand the whole perspective even if you are made aware, because it is nonsense.

So, as I thought on this, as my numb fingers worked on loosing frozen bolts (I was having to pour hot water on the nuts to help loosen them without snapping them), I realized just how hopeless natural man really is.  And oh so much suddenly made more sense.

You go to the grocery store and the magazine racks are covered with cover after cover with sex topics that are supposed to lure you into buying the magazine.  The message?  Sex is where it is at, it is what there is, good sex is the basis of your "loving" relationship, sex is how you can find  your partner, sex is how you will keep your partner (that was the list from yesterday's visit to the grocers).  Yeah, I never quite got that message before.  This is the lie being shoved down our youth's throat, this is the lie our young adults have come to believe, this is the lie that leads to broken marriages, relationships and badly damaged people whom never should have been.  It is the lie my daughter bought into, as well as her mother, it is the lie I tried to show them without success, it is lie my son and all of "his" bought into, it is the lie my two oldest daughters bought into, it is the damage that is hard to walk away from because it is experiential and therefore more true than what reality is supposed to be.

If the above paragraph describes you, I do not have an answer for you apart from walking away from that lifestyle, repenting (for real this time), and living a life glorifying to God and not your hormones.  And yeah, that is not going to be easy because you are going to be fighting a drug called sex and an evil agent whom knows exactly how to pull your strings to make you come back into the world.

So, if the nerd gathering is a reflection upon truly natural man, if the state of man is so hopeless that sex is the only thing seen as having any real value in a relationship, then it also stands to reason that natural man can not understand the pull/lure of God because it is not based on sexual tension or allure.  (Which explains oh so much about crossed wires in 2012 for me!)  And yet, there is this thing called friendship which each of the TV show's nerds have mostly attained without sexual orientation.

But, if friendship is understood, then why is friendship no longer understood within a romantic context?  A friendship, a real friendship, seems to run about three years to define and to form the commitments necessary to form long term relationships.  The time period I mentioned is from studies done through the years, it seems to have been verified by my faithless bride.  We did not have three years, more like nine months.  We met, we "knew" we were the one, we engaged, we committed religiously and she lost it before the governmental seal of approval could be applied.  So, yeah, I like the idea of three years now.  She should have been my best friend beforehand.  (Conversely, thank you God from saving me from the disaster that one would have become!  And for the record, I was doing my best to be a Godly man - apparently my best friend was not.)

And I guess that is the point of the Big Bang Theory - friendship has nothing to do with sex, sex has nothing to do with a desire for more than self satisfaction, and self satisfaction actually has nothing to with love or you - it is all about me, my desire, my satisfaction.  Yeah, the ultimate egotism ...

Historically, we can look back to the Epicurean Movement of the ancient Greek world.  Whatever the male's desire, it is good for the body, both positive and negative.  Pursue your passions with gusto because you are only going to go through life once, so grab all the life you can!

Paul did not care much for the Epicureans, the Roman empire loved them however, and with the objectification of all females - it meant all females, any female, any time, any where, were created only for your (male) use and pleasure.  That is what this pagan trend of thought leads to and will again and again and time again!

If you are male, do you honestly love and care for the females in your life?  Do you believe they were created solely for your and/or other's pleasures?  And oh by the way, you have nothing to say about some other man taking the females in your life by force for his pleasure when he deems fit ...

If you are female, how do you feel about being valued only for your ability to be part of a sex act?  We are not talking any form of love here, we are talking violence at the hands of strangers!  That is where you are headed if this trend continues.

To disagree at this point is to disagree with history, which has repeated itself many times in this regard, in various forms!

Of course, to disagree with the culture and the way it is headed is to set  yourself apart.  To make a spectacle of yourself, to draw undue attention to yourself, to invite every form of attack.

Just as discussions over the female slave trade in our culture, the concept of a female's desire for purity or commitment is not really appreciated in this male centric western culture we have created.

Face it, your body is your body, you can do as you wish with it.  But, why you would not desire the best for yourself - simply by walking away from culture and healing, then beginning to find love in earnest - defeats me.

A Question on Natures

I really need to talk with my friend.  I have called and called but just can not get a reply, which is a pity because with my mind, I am not likely to remember much longer what it is I need to ask.

So, I will lay it out here, perhaps one of you will answer ...

Now I have spent months roaming through my video library, culling out movies I really am not interested in any lionger: too boring, inappropriate nudity, or something is just plain "wrong" and I can not exactly define it.

So, remembering that I a newby here with an emotional nature now:

It is that third category which I have grown uneasy with: some of the TV I see my adult children watching, some of the TV grandkids are allowed to watch by their parents,some of my movies now...  There is a reoccurring theme I am finding across TV and some of my movies of an undercurrent of ... not sure how to word this ... objectivism of either sensuality or sexual natures.  Nothing blatant, something more subtle.

It could be because my nature is so new that I am overly sensitive, it could be my thought is correct.

Is there no standard of innocence or purity any longer?  Has our culture so eroded that everything is translated through filters of sexual content or salaciousness?

And the answer to that question really is bothering me.  Under my old nature I was beyond blind to even the existence of such.  I knew through my friend Chrissy that such a thing could exist - within the realm of abnormal psychology - she was a self admitted sex addict, had been the majority of her life.  Her friendship with me made her wake up and realize that she really needed professional help.  Unfortunately, she had already contracted HPV, becoming one of the first to die of this in the early 1980's.  We were stunned, we loved her for the sister she was.  And even her sisters were speechless.  A disease no one had ever heard of, killed Chrissy, while she was in therapy for her addiction, thankfully after she had accepted Salvation for real.  But, Chrissy's problem lay within the realm of abnormal psychology ... right?

Now with this new nature, I am revisiting that thought.  Was Chrissy more normal than abnormal?  Or has culture and society move so far towards the side of sin that there is no concept of actual purity or innocence any longer?  Are we nothing but meat to be hunted down by those whose conscious are scarred?

And if the latter is true, then how is Kris to be viewed by those closest to him?

