"Honduras" means "depth" and is also the name of a country in Central America. Jesus Christ went to great depths to preach publicly and to practice good deeds publicly. He also went to great depths to get away from the public regularly to talk with God privately and to spend private time with his apostolic family.
God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is intensely good. Satan is intensely evil. Satan seeks to split families in various ways. Jesus Chris says in Mark 3:25 Amplified Bible, "And if a house is divided (split into factions and rebelling) against itself, that house will not be able to last."
What are some lies Satan tells to motivate employers to demand too much time from employees? Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.
We need copious time with God, family and friends.
Ephesians 6:4 Amplified Bible says, "Fathers, do not irritate and provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to resentment], but rear them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the counsel and admonition of the Lord." If dad is rarely present in relationships, how can he train, discipline and counsel his children?
Satan working through the Iranian government put Pastor and US Citizen Saeed Abedini in jail for his Christian faith and works. Pastor Saeed would like to be present with his family and serving as a Biblical father. We can help him by praying and by doing deeds to pressure Iran to release Pastor Saeed Abedini from Evin prison in Tehran, Iran.
A Chinese proverb says, "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." Sign the petition and write a letter to Pastor Abedini at the website http://www.savesaeed.org.
Workplace flexibility, such as one-year or more of paid leave, and global freedom to parent properly are possible. Proverbs 4:23 Amplified Bible says, "Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life." Saint Augustine, a North African bishop, said, "What can be hoped for which is not believed?"
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Monday, June 17, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Going Beyond Our Expectations
Ephesians 5:1-2 Amplified Bible says, "Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]. And walk in love, [esteeming and delighting in one another] as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a slain offering and sacrifice to God [for you, so that it became] a sweet fragrance."
We serve the God of more than enough. Jesus Christ did not do the minimum to try to help people. God gave his life.
Creyentes (believers) will not always be called to physically die for someone else. We are all called to give our lives completely to God, so that He can show His love for people through us in all ways possible.
A Twi African proverb says, "Love is the greatest of all virtues."
Sometimes God may call us to show love at a level way higher than we expected. Jesus Christ and His apostles had been healing and helping people for a long while. Yet His apostles were offended when a woman poured expensive perfume on Him. Jesus Christ praised the woman because He is interested in healing and helping the poor and everyone else in magnanimous ways.
God wants us to be extremely good to strangers and especially to family. 1 Timothy 5:8 Amplified Bible says, "If anyone fails to provide for his relatives, and especially for those of his own family, he has disowned the faith [by failing to accompany it with fruits] and is worse than an unbeliever [who performs his obligation in these matters]."
God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is concerned with our whole person, spirit, mind, physical body and financial life from conception all the way through death and the next life. Creyentes are to imitate God.
The Chinese invented the mechanical clock. God isn't watching a clock to figure out when we will turn 18, so that he can stop being our Father.
What are some ways that you have had to help strangers and/or family that were beyond your expectations? Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30. Happy Father's Day!
We serve the God of more than enough. Jesus Christ did not do the minimum to try to help people. God gave his life.
Creyentes (believers) will not always be called to physically die for someone else. We are all called to give our lives completely to God, so that He can show His love for people through us in all ways possible.
A Twi African proverb says, "Love is the greatest of all virtues."
Sometimes God may call us to show love at a level way higher than we expected. Jesus Christ and His apostles had been healing and helping people for a long while. Yet His apostles were offended when a woman poured expensive perfume on Him. Jesus Christ praised the woman because He is interested in healing and helping the poor and everyone else in magnanimous ways.
God wants us to be extremely good to strangers and especially to family. 1 Timothy 5:8 Amplified Bible says, "If anyone fails to provide for his relatives, and especially for those of his own family, he has disowned the faith [by failing to accompany it with fruits] and is worse than an unbeliever [who performs his obligation in these matters]."
God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is concerned with our whole person, spirit, mind, physical body and financial life from conception all the way through death and the next life. Creyentes are to imitate God.
The Chinese invented the mechanical clock. God isn't watching a clock to figure out when we will turn 18, so that he can stop being our Father.
What are some ways that you have had to help strangers and/or family that were beyond your expectations? Write to:
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195
Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30. Happy Father's Day!
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Money and Friends
"In James 4:3, the Bible says we pray for blessings and don't get them because we've asked with evil, selfish motives. We want the blessing to be for ourselves exclusively. Instead, let's ask God to bless us so we can be a greater blessing. We might say, "God, bless me. Do something amazing in my finances. Get me to the point where I can buy somebody a car. Get me to the point, God, where if need be, I could rent an apartment for someone who doesn't have one and pay the rent for a year until she gets on her feet." Wouldn't that be wonderful? Or you might pray, "Help me, God, to be able to buy furniture for a family who doesn't have any. Help me be able to take them to a furniture store and just say, 'Here's your budget; pick out a house full of furniture.'" writes international, practical Bible teacher Joyce Meyer in her book Joy Redefined Loving Others.
God is not against people having pleasure. God desires that creyentes (believers) give and receive pleasure. George Washington Carver worked for Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute. They were both committed to helping people, especially African Americans. Washington died before Carver. Carver gave one year's salary to Booker T. Washington's memorial fund. Carver says about this generous gift, "It was a sacrifice in one way but a blessed privilege in another."
Unbelievers recognize the pleasure of giving. Meng was the prime minister of King Qin in ancient China. Meng sent his advisor Feng out to collect debts. Feng forgave all the loans of villagers saying he was doing it on orders from Meng. At first Meng was mad, but one year later Meng was merry for Meng had trouble on the job and had to return to his home village. People were glad to see him and welcomed him. Meng praised Feng.
Use money to make friends. Jesus Christ says in Luke 16:9 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960, "Y yo os digo: Ganad amigos por medio de las riquezas injustas, para que cuando estas falten, os reciban en las moradas eternas." "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home" (Bilingual Bible New King James Version.) Luke 16:9 New Living Translation Bible says, "Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home."
What are some compassionate, creative and committed ways you have used money to make friends?
God is not against people having pleasure. God desires that creyentes (believers) give and receive pleasure. George Washington Carver worked for Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute. They were both committed to helping people, especially African Americans. Washington died before Carver. Carver gave one year's salary to Booker T. Washington's memorial fund. Carver says about this generous gift, "It was a sacrifice in one way but a blessed privilege in another."
Unbelievers recognize the pleasure of giving. Meng was the prime minister of King Qin in ancient China. Meng sent his advisor Feng out to collect debts. Feng forgave all the loans of villagers saying he was doing it on orders from Meng. At first Meng was mad, but one year later Meng was merry for Meng had trouble on the job and had to return to his home village. People were glad to see him and welcomed him. Meng praised Feng.
Use money to make friends. Jesus Christ says in Luke 16:9 Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960, "Y yo os digo: Ganad amigos por medio de las riquezas injustas, para que cuando estas falten, os reciban en las moradas eternas." "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home" (Bilingual Bible New King James Version.) Luke 16:9 New Living Translation Bible says, "Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home."
What are some compassionate, creative and committed ways you have used money to make friends?
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Want More Confidants?
A good investment of time, talent and energy is to cultivate confidants. Paul and Timothy were confidants. Paul writes in Philippians 2:20-22 Amplified Bible, "For I have no one like him [no one of so kindred a spirit] who will be so genuinely interested in your welfare and devoted to your interests. For the others all seek [to advance] their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ (the Messiah). But Timothy’s tested worth you know, how as a son with his father he has toiled with me zealously in [serving and helping to advance] the good news (the Gospel)."
When selecting confidants, a good question to ask yourself is, "Who are they trying to pattern their life after?" Everybody is imitating others. According to an African saying, "A person is a person through other persons." Timothy and Paul were patterning their lives after God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost. Paul advised others to pattern their lives after him in the ways Paul was following God. The best you is the one who most reflects the God inside you on the outside.
Confidants who are imitating the same kind of people have a better chance of growing together instead of apart.
God says in Isaiah 49:16 Amplified Bible, "Behold, I have indelibly imprinted (tattooed a picture of) you on the palm of each of My hands; [O Zion] your walls are continually before Me." God loves believers and has their best interest at heart. Likewise Paul and Timothy love believers have have their best interest at heart.
