Showing posts with label pornography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pornography. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

17 Definitive Practices We MUST Crucify

Apostle Paul teaches us in Galatians 5:19-21, a list of 17 practices we must all crucify. (I will be using the New King James Version for each word. It may vary depending on your translation.) 

1. Adultery- {μοιχεία-moicheia}- Loving another person in a sexual and lustful way who you are not committed to in the union of marriage. Crucify it!

2. Fornication- {πορνεία-porneia}-Perverted sexual practices such as lesbianism, homosexuality, intercourse with animals, sex with close relatives, sexual relations with a divorced man or woman, adultery. It has the root word where we get our word 'pornography' from today. Yes, all forms of porn. Crucify it!

3. Uncleanness-{ἀκαθαρσία-akatharsia}-This refers to the moral ways we conduct our life such as the impurity of lustful luxurious, shameless living, extravagant, in partnership with wrong motives. In a nutshell, if you spend your income to impress others buying expensive merchandise, highlight your luxurious life, or spend your finances to be in competition with your peers-Apostle Paul says, STOP IT! Crucify it!

4. Lewdness/Lasciviousness-{ἀσέλγεια-aselgeia}-unbridled lust, shamelessness, excess. Living with no boundaries and with no shame or guilt concerning everything you do. Its a term used to describe a person who in our generation would show his middle finger to all correction or advise. Crucify it!

5. Idolatry-{εἰδωλολατρία-eidōlolatria}- the worship of false gods. Whatever represents the form of an object, either real or imaginary. Also, tied together to this term is the worship of Mammon. To clarify, it was used to describe people who had multiple streams of resources coming into their income and they would use that acquired wealth to fund campaigns against any holy commandment or statue. Crucify it! Does this remind you of our generation?

6. Sorcery/Witchcraft-{φαρμακεία-pharmakeia}- the use or the administering of drugs, magical arts, horoscope readings. As you see its root word is the word where we get 'Pharmacy". Its the mixing of drugs for the purpose of controlling someone's mind, body, and emotions. Mostly, it refers to drug intake and having like a spell cast on you with a chained addiction. Crucify it!

7. Hatred-{ἔχθρα-echthra}- The feeling of enmity, ill-will, bad blood, unfriendliness. Its the picture example of venom. For example, if you had the opportunity to shoot venom directly into whoever you hate you would do it immediately. Crucify it!

8.Contentions/Variances-{ἔρις-eris}- strife, bickering, controversy, wrangling(wrestling), vigorous or bitter conflict of words. Do you enjoy bringing up controversy? Do you 'wrestle' with people on division of words? Do you accuse your loved one of 'saying' this or that? If you had the chance to literary wrestle someone to the ground this is the term implied here. Crucify it!

9. Jealousies/Emulations-{ζῆλος-zēlos}- punitive zeal, an envious and contentious or bitter rivalry. Desiring and putting measurable steps to become better than another person for the sole purpose of degrading them to highlight yourself. Crucify it!

10. Outburst of Wrath-{θυμός-thymos}- angry passion, anger boiling up and soon subsiding again. Think of a tea kettle. As it heats up it screams out loud once the water is boiling and the steam profusely rising and as soon as you take off the heat it calms down again. The only problem is that it does the same thing over and over and over and over again. Crucify it! 

11. Selfish Ambitions/Strife-{ἐριθεία-eritheia}- a desire to put yourself forward, partisanship, one way thinking only. Are you always telling people how right you are and never hearing their views? Crucify it! 

12. Dissensions/Sedition-{διχοστασία-dichostasia}-Strong and divisive disagreements. They cause splits and separations in relationships, partnerships, and unions. Crucify it! 

13. Heresies-{αἵρεσις-hairesis}- The act of capturing or storming a group of people with a diversity of opinions and personal principles. Its the picture word for a group of militia men capturing a city by force and subduing the captors. This is done in the realm of our mind. Crucify it! 

14. Envy-{φθόνος-phthonos}- When you are prompted by envy to do something. Envy is the motive behind your actions. For example, Philippians 1:15, "Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill." Are you a person who begins to preach, get involved in ministry, start a business, higher your education on account that someone else is doing it with success and it eats you up inside? So you decide to get involved in those things from the motive of envy. Crucify it!