In my previously, completely blind nature ... was I ever actually understood or just considered either the densest male whomever existed or the most libertine of any male whomever existed?  Neither would be true since I never had the basis from which I could have believed anything other than what Chrissy went through was anything other than abnormal.  Mind you any attempt to place Kris as guilty of such sin would be majorly in error, Kris' problems lay elsewhere.

Yet, movies and TV seem to have an undercurrent of expecting something like Chrissy to be normal ...

So, the question:

If purity and innocence can still exist, does the existence of the sexual nature then destroy the innocence which did exist?  Is one at the cost of the other?

And if the answer is a flat yes, I believe Kris is going to give up on humanity ...

What The Heck?

What the heck is going on here?

As you might remember, several weeks ago I was treated to inquisition involving a long time friend of mine and his misbehaviors with the females of that church.  It took me a few weeks to get past the idea that I would willing execute him for what he has done.  Today, Thursday, guess what I got treated to - another inquisition!

This time, the guy was the youth pastor of my old church, at least up until three years ago, and his behaviors apparently spanned numerous churches and about 20 years!

Yeah, no one bothered to check any of his references before he was hired - he had been fired from every church he had worked for - for the same problem - inability to control himself around teenage girls!  Good Lord!  What has become of the church when it is too hard to check references?!?!?!?!?  And too hard to let the truth be known, much less charges filed against him!  Yeah, he appears to be getting away with his latest disaster as well.  Grrrrrrrrrr!

I am just sickened that we can place no trust that a job search committee will return qualified candidates, we can not trust the testimony of the answers given in interviews, no one is checking references when hiring those whom will be responsible for the care of the children and the church through more destroyed lives - looses even more the right to bear Jesus' name!

We do not need a revival in this sick Western theology poisoned church - we need a full blown REVOLUTION!

Out with the seminars creating these disasters!
Out with Elderships unable to make God-ly decisions!
Out with Pastors whom can not stand up for God!
Out with Youth Workers dedicated to satisfying their carnal natures!
Out with those whom destroy others through gossip!

The whole lot of you suck!
Get out of my church!

And yeah, that is exactly how I feel on this whole subject!  There is no room in God's Kingdom for these losers - and oh by the way - Jesus flat out said this at least four times I can think of!  It is the doctrine of demons which allow this culture to even exist in the Church, drive men to their baser natures, destroy the lives of the innocent and reduce Jesus' life and sacrifice to a nice story but of no real relevance!

Sorry, you will get what you deserve you sham of a church!  Your ministry is over.  God has left you.  Why do you even keep the lights on?

Now how to cause real change ... ?  Another denomination?  Or can a church be sued for claiming to be Christian when they no longer represent anything Christian?

I really feel pity for the likes of Hutt, Zwingli, Huss and Luther - fairly straight on men whom began a movement to bring people to God and it has grown into a forum for pedophilia ...

Where are our Christian leadership?  And if their absence is indicative of something, I worry for the immediate future of Christianity.

Where Is God?

“Night, is a book by Elie Wiesel about his experience in the German concentration camps. “One day,” writes Wiesel, “as we returned from work, we saw three gallows… The SS [guards] seemed more preoccupied, more worried, than usual. To hang a child in front of thousands of onlookers was not a small matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was pale, almost calm, but he was biting his lips as he stood in the shadow of the gallows… ‘Where is merciful God, where is He?’ someone behind me was asking. At the signal, the three chairs were tipped over… Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive… The child, too light, was still breathing… And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death… Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer; ‘Where is He? This is where – hanging here from this gallows…'

Where is God when a child is shot in Newtown or hung in Auschwitz or killed in an American drone air strike or for that matter dies of cancer? I don’t know. There is no answer.

Talk of God giving humans free will and thus allowing us to face the consequences of our choices solves nothing. If the creator could intervene personally when it came to the magic tricks in the Bible like making the sun stand still for a day in a battle, he could have done something about that child gasping out his young life. He didn’t. Theology that tries to paper this horrible fact over with explanations about why there is evil is nothing but nervous blather.

But I take comfort in the fact that sometimes a person of immense courage follows Christ to a cross. Such acts point to a God that had the empathy to share our fate. Sometimes one person’s example gives me hope that following Christ might be the path that leads us out of the hell we’ve made, even if I’ll never know why we’re here in the first place, let alone why God didn’t just make things simpler, better, faster rather than taking the slow path of gradual ethical evolution."

***

If you are Christian, if you deal regularly with the unchurched, sometimes even the churched, you will hear the wail and the anger - because there is no God, because no fair God would allow ...

And how do you answer them?

When I think of my late friend Peter, telling of me of the nun Maria's plight in a Magadan death gulag ...
When I think of the 6.5 million Jews, the 7.5 million Christians executed by my father's Reich ...
When I think of Lenin and his 19 million executions to purify the land ...
When I think of the 30 million Stalin in his paranoia executed ...
When I think of Mao Tse Tung and his 32 million deaths ...
Or Pol Pot ...
Or Rwanda ...
Or Ruby Ridge, Idaho ...
Or Waco, Texas ...
Or the assassination of John F Kennedy ...
Or a record setting typhoon ...

Where is God when the millions, or even the one is crying out in their death rattle?
Where is God in the storm, the waves, the tides, the mass deaths by nature?

How can a fair God ...

And that is the rub, God is not "fair".  If he was you would already be dead, as would I.
God is a "just" God, he does what is right, not what is fair.

When we see with human eyes, we are looking for fairness.
When we see with God's eyes, we are looking for justice.

And when we are judging God, we are judging by human standards, not God's standards.

Where is God?  Allowing man to trash and destroy His creation, even human life.  He has already provided the only standard of measure for life - the ability to stand with Him but acknowledging His son's sacrifice, at human hands.

Where is God in the storm or other natural disaster?  Perhaps judging a perverse culture, perhaps destroying false witnesses, perhaps testing the faith of His people, perhaps calling His people home because it is time.