When the love of God is present and being shared, confidants like Paul and Timothy enthusiastically do on-going, good deeds for each other and other people. Confidants with Christ living on the inside shouldn't have a reason to ask, "What have you done for me lately?"
The Chinese invented the fishing reel. As believers we want to be used by God to catch as many people as possible to bring them into a relationship with God. Not everyone caught can be our confidant. Confidentes son nuestros fieles amigos. (Confidants are our faithful friends.)
If you want more confidants or do not have confidants, ask God why and be willing to accept His answers and act on them according to His will and pleasure. A Kenya Bread for Tomorrow prayer says:
"Deliver Me
From the cowardice that dare not face new truths,
From the laziness that is contented with half truths,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Good Lord deliver me."
When selecting confidants, a good question to ask yourself is, "Who are they trying to pattern their life after?" Everybody is imitating others. According to an African saying, "A person is a person through other persons." Timothy and Paul were patterning their lives after God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost. Paul advised others to pattern their lives after him in the ways Paul was following God. The best you is the one who most reflects the God inside you on the outside.
Confidants who are imitating the same kind of people have a better chance of growing together instead of apart.
God says in Isaiah 49:16 Amplified Bible, "Behold, I have indelibly imprinted (tattooed a picture of) you on the palm of each of My hands; [O Zion] your walls are continually before Me." God loves believers and has their best interest at heart. Likewise Paul and Timothy love believers have have their best interest at heart.
When the love of God is present and being shared, confidants like Paul and Timothy enthusiastically do on-going, good deeds for each other and other people. Confidants with Christ living on the inside shouldn't have a reason to ask, "What have you done for me lately?"
The Chinese invented the fishing reel. As believers we want to be used by God to catch as many people as possible to bring them into a relationship with God. Not everyone caught can be our confidant. Confidentes son nuestros fieles amigos. (Confidants are our faithful friends.)
If you want more confidants or do not have confidants, ask God why and be willing to accept His answers and act on them according to His will and pleasure. A Kenya Bread for Tomorrow prayer says:
"Deliver Me
From the cowardice that dare not face new truths,
From the laziness that is contented with half truths,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Good Lord deliver me."
Monday, February 18, 2013
Touch Time
Genesis 1:23-24 New Living Translation Bible says, "“At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one."
Some limit lovemaking to sexual intercourse, but it's supposed to be so much more than that. Sexual relations include multiple skin-on-skin contacts. Touch is good, very good. Touch increases brain activity and heightens alertness. God designed our bodies with sensitive nerve endings that release feel good chemicals like endorphins and oxycotin.
A husband can get on top of his wife and have sexual intercourse with her while simultaneously kissing her feet. Prayer and practice are helpful in perfecting this sex position.
A February 15, 2013, The Times of India "Thai couple smooch to new Guinness World Record" article says, "Hospital security guard Ekkachai Tiranarat, 44, and 33-year-old housewife Laksana locked lips for 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds, smashing last year's Guinness World Record by more than eight hours."
We probably don't need to kiss for more than two days to put positive chemistry into our relationships.
Kissing is a type of lovemaking that is not limited to marriage. Kissing is for family, friends, associates and others. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 16:16 Amplified Bible, "Greet one another with a holy (consecrated) kiss. All the churches of Christ (the Messiah) wish to be remembered to you." He also says in 1 Corinthians 16:20 Amplified Bible, "All the brethren wish to be remembered to you and wish you well. Greet one another with a holy kiss."
Touch is a vital ingredient to good health spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and physically. World-Class Actor Denzel Washington, who has been married to Pauletta Washington more than 30 years, says, "Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life."
We need copious amounts of touch. Implementing a separate Federal holiday for former President Abraham Lincoln instead of one American Presidents' Day would give us more time to touch. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, encouraging border states to outlaw slavery, helped push through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which finally freed all the slaves nationwide in December 1865, led the United States through the American Civil War preserving the Union and battled periods of depression. Do we have a Federal, American holiday recognizing the accomplishments of people with mental illness?
Some limit lovemaking to sexual intercourse, but it's supposed to be so much more than that. Sexual relations include multiple skin-on-skin contacts. Touch is good, very good. Touch increases brain activity and heightens alertness. God designed our bodies with sensitive nerve endings that release feel good chemicals like endorphins and oxycotin.
A husband can get on top of his wife and have sexual intercourse with her while simultaneously kissing her feet. Prayer and practice are helpful in perfecting this sex position.
A February 15, 2013, The Times of India "Thai couple smooch to new Guinness World Record" article says, "Hospital security guard Ekkachai Tiranarat, 44, and 33-year-old housewife Laksana locked lips for 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds, smashing last year's Guinness World Record by more than eight hours."
We probably don't need to kiss for more than two days to put positive chemistry into our relationships.
Kissing is a type of lovemaking that is not limited to marriage. Kissing is for family, friends, associates and others. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 16:16 Amplified Bible, "Greet one another with a holy (consecrated) kiss. All the churches of Christ (the Messiah) wish to be remembered to you." He also says in 1 Corinthians 16:20 Amplified Bible, "All the brethren wish to be remembered to you and wish you well. Greet one another with a holy kiss."
Touch is a vital ingredient to good health spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and physically. World-Class Actor Denzel Washington, who has been married to Pauletta Washington more than 30 years, says, "Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life."
We need copious amounts of touch. Implementing a separate Federal holiday for former President Abraham Lincoln instead of one American Presidents' Day would give us more time to touch. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, encouraging border states to outlaw slavery, helped push through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which finally freed all the slaves nationwide in December 1865, led the United States through the American Civil War preserving the Union and battled periods of depression. Do we have a Federal, American holiday recognizing the accomplishments of people with mental illness?
Saturday, January 19, 2013
7 Ingredients for Intimate Relationships
Intimacy is hindered absent certain ingredients. Let's look at seven ingredients from Ephesians 5 for fun, fulfilling marriages, families and friendships.
Ingredient #1: Acceptance. Regardless of our imperfections the best marriages, families and friendships contain people who accept each other while encouraging each other to grow. Ephesians 5:1 Amplified Bible says, "Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]."
Sometimes we fail to accept people the way they are. A mother told a daughter with stubby fingers and little sense of rhythm, "I have such lovely, long fingers and play the piano like a virtuoso. Why don't you practice the piano more?"
Lynn Toler, author of Making Marriage Work New Rules For An Old Institution, writes, "Pretend you have two dogs, one named Displeasure and the other Joy. They both live in your house, and you and your spouse are in charge of feeding them. Displeasure, bitch that she is, barks a lot. She is easily annoyed, and she snarls and growls and carries on the moment something does not go her way. If her food is late, she starts up. If she doesn't get to go outside when she wants, the yapping begins. You have to throw her a bone to get her to stop. Displeasure gets fed a lot. Joy, on the other hand, is a quiet and content canine. Loves to be petted, but doesn't cause you any trouble if you don't. She will sit quietly in the corner and await the attention she deserves, but she does not howl when it doesn't come her way. She often gets ignored. Here's the thing: you have to make a conscious effort to feed the quiet dog. Acknowledge all kindnesses. Thank your spouse for the everyday things that could easily go ignored. Whoever is paying the bills should feel like the other respects the effort involved. Whoever is cooking and cleaning deserves to know their daily grind is valued. If you appreciated something your spouse said or did, let her know. If he did something that anyone on the street would be impressed with, don't let the fact that you have seen him do it before keep you from mentioning it again."
Ingredient #2: Security. While some friendships may need to be pruned off our life because they are sucking nutrients out of us and/or our family, secure people are committed to relationships even through problems.
God doesn't give up on us because we have problems. He gives us enthusiastic, extravagant, enlightened love. Since He is our model, as believers the more we do likewise the better our relationships will be with God, self and others.
Ingredient #3: Choice. We don't have to be married, parents or friends. We choose these relationships. These are not one-time choices. In good relationships we are choosing our spouse, children and friends over and over again. We hunger to be desired continuously. If we aren't enjoying our spouse, family or friends, then it sucks out some of their enjoyment.
Everyone is an individual. Learn each others likes and dislikes. We want to be liked for who we really are. Ephesians 5:10 New Living Translation Bible says, "Carefully determine what pleases the Lord."
God is for people. He wants us to experience pleasure in His presence and the presence of His people.
