Sexually confident people can be both lovers and fierce warriors. Harriet Tubman carried a shotgun on her when she conducted runaway Southern slaves to freedom in the North and in Canada. She threatened to shoot anyone who would turn back. Tubman wasn't being cruel. She was waging war in love. Returning runaways could betray the other runaways and expose the stationmasters who maintained places for runaways to stay on the journey to freedom. An exposed stationmaster could face criminal prosecution and even the death penalty.
Sexually confident people don't erase their sexuality to gain equality, freedom or something else. Sojourner Truth had a deep voice. Once when speaking publicly some said she was a man, and she showed them her breasts. Both Sojouner Truth and Harriet Tubman dressed as women while doing some things that were not considered traditionally female.
Tubman and Truth also worked cooperatively with men as did Deborah, a leader of the nation of Israel in Old Testament times, and Queen Nzingha of what is now the African country, Angola. William Still of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee and Thomas Garrett are some people who funded Harriet's rescue missions. Sojourner Truth was a colleague of abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Deborah encouraged Barak to be a strong military leader repelling a foreign invasion. Queen Nzingha formed alliances to keep her country free of foreign domination.
These women are Bible believers who took seriously God's command to rule the earth as female and male. Genesis 1:27-28 Complete Jewish Bible says, "So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. God blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.”
Satan attacks the sexual confidence of both men and women.
A West African proverb says, "Silence is also a form of speech."
Satan seeks to silence those who do not cooperate with him. Reinas y reyes do not cooperate with him; we expose deeds of darkness and try to stop them. The trial and sentencing of Abortionist Kermit Gosnell has received some media attention with his killing of babies born alive after botched abortions and the death of a woman. LifeNews.com has also reported on another Gosnell-style abortionist named Douglas Karpen. Read his story at http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/15/another-gosnell-report-shows-texas-abortion-doc-kills-babies-born-alive/.
Where is the muckraking national and global journalism investigating the entire abortion industry? How Many Abortionists Like Gosnell and Karpen Are There? What Is the Abortion Industry Really Like? Since the beginning of China's one child policy more than 330 million babies have died by abortion. Since Roe v. Wade, there have been more than 55 million abortions in America and very little coverage of what's going on in abortion clinics. A comprehensive investigation of the abortion industry is long overdue as it impacts people at all levels of society.
Showing posts with label Confidence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Confidence. Show all posts
Friday, May 17, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
A Breath of Fresh Air
More than 30 men employed by the Cleveland Waterworks Company were at work in a tunnel about 250 feet below Lake Erie on July 15, 1916, when an explosion ripped through the area trapping the men in the tunnel and filling the air with deadly gases. Rescue workers arrived immediately, but the dense smoke prevented them from entering the tunnel. They didn't know from who to get help.
Inspiration came when someone remembered Garrett Morgan. Morgan had won a grand prize at a New York Safety and Sanitation Fair for a gas mask he invented.
Using Morgan's gas mask, the workers were freed from the tunnel.
News of the rescue traveled. Fire departments across America wanted Morgan's gas mask. Orders poured in until people found out that Morgan was black. Then business dropped off.
Christian Minister and Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated April 4th, 45 years ago, said in his I Have a Dream speech, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Proverbios 18:16 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960 dice, "La dadiva del hombre le ensancha el camino y le lleva delante de los grandes." Proverbs 18:16 Bilingual Bible New King James Version says, "A man's gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men."
In 1917 America entered World War I. Thousands of American soldiers used Morgan's gas mask to protect themselves from the enemy's deadly chlorine gas.
People probably faced fear when the Cleveland tunnel explosion happened and no way appeared to rescue those trapped. Morgan probably faced fear when business for his gas mask dropped when people found out that he was black. Many people have faced fear in the midst of crises and other difficult situations.
A Chinese proverb says, "Use incidents from the past as lessons for the future." Crisis need not stop commitment to self and social development. With courage and creativity Morgan didn't stop when crisis came into his life, and neither do you have to. He kept on perfecting his gas mask, developed other inventions and founded the Cleveland Call newspaper to improve media coverage of African Americans.
Creyentes (believers) have the power of the Creator of the Universe living inside of us. Be confidant in crisis. God will accomplish all His will. Psalm 115:2-3 Amplified Bible says, "Why should the nations say, Where is now their God? But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases." What is something that please God? -- that good overcome evil.
Inspiration came when someone remembered Garrett Morgan. Morgan had won a grand prize at a New York Safety and Sanitation Fair for a gas mask he invented.
Using Morgan's gas mask, the workers were freed from the tunnel.
News of the rescue traveled. Fire departments across America wanted Morgan's gas mask. Orders poured in until people found out that Morgan was black. Then business dropped off.
Christian Minister and Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated April 4th, 45 years ago, said in his I Have a Dream speech, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Proverbios 18:16 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960 dice, "La dadiva del hombre le ensancha el camino y le lleva delante de los grandes." Proverbs 18:16 Bilingual Bible New King James Version says, "A man's gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men."
In 1917 America entered World War I. Thousands of American soldiers used Morgan's gas mask to protect themselves from the enemy's deadly chlorine gas.
People probably faced fear when the Cleveland tunnel explosion happened and no way appeared to rescue those trapped. Morgan probably faced fear when business for his gas mask dropped when people found out that he was black. Many people have faced fear in the midst of crises and other difficult situations.
A Chinese proverb says, "Use incidents from the past as lessons for the future." Crisis need not stop commitment to self and social development. With courage and creativity Morgan didn't stop when crisis came into his life, and neither do you have to. He kept on perfecting his gas mask, developed other inventions and founded the Cleveland Call newspaper to improve media coverage of African Americans.
Creyentes (believers) have the power of the Creator of the Universe living inside of us. Be confidant in crisis. God will accomplish all His will. Psalm 115:2-3 Amplified Bible says, "Why should the nations say, Where is now their God? But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases." What is something that please God? -- that good overcome evil.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
10 Ways to Be Irresistible
God is irresistible. Are you? Check yourself against the following 10 irresistible qualities plucked from the Bible book of Colossians where the Apostle Paul pours out praise for God the Son Jesus Christ and encourages us to lean our entire personality on Him.
1) Be a people magnet. It doesn't matter if we are an introvert or an extrovert. Irresistible people connect with other people cultivating the God in believers and introducing Him to others.
We usually first learn to be people magnets by being parented by people magnets. Mother Teresa said, "Try to put in the hearts of your children a love for home. Make them long to be with their families. So much sin could be avoided if our people really loved their homes."
Love is not natural. Christ in us gives us the strength to make the choices to love hour by hour and day by day. He teaches us to cultivate an inner life focused on finding detailed and varied ways to please God and people.
God designed for children to come out of the love of God and spouse. A marriage to God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost and to each other produced the Palmer siblings, one of whom is named Keke. African American Keke Palmer, who starred in the movie Akeelah and the Bee, says that her parents introduced her to God and helped her to form a good relationship with God that extended to loving herself and other people.
Pampering ourselves, our marriage, family and friendships with time and attention need not be about spoiling people but rather serving everyone to be their best and to live their best possible life.
Spending little time and attention on our relationships guarantees disconnection and if not corrected often leads to dissolution.
2) Cultivate confidence in Christ in all areas of life. Emotional and other types of instability and insecurity are areas where our understanding and belief in God are weak. Sometimes we may feel, "I'm not loveable;" "I'm unworthy;" and other soul destroying ways. Our feelings are often a product of our self-talk or in response to the way someone is treating us.
God loves us and forgives us of all our sins and all the sins of others. No Biblical reason exists not to love ourselves and other people. When we feel unlovable, unworthy or some other unappreciative way, it's because of sin. Talk to God about it. Get it straightened out. Problems don't go away on their own. They have to be dealt with.
If we are not receiving the love of God, then where love hasn't reached, it cannot be given out. We are designed by God to give out love in overflowing abundance. Jesus Christ says in John 13:34-35 the Message Bible, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
God wants us to be clear about loving Him, ourselves and others. Ephesians 5:17 Amplified Bible says, "Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is." Vague people do not live in victory. They are not using time effectively. "El vago trabaja doble." ("The vague works double.")