We are not smart enough to know.  I can look at a culture dedicated to sexual vice and know God will call them to judgement.  I can look at authorities whom are ruthless or corrupt and know that God is going to call them to account for their deeds.  I do not know when, I do not know how, but anyone can read Jeremiah or Isaiah in the Bible and see that God has a standard and He was willing to use it even against His own people - to their own destruction!  How much more so for a just God, to do the same to  _____ (fill in the blank).

We are the creation, not the creator, we can not judge how He uses us, when he uses, where he will use us - we just have to be willing to be used, ready to be used and expect to be used.  The problems arise when we say, "Well, God would never work that way!"  Really?  Maybe you need to study your Bible a little more closely before you side with Western (American) Culture's beliefs about God.

The real God does not cause sin, that does not mean He can not use it to His advantage.  The real God does have control of everything and is more than willing to turn Satan loose upon a world unable to recognize much less fight against it without the Holy Spirit's intervention.

Everyday, in the world around you, in your daily life, God is there, God is working.  Can you see Him?  Can you see His handiwork?  Can you show others?

But, if you are not a Christian, well, there is no requirement that God does anything in your life or around you, other than to continually offer you the chance to make your peace with Him - through you acceptance of His son's death as the payment for your doing things your way and not His.  And then you get to be held accountable for having followed teachers of the truth ...  (hint, we are surrounded by those quite willing to lie to us and mislead us!)

So where is God right now?  Calling the hurting, the desperate to look to Him and not theirselves for the answer to their problems.  Calling you to account - right now, right here ...

That does not mean you are saved from death or punishment, but it does mean there is a better way from what you knew on this Earth.

Sex Slave Trade

It was August 1974.  I took a trip to visit my father in Colorado and spend some time with my two sisters and two brothers.  The youngest brother was off in Texas on a trip, the oldest of my sisters was up in Wyoming, the youngest sister was nowhere to be found and that left the oldest brother to hang with.

So I asked where Carmen was, the youngest of the sisters.  He old me that she had gone to Wichita for a school pre-season football game.  She was a cheerleader, so yeah, that made sense.  Of course, then the tale continued on about how she had been kidnapped.  I was horrified and more than willing to hunt them down and quietly bring her home and bury "them".

But, for as much as I loved my brother, he was a doper, so I had to check this with my stepmother.  Yeah, the story was true and she could not have cared less ...

I was 19 then, Carmen was 15, what on earth could anyone want with a teenage girl?!?!?  Too weird.  Of course a few years later, God woke me up to the whole white slave trade in young blond girls being trafficked to the Middle East.

In 1981, I was in Tempe, Arizona, where I ran a mining company out of and as I walked across a parking lot I saw a Polaroid picture laying on the ground.  I picked it up - it was of a blond woman, bound, gagged and laying the back of a windowless grey van.  The same van description given about the vehicle which had grabbed my sister 7 years earlier!  I was stunned.

Yeah, I called the cops and they explained to me about the slave trafficking in blond girls.  I was now ill, for now I understood what had become of my sister.  Make no mistake, if I knew where she was or whom was responsible - they would have been dead that week.  I was beyond murderous rage.  I even called back to Wichita and talked with the cops about anything being done to find my sister: nope, but there had been 11 more abductions with the same vehicle being described!  They would not let me have a  list of grey vans in a three state area ...

As for the photo I had found, she had been grabbed in San Diego the day before.  Probably headed for Florida, the cop commented.

Sunday, thirty-two years later, I popped into a meeting about something called Rapha House.  Sounded like another recovery center or something, there are lots of them around here, but I was willing to hear their sales pitch and see if there is something I can do to help them.

Turns out that they run sort of a half way house concept in Cambodia, Thailand and Haiti for girls freed from the sex trade.  Girls bought usually as pre-teens from their families and then, well YEAH!  Some can be kidnapped from their owners or enticed to seek shelter, some brought outright by the local police because even they can no longer offer safety to them.

There were only four guys at the meeting and she commented that this was an unusually high number  - so she spoke on how this sex slave trade culture can not be conquered until men's hearts can be turned to God.  She hammered guys pretty hard.  It made me smile.

I stayed after and talked with the director for at least half and hour.  A very genuine, concerned, woman with a heart for those trapped into the hopelessness of the sex trade.

She sort of agreed with me that there was no hope in ever recovering my sister, 39 years have passed since her abduction.  She would be 54 now and in a decade of searching the internet there is no one by that name that could even reasonably resemble her.  But, I am the optimist so I do hope to find her, rescue her if needed and let her know about the God I discovered while I was away at college that previous year.

There is little I can do to help this Rapha House project, no money - the IRS is currently garnishing me (for the next three years!) and too far away for me to help volunteer with their data center in Missouri.  But, this much I can do:

You can check them out and see if there is a way you can fit them into your giving or your church's support list!

WWW.RAPHAHOUSE.ORG

Stephanie Freed
POB 1569
Joplin, MO
64802-1569

Thanks.


And yet again, dear readers, I need to remind you younger men that when you hop from one site to another, a list of your previous viewing sites goes with you and is passed by Google to the receiving site as part of the analytical data - just in case I need to know, for whatever reason, how to better draw you to my site!  And, again, there is a flood of porno sites coming with your data and being stored by Google!

However, there was one new twist this time, a site from a nearby town.  When I click on the reference I do not know it is a porno site, just a place someone has visited.  So, it is with dismay when I see one of my friend's daughters, er - ah - uhm - displayed.  We will be having some words concerning this and if you are local to me, and you know whom you are, she is under age this would qualify as child porn.  So, when the Fed's find out about this site and then dump the server using addresses - yours will come up - and thanks to you so will mine.  I am not worried because I do not surf porn - so my nic-id will be of no concern.  You apparently do, so  your nic-id will be splattered all over the place.  Want arrested?  Keep surfing child porn!

However, you do need to address this sin area in your life.  I assume you know me locally, hence your reading my site.  However, you need to free  yourself of this slavery and the damage done to these young women/girls.  Corner me, talk to me, one on one - let us conquer this problem in your life now - before it becomes death to your soul...  I am very serious here about my being concerned about your eternity dude ...

