Restoring Rapport

The contrast between self-abasement and genuine sacrifice is one of the most important distinctions to be made by followers of Jesus. In this post, I'm going to juxtapose the counterfeit of self-denial against the original of sacrifice. There's a huge difference between the two. Sacrifice is selfless. Self-denial, though it may seem counter intuitive, can be selfish. As followers of Jesus, we are one with Him. This means that His character permeates every inch of our being. We share His desires and DNA. Jesus, being the perfect husband that He is, overflows with a desire to serve and a willingness to sacrifice. Because we are continuously becoming more like Jesus, this desire to serve and sacrifice abounds in us as well. Sacrifice is one of the most beautiful, selfless, powerful aspects of love imaginable. Think of how the good husband sacrifices whatever necessary for the comfort and pleasure of his wife. Think of how the good mother sacrifices her time and peace...

Masturbation is possibly the most avoided conversational topic within mainstream Christianity today. The lack of teaching and information given to lovers of Jesus about this topic has pretty much left the waters of personal and moral conviction muddy with uncertainty. Most Christians simply don't know if masturbation is right or not. We're largely unsure of God's Heart regarding sexuality in general, but masturbation specifically. Because of this, most Christians are hesitant to either endorse or condemn masturbation as right or wrong. When presented with the question, "Is masturbation bad?," Christians will probably respond with ambiguity, behaving similarly the elves of Tolkien's imagination who often, when asked a question, "...answer both yes and no." Yet, despite the silence and confusion surrounding it, masturbation is one of the most prevalent issues in humanity today. Don't believe me? Humor me a moment while I give you some statistics t...

I've been wondering why today's society is seeing a decline in marriage numbers when compared to the past. According to Ohio State University Economist and Research Scientist, Jay L. Zagorsky, "Now only about two million marriages happen a year, a drop of almost half a million from their peak ."  Despite the extreme poverty and financial hardship of the time, more people were getting married during the Great Depression than there are now. For me, that's a sobering realization. Think about it. Even though the ability to support a family is more manageable today than it was during the Great Depression, we're seeing fewer marriages today than we've seen in the last 150 years, including the years of WWI and WWII when most men were away fighting. (Jay L. Zagorsky). I used to think the economic infrastructure of society was solely responsible for the decline of marriages, but I was wrong. As is shown in Zagorsky's article, the cause of marital decline is ...

Today, I'm going to point out two interlocking issues that I sometimes see happening in the way humanity approaches social life: Commodification and Objectification. Commodification: What exactly is "commodification?" The definition of commodification is: "The action or process of treating something as a mere commodity." However, I'm going to broaden that definition a wee bit. Commodification is anytime you approach something (or someone) with a consumer-mentality being foremost in your mind. In other words, commodification is essentially asking yourself, "What can I get out of this product? How can it benefit me?" As a customer in a store, there's nothing wrong with this approach! However, what if I suggested that many people actually unwittingly take the approach of commodification out of the business world (where it belongs) and bring it with them into the world of relationship? When people are shopping for coffee, they browse throu...

We've all heard the phrase, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." That phrase holds true for many situations in life. However, God has been revealing to me that there are also many situations where that saying does not apply and, in fact, can cause harm. You see, when it comes to financial investment and business schemes, "Having your fingers in a lot of pies" is a good idea! Equally distributed investment is a good idea when it comes to money. However, since people are not money, I've really begun to question equally distributed investment when it comes to relationships. Let me explain what I mean: Communicating Value: As most people would agree, 100% of your time, money, and energy is being invested into something 100% of the time. In that sense, nobody ever "wastes" their time. We're always investing into something, even if that something is the wrong thing. It's impossible for humans to cease investing for even one millisecon...

"The ONE" We've all had history lessons. We all know of the not-so-distant time in human history (especially among royalty) when young people married apart from their choice (and often against their inclination) simply in order to gain something. From British Television shows to Jane Austen novels, we've all seen the supposedly outdated tradition of arranged marriages. The entire christian population of today's world would unanimously shout with a unified voice that arranged marriages are quite barbaric and that no man or woman should be forced or spurred to marry someone outside of his or her wish, no matter what was to be gained. Yet what if I told you that we inadvertently accuse God of being a fixer of arranged marriages without even knowing it? I'm currently watching a Masterpiece Theatre PBS show called "Victoria." What I am shocked to find is that, in the show, at the time of her singleness, not a single person in the life of...

Today, I'm going to give you a viewpoint on video games that probably hasn't ever occurred to you, and just might change the way you view video games and those that play them. In this post, I'm not declaring video games as either good or bad or addressing the affects they have on people. I know that video games have vast amounts of pros and cons, and there's probably 3 million articles out there about their affects on the human mind. I'm not going to tell you video games are either beneficial or detrimental. Today, I'm simply going to share some ideas and statistics with you that will hopefully spark some sympathy and understanding in you regarding boy's (often excessive) use of video games. I've grown up watching a lot of Moms become concerned for their teenage sons because of the amount of appeal that an interactive screen has for their precious child. My greatest hope for this post is that it will fill all the Moms out there with an overflowing ...