The vague are susceptible to soaking in the beliefs and attitudes of others instead of being wielded by God to sway others with the love and goodness of God. The vague are nothing like Viktor Frankl. Adolph Hitler's Gestapo arrested this 26-year-old Jewish psychiatrist in Vienna, Austria, and forced him into a concentration camp. Month in and month out without the end in sight, Frankly worked under the huge smokestacks that belched out black carbon monoxide from the incinerators where his father, mother, sister and wife had been cremated. Each day Frankl hoped for a few slivers of carrots or peas in the daily bowl of soup. Nevertheless, the extreme Eastern European cold couldn't stop Frankl from getting up an hour earlier than usual to wrap his feet and legs in scrap burlap and wire to protect them from frostbite. When Frankl was called for inquisition, he stood naked in the center of a white light while men in shiny boots hour after hour assailed him with questions and accusations trying to break him down with every accusing lie they could think of. Already they had taken his wife, his family, his writing, his clothes, his wedding ring and everything else of material value. But in the midst of this barrage of questions, God flashed an idea across Frankl's mind: "They have taken from me everything I have--except the power to choose my own attitude."
As believers not even the Gestapo should be able to persuade us to adopt evil attitudes because we have a powerful resource living on the inside. 1 John 4:4 Amplified Bible says, "Little children, you are of God [you belong to Him] and have [already] defeated and overcome them [the agents of the antichrist], because He Who lives in you is greater (mightier) than he who is in the world."
3) Refuse to be a slave to impulses. Conduct a careful, orderly, thoughtful way of life that examines impulses against the teachings in the Bible and chooses that which is in line with the Word.
Leaning on God is not passivity. God conquered the chaos and created the Garden of Eden. Believers are conquerors like God. We make small choices all throughout the day, day after day, that will eventually produce positive, purposeful plants of truth and other things that are good or weeds of wickedness. Few infidelities start one day out of the blue. Most infidelities are the creeping vines of complacency that overgrew a previously cultivated garden of love.
Some experience infidelity as anticipation and exhilaration from the secrecy, the forbidden sex, the idea that someone really gets us and is willing and eager to fulfill our fantasies. Meanwhile all the potency of sexuality and other sensuality was available in the marriage if we had aggressively and consistently cultivated the time and attention necessary to have a strong, sublime marriage. To know someone and to be known by someone deeply is a spiritual, mental and physical endeavor that does not happen by accident and without a great deal of prayer and practice. When we say, "I do," it doesn't mean, "I'm done working on making sure our relationship stays well watered and wonderful."
Some of the simplest things start great relationships and help them to keep going well. George Foreman, a Christian minister, husband, father of 10 children, African American, entrepreneur and championship boxer, says, in his sermon "The Power of a Smile," "All of us can get up out of that bed every day and make this world a better place by just smiling . . . . We all can be nice."
Mary Landis and Judson Landis write in their book Building a Successful Marriage, "The most important characteristic of a marriageable person is the habit of happiness." Researchers from the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project recently released the latest “State of Our Unions” report. The December 11, 2012, issue of The New York Times Magazine says the National Marriage Project examined the role of generosity in the marriages of 2,870 men and women, and "Generosity was defined as “the virtue of giving good things to one’s spouse freely and abundantly” — like simply making them coffee in the morning — and researchers quizzed men and women on how often they behaved generously toward their partners. How often did they express affection? How willing were they to forgive? The responses went right to the core of their unions. Men and women with the highest scores on the generosity scale were far more likely to report that they were “very happy” in their marriages. The benefits of generosity were particularly pronounced among couples with children. Among the parents who posted above-average scores for marital generosity, about 50 percent reported being “very happy” together. Among those with lower generosity scores, only about 14 percent claimed to be “very happy."
Marriage can be happy and absorbing if we cultivate our garden of love. Absorbing love, unswerving loyalty need not be complex. Sharing and connecting can be simple. Meet after work and walk and talk a couple of miles in the shopping areas followed by more conversation over a meal. Some couples run or exercise together. Some couples study the Bible together. Talk and find some ways that are enjoyable for both spouses to fellowship frequently that is fun and fosters faithfulness.
Mastering the impulse to do nothing in a relationship makes us irresistible; trying shows caring.
4) Increasingly become immovable in Christ. Stubborn can be bad or good. Being immovable in Christ is not bad stubbornness but a committed, continual surrendering of sins like selfishness and ungodly fear to change what needs to be changed. Our consistent change into Christ-likeness is irresistible. If we are cooperating with God, the person we were when we first met God, will evolve into someone more like Christ.
While we will not be perfect in this earthly life, we can be thankful for where we have come from, were we are at and where we are going. Thanksgiving is irresistible. It's wonderful to be wanted and willing to improve. Contentment is not static.
5) Think, talk and act in compassionate truth. Living in the truth requires courage. A survey found that 80 percent of Americans believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong. Yet another study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that about 85 percent of women and 91 percent of men have engaged in premarital sex.
Often when we contradict our value system, the body reacts with actual physical and/or emotional pain. Some get headaches, others nausea, some a bad stomach. Some succumb to various addictions. Some experience the slipping away of self-esteem. Some experience some other type of harm.
Our bodies are interconnected. When we do good and when we sin, it affects spirit, intellect, emotions and physical body.
We are also interconnected with other people. "Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres." (Tell me with whom you associate, and I'll tell you who you are.")
Unified belief and behavior is irresistible. Many hate hypocrisy. Also not many admire marriages that last fewer than 12 months, but many do admire long-term unions like the nearly 30 year marriage of Hollywood celebrities and Christians Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
6) Stop allowing negative stuff to stick to you. All our sins have been forgiven. God wiped the slate clean, so we can wipe it clean too. Colossians 2:13-15 New Living Translation Bible says, "You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross."
To meditate on what's wrong with you or bad circumstances is foolish nonsense that will fail to endear us to others. Constant complaining is irritating and enables the decline and even destruction of relationships. Proverbs 17:9 Amplified Bible says, " He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love, but he who repeats or harps on a matter separates even close friends."
When bad things happen cooperate with God to get over them quickly and to learn how not to go there again!
Unflappable is irresistible. Living in self-pity and/or getting stuck in situations God had empowered you to get out off sucks the life out of relationships.
7) Celebrate special events symbolizing love while recognizing they are not the substance of love. Weddings are wonderful, but the real wonder is a long-term, loving marriage. When scanning magazines available at mainstream news stands, magazines dedicated to weddings far outweigh those dedicated to marriage. Our culture often does not conform to Christ.
Also God made each person unique. Why do we tend to try to make everyone the same? Red and black are among my favorite colors. I remember sharing that I would consider a wedding dress in these colors. That really set off some peoples alarms!
Maybe I should have been born Chinese? Red (hong) is the color of fire. Red symbolizes success, happiness and good luck. Red is the color of celebration at birthdays and weddings. Black (hei) is the color of water. It symbolized heaven.
Celebrate the symbols while concentrating on the substance. Many of us want to be married, but studies show many are not willing to carefully select marriage partners, do the work to be an ideal partner and continuously nurture and grow our marriages. Approximately 75 percent of us marry once. Twenty percent marry twice, and five percent will marry three or more times. Also many people do not wait at least three years after their divorce to heal from the dissolution of their marriage before entering another relationship in a state of brokenness.
Keep hope alive. Just because we have never been married or divorced once, twice or more times does not mean that God doesn't have a good marriage in mind for us. Nelson Mandela married his sweetheart and third wife, Graca Machel, on his 80th birthday.
A lot goes into a marriage. One thing that seems to vanish over time is compliments. Sincere, specific compliments shared throughout the day are irresistible. Tell your wife that you delight in the moles sprinkled on her cheeks, neck and breasts; the peaks and valleys of her curves; the marvelous way she fends off sibling rivalry; the superior way she keeps money from seeping out of the household budget; or whatever things are special and specific to your spouse. The more you appreciate her uniqueness, the more aroused she gets; the more she shares sublime sex with you. Husbands love compliments too that appreciate their qualities of character and accomplishment. Many men are plagued by insecurities. The biggest erogenous zone is the mind.
When we aren't saying things that build up our spouse, we are tearing down our marriage. Few people want to have sex with a spouse who does not woo them with wonderful words and ways. A sexless marriage is often a loveless marriage outside the bedroom.
8) Be open-minded to novel ways of living the truth. God desires us to be easily pliable to His touch changing whatever needs to be changed or even eliminated. This means that we may be trying a lot of things before we find the right fit. Continual self-improvement is irresistible.
Christian and Chinese American Cookie Lee was disappointed that her mom's 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. employment caused her to miss a lot of events in Lee's childhood. Lee wanted to be in the workforce and still have plentiful time together as a family. So for seven years before she had children she turned a hobby into a one-woman, part-time jewelry-making business while working a full-time job. After seven years she was making enough in her business to quit her daytime job. To have a family that she could spend plenty of time with while growing her business, she hired sales consultants to start their own businesses under her's.
Some good, Bible-study questions to ask are: "How does this relate to my reality?" "Are my beliefs really in agreement with the Bible?"