Now Is The Time, Part II

A week ago I wrote on the importance of making your peace with God as quickly as possible - the pain it saves you is enormous.  Of course, until you get there, you probably will not even see that there is another way...

Thinking this time on 1 Timothy 4:1-5

It is interesting to think that 2,000 years ago, the early Christian Church, "The Way", was being challenged by false doctrines taught those whom believed they had authority!  If you remember from 1 Timothy 1, Paul has written to Timothy to encourage him to stay in Ephesus and continue to correct the doctrine of the Church there!

So, I look at the Church today; false doctrines abound in almost all churches! Some because of long held tradition, others because they believe they have been given a "special Gospel" or revelation.  Just think on all of the minor issues churches fight over and willingly separate over!

Looking back at this passage we can see that Paul warns of the Church being impacted by:

• Loss of Faith
• Deceiving Spirits
• Teachings of Demons
• Hypocritical Liars
• No Conscience
• Forbidding Marriage
• Forbidding certain foods

We live in an age when all of these are a problem.  Your church today is no better than probably any of those condemned by Paul in Ephesus, to which Timothy was instructed to correct and we do know that since Ephesus was to become part of the Gnostic Movement, so Paul's worry was valid.

This is a serious problem within the Church.  No believer wakes up one day and thinks, "Wow, today is a great day to embrace the doctrine of demons!".  Yet, it happens and unfortunately quite often.  Not far from where I live was a large flourishing Christian Church, Community Chapel and Bible Training Center, back in the 1980's.  A decade later I was to meet dozen of victims of this church - their lives destroyed by rearranged marriages, via corrections the pastor was told to perform, sexual abuse, money laundering, etc all brought the church down once the molestation of teenage girls was learned by the State police.  Yeah, it was quite the Christian witness in the Seattle area.  I wonder how many were permanently left with a "no way" answer to anything Christian because of the abuses of this church.  And they started out very normal.

But, somewhere along the way, the pastors started being influenced by a new doctrine, one which gave them power, then money and finally enslavement of the once faithful.  It was little matter to lure them into sin, they had left God behind long before.

And that bulletted list above became the actual ministry of that church!  Talk about deju vous Paul!  From Timothy to real life in just five verse!

So, your church think certain foods are forbidden?  Paul disagrees.  Your church believe in Celestial Unions, causing open sex, dissolved marriages, underage acts with the pastoral staff? Uhm, Paul disagrees.  The pastors are liars, seem to never understand condemnation of the Holy Spirit, everything has an excuse - but not a real reason?  Get out of that church now!

And to a certain extent we too are guilty.  God created goodness and set it around us - we trashed His creation!  The food which were good are by and large genetically modified anymore.  Nature has been replace by man's arrogance thinking he can do a better job - but to what end I wonder?

Something to consider, something to think about, something perhaps to cause you to correct the local body you are in .....

Of Faith, Obedience and Silence

For the past several days my mind has been revolving around an enigma, very strange things going on in my private life, things which certainly point to an ongoing attack by evil, a limited source for it to have originated from and yet God's call for my obedience.

For weeks now, I have been getting emails to my private account of an evil nature.  Yeah, I have my public account which is tied to this blog, however, I have a private address known only to my family members.  However, even at that, I get no emails from anyone in my family, we talk via phone and FaceBook constantly.  It has really only been used by my estranged daughter and niece.  So, as I said, limited resource to have disclosed my email address from, if that had happened at all.  Yesterday, I thought I would end this stupidity from whomever it was sending those daily multiple emails and ran down their IP address - they originated from where estranged daughter had an interest in serving as a missionary to and she has several "friends" there.  Okay, that  is weird and yeah, I could see her getting one of her friends to do this so as to prove I am the evil she now believes.  Sorry, but I am not whom you think I am.  Yesterday, I blocked that IP address because things got weirder.

Yeah, yesterday came with an invite to have a new friend on FaceBook, complete with photos.  It could have been someone else, whom looks a great deal like my daughter (NOT!), but just to be wise as a serpent, I hacked the originating IP address of that FaceBook account.  Interestingly, this one came from where daughter had served as a missionary many years ago to and to cinch it, there were already had two of her friends on there whom I remembered when we shared FB accounts with one another.  So, yeah this one was either her friends being cruel to her or flat out from her trying to snare me.

Now, what are the odds?  Two flat out evil offers, both originating from places she was associated with.  Both I believe to prove I was the kind of person she believes me to be.

I turned down the friendship offer and the account disappeared from FaceBook almost instantly.  Interestingly, it proves I was right, it was evil attempting to lure me, else why would it disappear when it failed to snare me?  And should my daughter actually be innocent of this, then again I must remind her that photographs taken during moments of great intoxication, are forever.  And really, my private email address, I would appreciate remaining private, just as I have honored your privacy but not "stalking" you, it is reasonable to expect the same.

So I have thought on this weirdness and am reminded of Zachariah - okay only in my mind is this obvious ... :

You might remember Luke 1:5-25 and 57-80.

Zachariah was told what God was going to do, but he chose to disbelieve.  So, for his disbelief, his voice was silenced until John (Jesus' cousin) was born.  His silence became a sign for the truth of what he had been told.  And EVERYONE knew it!

So there are three ways of looking at this and learning from it:

1.  When you are being silenced, you need to examine why and correct where your faith in God has gone wrong.
2.  When God is being silent in your life you need  to read, meditate and pray to know the source of the silence.
3.  When you are being obedient and have been silenced, you have to continue to be obedient to what God has told you.

So my family, my ex-friends, my church, my pastors and my estrange daughter all firmly stand on the first option for me.  And like the stubborn German I am, I stand solidly that I am of the third classification - only remaining friends agree with me on that one, but then they actually bothered to know me and look at the evidence before deciding not to condemn me.  I can only stand in place in obedience, even if at least 120 times this year I would have rather grabbed my cane and started walking to Argentina!  But, then that would have proven I was guilty to all!  Except to daughter, for she knows what that reference means.