The Wrong Criteria: So often in our culture, young people are inadvertently taught to engage in courtships and marriages, without having the proper preparation and knowledge. Somewhere along the way, society has unintentionally begun to under-emphasize marriage and courtship preparation. While we have a plethora of requirements for young people to meet before they get married, I'd like to suggest to you that we're not only creating the wrong criteria for marriage, but we're under-preparing young people for what marriage really is. Today's society determines whether or not a young person is "ready for marriage" based on his or her social status, job outlook, age, education, and financial standing. It might shock you to learn that NONE of those things directly prepare young people for marriage. Society says, "Look at these fine marriage-ready specimens we've produced! According to the standards of their Facebook and church friends, they're li...

Did you know that buried deep within you is a piece of God's Heart that nobody else has? Permanently engraved into your soul is a unique part of God's character; an instinctual desire and individually given function, given to you alone by God, waiting to be discovered and embraced. Some people call it a "calling." Others call it a "niche." Still others call it your "creative expression." I'm calling it "Your Piece of God's Heart." What exactly is "Your Piece of God's Heart?" It is the something that you yearn to do more than anyone else. It's the force that, when you operate in it, smashes your soul straight out of your chest and onto everybody in the room, filling them with hope and awe. You see, God's Heart is really one big puzzle, composed of seven-billion pieces. A very specific piece has been embedded in you, and each individual on the planet. You, and every other being in the world, have a part of...

There is a thought that will move you more than any other; an idea that will reveal more to you about the character of God than anything else. It's the revelation that God Himself, the Creator of everything, lowers Himself to unimaginably low levels in order to be with His children. Imagine with me, someone of infinite majesty and gorgeous power, someone so high and beautiful that there was no one equal with this someone. Nobody came even close to touching the plain on which this someone rested. Imagine someone outside of time, un-subjected to death, full of kindness, immortal, lacking nothing except another soul to share existence with. Now imagine that someone creating a creatio ex nihilo,  a creation from nothing, and filling it with beings of free will and life. Now imagine that person leaving his glory, splendor, and majesty behind and wrapping himself in flesh; the creation of his own hands. Imagine the Creator becoming the created; abandoning his reign over death and...

In this post, I'm going to explain a process that I have observed at work throughout multiple generations. You might be wondering how I can do this since I've only lived during the course of one generation. The answer to that is that I have observed this pattern in history, and also in the lives of those older than myself. I refer to this pattern as "The Pendulum of Generational Perception." I'm specifically going to address the effect this process has on the way children are raised. Here's how the process works. During a person's lifetime, that person behaves a certain way, acting either wisely or unwisely in each area of life. Some of their actions produce positive consequences and other actions produce negative consequences. Based on the consequences that their actions produce in their life, people make changes to the way they live their life as they grow older. For example, if a person did not act with financial wisdom during college and acc...

What exactly is the purpose of dreams? Dreams are simply one of the hundreds of ways that God uses to communicate with his children. Many people discount their dreams wholly as the product of their previous evening's meal. Others say that dreams are simply a function of the brain during sleep. If you do research about how dreams work, you're likely to find that there are a large number of theories, but few certainties. Like many areas of science, the study of dreams (Oneirology) is a field with many diverse opinions. In this post, I'm not going to discuss how dreams work. I'm going to discuss the purpose of dreams, and why our minds were designed to dream during sleep. I'm also going to give an example of a dream that I had and discuss how dreams can and should be interpreted.  It's important to know that dreams are not always mere inconsequential fancies of the brain. Put plain and simply, dreams can often be an inlet through which you hear the vo...

Let me ask you a question. When something is ignored absolutely and completely within the home, how does the mind of a child label that something? How does silence about sexuality affect a child's view of it for the rest of their life on this earth? These are questions that parents should ask themselves when it comes to sexually educating their children. The truth of the matter is, sex has become a taboo subject in our culture that is either (a) not talked about, or (b) portrayed in a horribly incorrect way. Both of those options are very detrimental to the course of a child's life. Many parents think that by sheltering their children from sexual knowledge, they are "protecting" them. Parents often think that their children need no sexual education because "they're too young for that right now." Parents also might think that avoiding the subject of sexuality prevents their children from being overexposed, traumatized, or drawn into a promiscuous lifest...

There is an idea that has slipped into the heart of man. It says that if you love anything other than God with all your heart, you're making an "idol" of that thing. There is so much wrong with that idea that I don't know where to begin. So often, people feel like they have to "give up" everything and crush every desire of their heart, counting all that they yearn for as rubbish, in order to follow Jesus and prioritize God. That idea couldn't be more false and harmful. I'd like to submit to you the idea that God is actually the one who put desires and yearnings in your heart to begin with, and He has no desire for you to throw them out the window. Prioritizing God does NOT mean minimizing or degrading your wants. You are not making idols out of your passions by valuing them! God created things in this life for you to ENJOY, and it's not selfish of you to embrace the beautiful pleasures He's given you. Because God loves you, He implanted des...

"For what use is it to gain all the wealth and power of this world, with everything it could offer you, at the cost of your own life?" -TPT. As I grow older, I'm learning that we, as friends of Jesus, take many of His words and unintentionally use them to support an idea that was not behind their original intent. Mark 8:36 can be used in many different ways to support many different beliefs. In the past, it has been used to support the idea that man must "take up his cross" and "follow Jesus," denying the desires of his heart and taking the "hard path" in order to go to "heaven." I'm going to not only rebut that interpretation, but give you a new one with a quite opposite message. If you read Mark chapter 8, in verse 34, Jesus does, at first glance, appear to be telling His followers to "deny themselves," surrender all the desires of their heart, and follow the order of the monk in a continuous state of self-denial...