Lee did a lot of prayer, research and asking questions to make her dream of being there for her family a lot work out while prospering in her jewelry-making business.
Some are against women in jobs, businesses and/or ministries and try to put guilt trips on women so engaged. However, in the Bible Priscilla was a tent maker and had a church in her home with her husband, Aquila. Lydia was a business woman selling fabrics dyed in purple. Rachel was a shepherdess. Deborah was a prophetess and judge. Esther was a queen.
God placed some novel things in you that He designed to be developed for the good and enjoyment of yourself and others. God is for pleasure. David says about God is Psalm 16:11 Amplified Bible, "You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore."
The novel inspires people to pursue us. John, the husband of Cookie Lee, pursued her by joining her business creating more time together and more money.
9) Excel in helping and pleasing people within Biblical boundaries. Those who do the minimum hurt people. Believers are extravagant lovers.
An African chief invited the men of his tribe to a feast. The chief provided all the food and asked that the men of the tribe bring a jug of wine. One man of the tribe named Ali wanted to go, but he didn't have wine. His wife suggested that he buy the wine noting that it wasn't expensive. Ali responded, "How foolish to spend money when there is a way to go free! It won't hurt to add one jug of water to the pot of wine." When the day of the feast arrived Ali and the other men of the tribe poured his jug into a large pot. After all the guests arrived the chief commanded the servants to fill everyone's glass. Suddenly a cry arose from the crowd lamenting the taste of water instead of wine. Not only Ali but others too had decided to do the minimum by bringing water instead of wine.
Becoming absorbed in a clean, creatively decorated house and abandoning cuddling and creative entertainment with our spouse is a way some wives do the minimum. Some husbands do the minimum by thinking, talking and acting out the attitude, "My job is number one in my life."
10) Live more for we than me. We want others to make sacrifices that show they want us.
In the Bollywood film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Imran is a character who found out a year ago the father who raised him is not his biological father. As a part of a bachelor, road trip with two friends through Spain, Imran decides to visit his biological father. While smoking a cigarette his biological father, Salman, explains that he abandoned Imran and his mother before Imran's birth because at age 25 he did not want the responsibility of fatherhood; his soul was and still is only fed by his art and world traveling. Salman thinks that me is better than we, but even he has to cover up his pain through a nicotine addiction. God didn't create us for selfishness. He created us to serve.
Irresistible people find ways to weave together responsibilities and dreams.
Greek Australian Christine Caine was active in Christian singles ministry. Many told her that marriage and kids would slow her down. However, she and her husband, Nick and daughters, Sophia and Catherine, travel the globe sharing Jesus Christ with others and have ministries, like Equip and Empower, that help others plant churches and fight human trafficking among other things. The devil is a liar: marriage and family are fun and fulfilling, not boring and/or oppresive.
Sometimes people embrace the lies of the devil due to ignorance and inconsideration. John Tillotson, a Christian leader of the 1600s, said, “Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.” Avoid ignorance and inconsideration by cooperating with God to learn how to solve problems by incorporating people with passion, and then doing it.
Sonya Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, told Jane E. Brody for the artice "That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work" in the New York Times newspaper on January 14, 2013, that she encourages each marriage partner to ask himself or herself each morning, “What can I do for five minutes today to make my partner’s life better?”
Making we more important than me nurtures marital love and sex. Enjoy marital sex; it's holy and righteous! We is designed to be wonderfully irresistible. It's spiritual and logical that a popular sexual position is called the "missionary." If you are married, try a twist on the missionary where the husband kneels and straddles his wife's leg while she’s lying on her left side. From here, she should bend her right leg around the right side of his waist—allowing full access to her vagina, her clitoris, her other body parts and the possibility of one or more orgasms.
In what ways are you irresistible? Please leave an irresistible on-line comment at the bottom of this article.
1) Be a people magnet. It doesn't matter if we are an introvert or an extrovert. Irresistible people connect with other people cultivating the God in believers and introducing Him to others.
We usually first learn to be people magnets by being parented by people magnets. Mother Teresa said, "Try to put in the hearts of your children a love for home. Make them long to be with their families. So much sin could be avoided if our people really loved their homes."
Love is not natural. Christ in us gives us the strength to make the choices to love hour by hour and day by day. He teaches us to cultivate an inner life focused on finding detailed and varied ways to please God and people.
God designed for children to come out of the love of God and spouse. A marriage to God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost and to each other produced the Palmer siblings, one of whom is named Keke. African American Keke Palmer, who starred in the movie Akeelah and the Bee, says that her parents introduced her to God and helped her to form a good relationship with God that extended to loving herself and other people.
Pampering ourselves, our marriage, family and friendships with time and attention need not be about spoiling people but rather serving everyone to be their best and to live their best possible life.
Spending little time and attention on our relationships guarantees disconnection and if not corrected often leads to dissolution.
2) Cultivate confidence in Christ in all areas of life. Emotional and other types of instability and insecurity are areas where our understanding and belief in God are weak. Sometimes we may feel, "I'm not loveable;" "I'm unworthy;" and other soul destroying ways. Our feelings are often a product of our self-talk or in response to the way someone is treating us.
God loves us and forgives us of all our sins and all the sins of others. No Biblical reason exists not to love ourselves and other people. When we feel unlovable, unworthy or some other unappreciative way, it's because of sin. Talk to God about it. Get it straightened out. Problems don't go away on their own. They have to be dealt with.
If we are not receiving the love of God, then where love hasn't reached, it cannot be given out. We are designed by God to give out love in overflowing abundance. Jesus Christ says in John 13:34-35 the Message Bible, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
God wants us to be clear about loving Him, ourselves and others. Ephesians 5:17 Amplified Bible says, "Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is." Vague people do not live in victory. They are not using time effectively. "El vago trabaja doble." ("The vague works double.")
The vague are susceptible to soaking in the beliefs and attitudes of others instead of being wielded by God to sway others with the love and goodness of God. The vague are nothing like Viktor Frankl. Adolph Hitler's Gestapo arrested this 26-year-old Jewish psychiatrist in Vienna, Austria, and forced him into a concentration camp. Month in and month out without the end in sight, Frankly worked under the huge smokestacks that belched out black carbon monoxide from the incinerators where his father, mother, sister and wife had been cremated. Each day Frankl hoped for a few slivers of carrots or peas in the daily bowl of soup. Nevertheless, the extreme Eastern European cold couldn't stop Frankl from getting up an hour earlier than usual to wrap his feet and legs in scrap burlap and wire to protect them from frostbite. When Frankl was called for inquisition, he stood naked in the center of a white light while men in shiny boots hour after hour assailed him with questions and accusations trying to break him down with every accusing lie they could think of. Already they had taken his wife, his family, his writing, his clothes, his wedding ring and everything else of material value. But in the midst of this barrage of questions, God flashed an idea across Frankl's mind: "They have taken from me everything I have--except the power to choose my own attitude."
As believers not even the Gestapo should be able to persuade us to adopt evil attitudes because we have a powerful resource living on the inside. 1 John 4:4 Amplified Bible says, "Little children, you are of God [you belong to Him] and have [already] defeated and overcome them [the agents of the antichrist], because He Who lives in you is greater (mightier) than he who is in the world."
3) Refuse to be a slave to impulses. Conduct a careful, orderly, thoughtful way of life that examines impulses against the teachings in the Bible and chooses that which is in line with the Word.
Leaning on God is not passivity. God conquered the chaos and created the Garden of Eden. Believers are conquerors like God. We make small choices all throughout the day, day after day, that will eventually produce positive, purposeful plants of truth and other things that are good or weeds of wickedness. Few infidelities start one day out of the blue. Most infidelities are the creeping vines of complacency that overgrew a previously cultivated garden of love.
Some experience infidelity as anticipation and exhilaration from the secrecy, the forbidden sex, the idea that someone really gets us and is willing and eager to fulfill our fantasies. Meanwhile all the potency of sexuality and other sensuality was available in the marriage if we had aggressively and consistently cultivated the time and attention necessary to have a strong, sublime marriage. To know someone and to be known by someone deeply is a spiritual, mental and physical endeavor that does not happen by accident and without a great deal of prayer and practice. When we say, "I do," it doesn't mean, "I'm done working on making sure our relationship stays well watered and wonderful."
Some of the simplest things start great relationships and help them to keep going well. George Foreman, a Christian minister, husband, father of 10 children, African American, entrepreneur and championship boxer, says, in his sermon "The Power of a Smile," "All of us can get up out of that bed every day and make this world a better place by just smiling . . . . We all can be nice."