Verses 66-77 are so beautiful!  Here Zachariah has been silenced and now can speak and agrees that the son's name will be John (probably a bit of a scandal since it was not a family name).

Zachariah did not expect a miracle, did not believe one possible when he was told there would be one and so God had to smack him upside the head to get his attention long enough to understand he was in for a miracle!

So, in like manner, even though my daughter has run away, does her best to attack me as she is able, I stand firm because God told me to.  I pray daily for her because God told me to.  I expect her to return because God said she would.  I will remain obedient because I am that stubborn old German.  It is called faith, it is called obedience, it is called for in the silence of my life in being able to bring her to where she is supposed to be.

But do not believe this does not bring its frustrations, as my poor Niece can affirm, the lure to run away is there but unlike Jonah, I already know I can not hide from the face of God, do not want to get swallowed until I learn my lesson, etc.  So, I stand, taking the rebuke from all, daily, in my face hatred for what I have not done but been accused of.  I will pay whatever the cost required for my daughter to return - in my innocence, because it is all I have.  From my perspective, if my family is reduced to only the size of my niece and estranged daughter, so be it.  It does not mean I do not love my family, for I do, but it does mean being obedient to God means more.

And poor Zachariah, he too learned a lesson and he stood and he waited, when he did not have to, and was mightily blessed for it.

Listen Up Guys!

Blogger has a little feature called Statistics. Its purpose is for the owner of the blog to know what it is that people are reading, how often, where are they located and then a little section called Links.

Now Links is what this post is all about. It tells me where you have come from and where referring links are located. So, what you say?

Well, a great many of my male readers come to my site, following their visits to PORNO sites on the internet. Yes, the pages you were on, before you hit your bookmark to come here, were actually then stored on my Links page. So, when I see what my readers are up to - well I find that my (probably) male readers are off in PORNO-land before coming here.

I only care from the stand point that yesterday 38 of you visited porn then came here.

Yes, the internet makes porn only a mouse click away. Porn is what will always separate you from finding happiness with a real woman. And because you males are visual, those images are burned into your memory because God made us visual creatures.

No, there is no magic eraser that God can use to remove what you willing allow into your minds. The internet is the opportunity, your mouse click the temptation, what you mind will do with the images will lead you into sin. Pure and simple. And once in, Satan will call back images at your most weakest moments, in order to lead you back into what he hopes will be your slavery to sin! Yeah, you get to suffer spiritually for a lifetime, of memories of sights you never should have had.

But, you can repent, you can ask God to bury those images in your mind, you can fight temptation, you may still fail - and then you get to start over at the beginning of this sentence - ad nauseum. But, know that with time it will become less frequent.

Okay, guys - be a man enough to just say no to porn. Do not allow it to be a part of your life. Realize that God created woman - a wife - for you to find and then experience pleasure with. Not imagines of damaged young women on the internet or in print to fill your fantasies. If you have ever known one of these young women, and I have - she was a friend in high school, whom went on to quite a lucrative career - until she woke up one day. But then she discovered too late the cost of the life she led, dying far too young last year. Why can I be strong in this one area? Because she was a friend I cared for, because I saw the cost on that young woman's life. She at first didn't care, she was damaged, but I did and eventually she did, and that lifestyle cost her, her life.

No, the porn industry feeds on the young girls damaged by events which should have never happened. It feeds the minds of males, images captured for eternity, ready to lead the curious male down a road they were never to travel either. Perhaps even damaging even more young women in the process. It causes the stain of Human Trafficking to exist and not be fought by our leaders, whom themselves are trapped by the same problems as you. The sex trade is slavery and just your visiting sites as you have will help to feed the industry more, damaging more young men, requiring more young women to be damaged in turn, so they can be used to entice more young men.....

It is an endless cycle and the only one whom can stop it - is you. Make the decision, walk away and do not look back.

Adultery

Adultery is so common today it is not even blinked at in my current church!  I have mentioned the barracuda which circles the guys of the church and ever so often manages to snag one, chew him up and then spit him back out.  Cowboy was the latest victim, he now appears to have permanently exited the church.  Embarrassment?  Guilt?  Whatever.  She is back to circling and no one has heard from or seen him.

And in my old church, let us not forget the faithless bride of 2010, her online lover, abandonment of her husband and then remarriage to a guy whom is a picture postcard of what she had just left.....

Of course, in our discussion of Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage - our Bible tells us that adultery plays quite a large part.

Sex before marriage - adultery.
Sex not with your spouse during marriage - adultery.
Divorced and have a fling - adultery.
You divorced or abandoned your spouse and they had a fling - you are guilty of their adultery.
You divorced or abandoned your spouse and they remarry - you are again guilty of their adultery.
You get remarried - you are committing adultery.
Hey guys - porno problem?  That is adultery as well!  Be honest now.

So, we have a superb passage in Malachi 2:10-17, and according to our New Testament, there is a whole lot of adultery going on out there in our 'modern' churches.  Adultery, no matter how you try to justify it, is sin.  But, it is a special sin (I Corinthians 6:15-18).  And, sorry but God will not bless you or His Church if you are in sin.  Period.

Oh, and lest we forget - adulterers (those whom live in and for adultery) will not be found in Heaven.

We are told to exclude those in sin from our congregations but not from our lives - so that they may be brought back into fellowship.

And here is the problem we create for ourselves - we say:

• Well they were not a Christian when the divorce occurred.
• They came to Christ after marriage and so divorce was unavoidable.
• Their spouse left them and lives somewhere else (abandonment).
• They have been married for X number of years and have been faithful.
• They have a family with the new spouse.
• "God" is blessing them.

Each of these statements I have heard numerous times, from pastors in justifying candidates for eldership, even pastoral, in churches I have attended.  Lets see, it is is not really adultery if any of the about 6 items is true?  Adultery, one of God's big hitters and the destruction of marriage - something else He is passionate about - are on a sliding scale of sin values?

If you are truthful with yourself - you have just discovered the real reason Christian families are failing worldwide, why the church has little witness any longer to a world awash in sin, and why there are a whole lot fewer faithful than you might like to believe in your fellowship.