One of the key ways we receive pleasure is through edifying conversation. Learn to say things that bring out the best in people. For married people a saying goes, "99 percent of sex happens between the ears." What goes into the ears connects to the mind. Latina-American actress Raquel Welch says, "The mind can also be an erogenous zone." Woo him or her with the most effective, encompassing words rooted in the Word. John 1:1-3 Amplified Bible says, "In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and come into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men."
God is the Creator of sexuality and sex. Learn more and more about God, and you will learn more and more about how to be a sexy single or sexy married person. God knows all the sexual positions, and many that you don't know about! God invented all the sexual positions. God thinks marital sex and Biblical single sexuality are sublime, not shameful and sinful.
Ingredient #4: Support. Friends and family members are individuals; we are not the same people. We have some interests in common and some that are different, but good people support each other's individuality. They also protect their life and relationships by on purpose preparing lots of time to listen and to understand those we share a relationship with and to maintain and foster unity.
The Bible is a book of balance. Individuality and unity go together. If they are working against each other, sin is present. Talk to God, and cooperate with Him to transform whatever is not like God.
Ingredient #5: Thankfulness. Thankfulness is expressed in attitudes and actions that communicate, "I'm not perfect. You are not perfect, but I am thankful we are together. I am thankful for the memories, the present and the future."
Big-picture thinking doesn't dismiss the petty arguments and small inconveniences, but also does not become absorbed in them. Big-picture thinking focuses on the overall benefits in good relationships.
We can have seasons were Satan seeks to wear us out with discouraging circumstances and/or relationships. God is using these same circumstances and/or relationships to allow His fruit of the Spirit on the inside to be plucked for food on the outside.
"When it comes to food for thought, some of us are on a hunger strike," says activist Dick Gregory. We are thinking, talking and acting out negative attitudes and actions like, "I'm tired. You're getting on my nerves. I'm going to put you out of the house," for situations and circumstances God isn't finished with. God can enter a relationship with anyone, no matter how bad they seem to be; the Apostle Paul started out as Saul going around throwing Christians in jail and trying to have them sentenced to death. But then God showed up in Saul's life and showed him what true living really is.
We may be reading our Bibles, put not practically applying the Word in some areas. Our physical body is part of the temple of God. It too has to be nourished. Some of us do inadequate or no physical exercise and/or improper eating depriving us of sources of stamina that support our spiritual and mental health. Jesus not only prayed and cultivated His Christ mind, He also walked, ate and slept. Why do some think it's okay to abuse they physical body?
Much of life is interconnected. We have to also pay attention and nurture our relationship with God, self and others on many levels. Satan is looking to slip into our life where we are sluggish and slay someone and/or something. 1 Peter 5:8-9 Amplified Bible says, "Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour. Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset—rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined], knowing that the same (identical) sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood (the whole body of Christians) throughout the world."
Ingredient #6: Wisdom. Good decisions come from a good heart. Daniel Hale Williams was the first African-American cardiologist, and the first to perform successful open-heart surgery in the United States. We will need to leave our hearts open for God to perform surgery on them slicing out our numerous sins.
Sin isn't sexy. Sin acts as a spoiler in our relationships.
Not many of us would want others to be able to see all of our thoughts! However, God can, and He sees how these thoughts help and hurt people. We are responsible to be wise enough to continually seek spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical growth through cooperating with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost to develop more of the God inside. The more God controls the inside, the more our outward behavior will bring out the best in people.
Perhaps you had a child in your 40s or 50s that wasn't exactly planned and have not cooperated with God to have the disappointment, resentment, anger, jealousy and other hostility in your heart removed, so now it seeps out on your child and others. Many have lived in relationships filled with the agony of indifference or hatred.
Ingredient #7: Clarity and Compatibility. By reserving our most close relationships for those who have the same faith and purpose in life, we are building ourselves up instead of working against each other. Ideas have consequences. Christians believe in hope, life and the multifaceted goodness of our God that is primarily expressed through His people. Not everyone believes the same. Chandragupta Maurya, the first emperor of India, with a kingdom stretching from Punjab to Karnataka, more than 300 years after Alexander the Great had died, chose his own death as a devout Jain who starved himself to death on a hilltop at Sravanabelgola.
Being equally yoked with spouses, family and friends is not simply sharing the same Christian faith. "Yoked" is a farming reference. When a farmer would plow a field, he or she would use a yoke to join two animals. The farmer paired two animals of equal strength to work together to produce a straight line in the field.
Before marriage a wise couple talks about the nature of our relationship with God, self, family and friends, the desired frequency of sex, the acceptable behaviors with opposite-sex friends and same-sex friends, the purpose and use of money, the number of children, the lifestyle and as many things as possible. The more agreement and equal strength before marriage the less potential relationship conflict after marriage. While we all change, we all also have a certain character and personality that may remain remarkably consistent throughout adulthood. A couple where the wife desires sex seven days a week, but the husband desires sex once a month probably should have never said, "I do."
Sex is a central part of the oneness in marriage. Genesis 2:24-25 New Living Translation Bible says, "This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame."
Sexual incompatibility is a serious issue. A wife who keeps asking her husband for sex and habitually receives, "I'm not in the mood," or some other rejection will likely begin to receive messages of shame and low self-worth while the husband may feel personally attacked, unappreciated and even exploited.
Sexual abuse is also something we should share with our partner by the time we are engaged. Bollywood actress Sofia Hayat was sexually abused by her uncle when she was 10 years old. Minister Noel Jones was molested by a man in a Christian church bathroom when he was in elementary school. Rape, date rape, molestation, incest and various types of sexual abuse are experienced by people of all ages, races, genders and religions and often have a profound impact on our behavior and may require Christian pastoral and/or psychological counseling to overcome. Don't be surprised if you were abused sexually as a child and/or adolescent that the abuse has a negative impact on your marriage. International Bible teacher Joyce Meyer was raped by her father repeatedly throughout her childhood and adolescence. She says the experience played a role in her low-self esteem and choosing a first marriage partner who abused her in various ways, and even when she married her current husband, Dave Meyer, of more than 45 years, a time existed where she had problems with sexual relations. She says for he longest time she could not have sex with Dave with the lights on.
Twenty-five percent of all females will be sexually abused by the time they reach adulthood. These women may or may not have a conscious aversion to sex that needs to be overcome for the success of their marriage.
Also some women who are sexually active before marriage discover that they have physical problems having sex. The American Psychiatric Association divides female sexual problems into four categories:
(1) Sexual Desire Disorder,
(2) Sexual Arousal Disorder,
(3) Orgasmic Disorder and
(4) Sexual Pain Disorder.
Sexual Desire Disorder is when a person habitually loses all interest in sex and may even develop an aversion to sex. Sexual Arousal Disorder is when a woman mentally desires sex, but her physical body fails to maintain a state of arousal. She becomes dry and/or unresponsive to sexual stimulation. Most women do not have an orgasm every time they have sex, but Orgasmic Disorder is when a woman desires an orgasm, but habitually she cannot reach sexual climax. Sexual Pain Disorder is when a woman experiences chronic vaginal pain during intercourse.
Reading the seven ingredients you may have noticed some things you are doing that don't bring out the best in people. Now is a good time to talk to God and to begin the process of incorporating the seven above ingredients of intimacy from Ephesians 5 into your life. Please leave an on-line comment sharing how God has helped you to learn to be intimate and have intimacy.
Ingredient #1: Acceptance. Regardless of our imperfections the best marriages, families and friendships contain people who accept each other while encouraging each other to grow. Ephesians 5:1 Amplified Bible says, "Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]."
Sometimes we fail to accept people the way they are. A mother told a daughter with stubby fingers and little sense of rhythm, "I have such lovely, long fingers and play the piano like a virtuoso. Why don't you practice the piano more?"