Mary Landis and Judson Landis write in their book Building a Successful Marriage, "The most important characteristic of a marriageable person is the habit of happiness." Researchers from the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project recently released the latest “State of Our Unions” report. The December 11, 2012, issue of The New York Times Magazine says the National Marriage Project examined the role of generosity in the marriages of 2,870 men and women, and "Generosity was defined as “the virtue of giving good things to one’s spouse freely and abundantly” — like simply making them coffee in the morning — and researchers quizzed men and women on how often they behaved generously toward their partners. How often did they express affection? How willing were they to forgive? The responses went right to the core of their unions. Men and women with the highest scores on the generosity scale were far more likely to report that they were “very happy” in their marriages. The benefits of generosity were particularly pronounced among couples with children. Among the parents who posted above-average scores for marital generosity, about 50 percent reported being “very happy” together. Among those with lower generosity scores, only about 14 percent claimed to be “very happy."
Marriage can be happy and absorbing if we cultivate our garden of love. Absorbing love, unswerving loyalty need not be complex. Sharing and connecting can be simple. Meet after work and walk and talk a couple of miles in the shopping areas followed by more conversation over a meal. Some couples run or exercise together. Some couples study the Bible together. Talk and find some ways that are enjoyable for both spouses to fellowship frequently that is fun and fosters faithfulness.
Mastering the impulse to do nothing in a relationship makes us irresistible; trying shows caring.
4) Increasingly become immovable in Christ. Stubborn can be bad or good. Being immovable in Christ is not bad stubbornness but a committed, continual surrendering of sins like selfishness and ungodly fear to change what needs to be changed. Our consistent change into Christ-likeness is irresistible. If we are cooperating with God, the person we were when we first met God, will evolve into someone more like Christ.
While we will not be perfect in this earthly life, we can be thankful for where we have come from, were we are at and where we are going. Thanksgiving is irresistible. It's wonderful to be wanted and willing to improve. Contentment is not static.
5) Think, talk and act in compassionate truth. Living in the truth requires courage. A survey found that 80 percent of Americans believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong. Yet another study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that about 85 percent of women and 91 percent of men have engaged in premarital sex.
Often when we contradict our value system, the body reacts with actual physical and/or emotional pain. Some get headaches, others nausea, some a bad stomach. Some succumb to various addictions. Some experience the slipping away of self-esteem. Some experience some other type of harm.
Our bodies are interconnected. When we do good and when we sin, it affects spirit, intellect, emotions and physical body.
We are also interconnected with other people. "Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres." (Tell me with whom you associate, and I'll tell you who you are.")
Unified belief and behavior is irresistible. Many hate hypocrisy. Also not many admire marriages that last fewer than 12 months, but many do admire long-term unions like the nearly 30 year marriage of Hollywood celebrities and Christians Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
6) Stop allowing negative stuff to stick to you. All our sins have been forgiven. God wiped the slate clean, so we can wipe it clean too. Colossians 2:13-15 New Living Translation Bible says, "You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross."
To meditate on what's wrong with you or bad circumstances is foolish nonsense that will fail to endear us to others. Constant complaining is irritating and enables the decline and even destruction of relationships. Proverbs 17:9 Amplified Bible says, " He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love, but he who repeats or harps on a matter separates even close friends."
When bad things happen cooperate with God to get over them quickly and to learn how not to go there again!
Unflappable is irresistible. Living in self-pity and/or getting stuck in situations God had empowered you to get out off sucks the life out of relationships.
7) Celebrate special events symbolizing love while recognizing they are not the substance of love. Weddings are wonderful, but the real wonder is a long-term, loving marriage. When scanning magazines available at mainstream news stands, magazines dedicated to weddings far outweigh those dedicated to marriage. Our culture often does not conform to Christ.
Also God made each person unique. Why do we tend to try to make everyone the same? Red and black are among my favorite colors. I remember sharing that I would consider a wedding dress in these colors. That really set off some peoples alarms!
Maybe I should have been born Chinese? Red (hong) is the color of fire. Red symbolizes success, happiness and good luck. Red is the color of celebration at birthdays and weddings. Black (hei) is the color of water. It symbolized heaven.
Celebrate the symbols while concentrating on the substance. Many of us want to be married, but studies show many are not willing to carefully select marriage partners, do the work to be an ideal partner and continuously nurture and grow our marriages. Approximately 75 percent of us marry once. Twenty percent marry twice, and five percent will marry three or more times. Also many people do not wait at least three years after their divorce to heal from the dissolution of their marriage before entering another relationship in a state of brokenness.
Keep hope alive. Just because we have never been married or divorced once, twice or more times does not mean that God doesn't have a good marriage in mind for us. Nelson Mandela married his sweetheart and third wife, Graca Machel, on his 80th birthday.
A lot goes into a marriage. One thing that seems to vanish over time is compliments. Sincere, specific compliments shared throughout the day are irresistible. Tell your wife that you delight in the moles sprinkled on her cheeks, neck and breasts; the peaks and valleys of her curves; the marvelous way she fends off sibling rivalry; the superior way she keeps money from seeping out of the household budget; or whatever things are special and specific to your spouse. The more you appreciate her uniqueness, the more aroused she gets; the more she shares sublime sex with you. Husbands love compliments too that appreciate their qualities of character and accomplishment. Many men are plagued by insecurities. The biggest erogenous zone is the mind.
When we aren't saying things that build up our spouse, we are tearing down our marriage. Few people want to have sex with a spouse who does not woo them with wonderful words and ways. A sexless marriage is often a loveless marriage outside the bedroom.
8) Be open-minded to novel ways of living the truth. God desires us to be easily pliable to His touch changing whatever needs to be changed or even eliminated. This means that we may be trying a lot of things before we find the right fit. Continual self-improvement is irresistible.
Christian and Chinese American Cookie Lee was disappointed that her mom's 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. employment caused her to miss a lot of events in Lee's childhood. Lee wanted to be in the workforce and still have plentiful time together as a family. So for seven years before she had children she turned a hobby into a one-woman, part-time jewelry-making business while working a full-time job. After seven years she was making enough in her business to quit her daytime job. To have a family that she could spend plenty of time with while growing her business, she hired sales consultants to start their own businesses under her's.
Some good, Bible-study questions to ask are: "How does this relate to my reality?" "Are my beliefs really in agreement with the Bible?"
Lee did a lot of prayer, research and asking questions to make her dream of being there for her family a lot work out while prospering in her jewelry-making business.
Some are against women in jobs, businesses and/or ministries and try to put guilt trips on women so engaged. However, in the Bible Priscilla was a tent maker and had a church in her home with her husband, Aquila. Lydia was a business woman selling fabrics dyed in purple. Rachel was a shepherdess. Deborah was a prophetess and judge. Esther was a queen.
God placed some novel things in you that He designed to be developed for the good and enjoyment of yourself and others. God is for pleasure. David says about God is Psalm 16:11 Amplified Bible, "You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore."
The novel inspires people to pursue us. John, the husband of Cookie Lee, pursued her by joining her business creating more time together and more money.
9) Excel in helping and pleasing people within Biblical boundaries. Those who do the minimum hurt people. Believers are extravagant lovers.
An African chief invited the men of his tribe to a feast. The chief provided all the food and asked that the men of the tribe bring a jug of wine. One man of the tribe named Ali wanted to go, but he didn't have wine. His wife suggested that he buy the wine noting that it wasn't expensive. Ali responded, "How foolish to spend money when there is a way to go free! It won't hurt to add one jug of water to the pot of wine." When the day of the feast arrived Ali and the other men of the tribe poured his jug into a large pot. After all the guests arrived the chief commanded the servants to fill everyone's glass. Suddenly a cry arose from the crowd lamenting the taste of water instead of wine. Not only Ali but others too had decided to do the minimum by bringing water instead of wine.
Becoming absorbed in a clean, creatively decorated house and abandoning cuddling and creative entertainment with our spouse is a way some wives do the minimum. Some husbands do the minimum by thinking, talking and acting out the attitude, "My job is number one in my life."
10) Live more for we than me. We want others to make sacrifices that show they want us.
In the Bollywood film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Imran is a character who found out a year ago the father who raised him is not his biological father. As a part of a bachelor, road trip with two friends through Spain, Imran decides to visit his biological father. While smoking a cigarette his biological father, Salman, explains that he abandoned Imran and his mother before Imran's birth because at age 25 he did not want the responsibility of fatherhood; his soul was and still is only fed by his art and world traveling. Salman thinks that me is better than we, but even he has to cover up his pain through a nicotine addiction. God didn't create us for selfishness. He created us to serve.
Irresistible people find ways to weave together responsibilities and dreams.