But, there is a problem here that we do need to discuss next time in this line of thought.

Sin In The Body

The Church I grew in was very much unlike anyother church I have ever experienced.  For example:

At the beginning of the service, a young man and one of the teenage girls came up on the stage and explained how they now understood that decisions they had made - had brought sin into the body.  Yeah, it seems that the direct results of said activities was to be arriving in a few months.  Women were in tears while I quietly folded my bulletin and slid it into my pocket.  This Sunday was now going to be one of those "emotional" services I loath so much.  I caught Dutchman's eye and we slowly crept through the crowd and off to pizza.

But the thought stuck with me.  Could something I did, really have an impact on the Christian body either local or at large?  Certainly we can see evidence of this in the Old Testament and what may have been behind the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.....  I have thought on this often through the years.

And so last week sin has struck yet again in my church's youth group.  Never seems to matter which church you go to, someone is going to derail and affect the body local - every year.  I know from decades of youth work that if you treat the youth as adults, with adult expectations, serious study - and some fun!, they pretty much seem to stay on track.  Luckily, it was not any of my kids whom failed - now that would have been a shocker!  But, I really feel for the Youth Pastor and the leaders of that group.  It is a hard one to meet with the kids and get them to understand and then their parents to get them to understand as well!

The youth rarely think 30 seconds into the future and repercussions are always a SURPRISE!  One of the reasons my classes are on a serious side and hence poorly attended.  Well, would you go where you have to read and think or where you can blow dope and er, etc?  No contest there.

So, next class is going to raise eyebrows, I named it "Really Bad Ideas".  I expect for the three adults to do some sharing and maybe even some of the youth.  I also know I have had many more of those "Really Bad Ideas" than others, so will have lots of material to draw from!

I will try to remember to update on how it all went.  I am expecting much laughter and some internal learning.  For now, we have a handful of kids and some parents with some trauma to deal with this Christmas Season.  You might want to remember them in your prayers for a few very rough weeks.

Vibrations

Sometimes I just like to watch those around me during a sermon.  It can be VERY entertaining.

Take this past Sunday for instance.  In front of me sat a guy maybe in his 30's and next to him, a bit of a looker and a bit over done up.  So, I was intrigued.....

Was he a boyfriend or husband?  From the rear, no way to tell.  Skin coloration was not the same, ears either, nor hair.  He was dressed casually, she to the nines.  Could he be significant other?  No, sitting too far apart.  And so went the mental games through the singing - which annoys me greatly!

Sermon starts.  She starts wiggling her foot, eventually her entire leg.  Back and forth, back and forth.  The pew is starting to creak in front of me.  Could she really bust through this thing?  Pastor is talking about death and his reactions to his parents deaths this year.  Vibrations are now going through the floor!

Then he switches subjects, on to adultery.   Vibrating girl in front of me has frozen to the pew.  Not a breath, not a twitch, not a movement the entire time he is on the subject.  As he continues on to another subject, she is back to slowly wiggling her foot, her color is returning to normal from the ghastly white she had become.....

And now I knew.  She was sitting next to her father and she has a little problem the pastor hit upon.....

Oh yeah she has been in my prayers.  Obviously, she feels convicted over her behavior - enough so I would betcha that she is not going to be in church next week.....

Not As Remembered.....

Well, they do say you can never go back - and certainly this highly modified (from planned) trip was proof of this adage!

I got in late so stopped off at the pub located within the hotel.  Thirty years ago it was a pretty nice place as I remembered, today it is the hangout of hookers taking a break and stupid drunk tourists.  Needless to say, I did not return during the course of my stay - even though it was the most convenient place to be given the crutches.

The drunk tourists were by far all American, the kind whom should never be allowed back in the country (any country!).  Massively misbehaved, wholly unacceptable behavior and clothing that definitely should never have been offered for sale!  Just image the rudest of tee shirts you could find in a scummy shop and you would not even reach the depravity of these!  Yeah it was not pretty.

The "hookers" were another story - pretty much all very young teenage girls, obviously fake ids to even be there and drinking.  The bar keep should have been ashamed of himself!  I have not seen such sheer clothing since the 1970's (and I had so hoped those fashions were LONG gone forever!)  But, even those without see through clothing were not in good taste either.  Most mild tee shirt seen was "This shirt would look good on your bedroom floor!".  Yeah, right.  The effect of this kind of behavior is not only horrible for the girls but its toll on the young men - whom might otherwise be behaving themselves is despicable as well!

Oh how my heart broke for those youth in Victoria.  Drug abuse was wide amongst the kids on the streets.  And this of course comes with a boat load of problems for those kids and the culture.

It honestly broke my heart.....

Dutchman's Son

I know the  other day I remarked that Dutchman's Son seems to be doing better as he tries to dig his way out of the mess he made of his life in 2009 and 2010.  But now we know the rest of the story.....

Dutchman called Friday morning and STRONGLY urged we have lunch together.  He was about an hour away at the time. So cool!  We met at a  little Greek place I like about three miles away.  Yeah, he really needed to talk because he was in shock.

Seems he was trying to find one of his bid proposals on his wife's computer, because he needed a photograph from the presentation package, to use in another one he was putting together.  So, like any savvy PC user - he did a search for JPEGS within a date range.  He got far more than he bargained for.....

Yeah, his son had been using the wife's computer, which he is banned from,  due to his abuses back in 2007/2008 - searching porn sites.  And now, Dutchman finds that son has not only not complied but has been using that computer to upload hardcore porn starring HIMSELF and a whole bunch of young men Dutchman did not recognize!  (Thank God my son is apparently not yet in one of those!)  Dutchman was shocked so bad he had no response.

And how do you respond?

Romans Chapter One clearly tells us we should not be surprised to find that those whom have given themselves over to sin, will be given over to the basis of their desires - homosexuality.  Yeah, outlawed teaching in Canada and probably soon here in America.  But, it is inescapable to not understand that not only is that young man far from God, but God has given him free reign with his sin.