15. Murders-{φόνος-phonos}- the brutal or violent killing of a physical person. Crucify it! 

16. Drunkenness-{μέθη-methē}- A person given to intoxication of strong liquor or wine. Crucify it!

17. Revelries-{κῶμος-kōmos}- a nocturnal and riotous procession of half drunken and frolicsome fellows who after supper parade through the streets with torches and music in honor of Bacchus or some other deity, and sing and play before houses of male and female friends; thus used generally of feasts and drinking parties that are protracted till late at night. So in our normal language it means this: drunken people who party into the night and are more given to being controlled by parties, drinking, and debauchery then holy living. Crucify it!

If you have examined your own heart and found these practices residing in you there is hope. The Bible says in 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.". We must not only preach grace but truth with balance. Let these practices be eradicated by the forgiveness found in the precious cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. Seek to practice holiness. 

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Pornography for Women: 50 Shades of Grey

If we as Christians stay silent to social, ethical, moral, religious, and even political issues in our time then all boundaries of faith, purity, and righteousness will be washed away and forgotten for generations to come. We must not only preach salvation and faith but purity and consecration too. Our task at hand is to awaken slumbering believers to realize the dangers of spiritual apathy and the agony of sin it causes in ones life. One specific area I want to address is a series of books that have been circulating in Christian homes, specifically women's hands. It's a book series called 50 Shades of Grey.
According to the books publisher, Random House, they say, " it sold 70 million copies of the trilogy between the series' March 2012 debut in the US and December of that year. That figure includes print copies, audio books, and e-books sold in English, Spanish, and German." What's even more astonishing is that in a recent article by the Christian Science Monitor they state, "Random House recently revealed its sales figures for the series – a number high enough to boost the publisher’s operating earnings (before taxes and interest) by 75 percent." This is one of the fastest selling trilogy books ever published and keeps growing in sales exponentially. We must stop and ask the question, why is that? Why would women, liberal and conservative, Christian and unbelievers, from all different nations continue to flock to this series? Could the lure be that of a deep longing sexual fantasy that still lingers inside the hearts? 

Pastor and 30 year veteran of social work and christian counseling, Mark Peters, shares his viewpoint on this subject: "Porn for women starts more from an emotional point.  The guy in the movies is cute, seems like he would treat a women right, what a women is looking for in a man.  This is still fantasy and lust...  She may not be looking at his genitalia...but she most definitively is desiring him to take her away as Prince "Porn" Charming - the result would be sex.  Especially true of most of Hollywood movies - sex follows the attraction...  He has something her man does not: looks, body, talk, charm....interesting....it is still physical, all awhile starting in the emotions.  Remember Jesus said if we look after "woman[man]" to lust we have committed adultery." 

We are dealing with an epidemic of sexual perversion, elevated sexual fantasies, and a deterioration of righteous boundaries for purity. If we as the Church of Jesus Christ sweep issues under the rug we will come to find out the toxic effects of sexual sin and its practices. The first particular book deals with 50 different sexual positions the couple involve themselves to receive the highest pleasure and satisfaction. Thus, the title for the book '50 Shades of Grey'. 

More and more I hear discussions on the popularity of this book among Christian circles and even on a few occasions have seen this book inside the homes of Christian families. What continues to strike me with shock is how believers continue to approve, distribute, and even not see a problem with this type of writing. We must find ways to consecrate our minds and purify our hearts from the lures of the world. Jesus Christ did not die on the cross so we can continue to live willfully in sin, but He paid the price for our sin and gives us freedom from the stronghold of sin. Our hope is not in a sexual fantasy that degrades our mind, soul, and relationships but in the power of Jesus Christ and His love. 


Have you seen your friends, family, or peers reading this book? Have YOU personally read this book? 

Our assignment is not to condemn the world but to be free from it. We have no desire to bash those who rebel against the laws of purity but we do have a command to speak the gospel of truth. Our generation must have the willingness to fight against the Goliath of pornography in every form. Take heed friend that this is not reading material for the lover of Jesus Christ. This is a trap that entangles your heart and brings rebellion towards your spouse who will never fit the mold of the 'perfect sexual man' but will continue to divide until all is lost and destroyed.

Much Christian based warnings against porn has been geared towards men which is appropriate due to men's natural tendency towards sexual release. However, women have been entangled in this web of lies and deceit as well and both male and female need the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. I have learned in talking with many who have struggled with sexual sin that it takes accountability, perseverance  and most importantly a complete fruit of repentance change. We can all say a sinners prayer but will we allow the Holy Spirit to start changing and cleaning areas in our life that have been tormented by sin. Choose God's love and God's desire to make you whole emotionally. God still loves you!


"
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;" 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5