Greek Australian Christine Caine was active in Christian singles ministry. Many told her that marriage and kids would slow her down. However, she and her husband, Nick and daughters, Sophia and Catherine, travel the globe sharing Jesus Christ with others and have ministries, like Equip and Empower, that help others plant churches and fight human trafficking among other things. The devil is a liar: marriage and family are fun and fulfilling, not boring and/or oppresive.
Sometimes people embrace the lies of the devil due to ignorance and inconsideration. John Tillotson, a Christian leader of the 1600s, said, “Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.” Avoid ignorance and inconsideration by cooperating with God to learn how to solve problems by incorporating people with passion, and then doing it.
Sonya Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, told Jane E. Brody for the artice "That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work" in the New York Times newspaper on January 14, 2013, that she encourages each marriage partner to ask himself or herself each morning, “What can I do for five minutes today to make my partner’s life better?”
Making we more important than me nurtures marital love and sex. Enjoy marital sex; it's holy and righteous! We is designed to be wonderfully irresistible. It's spiritual and logical that a popular sexual position is called the "missionary." If you are married, try a twist on the missionary where the husband kneels and straddles his wife's leg while she’s lying on her left side. From here, she should bend her right leg around the right side of his waist—allowing full access to her vagina, her clitoris, her other body parts and the possibility of one or more orgasms.
In what ways are you irresistible? Please leave an irresistible on-line comment at the bottom of this article.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Fearless Sex
God designed spousal lovemaking to be un-self-conscious, unintimidated, fun and an essential part of forming a strong marital bond. Yet fearful sex is a big problem today among Christians and non-Christians despite the counsel of 2 Timothy 1:7 Amplified Bible: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control."
In Song of Solomon neither Solomon nor his Shulammite wife express a fear of marital lovemaking. They do not express a fear of dry vaginas, limp penises, premature ejaculation, the possibility of a bad or disappointing sexual experience, body inadequacy, looking bad, comparisons to other sexual experiences or new sexual experiences. Solomon's and his wife's conversation about fruit and gardens is abrir la puerta (opening the door) to the idea that marital lovemaking is making delicious. They have stripped off all of the reproach of Egypt (slavery to sin) an upbringing that taught sex is nasty and shameful.
Martial sex is holy and righteous. Dr. Ken Leman writes in his book Sheet Music Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage, "If he's imagining what another woman (besides his wife) looks like naked, or how good she'd be in bed, then yes, he's polluting his mind. But if he's imagining how good it would feel to rub massage oil all over his wife later that night while on his way to giving her a body-to-body massage, he's being as pure as an inner-city mission worker serving a bowl of soup to the homeless. Who is the giver of all good gifts? God. Sex is a gift from God and a commandment from God. When God tells us to be "fruitful and multiply," he's not talking about apples and cloning. He's talking about having sexual intercourse and giving birth to babies."
Fear focuses us in on our self and our limits instead of focusing on giving a joyful experience to our lover. Believers are givers. Instead of habitually saying and doing, "No, no, no" to new, adventurous, imaginative marital sex, why not habitually say and do, "Oui, oui, oui?"
Fear focuses in on a negative and irrational mindset. Being naked and close with someone is a very vulnerable position easily squashed by a lover who points out areas of our body where we need to lose weight or describes them in unflattering ways. Confidence is encouraged by a lover who expresses craving instead of cringing to taste, touch, look, smell and hear a favorable response to making delicious. Instead of worrying about the size of your behind for downward rear entry why not think my husband is getting a glorious view of curves as he enters your vaginal portal to paradise? Many men prefer buttocks over breasts, and many women are not concerned with the size of their lover's penis. God made our bodies fearfully and wonderfully. Think of sex sweat as the dew of love and arousal scents as the aroma of love. Neither Solomon nor his wife criticize their own body or their spouse's body. Solomon says to his wife in Song of Solomon 4:7 New Living Translation Bible, "You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way." The wife says to Solomon in Song of Solomon 1:16 New Living Translation Bible, "You are so handsome, my love, pleasing beyond words! . . ." What words could you use to specifically describe your spouse's spectacular body?
Fast sex can be hot, but sometimes it's fear and a lack of self-control. Slowing down and savoring the experience is often better particularly for wives. No sense of rushing exists in Song of Solomon. These lovers seem to have all the time in the world to please each other.
Spouses, enjoy the whole experience of lovemaking in its many varieties of expression. No matter how much friction an orgasm doesn't always result from marital making delicious, and this can be wonderful too. Sex is more than an orgasm. Solomon says to his wife in Song of Solomon 4:11 New Living Translation Bible, "Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. . ." His wife says in Song of Solomon 2:3 New Living Translation Bible, "Like the finest apple tree in the orchard is my lover among other young men. I sit in his delightful shade and taste his delicious fruit."
If you are having partner sex and not married, being afraid is logical because you are sharing the most intimate part of you with someone who isn't committed to you. Singles, celebrate your body with God your Ishi (Husband). Gospel group Trinitee sings in their song "My Body," about sex outside of marriage, "I want to please my God . . . My body is the Lord's temple . . . What part of no don't you understand?"
Please share an on-line comment about making marital delicious and/or celebrating single sexuality.
In Song of Solomon neither Solomon nor his Shulammite wife express a fear of marital lovemaking. They do not express a fear of dry vaginas, limp penises, premature ejaculation, the possibility of a bad or disappointing sexual experience, body inadequacy, looking bad, comparisons to other sexual experiences or new sexual experiences. Solomon's and his wife's conversation about fruit and gardens is abrir la puerta (opening the door) to the idea that marital lovemaking is making delicious. They have stripped off all of the reproach of Egypt (slavery to sin) an upbringing that taught sex is nasty and shameful.
Martial sex is holy and righteous. Dr. Ken Leman writes in his book Sheet Music Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage, "If he's imagining what another woman (besides his wife) looks like naked, or how good she'd be in bed, then yes, he's polluting his mind. But if he's imagining how good it would feel to rub massage oil all over his wife later that night while on his way to giving her a body-to-body massage, he's being as pure as an inner-city mission worker serving a bowl of soup to the homeless. Who is the giver of all good gifts? God. Sex is a gift from God and a commandment from God. When God tells us to be "fruitful and multiply," he's not talking about apples and cloning. He's talking about having sexual intercourse and giving birth to babies."
Fear focuses us in on our self and our limits instead of focusing on giving a joyful experience to our lover. Believers are givers. Instead of habitually saying and doing, "No, no, no" to new, adventurous, imaginative marital sex, why not habitually say and do, "Oui, oui, oui?"
Fear focuses in on a negative and irrational mindset. Being naked and close with someone is a very vulnerable position easily squashed by a lover who points out areas of our body where we need to lose weight or describes them in unflattering ways. Confidence is encouraged by a lover who expresses craving instead of cringing to taste, touch, look, smell and hear a favorable response to making delicious. Instead of worrying about the size of your behind for downward rear entry why not think my husband is getting a glorious view of curves as he enters your vaginal portal to paradise? Many men prefer buttocks over breasts, and many women are not concerned with the size of their lover's penis. God made our bodies fearfully and wonderfully. Think of sex sweat as the dew of love and arousal scents as the aroma of love. Neither Solomon nor his wife criticize their own body or their spouse's body. Solomon says to his wife in Song of Solomon 4:7 New Living Translation Bible, "You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way." The wife says to Solomon in Song of Solomon 1:16 New Living Translation Bible, "You are so handsome, my love, pleasing beyond words! . . ." What words could you use to specifically describe your spouse's spectacular body?
Fast sex can be hot, but sometimes it's fear and a lack of self-control. Slowing down and savoring the experience is often better particularly for wives. No sense of rushing exists in Song of Solomon. These lovers seem to have all the time in the world to please each other.
Spouses, enjoy the whole experience of lovemaking in its many varieties of expression. No matter how much friction an orgasm doesn't always result from marital making delicious, and this can be wonderful too. Sex is more than an orgasm. Solomon says to his wife in Song of Solomon 4:11 New Living Translation Bible, "Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. . ." His wife says in Song of Solomon 2:3 New Living Translation Bible, "Like the finest apple tree in the orchard is my lover among other young men. I sit in his delightful shade and taste his delicious fruit."
If you are having partner sex and not married, being afraid is logical because you are sharing the most intimate part of you with someone who isn't committed to you. Singles, celebrate your body with God your Ishi (Husband). Gospel group Trinitee sings in their song "My Body," about sex outside of marriage, "I want to please my God . . . My body is the Lord's temple . . . What part of no don't you understand?"