Homosexuality is sexual sin, it is condemned by the Bible - as are ALL sexual sins.  You have lurid thoughts - you sin.  You can't keep your zipper up - you sin.  You can't stand your spouse and leave - you not only sin but you get to share in their sin as well!  No matter how you look at it - it is sin.  No greater, no worse, before God than murder, stealing or even speeding.

Some of my best friends have been "gay" through the years and I have been in their face about their need for God!  Because they are homosexual?  Heck NO!  I want all of my friends with me in Heaven!  And all but one of them has long since died of "AIDS".

And this last paragraph is  why I can look the average American liberal in the eye and tell that not only is Kris not homophobic, but they are hypocrites.  I have yet to find one of my critics whom has had even one close friend whom is "gay", much more even witnessed to one, much more even sat with one whom was dying from "AIDS".  They do not even understand the self loathing and abuses these victims have put themselves through - without the help of a homophobic culture. 

American reader, have I pissed you off yet?  Read on.

You know something else?  I have had friends whom are adulterers, fornicators, prostitutes, consumed with lusts and passions I really do not want to even understand much less experience!  None of them any more innocent than Dutchman's son before God.  So although I maybe horrified at what this young man has done, he is still very dear to my heart and his need for God is only increased - not diminished!

And I hope you will join with me in prayer that this young man will turn back to God.  And if you have friends in ANY sexual sin, I do hope you will be regularly praying for them as well.  You might want to include your pastor, spouses, etc - all whom are as equal in their ability to fall into sexual sin as well.....

Pope Benedict XVI

"Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our Earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption."

"I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who acutely do suffer violence and sexual exploitation `explain' that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form, are considered merely `entertainment?'"

"If God is irrelevant to public life, then society will be shaped in a godless image, and debate and policy concerning the public good will be driven more by consequences than by principles grounded in truth."

It was Thursday, in Australia, when the Pope made these interesting remarks.  Interesting because seeds of truth are there to be found, condemning all of us.  Mind  you, I am not a lover of this Pope – his past is very hard for this post war German to “get over”.  Had he of been a champion of the Christian cause during the war and in the Nazi’s face – as was the last Pope – I would love him.  However, that is not true.

That is not to say I am anti-Catholic, some of the strongest Christians I have known were Catholic, even good ones.  I am just uncomfortable with this Pope and so take any sound coming from him with a grain of salt…

But, these are three really good lines!  Because they state the problem of the “Americanization” of western culture.  Not knocking Americans here, but the impact of the Hollywood and America has been immense upon changing the world’s values over the past thirty years.

The rich have always been materialistic, spending money on themselves seems to be one of the few universal hobbies.  However, it was the extravagance of the Church in the previous 1,500 years which leaves all tourists breathless in Europe.  A Church so consumed with consumption that food was literally taken from those whom would have none – to feed the bellies of the monasteries and convents – even at the point of the sword if need be!  The only Plattner I have ever heard of whom made a name for himself faced just this situation in the early 16^th century and took all comers at his potato field with a hoe.  He was even part of complaint filed by the local bishops because they wanted his potatoes and he flat refused to feed the church before his family! 

Imagine the shame of something like that in print…

Pornography, soft/hard/whatever, is a sickness in our world.  Sure I can point to times when there was far worse, but I can point to time more recent when this was not so.  I have had to council too many sexual felons to not know the truth behind how they got the way they are.  Even they know it.  I had a close friend whom was a Ted Bundy victim.  And many more whom have suffered assault to “satisfy” sexual fantasy.  Yet, this western culture refuses to hold those responsible for the exploitation of women and child.  In Kris’ perfect world, these people would all be dead.  Kris would even provide the bullets and the finger to pull the trigger.  I am fairly sure my conscious would not suffer a moment from removing these from the culture.  (Of course, I would offer them a chance to repent…  But, with or without repentance, justice would prevail.)  That is how resolute I am towards the flesh mongers of this society.

Having two members of my family in the “entertainment” industry, I can share with you that I viewed as a prude because I find it inexcusable for my female cousin to “pretend” and show her body to anyone and everyone.  I find it inexcusable for an uncle, a “gentleman” and “family man” to find pretending to have sex with her to be no big deal, it is only entertainment after all!  “Ok, so  you are in bed with your distant niece, pretending to have sex with her and your wife is ok with that?”  “She has nothing to say about my art!”  You hypocrite!

The lack of morality of this generation of Christians has indeed caused a vacuum to form.  If we will not stand for something, then the world will.  Our absence of having a standard and allowing ourselves, as well as our families to view such is what has fuelled it continuance!  Are we so self centered that we can no longer consider the harm caused to others, much less our youth, when this form of entertainment is accepted!

We have willingly allowed the basis form of religion to hold sway over us.  One of self aggrandizement, self satisfaction and the debasement of all others.

How will God ever judge us?

Sexual Purity by Bob Domm

Turn on your TV, pick up your newspaper, open any magazine, and you can see at a glance what drives the economy and makes the world go round:  money and sex.

You see it all the time out there in the real world---money and sex.  But in our churches these two powerful human drivers are hardly ever dealt with in a practical way.

Churches talk about money, when they're running short.  Or when they want to put up a new building.  Or increase the staff.  But how to deal with money in everyday life, how God figures into our personal finances is rarely talked about.

Jesus talks about money plenty.  He says,

"If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon (money), who will entrust to you the true riches?"

Churches rarely talk about sex except when there's a controversy over "sexual orientation" or "inclusivity."   Jesus doesn't tiptoe around the issue.  On the one hand Jesus is far more merciful than most church folks in dealing with people whose sexual lives are in shambles.  The prostitute who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, and covered those feet with kisses---was treated by Jesus with awesome kindness.  Jesus looked into that woman's heart and saw deep repentance.  He loved her for it, and healed her life. 

Jesus shared his most profound teachings with a woman who was married five times and was stumbling along with a guy who was not her husband.  Jesus takes people where they are in their bumbling sexual life and gives them a new start. 