Lynn Toler, author of Making Marriage Work New Rules For An Old Institution, writes, "Pretend you have two dogs, one named Displeasure and the other Joy. They both live in your house, and you and your spouse are in charge of feeding them. Displeasure, bitch that she is, barks a lot. She is easily annoyed, and she snarls and growls and carries on the moment something does not go her way. If her food is late, she starts up. If she doesn't get to go outside when she wants, the yapping begins. You have to throw her a bone to get her to stop. Displeasure gets fed a lot. Joy, on the other hand, is a quiet and content canine. Loves to be petted, but doesn't cause you any trouble if you don't. She will sit quietly in the corner and await the attention she deserves, but she does not howl when it doesn't come her way. She often gets ignored. Here's the thing: you have to make a conscious effort to feed the quiet dog. Acknowledge all kindnesses. Thank your spouse for the everyday things that could easily go ignored. Whoever is paying the bills should feel like the other respects the effort involved. Whoever is cooking and cleaning deserves to know their daily grind is valued. If you appreciated something your spouse said or did, let her know. If he did something that anyone on the street would be impressed with, don't let the fact that you have seen him do it before keep you from mentioning it again."
Ingredient #2: Security. While some friendships may need to be pruned off our life because they are sucking nutrients out of us and/or our family, secure people are committed to relationships even through problems.
God doesn't give up on us because we have problems. He gives us enthusiastic, extravagant, enlightened love. Since He is our model, as believers the more we do likewise the better our relationships will be with God, self and others.
Ingredient #3: Choice. We don't have to be married, parents or friends. We choose these relationships. These are not one-time choices. In good relationships we are choosing our spouse, children and friends over and over again. We hunger to be desired continuously. If we aren't enjoying our spouse, family or friends, then it sucks out some of their enjoyment.
Everyone is an individual. Learn each others likes and dislikes. We want to be liked for who we really are. Ephesians 5:10 New Living Translation Bible says, "Carefully determine what pleases the Lord."
God is for people. He wants us to experience pleasure in His presence and the presence of His people.
One of the key ways we receive pleasure is through edifying conversation. Learn to say things that bring out the best in people. For married people a saying goes, "99 percent of sex happens between the ears." What goes into the ears connects to the mind. Latina-American actress Raquel Welch says, "The mind can also be an erogenous zone." Woo him or her with the most effective, encompassing words rooted in the Word. John 1:1-3 Amplified Bible says, "In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and come into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men."
God is the Creator of sexuality and sex. Learn more and more about God, and you will learn more and more about how to be a sexy single or sexy married person. God knows all the sexual positions, and many that you don't know about! God invented all the sexual positions. God thinks marital sex and Biblical single sexuality are sublime, not shameful and sinful.
Ingredient #4: Support. Friends and family members are individuals; we are not the same people. We have some interests in common and some that are different, but good people support each other's individuality. They also protect their life and relationships by on purpose preparing lots of time to listen and to understand those we share a relationship with and to maintain and foster unity.
The Bible is a book of balance. Individuality and unity go together. If they are working against each other, sin is present. Talk to God, and cooperate with Him to transform whatever is not like God.
Ingredient #5: Thankfulness. Thankfulness is expressed in attitudes and actions that communicate, "I'm not perfect. You are not perfect, but I am thankful we are together. I am thankful for the memories, the present and the future."
Big-picture thinking doesn't dismiss the petty arguments and small inconveniences, but also does not become absorbed in them. Big-picture thinking focuses on the overall benefits in good relationships.
We can have seasons were Satan seeks to wear us out with discouraging circumstances and/or relationships. God is using these same circumstances and/or relationships to allow His fruit of the Spirit on the inside to be plucked for food on the outside.
"When it comes to food for thought, some of us are on a hunger strike," says activist Dick Gregory. We are thinking, talking and acting out negative attitudes and actions like, "I'm tired. You're getting on my nerves. I'm going to put you out of the house," for situations and circumstances God isn't finished with. God can enter a relationship with anyone, no matter how bad they seem to be; the Apostle Paul started out as Saul going around throwing Christians in jail and trying to have them sentenced to death. But then God showed up in Saul's life and showed him what true living really is.
We may be reading our Bibles, put not practically applying the Word in some areas. Our physical body is part of the temple of God. It too has to be nourished. Some of us do inadequate or no physical exercise and/or improper eating depriving us of sources of stamina that support our spiritual and mental health. Jesus not only prayed and cultivated His Christ mind, He also walked, ate and slept. Why do some think it's okay to abuse they physical body?
Much of life is interconnected. We have to also pay attention and nurture our relationship with God, self and others on many levels. Satan is looking to slip into our life where we are sluggish and slay someone and/or something. 1 Peter 5:8-9 Amplified Bible says, "Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour. Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset—rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined], knowing that the same (identical) sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood (the whole body of Christians) throughout the world."
Ingredient #6: Wisdom. Good decisions come from a good heart. Daniel Hale Williams was the first African-American cardiologist, and the first to perform successful open-heart surgery in the United States. We will need to leave our hearts open for God to perform surgery on them slicing out our numerous sins.
Sin isn't sexy. Sin acts as a spoiler in our relationships.
Not many of us would want others to be able to see all of our thoughts! However, God can, and He sees how these thoughts help and hurt people. We are responsible to be wise enough to continually seek spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical growth through cooperating with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost to develop more of the God inside. The more God controls the inside, the more our outward behavior will bring out the best in people.
Perhaps you had a child in your 40s or 50s that wasn't exactly planned and have not cooperated with God to have the disappointment, resentment, anger, jealousy and other hostility in your heart removed, so now it seeps out on your child and others. Many have lived in relationships filled with the agony of indifference or hatred.
Ingredient #7: Clarity and Compatibility. By reserving our most close relationships for those who have the same faith and purpose in life, we are building ourselves up instead of working against each other. Ideas have consequences. Christians believe in hope, life and the multifaceted goodness of our God that is primarily expressed through His people. Not everyone believes the same. Chandragupta Maurya, the first emperor of India, with a kingdom stretching from Punjab to Karnataka, more than 300 years after Alexander the Great had died, chose his own death as a devout Jain who starved himself to death on a hilltop at Sravanabelgola.
Being equally yoked with spouses, family and friends is not simply sharing the same Christian faith. "Yoked" is a farming reference. When a farmer would plow a field, he or she would use a yoke to join two animals. The farmer paired two animals of equal strength to work together to produce a straight line in the field.
Before marriage a wise couple talks about the nature of our relationship with God, self, family and friends, the desired frequency of sex, the acceptable behaviors with opposite-sex friends and same-sex friends, the purpose and use of money, the number of children, the lifestyle and as many things as possible. The more agreement and equal strength before marriage the less potential relationship conflict after marriage. While we all change, we all also have a certain character and personality that may remain remarkably consistent throughout adulthood. A couple where the wife desires sex seven days a week, but the husband desires sex once a month probably should have never said, "I do."
Sex is a central part of the oneness in marriage. Genesis 2:24-25 New Living Translation Bible says, "This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame."
Sexual incompatibility is a serious issue. A wife who keeps asking her husband for sex and habitually receives, "I'm not in the mood," or some other rejection will likely begin to receive messages of shame and low self-worth while the husband may feel personally attacked, unappreciated and even exploited.
Sexual abuse is also something we should share with our partner by the time we are engaged. Bollywood actress Sofia Hayat was sexually abused by her uncle when she was 10 years old. Minister Noel Jones was molested by a man in a Christian church bathroom when he was in elementary school. Rape, date rape, molestation, incest and various types of sexual abuse are experienced by people of all ages, races, genders and religions and often have a profound impact on our behavior and may require Christian pastoral and/or psychological counseling to overcome. Don't be surprised if you were abused sexually as a child and/or adolescent that the abuse has a negative impact on your marriage. International Bible teacher Joyce Meyer was raped by her father repeatedly throughout her childhood and adolescence. She says the experience played a role in her low-self esteem and choosing a first marriage partner who abused her in various ways, and even when she married her current husband, Dave Meyer, of more than 45 years, a time existed where she had problems with sexual relations. She says for he longest time she could not have sex with Dave with the lights on.
Twenty-five percent of all females will be sexually abused by the time they reach adulthood. These women may or may not have a conscious aversion to sex that needs to be overcome for the success of their marriage.
Also some women who are sexually active before marriage discover that they have physical problems having sex. The American Psychiatric Association divides female sexual problems into four categories:
(1) Sexual Desire Disorder,
(2) Sexual Arousal Disorder,
(3) Orgasmic Disorder and
(4) Sexual Pain Disorder.