Please share an on-line comment about making marital delicious and/or celebrating single sexuality.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
How to Stop Spinning Out of Control
Sometimes we are in relationships with believers and certain interactions repeatedly spin out of control. Neither one of us wanted to end up in sins of anger, envy, selfishness, etc., but we seem to repeatedly move there. Often these interactions condition us to have a mindset of fear regarding how we will behave in certain circumstances. Fearing the worst behavior or something less than the best behavior is not believing the best. God calls us to the best. 1 Corinthians 13:7 Amplified Bible says, "Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]."
As believers, "Esperamos." Our hope and confidence is not in someone's ability to change to good behavior, but in God's ability to change someone. As long as our hope and confidence is in people we will be prone to expect failure, and we will try to flee and/or fight as a means of protecting ourselves from sin. Placing our confidence in God and walking in love is not operating with unrealistic thoughts about human behavior. Rather love sees and understands the truth about ourselves and others and turns us over to God for the ability to do good in increasing likeness of God.
Examine ourselves. Ask questions like, "What behavior am I afraid he/she will do?;" "Why do I respond in fear?" Then ask God to set us free from the fearful thought pattern that is motivating us to respond in an unloving way. Ungodly fear entangles us in more sin because wisdom declines and low expectations increase.
God has already placed Himself in believers giving us self-control to master the fear and to respond in love.
When we are walking in self-control we are in God's will. We don't have a perfect body yet, so we will not walk in perfect self-control. A Japanese proverb says, "Fall down seven times, get up eight times."
God is already aware of and taken care of all the sins we ever did, are doing and will do. When we are imperfect, but chasing God, God is willing to make the changes we ask Him. 1 John 3:22-23 Amplified Bible says, "And we receive from Him whatever we ask, because we [watchfully] obey His orders [observe His suggestions and injunctions, follow His plan for us] and [habitually] practice what is pleasing to Him. And this is His order (His command, His injunction): that we should believe in (put our faith and trust in and adhere to and rely on) the name of His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah), and that we should love one another, just as He has commanded us."
Contact Michele Jackson and Rafael Fowler at email address michefrancesjackson@gmail.com to join our live relationship group to conquer fear and to live in love and self control among other things. God created us and preserves our life from fertilization through birth, youth, old age and beyond death for people who are African, European, Asian, Hispanic, male, female, working all different kinds of assignments at all different kinds of hours and with different minds and abilities and with multiple mixtures of these characteristics. God created us to have a good relationship with Him and to be in relationships with people who are just right for us.
As believers, "Esperamos." Our hope and confidence is not in someone's ability to change to good behavior, but in God's ability to change someone. As long as our hope and confidence is in people we will be prone to expect failure, and we will try to flee and/or fight as a means of protecting ourselves from sin. Placing our confidence in God and walking in love is not operating with unrealistic thoughts about human behavior. Rather love sees and understands the truth about ourselves and others and turns us over to God for the ability to do good in increasing likeness of God.
Examine ourselves. Ask questions like, "What behavior am I afraid he/she will do?;" "Why do I respond in fear?" Then ask God to set us free from the fearful thought pattern that is motivating us to respond in an unloving way. Ungodly fear entangles us in more sin because wisdom declines and low expectations increase.
God has already placed Himself in believers giving us self-control to master the fear and to respond in love.
When we are walking in self-control we are in God's will. We don't have a perfect body yet, so we will not walk in perfect self-control. A Japanese proverb says, "Fall down seven times, get up eight times."
God is already aware of and taken care of all the sins we ever did, are doing and will do. When we are imperfect, but chasing God, God is willing to make the changes we ask Him. 1 John 3:22-23 Amplified Bible says, "And we receive from Him whatever we ask, because we [watchfully] obey His orders [observe His suggestions and injunctions, follow His plan for us] and [habitually] practice what is pleasing to Him. And this is His order (His command, His injunction): that we should believe in (put our faith and trust in and adhere to and rely on) the name of His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah), and that we should love one another, just as He has commanded us."
Contact Michele Jackson and Rafael Fowler at email address michefrancesjackson@gmail.com to join our live relationship group to conquer fear and to live in love and self control among other things. God created us and preserves our life from fertilization through birth, youth, old age and beyond death for people who are African, European, Asian, Hispanic, male, female, working all different kinds of assignments at all different kinds of hours and with different minds and abilities and with multiple mixtures of these characteristics. God created us to have a good relationship with Him and to be in relationships with people who are just right for us.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
10 Keys to Being Irresistible
God is irresistible. Are you? Check yourself against the following 10 irresistible qualities plucked from the Bible book of Colossians where the Apostle Paul pours out praise for God the Son Jesus Christ and encourages us to lean our entire personality on Him.
1) Be a people magnet. It doesn't matter if we are an introvert or an extrovert. Irresistible people connect with other people cultivating the God in believers and introducing Him to others.
We usually first learn to be people magnets by being parented by people magnets. Mother Theresa said, "Try to put in the hearts of your children a love for home. Make them long to be with their families. So much sin could be avoided if our people really loved their homes."
Love is not natural. Christ in us gives us the strength to make the choices to love hour by hour and day by day. He teaches us to cultivate an inner life focused on finding detailed and varied ways to please God and people.
God designed for children to come out of the love of God and spouse. A marriage to God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost and to each other produced the Palmer siblings, one of whom is named Keke. African American Keke Palmer, who starred in the movie Akeelah and the Bee, says that her parents introduced her to God and helped her to form a good relationship with God that extended to loving herself and other people.
Pampering ourselves, our marriage, family and friendships with time and attention need not be about spoiling people but rather helping everyone to be their best and to live their best possible life.
Spending little time and attention on our relationships guarantees disconnection and if not corrected often leads to dissolution.
2) Cultivate confidence in Christ in all areas of life. Emotional and other types of instability and insecurity are areas where our understanding and belief in God are weak. Sometimes we may feel, "I'm not loveable;" "I'm unworthy;" and other soul destroying ways. Our feelings are often a product of our self-talk or in response to the way someone is treating us.
God loves us and forgives us of all our sins and all the sins of others. No Biblical reason exists not to love ourselves and other people. When we feel unlovable, unworthy or some other unappreciative way, it's because of sin. Talk to God about it. Get it straightened out. Problems don't go away on their own. They have to be dealt with.
If we are not receiving the love of God, then where love hasn't reached, it cannot be given out. We are designed by God to give out love in overflowing abundance. Jesus Christ says in John 13:34-35 the Message Bible, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
3) Refuse to be a slave to impulses. Conduct a careful, orderly, thoughtful way of life that examines impulses against the teachings in the Bible and chooses that which is in line with the Word.
Leaning on God is not passivity. God conquered the chaos and created the Garden of Eden. Believers are conquerors like God. We make small choices all throughout the day, day after day, that will eventually produce positive, purposeful plants of truth and other things that are good or weeds of wickedness. Few infidelities start one day out of the blue. Most infidelities are the creeping vines of complacency that overgrew a previously cultivated garden of love.
Some experience infidelity as anticipation and exhilaration from the secrecy, the forbidden sex, the idea that someone really gets us and is willing and eager to fulfill our fantasies. Meanwhile all the potency of sexuality and other sensuality was available in the marriage if we had aggressively and consistently cultivated the time and attention necessary to have a strong, sublime marriage. To know someone and to be known by someone deeply is a spiritual, mental and physical endeavor that does not happen by accident and without a great deal of prayer and practice. When we say, "I do," it doesn't mean, "I'm done working on making sure our relationship stays well watered and wonderful."
George Foreman, a Christian minister, husband, father of 10 children, African American, entrepreneur and championship boxer, says, in his sermon The Power of a Smile, "All of us can get up out of that bed every day and make this world a better place by just smiling . . . . We all can be nice."
Marriage can be absorbing if we cultivate our garden of love. Absorbing love, unswerving loyalty need not be complex. Sharing and connecting can be simple. Meet after work and walk and talk a couple of miles in the shopping areas followed by more conversation over a meal. Some couples run or exercise together. Some couples study the Bible together. Talk and find some ways that are enjoyable for both spouses to fellowship frequently that is fun and fosters faithfulness.
Mastering the impulse to do nothing in a relationship makes us irresistible; trying shows caring.
4) Increasingly become immovable in Christ. Being immovable in Christ is not stubbornness but a committed, continual surrendering of sins like selfishness. Our consistent change into Christ-likeness is irresistible. If we are cooperating with God, the person we were when we first met God, will evolve into someone more like Christ.
While we will not be perfect in this earthly life, we can be thankful for where we have come from, were we are at and where we are going. Thanksgiving is irresistible. It's wonderful to be wanted and willing to improve. Contentment is not static.