But once a man or woman commits to him, then Jesus gives clear direction---and supernatural power to put their past under the blood, and now to either remain celibate or to stick with their mate in an exclusive commitment for the rest of life. 

So here we are.  Men and women scattered in many places and times reading these words---at different stages in our physical lives and different stages of our spiritual lives.  But no matter where we are, how old or young, how spiritually mature or immature, whether we're single, married, widowed, divorced---the sexual aspect of our lives is part of us as long as we are in these bodies, as long as these minds think.

We live in a world that portrays sex as a form of recreation. 

"Go for it!  Just don't forget your condoms."

Or it portrays sex as a delightful escape from everyday reality.

You meet this exciting person when you're away on a business trip.  Why not top it off with some fun in bed?  That's what they do on TV, and folks enjoy it.

Or it portrays sex as the ultimate fulfillment in life.

Here's a man who's beside himself because his wife can't meet his "expectations" sexually.  She's a beautiful woman in every way.  She's trying her best to "satisfy" the dummy.  But she just can't seem to "get there," as they say.  So Hubby feels he has no choice but to find "fulfillment" elsewhere.   The fool will search forever for his Hollywood Dream and stumble into old-age a bitter man. 

That's how the world looks at sex.  But how does Jesus look at it?  Jesus tells us that there are some people who are called and gifted by God to live a celibate life.  Jesus himself, the apostle Paul, and Barnabas were celibate.  And for all the DaVinci fantasies about Mary Magdalene, she doubtless remained celibate after she came to faith. 

But when it comes to the physical union of a man and a woman, Jesus keeps it quite simple.  He says they've become one flesh.  They have given themselves to each other.  Now they belong to each other, held together by their sexual covenant---a covenant of love and faithfulness.  Every time they come together physically, it's like taking Holy Communion; they're renewing this covenant.  If children come, they are the product of the deep commitment, honor, love, and faithfulness of their mother and father. 

Of course this holy gift of God has been twisted and warped in a thousand ways by human sin.  And so the union between a man and woman can become a world of heartache and pain.  It can be ripped apart and destroyed by our hardness of heart.  For example, the woman at the well who had had five husbands and was now with a man who was not her husband---how did Jesus deal with her?

Did he say, "Go back to Number One?"  She couldn't go back.  Jewish law forbade such a thing.  But by the time Jesus was through talking with this woman her past was under the blood of his approaching cross.  She was given a new start.

(If Jesus were unable to set us free from our past, where would any of us be?)

But from now on, by the power of the Spirit, this area of the woman's life---and our life---is going to be right.

---right in our thinking.

---right in the way we conduct ourselves as single persons.

---right in the way we treat the husband or wife God has given us.

Of course, God is not nearly as picky about the details as we are.  Isaac and Rebekah were never married by a Rabbi.  You'd have to say it was "common law."  Yet if any marriage was under heaven's blessing, it was theirs.  

The issue, as far as God is concerned, is that once we've committed our lives to his kingdom, we leave our past under the blood of the Lamb, and now the sexual aspect of our lives becomes holy ground.  Our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit.  By the power of the Spirit we are going to practice kingdom chastity.

If we're single, we trust God to either provide us with a mate in his time, or empower us to live a celibate life.   God knows our needs as single persons better than we do.  We seek his kingdom first, and he provides---in his way, in his time.

In a culture where millions of people are stumbling along that rocky road of sexual fantasy, the Lord's single followers are given something far better: freedom, instead of bondage, as we walk by faith and trust God to provide for all our needs. 

If  we're married, we too practice kingdom chastity.  This man belongs to nobody but this woman.  His body belongs to her.  And this woman belongs to nobody but this man.  Her body belongs to him.  They treat each other with high honor.  A holy jealousy keeps them exclusively for each other.  And each time they come together, their covenant with each other is renewed and refreshed.

And how is this holy chastity maintained?  By God's power working in us.

In every case, Jesus meets us where we are.  When Jesus spoke to the prostitute, who washed his feet with her tears, he said, "Your faith has saved you.  Go in peace."  When Jesus spoke with the woman at the well, knowing she had had five husbands and was now with someone new, he said, "Ask me, and I'll give you living water."  What grace!  What mercy!

But when Jesus talked to his disciples about sex, here's what he said:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'  But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell."

                                                            Matthew 5:27-30

Jesus is saying to us, "No matter how messy and confused this part of your life was in the past, I can take care of that.  Turn it over to me, and I will make you into a new person.  I'll wash away the nagging guilt.  I'll heal the scars. But you're going to have to work with me on this.  As long as you are in this body, you're going to have to work with me."

"If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out"   In other words: Get off your high horse, step down, and deal with that lusting eye. You'll get help from above, but you've got to deal with it.

"If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away."  In other words: Get off your high horse, step down and deal with that hand. You'll get help from above, but only if you deal with it. 

The eye….the hand….the heart.

Don't ever look at some sexually messed-up soul and say, "I could never do that….I could never be like that!"  Because you could.  Every one of us is capable of any sordid thing that any human being has ever done, given the circumstances. 

But God will give us all the power we need to live as sons and daughters of light, if we work with him---daily presenting our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, daily renewing our minds in his Spirit.

Maybe we're not as messed-up as the woman at the well.  Maybe we're not as stained as the man in Jerusalem who ran away when he was caught with his lady-friend in the act of adultery (Of course, we never hear about this man, since they only brought the woman to Jesus).  But there is not one of us who does not need a big helping of God's mercy and redemptive power, when it comes to this area of our lives.  Help with our thoughts, our attitudes, our self-pity, our vanity, our impatience.

So let's join the woman at the well, step down, and humble ourselves as she did that day when she opened her heart to the Lord.  Let's ask the Lord Jesus to show us what he sees when he looks into our hearts. 

Let's ask him to touch us, make us whole, and lead us into his kind of chastity.

His kind of chastity is not bondage but freedom. 

In a world awash in sexual fantasy, let's present our bodies to the Lord, that he may transform them afresh into true temples of his Spirit.