Sexual Desire Disorder is when a person habitually loses all interest in sex and may even develop an aversion to sex. Sexual Arousal Disorder is when a woman mentally desires sex, but her physical body fails to maintain a state of arousal. She becomes dry and/or unresponsive to sexual stimulation. Most women do not have an orgasm every time they have sex, but Orgasmic Disorder is when a woman desires an orgasm, but habitually she cannot reach sexual climax. Sexual Pain Disorder is when a woman experiences chronic vaginal pain during intercourse.
Reading the seven ingredients you may have noticed some things you are doing that don't bring out the best in people. Now is a good time to talk to God and to begin the process of incorporating the seven above ingredients of intimacy from Ephesians 5 into your life. Please leave an on-line comment sharing how God has helped you to learn to be intimate and have intimacy.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Woo 'Em
God loves to woo us and others constantly. The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life study in 230 countries as reported in the January 8, 2013, issue of the newspaper USA Today found that Christians make up 32 percent of the world's religions followed by 23 percent of Muslims, 16 percent of unaffiliated, 15 percent of Hindus, seven percent of Buddhists and another seven percent of Jews and other faiths.
God and believers have been loving and living Matthew 28:18-20 Amplified Bible which says, "Jesus approached and, breaking the silence, said to them, All authority (all power of rule) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all the days (perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion), to the [very] close and consummation of the age. Amen (so let it be)."
Pastor and author Francis Chan says about making disciples in his article "A Time to Make Disciples" in the January/February 2013 issue of Relevant Magazine, "Realistically, the task will require a life-time of devotion to studying the Scriptures and investing in people around us. Neither of these things is easy, nor can they be checked off a list. We are never really "done." We continually devote ourselves to studying the Scriptures so that we can learn with ever-greater depth and clarity what God wants us to know, practice and pass on. We continually invest in the people around us, teaching them and walking with them through life's joys and trials."
Making disciples is starting and stretching relationships by investing in people qualities like the love and the truth of God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost. Ephesians 4:15 Amplified Bible says, "Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly]. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)."
What a tall order! Don't feel up to it? No worries mate. God's got your back. Philippians 2:13 Amplified Bible says, "[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight." God lives inside of believers, and He passionately desires and is able to love people through us the way they need to be loved. Trust God. Don't listen to the terror tactics of Satan trying to convince us love doesn't work or is too much trouble.
Today we have so many ways to communicate love, truth and the other goodness of God not only in person but also through cellular telephones, email, Skype, instant messages, text, mail and other modes of communication. Be creative and consistent in cultivating loving communication. It's impressive that Christianity is the world's number one religion, but still billions are not lovers of Christ and the billions who are lovers of Christ need to be nurtured to new levels of overflowing with the character of God for all eternity.
An eternity doesn't mean that God has called us to love beyond our limits. Sometimes we need to say "no" to say "yes" to the best disciplining. Our first relationship is with God, then our spouse and ourselves, then our children, then other family and then others. If you talk to God and find that a business colleague has priority over God, spouse or family, ask God for forgiveness and transformation. God is willing, able and faithful to fix it.
Some of us don't like differences and change and tend to just develop relationships with family not wanting to do anything like African-American Jarena Lee who in the 19century in one year traveled 2,325 miles on foot to preach 127 sermons. She also became the first woman approved to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church which is the first black-controlled Christian denomination in the United States of America. Neither Lee nor Jesus limited themselves to biological relationships, so neither should we. Imitate God. Stretch out. Ask God to prune out criticism and judgement from your heart. Someone beautiful is waiting to be shared. Embrace a diversity of people instead of noxious, needless, negativity. Cooperate with God to lose the "No es posible" attitude. Romans 15:7 Amplified Bible says, "Welcome and receive [to your hearts] one another, then, even as Christ has welcomed and received you, for the glory of God."
Biblical disciplining contains much common sense that can be corroborated in scientific research. Proverbs 25:2 the Message Bible says, "God delights in concealing things; scientists delight in discovering things." John Gottman, Ph.D., has a Love Lab at the University of Washington where he conducts counseling and research on couples. Dr. Gottman writes in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work that friendship between partners is critical. Friendship is desirable in marriage and other disciplining efforts. All relationships are disciplining opportunities.
Ask God today to cause you to not act distant and difficult but rather overflowing with the love of God and all the goodness of God that lays the foundation for new love and nurtures old love. A new friend/disciple and an old one will appreciate and thank you for eternity.
God and believers have been loving and living Matthew 28:18-20 Amplified Bible which says, "Jesus approached and, breaking the silence, said to them, All authority (all power of rule) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all the days (perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion), to the [very] close and consummation of the age. Amen (so let it be)."
Pastor and author Francis Chan says about making disciples in his article "A Time to Make Disciples" in the January/February 2013 issue of Relevant Magazine, "Realistically, the task will require a life-time of devotion to studying the Scriptures and investing in people around us. Neither of these things is easy, nor can they be checked off a list. We are never really "done." We continually devote ourselves to studying the Scriptures so that we can learn with ever-greater depth and clarity what God wants us to know, practice and pass on. We continually invest in the people around us, teaching them and walking with them through life's joys and trials."
Making disciples is starting and stretching relationships by investing in people qualities like the love and the truth of God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost. Ephesians 4:15 Amplified Bible says, "Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly]. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)."
What a tall order! Don't feel up to it? No worries mate. God's got your back. Philippians 2:13 Amplified Bible says, "[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight." God lives inside of believers, and He passionately desires and is able to love people through us the way they need to be loved. Trust God. Don't listen to the terror tactics of Satan trying to convince us love doesn't work or is too much trouble.
Today we have so many ways to communicate love, truth and the other goodness of God not only in person but also through cellular telephones, email, Skype, instant messages, text, mail and other modes of communication. Be creative and consistent in cultivating loving communication. It's impressive that Christianity is the world's number one religion, but still billions are not lovers of Christ and the billions who are lovers of Christ need to be nurtured to new levels of overflowing with the character of God for all eternity.
An eternity doesn't mean that God has called us to love beyond our limits. Sometimes we need to say "no" to say "yes" to the best disciplining. Our first relationship is with God, then our spouse and ourselves, then our children, then other family and then others. If you talk to God and find that a business colleague has priority over God, spouse or family, ask God for forgiveness and transformation. God is willing, able and faithful to fix it.
Some of us don't like differences and change and tend to just develop relationships with family not wanting to do anything like African-American Jarena Lee who in the 19century in one year traveled 2,325 miles on foot to preach 127 sermons. She also became the first woman approved to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church which is the first black-controlled Christian denomination in the United States of America. Neither Lee nor Jesus limited themselves to biological relationships, so neither should we. Imitate God. Stretch out. Ask God to prune out criticism and judgement from your heart. Someone beautiful is waiting to be shared. Embrace a diversity of people instead of noxious, needless, negativity. Cooperate with God to lose the "No es posible" attitude. Romans 15:7 Amplified Bible says, "Welcome and receive [to your hearts] one another, then, even as Christ has welcomed and received you, for the glory of God."
Biblical disciplining contains much common sense that can be corroborated in scientific research. Proverbs 25:2 the Message Bible says, "God delights in concealing things; scientists delight in discovering things." John Gottman, Ph.D., has a Love Lab at the University of Washington where he conducts counseling and research on couples. Dr. Gottman writes in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work that friendship between partners is critical. Friendship is desirable in marriage and other disciplining efforts. All relationships are disciplining opportunities.
Ask God today to cause you to not act distant and difficult but rather overflowing with the love of God and all the goodness of God that lays the foundation for new love and nurtures old love. A new friend/disciple and an old one will appreciate and thank you for eternity.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Friends and Prayer
In prayer and in other parts of life two or more are better than one. Ecclesiastes 4:10 New International Version Bible says, "If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!"
One way we can help each other up in through prayer. Friends should pray for each other. Psalm 28 indicates that when we pray we should show respect to God and not take for granted that He is able to hear us. Often we are in trouble. We can talk to God about trouble and triumph. He has the ability to keep us or bring us out of the pit (bad places in life).
God can also extend mercy in our situations. Friends are designed to extend mercy to each other. We are to build each other up.
God helps us through life. God is a shepherd. He desires to lead and to direct us in this earthly life and in the next lie if we are chosen for eternal life. God leads us and directs us in the way we should go.
We are at the forefront of God's mind. God wants to make sure that we live the good, abundant, enjoyable life He promised. Friends should want this too for each other.