5) Think, talk and act in compassionate truth. Living in the truth requires courage. A survey found that 80 percent of Americans believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong. Yet another study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that about 85 percent of women and 91 percent of men have engaged in premarital sex. Peggy Vaughan estimates in her book The Monogamy Myth that nearly 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women have engaged in sex outside of their marriage.
Often when we contradict our value system, the body reacts with actual physical and/or emotional pain. Some get headaches, others nausea, some a bad stomach. Some succumb to various addictions. Some experience the slipping away of self-esteem. Some experience some other type of harm.
Our bodies are interconnected. When we do good and when we sin, it affects spirit, intellect, emotions and physical body.
Unified belief and behavior is irresistible. Not many admire marriages that last fewer than 12 months, but many do admire long-term unions like the nearly 30 year marriage of Hollywood celebrities and Christians Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
6) Stop allowing negative stuff to stick to you. All our sins have been forgiven. God wiped the slate clean, so we can wipe it clean too. Colossians 2:13-15 New Living Translation Bible says, "You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross."
To meditate on what's wrong with you or bad circumstances is foolish nonsense that will fail to endear us to others. Constant complaining is irritating.
When bad things happen cooperate with God to get over them quickly and to learn how not to go there again!
Unflappable is irresistible. Living in self-pity sucks the life out of relationships.
7) Celebrate special events symbolizing love while recognizing they are not the substance of love. Weddings are wonderful, but the real wonder is a long-term, loving marriage. When scanning magazines available at mainstream news stands, magazines dedicated to weddings far outweigh those dedicated to marriage. Our culture often does not conform to Christ.
Celebrate the symbols while concentrating on the substance. Many of us want to be married, but studies show many are not willing to carefully select marriage partners, do the work to be an ideal partner and continuously nurture and grow our marriages. Approximately 75 percent of us marry once. Twenty percent marry twice, and five percent will marry three or more times.
Keep hope alive. Just because we have never been married or divorced once, twice or more times does not mean that God doesn't have a good marriage in mind for us. Nelson Mandela married his sweetheart and third wife, Graca Machel, on his 80th birthday.
A lot goes into a marriage. One thing that seems to vanish over time is compliments. Sincere, specific compliments shared throughout the day are irresistible. Tell your wife that you delight in the moles sprinkled on her neck and breast; the peaks and valleys of her curves; the marvelous way she fends off sibling rivalry; the superior way she keeps money from seeping out of the household budget; or whatever things are special and specific to your spouse. The more special you make her feel, the more aroused she gets; the more sex you want. Husbands love compliments too that appreciate their qualities of character and accomplishment.
When we aren't saying things that build up our spouse, we are tearing down our marriage. Few people want to have sex with a spouse who does not woo them with wonderful words and ways. A sexless marriage is often a loveless marriage.
8) Be open-minded to novel ways of living the truth. God desires us to be easily pliable to His touch changing whatever needs to be changed or even eliminated. This means that we may be trying a lot of things before we find the right fit. Continual self-improvement is irresistible.
Christian and Chinese American Cookie Lee was disappointed that her mom's 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. employment caused her to miss a lot of events in Lee's childhood. Lee wanted to be in the workforce and still have plentiful time together as a family. So for seven years before she had children she turned a hobby into a one-woman, part-time jewelry-making business while working a full-time job. After seven years she was making enough in her business to quit her daytime job. To have a family that she could spend plenty of time with while growing her business, she hired sales consultants to start their own businesses under her's.
Some good, Bible-study questions to ask are: "How does this relate to my reality?" "Are my beliefs really in agreement with the Bible?"
Lee did a lot of prayer, research and asking questions to make her dream of being there for her family a lot work out while prospering in her jewelry-making business.
Some are against women in jobs, businesses and/or ministries and try to put guilt trips on women so engaged. However, in the Bible Priscilla was a tent maker and had a church in her home with her husband, Aquila. Lydia was a business woman selling fabrics dyed in purple. Rachel was a shepherdess. Deborah was a prophetess and judge. Esther was a queen.
God placed some novel things in you that He designed to be developed.
The novel inspires people to pursue us. John, the husband of Cookie Lee, pursued her by joining her business creating more time together and more money.
9) Excel in helping and pleasing people within Biblical boundaries. Those who do the minimum hurt people.
An African chief invited the men of his tribe to a feast. The chief provided all the food and asked that the men of the tribe bring a jug of wine. One man of the tribe named Ali wanted to go, but he didn't have wine. His wife suggested that he buy the wine noting that it wasn't expensive. Ali responded, "How foolish to spend money when there is a way to go free! It won't hurt to add one jug of water to the pot of wine." When the day of the feast arrived Ali and the other men of the tribe poured his jug into a large pot. After all the guests arrived the chief commanded the servants to fill everyone's glass. Suddenly a cry arose from the crowd lamenting the taste of water instead of wine. Not only Ali but others had decided to do the minimum by bringing water instead of wine.
Becoming absorbed in a clean, creatively decorated house and abandoning cuddling and creative entertainment with our spouse is a way some wives do the minimum. Some husbands do the minimum by thinking, talking and acting out the attitude, "My job is number one in my life."
10) Live more for we than me. We want others to make sacrifices that show they want us.
In the Bollywood film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Imran is a character who found out a year ago the father who raised him is not his biological father. As a part of a bachelor, road trip with two friends through Spain, Imran decides to visit his biological father. While smoking a cigarette his biological father, Salman, explains that he abandoned Imran and his mother before Imran's birth because at age 25 he did not want the responsibility of fatherhood; his soul was and still is only fed by his art and world traveling. Salman thinks that me is better than we, but even he has to cover up his pain through a nicotine addiction.
Irresistible people find ways to weave together responsibilities and dreams.
Greek Australian Christine Caine was active in Christian singles ministry. Many told her that marriage and kids would slow her down. However, she and her husband, Nick and daughters, Sophia and Catherine, travel the globe sharing Jesus Christ with others and have ministries, like Equip and Empower, that help others plant churches and fight human trafficking among other things.
John Tillotson, a Christian leader of the 1600s, said, “Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.” Avoid ignorance and inconsideration by learning how to solve problems by incorporating people with passion, and then doing it.
Making we more important than me nurtures marital love and sex. Enjoy marital sex. We is designed to be wonderfully irresistible. It's spiritual and logical that a popular sexual position is called the "missionary." If you are married, try a twist on the missionary where the husband kneels and straddles his wife's leg while she’s lying on her left side. From here, she should bend her right leg around the right side of his waist—allowing full access to her vagina, her clitoris and her other body parts.
In what ways are you irresistible? Please leave an irresistible on-line comment at the bottom of this article.
1) Be a people magnet. It doesn't matter if we are an introvert or an extrovert. Irresistible people connect with other people cultivating the God in believers and introducing Him to others.
We usually first learn to be people magnets by being parented by people magnets. Mother Theresa said, "Try to put in the hearts of your children a love for home. Make them long to be with their families. So much sin could be avoided if our people really loved their homes."
Love is not natural. Christ in us gives us the strength to make the choices to love hour by hour and day by day. He teaches us to cultivate an inner life focused on finding detailed and varied ways to please God and people.
God designed for children to come out of the love of God and spouse. A marriage to God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost and to each other produced the Palmer siblings, one of whom is named Keke. African American Keke Palmer, who starred in the movie Akeelah and the Bee, says that her parents introduced her to God and helped her to form a good relationship with God that extended to loving herself and other people.
Pampering ourselves, our marriage, family and friendships with time and attention need not be about spoiling people but rather helping everyone to be their best and to live their best possible life.
Spending little time and attention on our relationships guarantees disconnection and if not corrected often leads to dissolution.
2) Cultivate confidence in Christ in all areas of life. Emotional and other types of instability and insecurity are areas where our understanding and belief in God are weak. Sometimes we may feel, "I'm not loveable;" "I'm unworthy;" and other soul destroying ways. Our feelings are often a product of our self-talk or in response to the way someone is treating us.
God loves us and forgives us of all our sins and all the sins of others. No Biblical reason exists not to love ourselves and other people. When we feel unlovable, unworthy or some other unappreciative way, it's because of sin. Talk to God about it. Get it straightened out. Problems don't go away on their own. They have to be dealt with.
If we are not receiving the love of God, then where love hasn't reached, it cannot be given out. We are designed by God to give out love in overflowing abundance. Jesus Christ says in John 13:34-35 the Message Bible, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
3) Refuse to be a slave to impulses. Conduct a careful, orderly, thoughtful way of life that examines impulses against the teachings in the Bible and chooses that which is in line with the Word.