One way we can help each other up in through prayer. Friends should pray for each other. Psalm 28 indicates that when we pray we should show respect to God and not take for granted that He is able to hear us. Often we are in trouble. We can talk to God about trouble and triumph. He has the ability to keep us or bring us out of the pit (bad places in life).
God can also extend mercy in our situations. Friends are designed to extend mercy to each other. We are to build each other up.
God helps us through life. God is a shepherd. He desires to lead and to direct us in this earthly life and in the next lie if we are chosen for eternal life. God leads us and directs us in the way we should go.
We are at the forefront of God's mind. God wants to make sure that we live the good, abundant, enjoyable life He promised. Friends should want this too for each other.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
You Are Never Too Old
Sexual love doesn't have to end when we reach a certain age. Jack, a character in the romantic comedy Don Juan DeMarco, says to Marilyn, his wife of more than 30 years, "You have very, very beautiful eyes." Marilyn comments, "Come on. You know I have to go upstairs, and um I'm going to take my calcium so my bones don't break into little pieces, my aspirin so my heart doesn't clog up, my Metamucil so I don't get colon cancer, and of course my estrogen to convince my body that I'm still 23." Jack responds, "Come here." They kiss, and marital, senior sex ensues.
Abraham also enjoyed marital, senior sex. Abraham had his first child at 86 and seven more stretching well into his 100s.
In God's eyes age is just a number not a reason to stop living a full, enjoyable life advancing God's Kingdom through relationship building.
If you are not making frequent delicious with your spouse, contact a Bible teacher, Bible counselor, Christian sex therapist and/or Christian marriage counselor. God designed sexual relations for spouses to give and to receive enjoyment from each other while strengthening their marriage. Whether one screams out in passion, silently savors sex or is somewhere in between, marital sex is made for merriment. Solomon writes in Proverbs 5 The Message Bible, "Enjoy the wife you married as a young man! Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose—don’t ever quit taking delight in her body."
Sex at 60 and beyond may not be the same as sex at 25, but then again it may be even better. Moses was married, and he was also in his right mind and healthy body up to death at 120. Imagine the sexual expertise and possibilities!
Please share something sweet about senior sexuality. Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher of North Carolina have been married 85 years (86 in May 2013) and hold the Guinness World Record for the longest marriage of a living couple. Zelmyra is 101 years old. Herbert is 104 years old. They have 5 children, 10 grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild.
How did the Fishers stay married so long? They are Christians who are good lovers and good friends. Solomon's Shulammite wife says about Solomon in Song of Solomon 5:16 New Living Translation Bible, "His mouth is sweetness itself, he is desirable in every way. Such, O women of Jerusalem, is my lover, my friend."
Abraham also enjoyed marital, senior sex. Abraham had his first child at 86 and seven more stretching well into his 100s.
In God's eyes age is just a number not a reason to stop living a full, enjoyable life advancing God's Kingdom through relationship building.
If you are not making frequent delicious with your spouse, contact a Bible teacher, Bible counselor, Christian sex therapist and/or Christian marriage counselor. God designed sexual relations for spouses to give and to receive enjoyment from each other while strengthening their marriage. Whether one screams out in passion, silently savors sex or is somewhere in between, marital sex is made for merriment. Solomon writes in Proverbs 5 The Message Bible, "Enjoy the wife you married as a young man! Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose—don’t ever quit taking delight in her body."
Sex at 60 and beyond may not be the same as sex at 25, but then again it may be even better. Moses was married, and he was also in his right mind and healthy body up to death at 120. Imagine the sexual expertise and possibilities!
Please share something sweet about senior sexuality. Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher of North Carolina have been married 85 years (86 in May 2013) and hold the Guinness World Record for the longest marriage of a living couple. Zelmyra is 101 years old. Herbert is 104 years old. They have 5 children, 10 grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild.
How did the Fishers stay married so long? They are Christians who are good lovers and good friends. Solomon's Shulammite wife says about Solomon in Song of Solomon 5:16 New Living Translation Bible, "His mouth is sweetness itself, he is desirable in every way. Such, O women of Jerusalem, is my lover, my friend."
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Writing Kindness, Goodness and Gentleness on Souls
Rafael, my son, and I entered an Hispanic restaurant on Monday designed like we were walking into the ocean. Blue "water" engulfed our senses. Chandeliers of bubbles cascaded from the ceiling.
Bubbles are beautiful, and they burst easily. God created our feelings. Our feelings are sometimes as fragile as bubbles. Kindness helps to protect them and bring out their beauty. Kindness complements feelings. Kindness is not a feeling, but a behavior that God living on the inside of His believers gives us the choice and ability to do. Galatians 5:22-23 Amplified Bible says, "But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness, gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [that can bring a charge]."
Kindness may require us to go out of our way to show someone we really care about them after we did something contradictory to kindness. Cindy Beall is married to pastor, Chris Beall, who came home one day and confessed to numerous affairs with numerous people from numerous places. One woman was carrying his child. Cindy Beall writes in her book, Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken Finding Forgiveness and Restoration, "From the moment of Chris' confession, his goal has been to restore my trust in him. Even when I doubt and question him, he does not get defensive or have a "get over it" attitude. He knows his actions caused me indescribable pain, and he accepts the responsibility as his own. He will do anything to help me feel secure in our marriage. He has laid down his life for me."
Kindness seeks to understand people and how we are influencing each other. A lot of arguments and conflicts among spouses, family, friends and others are really about people not feeling valued or respected and not so much about the issues being argued about. Read my article "Tie Me Up?"
Water fills the ocean. God desires to fill our life. When God fills our life, our life is full of goodness. Goodness used to be a euphemism for God. Dr. Albert Schweizer, a Christian missionary, who left Switzerland to go to the Congo in Africa and take care of lepers, inspired African American Patricia Bath. Bath became a doctor herself and earned fours patents. Bath also pioneered the worldwide discipline of "community ophthalmology," a volunteer-based program to bring eye care to underserved populations. With three other doctor friends Bath founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness (AIPB) to help blind people in third-world countries have access to eye care.
Goodness does not view and treat people as problems. Goodness steadfastly seeks to overcome obstacles hindering people from living the best possible life. Romans 12:21 Amplified Bible says, "Do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but overcome (master) evil with good."
You may not be called to be a doctor, a missionary or to start a nonprofit group, but you are called to bring goodness to family, friends and all your relationships. Read my article "7 Ingredients for Intimate Relationships."
Goodness and gentleness swim together in the same ocean. Gentleness embraces people instead of acting on attitudes like, "I don't like you. You don't measure up to my expectations of how someone should behave, so I'm going to try to harm you." On Tuesday of this week a restaurant manager, not at the ocean-decorated restaurant, told me that Rafael was disturbing his patrons. Rafael, a 19-year-old man, went to the restroom on his own and came back to sit at our table three times because somebody was probably using the one-toilet-only male bathroom. I asked the manager was Rafael harming anyone. The manager said no, but his presence was disturbing paying patrons because he would pace some instead of stand still waiting while the other person was in the bathroom. I explained that Rafael has autism. The manager said he could see that he had a disability. Since the manager could also see that I was refusing to give him an inappropriate apology, he paid for our meal.
Conflict is inevitable. Swimming with gentleness is a witness to everyone of God/goodness living on the inside. Robert Mark Alter, a psychotherapist, writes in his book, Good Husband, Great Marriage Finding the Good Husband...in the Man You Married A Relationship Revolution, "One couple I was seeing told me that every time they started to bicker or argue, their seven-year-old son, Sam, would start to sing very loudly and beat the sides of his head with his fists, and their four-year-old, Krissy, would say, "Please no fight...please no fight...please no fight..." with tears running down her cheeks. When you have children, every way you are is being watched, everything you do gets seen, every word you speak gets heard, everything that happens in your family gets written in their soul."
Please leave an on-line comment sharing how you are writing kindness, goodness and gentleness on souls, or to say, "I like this article." Please also contact me at my email address michefrancesjackson@gmail.com to join my relationship group.
Bubbles are beautiful, and they burst easily. God created our feelings. Our feelings are sometimes as fragile as bubbles. Kindness helps to protect them and bring out their beauty. Kindness complements feelings. Kindness is not a feeling, but a behavior that God living on the inside of His believers gives us the choice and ability to do. Galatians 5:22-23 Amplified Bible says, "But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness, gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [that can bring a charge]."
Kindness may require us to go out of our way to show someone we really care about them after we did something contradictory to kindness. Cindy Beall is married to pastor, Chris Beall, who came home one day and confessed to numerous affairs with numerous people from numerous places. One woman was carrying his child. Cindy Beall writes in her book, Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken Finding Forgiveness and Restoration, "From the moment of Chris' confession, his goal has been to restore my trust in him. Even when I doubt and question him, he does not get defensive or have a "get over it" attitude. He knows his actions caused me indescribable pain, and he accepts the responsibility as his own. He will do anything to help me feel secure in our marriage. He has laid down his life for me."
Kindness seeks to understand people and how we are influencing each other. A lot of arguments and conflicts among spouses, family, friends and others are really about people not feeling valued or respected and not so much about the issues being argued about. Read my article "Tie Me Up?"
Water fills the ocean. God desires to fill our life. When God fills our life, our life is full of goodness. Goodness used to be a euphemism for God. Dr. Albert Schweizer, a Christian missionary, who left Switzerland to go to the Congo in Africa and take care of lepers, inspired African American Patricia Bath. Bath became a doctor herself and earned fours patents. Bath also pioneered the worldwide discipline of "community ophthalmology," a volunteer-based program to bring eye care to underserved populations. With three other doctor friends Bath founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness (AIPB) to help blind people in third-world countries have access to eye care.
Goodness does not view and treat people as problems. Goodness steadfastly seeks to overcome obstacles hindering people from living the best possible life. Romans 12:21 Amplified Bible says, "Do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but overcome (master) evil with good."
You may not be called to be a doctor, a missionary or to start a nonprofit group, but you are called to bring goodness to family, friends and all your relationships. Read my article "7 Ingredients for Intimate Relationships."
Goodness and gentleness swim together in the same ocean. Gentleness embraces people instead of acting on attitudes like, "I don't like you. You don't measure up to my expectations of how someone should behave, so I'm going to try to harm you." On Tuesday of this week a restaurant manager, not at the ocean-decorated restaurant, told me that Rafael was disturbing his patrons. Rafael, a 19-year-old man, went to the restroom on his own and came back to sit at our table three times because somebody was probably using the one-toilet-only male bathroom. I asked the manager was Rafael harming anyone. The manager said no, but his presence was disturbing paying patrons because he would pace some instead of stand still waiting while the other person was in the bathroom. I explained that Rafael has autism. The manager said he could see that he had a disability. Since the manager could also see that I was refusing to give him an inappropriate apology, he paid for our meal.
Conflict is inevitable. Swimming with gentleness is a witness to everyone of God/goodness living on the inside. Robert Mark Alter, a psychotherapist, writes in his book, Good Husband, Great Marriage Finding the Good Husband...in the Man You Married A Relationship Revolution, "One couple I was seeing told me that every time they started to bicker or argue, their seven-year-old son, Sam, would start to sing very loudly and beat the sides of his head with his fists, and their four-year-old, Krissy, would say, "Please no fight...please no fight...please no fight..." with tears running down her cheeks. When you have children, every way you are is being watched, everything you do gets seen, every word you speak gets heard, everything that happens in your family gets written in their soul."
Please leave an on-line comment sharing how you are writing kindness, goodness and gentleness on souls, or to say, "I like this article." Please also contact me at my email address michefrancesjackson@gmail.com to join my relationship group.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
7 Ways to Stay the Course of Joy Through Conflict
Sooner or later every relationship encounters disagreements. Sometimes we cannot even remember what we were discussing, but we do remember the general way we feel about the person we were having conflict with. Philippians 2 shows us that joy is an internal celebration of God and His ways that overflows externally and gives us seven ways to stay the course of joy through conflict.
1) Continuously chase a lifestyle of relationships filled with harmony and being of the same mind, intention and purpose. Some differences accompany disagreements others expose lifestyles that are diametrical. Prune off the diametrical. Seek to find the source of disagreements and humbly resolve them. Sometimes self-denial is needed. Other times assertiveness is needed.
True friends support and complement our life purposes. Choose relationships carefully. Much conflict can be eliminated by careful initial selection.
African American Bethann Hardison helped launch Click Models after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. A time came when it was time for her to leave the nest and build her own. Nurtured by legal and model friends she started Bethann Management. These friends really helped. No attitudes and actions of, "I wish you well, but I'm not going to give you on-going resources to work with." A mother and daughter in the modeling business gave Hardison money for real-life bills like rent, utilities and whatever was necessary. Another legal friend negotiated the office space for Bethann Management and didn't charge her legal fees.
Hardison was called to be a leader in the fashion industry. Her friends may have disagreed from time to time regarding how she lead, but they encouraged her leadership and supported it in profuse, physical ways. Hardison was also wise enough not to keep friends who were opposed to her being a leader.
In a similar way Paul and the Philippian believers were in Christian ministry. They could not have shared as much joy if either one of them did not support each others ministry.
2) Helping people help themselves also helps ourselves. Friendship flourishes with reciprocity, so does almost everything else. In 1867 Marie Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, Poland. Early in life she showed enthusiasm about education and an extraordinary ability to learn. However, her father could not afford to educate her beyond early childhood. Instead of responding to the obstacle with fear, unbelief and self-limiting practices, Marie took a job as a teacher then later as a governess to fund her advanced educational dreams.
Marie paid for her sister's, Bronislawa's, education with her earnings from her governess job. When Bronislawa completed her studies, Bronislawa paid for Marie to attend university.
Both Bronislawa and Marie became scientists. By 1891 Marie studied at the world-famous Sorbonne in France. She also became the school's first female teacher. Marie married a physics professor in 1895. They devoted their lives to science. In 1903 Marie shared the Nobel Prize in physics with her husband, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel. In 1911 Marie Sklodowska-Curie won a Nobel Prize for chemistry by herself.
Marie is the first person to earn two Nobel Prizes each in sciences. She developed a theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes and discovered the elements polonium and radium.
Like Marie and Bronislawa helped each other to be educated, the Philippian believers and Paul helped each other share God and His Word, the Bible, with others.
3) Celebrate equality with humility. Black people are equal with white people and any other people. Women are equal with men. Galatians 3:28 New Living Translation Bible says, "There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Revealing equality through humility works better than hate. Jesus Christ never stopped being God and equal with God the Father and God the Holy Ghost even when He experienced violence instead of the respect due royalty. Black American and Christian Marian Anderson kept her wisdom, elegance and humility even when she was rejected from opportunities because of her race. Anderson wrote in My Lord, What a Morning in response to a music school rejecting her admission due to her blackness, " . . . I could not conceive of a person surrounded as she was with the joy that is music without having some sense of its beauty and understanding rub off on her. I did not argue with her or ask to see her superior. It was as if a cold, horrifying hand had been laid on me. I turned and walked out."
Walking out on evil is walking into good. God ensures that good is honored in due season. Jesus Christ was crucified at the instigation of the local religious leaders, but three days later He rose from the dead and shortly after the Christian church was founded as God's means to express goodness on earth. With donations from a local church, Anderson was able to take singing lessons with coach Giuseppe Boghetti. In 1924 she launched her career by giving her first recital at New York's Town Hall. Later she went on to have a flourishing singing career that broke through racial barriers including a 1939 Easter morning concert in Washington, D.C., to 75,000 present and millions by radio.
4) Be willing and ready to help. "The roots of happiness grow best in the soil of service," says educator and African American Ruth Love.
A husband was addicted to pornography. He confessed his addiction to his wife. He didn't try to blame her for his addiction or to blame his upbringing or someone or something else. He sought ways to overcome it. His wife was hurt by his addiction, but she was willing and ready to help her husband. She listened and talked with him to understand why he likes pornography and why its so hard to leave it. She didn't condemn him by thinking, saying or doing things that communicate, "You're so weak to be wrapped up in this trash." This couple participated in helpful activities like Christian counseling, and over time his pornography addiction was conquered.
5) Caress copiously through cheerfulness. When Paul wrote the book of Philippians he didn't know if his current jail sentence would end in death or release. Paul didn't shower people with self-pity, but rather he talked about and lived out God's wonderful ways of pursuing the best even amidst the bad. Paul probably didn't always feel cheerful, but he expressed an attitude and actions of cheerfulness because this is how God is and what pleases God. In Philippians 2:12 Amplified Bible Paul counsels us to behave, " . . . timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of God."