Leaning on God is not passivity. God conquered the chaos and created the Garden of Eden. Believers are conquerors like God. We make small choices all throughout the day, day after day, that will eventually produce positive, purposeful plants of truth and other things that are good or weeds of wickedness. Few infidelities start one day out of the blue. Most infidelities are the creeping vines of complacency that overgrew a previously cultivated garden of love.
Some experience infidelity as anticipation and exhilaration from the secrecy, the forbidden sex, the idea that someone really gets us and is willing and eager to fulfill our fantasies. Meanwhile all the potency of sexuality and other sensuality was available in the marriage if we had aggressively and consistently cultivated the time and attention necessary to have a strong, sublime marriage. To know someone and to be known by someone deeply is a spiritual, mental and physical endeavor that does not happen by accident and without a great deal of prayer and practice. When we say, "I do," it doesn't mean, "I'm done working on making sure our relationship stays well watered and wonderful."
George Foreman, a Christian minister, husband, father of 10 children, African American, entrepreneur and championship boxer, says, in his sermon The Power of a Smile, "All of us can get up out of that bed every day and make this world a better place by just smiling . . . . We all can be nice."
Marriage can be absorbing if we cultivate our garden of love. Absorbing love, unswerving loyalty need not be complex. Sharing and connecting can be simple. Meet after work and walk and talk a couple of miles in the shopping areas followed by more conversation over a meal. Some couples run or exercise together. Some couples study the Bible together. Talk and find some ways that are enjoyable for both spouses to fellowship frequently that is fun and fosters faithfulness.
Mastering the impulse to do nothing in a relationship makes us irresistible; trying shows caring.
4) Increasingly become immovable in Christ. Being immovable in Christ is not stubbornness but a committed, continual surrendering of sins like selfishness. Our consistent change into Christ-likeness is irresistible. If we are cooperating with God, the person we were when we first met God, will evolve into someone more like Christ.
While we will not be perfect in this earthly life, we can be thankful for where we have come from, were we are at and where we are going. Thanksgiving is irresistible. It's wonderful to be wanted and willing to improve. Contentment is not static.
5) Think, talk and act in compassionate truth. Living in the truth requires courage. A survey found that 80 percent of Americans believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong. Yet another study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that about 85 percent of women and 91 percent of men have engaged in premarital sex. Peggy Vaughan estimates in her book The Monogamy Myth that nearly 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women have engaged in sex outside of their marriage.
Often when we contradict our value system, the body reacts with actual physical and/or emotional pain. Some get headaches, others nausea, some a bad stomach. Some succumb to various addictions. Some experience the slipping away of self-esteem. Some experience some other type of harm.
Our bodies are interconnected. When we do good and when we sin, it affects spirit, intellect, emotions and physical body.
Unified belief and behavior is irresistible. Not many admire marriages that last fewer than 12 months, but many do admire long-term unions like the nearly 30 year marriage of Hollywood celebrities and Christians Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
6) Stop allowing negative stuff to stick to you. All our sins have been forgiven. God wiped the slate clean, so we can wipe it clean too. Colossians 2:13-15 New Living Translation Bible says, "You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross."
To meditate on what's wrong with you or bad circumstances is foolish nonsense that will fail to endear us to others. Constant complaining is irritating.
When bad things happen cooperate with God to get over them quickly and to learn how not to go there again!
Unflappable is irresistible. Living in self-pity sucks the life out of relationships.
7) Celebrate special events symbolizing love while recognizing they are not the substance of love. Weddings are wonderful, but the real wonder is a long-term, loving marriage. When scanning magazines available at mainstream news stands, magazines dedicated to weddings far outweigh those dedicated to marriage. Our culture often does not conform to Christ.
Celebrate the symbols while concentrating on the substance. Many of us want to be married, but studies show many are not willing to carefully select marriage partners, do the work to be an ideal partner and continuously nurture and grow our marriages. Approximately 75 percent of us marry once. Twenty percent marry twice, and five percent will marry three or more times.
Keep hope alive. Just because we have never been married or divorced once, twice or more times does not mean that God doesn't have a good marriage in mind for us. Nelson Mandela married his sweetheart and third wife, Graca Machel, on his 80th birthday.
A lot goes into a marriage. One thing that seems to vanish over time is compliments. Sincere, specific compliments shared throughout the day are irresistible. Tell your wife that you delight in the moles sprinkled on her neck and breast; the peaks and valleys of her curves; the marvelous way she fends off sibling rivalry; the superior way she keeps money from seeping out of the household budget; or whatever things are special and specific to your spouse. The more special you make her feel, the more aroused she gets; the more sex you want. Husbands love compliments too that appreciate their qualities of character and accomplishment.
When we aren't saying things that build up our spouse, we are tearing down our marriage. Few people want to have sex with a spouse who does not woo them with wonderful words and ways. A sexless marriage is often a loveless marriage.
8) Be open-minded to novel ways of living the truth. God desires us to be easily pliable to His touch changing whatever needs to be changed or even eliminated. This means that we may be trying a lot of things before we find the right fit. Continual self-improvement is irresistible.
Christian and Chinese American Cookie Lee was disappointed that her mom's 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. employment caused her to miss a lot of events in Lee's childhood. Lee wanted to be in the workforce and still have plentiful time together as a family. So for seven years before she had children she turned a hobby into a one-woman, part-time jewelry-making business while working a full-time job. After seven years she was making enough in her business to quit her daytime job. To have a family that she could spend plenty of time with while growing her business, she hired sales consultants to start their own businesses under her's.
Some good, Bible-study questions to ask are: "How does this relate to my reality?" "Are my beliefs really in agreement with the Bible?"
Lee did a lot of prayer, research and asking questions to make her dream of being there for her family a lot work out while prospering in her jewelry-making business.
Some are against women in jobs, businesses and/or ministries and try to put guilt trips on women so engaged. However, in the Bible Priscilla was a tent maker and had a church in her home with her husband, Aquila. Lydia was a business woman selling fabrics dyed in purple. Rachel was a shepherdess. Deborah was a prophetess and judge. Esther was a queen.
God placed some novel things in you that He designed to be developed.
The novel inspires people to pursue us. John, the husband of Cookie Lee, pursued her by joining her business creating more time together and more money.
9) Excel in helping and pleasing people within Biblical boundaries. Those who do the minimum hurt people.
An African chief invited the men of his tribe to a feast. The chief provided all the food and asked that the men of the tribe bring a jug of wine. One man of the tribe named Ali wanted to go, but he didn't have wine. His wife suggested that he buy the wine noting that it wasn't expensive. Ali responded, "How foolish to spend money when there is a way to go free! It won't hurt to add one jug of water to the pot of wine." When the day of the feast arrived Ali and the other men of the tribe poured his jug into a large pot. After all the guests arrived the chief commanded the servants to fill everyone's glass. Suddenly a cry arose from the crowd lamenting the taste of water instead of wine. Not only Ali but others had decided to do the minimum by bringing water instead of wine.
Becoming absorbed in a clean, creatively decorated house and abandoning cuddling and creative entertainment with our spouse is a way some wives do the minimum. Some husbands do the minimum by thinking, talking and acting out the attitude, "My job is number one in my life."
10) Live more for we than me. We want others to make sacrifices that show they want us.
In the Bollywood film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Imran is a character who found out a year ago the father who raised him is not his biological father. As a part of a bachelor, road trip with two friends through Spain, Imran decides to visit his biological father. While smoking a cigarette his biological father, Salman, explains that he abandoned Imran and his mother before Imran's birth because at age 25 he did not want the responsibility of fatherhood; his soul was and still is only fed by his art and world traveling. Salman thinks that me is better than we, but even he has to cover up his pain through a nicotine addiction.
Irresistible people find ways to weave together responsibilities and dreams.
Greek Australian Christine Caine was active in Christian singles ministry. Many told her that marriage and kids would slow her down. However, she and her husband, Nick and daughters, Sophia and Catherine, travel the globe sharing Jesus Christ with others and have ministries, like Equip and Empower, that help others plant churches and fight human trafficking among other things.
John Tillotson, a Christian leader of the 1600s, said, “Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind.” Avoid ignorance and inconsideration by learning how to solve problems by incorporating people with passion, and then doing it.
Making we more important than me nurtures marital love and sex. Enjoy marital sex. We is designed to be wonderfully irresistible. It's spiritual and logical that a popular sexual position is called the "missionary." If you are married, try a twist on the missionary where the husband kneels and straddles his wife's leg while she’s lying on her left side. From here, she should bend her right leg around the right side of his waist—allowing full access to her vagina, her clitoris and her other body parts.
In what ways are you irresistible? Please leave an irresistible on-line comment at the bottom of this article.
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