That's an incredibly large request for imperfect people to fulfill. The good news is we have a power source living on the inside to help us fulfill it if we tap into Him. Philippians 2:13 Amplified Bible says, "[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight."
6) Cherish people in your real life and release comparisons and excessive thoughts about fantasy people. Not many people look like and have achieved career success like Hollywood and Bollywood celebrities Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington, Hrithik Roshan and others. If we spend too much time reading about, looking at and thinking about the stars, then what's on earth may become disappointing and breed envy and other negative qualities.
Our spouses, family and friends have a lot of wonderful qualities. Think a lot about these. Love grows when we nurture it. Conversely when we don't, it dies.
It may take a lot of work to think about the good in our spouse, family or friends, but God put it there! Psalm 139:13-14 New Living Translation Bible says, "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it."
Five years ago you may have sent sexy and funny texts, emails and telephone calls to your spouse, but now it's mostly perfunctory. You used to enjoy the feel of mouth and tongue all over your spouse's body and yours, finding each others multiple moan zones, playing games like, "Does this feel good? How about this?," but now when was the last time you had sex? Try again. Ignite the flame of love that you let die, and keep it burning hot. Marriage is suppose to be filled with merriment.
7) Appreciate people especially spouses, family and friends. Sexual, emotional and other types of infidelity start by the negative way we are thinking about our spouse. Fault-finding is a negative mindset. Fault-finding is a focus on what is wrong with someone. We are betraying a sacred personal trust when we stew on the bad in our spouse instead of meditating on the good. If we have a low opinion of someone, then it is hard to feel good about them and to treat them well.
The Apostle Paul writes about his friend and co-worker, Epaphroditus, in Philippians 2:30 New Living Translation Bible, "For he risked his life for the work of Christ, and he was at the point of death while doing for me what you couldn’t do from far away." Paul thanked Epaphroditus for what he did without any undertone of criticism. A fault-finding person might have wrote about Epaphroditus, "Epaphroditus wasn't too smart in the way he tried to help us. He allowed himself to work so much for other people that he got ill. It's a miracle that we got any help."
A fault-finding person wouldn't make Epaphroditus or others feel good. Instead of inspiring others to choose to be together, to experience joy, the words of a fault-finder are repelling.
Fault-finding spouses, family members and/or friends are setting themselves up to seek appreciation in someone else. We all desire to be appreciated. Some fault-finders are surprised to find themselves sharing intimate thoughts, feelings and desires with the opposite sex that lead into sexual, emotional or other types of infidelity; they failed to associate the source of infidelity in their thinking unappreciative thoughts about their spouse.
The joy of God is in believers. If we don't seem to be experiencing it, then we aren't cultivating it.
With more than 300,000 people signing up for Twitter.com daily perhaps you are one of them? If so, let's
* tweet via my Twitter name "Michelelove30,"
* chat through the social networking site Google's G+
*and/or leave a comment at the bottom of this article.
Please share the juiciest details of the joy in your life. Sharing helps people grow.
1) Continuously chase a lifestyle of relationships filled with harmony and being of the same mind, intention and purpose. Some differences accompany disagreements others expose lifestyles that are diametrical. Prune off the diametrical. Seek to find the source of disagreements and humbly resolve them. Sometimes self-denial is needed. Other times assertiveness is needed.
True friends support and complement our life purposes. Choose relationships carefully. Much conflict can be eliminated by careful initial selection.
African American Bethann Hardison helped launch Click Models after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. A time came when it was time for her to leave the nest and build her own. Nurtured by legal and model friends she started Bethann Management. These friends really helped. No attitudes and actions of, "I wish you well, but I'm not going to give you on-going resources to work with." A mother and daughter in the modeling business gave Hardison money for real-life bills like rent, utilities and whatever was necessary. Another legal friend negotiated the office space for Bethann Management and didn't charge her legal fees.
Hardison was called to be a leader in the fashion industry. Her friends may have disagreed from time to time regarding how she lead, but they encouraged her leadership and supported it in profuse, physical ways. Hardison was also wise enough not to keep friends who were opposed to her being a leader.
In a similar way Paul and the Philippian believers were in Christian ministry. They could not have shared as much joy if either one of them did not support each others ministry.
2) Helping people help themselves also helps ourselves. Friendship flourishes with reciprocity, so does almost everything else. In 1867 Marie Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, Poland. Early in life she showed enthusiasm about education and an extraordinary ability to learn. However, her father could not afford to educate her beyond early childhood. Instead of responding to the obstacle with fear, unbelief and self-limiting practices, Marie took a job as a teacher then later as a governess to fund her advanced educational dreams.
Marie paid for her sister's, Bronislawa's, education with her earnings from her governess job. When Bronislawa completed her studies, Bronislawa paid for Marie to attend university.
Both Bronislawa and Marie became scientists. By 1891 Marie studied at the world-famous Sorbonne in France. She also became the school's first female teacher. Marie married a physics professor in 1895. They devoted their lives to science. In 1903 Marie shared the Nobel Prize in physics with her husband, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel. In 1911 Marie Sklodowska-Curie won a Nobel Prize for chemistry by herself.
Marie is the first person to earn two Nobel Prizes each in sciences. She developed a theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes and discovered the elements polonium and radium.
Like Marie and Bronislawa helped each other to be educated, the Philippian believers and Paul helped each other share God and His Word, the Bible, with others.
3) Celebrate equality with humility. Black people are equal with white people and any other people. Women are equal with men. Galatians 3:28 New Living Translation Bible says, "There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Revealing equality through humility works better than hate. Jesus Christ never stopped being God and equal with God the Father and God the Holy Ghost even when He experienced violence instead of the respect due royalty. Black American and Christian Marian Anderson kept her wisdom, elegance and humility even when she was rejected from opportunities because of her race. Anderson wrote in My Lord, What a Morning in response to a music school rejecting her admission due to her blackness, " . . . I could not conceive of a person surrounded as she was with the joy that is music without having some sense of its beauty and understanding rub off on her. I did not argue with her or ask to see her superior. It was as if a cold, horrifying hand had been laid on me. I turned and walked out."
Walking out on evil is walking into good. God ensures that good is honored in due season. Jesus Christ was crucified at the instigation of the local religious leaders, but three days later He rose from the dead and shortly after the Christian church was founded as God's means to express goodness on earth. With donations from a local church, Anderson was able to take singing lessons with coach Giuseppe Boghetti. In 1924 she launched her career by giving her first recital at New York's Town Hall. Later she went on to have a flourishing singing career that broke through racial barriers including a 1939 Easter morning concert in Washington, D.C., to 75,000 present and millions by radio.
4) Be willing and ready to help. "The roots of happiness grow best in the soil of service," says educator and African American Ruth Love.
A husband was addicted to pornography. He confessed his addiction to his wife. He didn't try to blame her for his addiction or to blame his upbringing or someone or something else. He sought ways to overcome it. His wife was hurt by his addiction, but she was willing and ready to help her husband. She listened and talked with him to understand why he likes pornography and why its so hard to leave it. She didn't condemn him by thinking, saying or doing things that communicate, "You're so weak to be wrapped up in this trash." This couple participated in helpful activities like Christian counseling, and over time his pornography addiction was conquered.
5) Caress copiously through cheerfulness. When Paul wrote the book of Philippians he didn't know if his current jail sentence would end in death or release. Paul didn't shower people with self-pity, but rather he talked about and lived out God's wonderful ways of pursuing the best even amidst the bad. Paul probably didn't always feel cheerful, but he expressed an attitude and actions of cheerfulness because this is how God is and what pleases God. In Philippians 2:12 Amplified Bible Paul counsels us to behave, " . . . timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of God."
That's an incredibly large request for imperfect people to fulfill. The good news is we have a power source living on the inside to help us fulfill it if we tap into Him. Philippians 2:13 Amplified Bible says, "[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight."
6) Cherish people in your real life and release comparisons and excessive thoughts about fantasy people. Not many people look like and have achieved career success like Hollywood and Bollywood celebrities Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington, Hrithik Roshan and others. If we spend too much time reading about, looking at and thinking about the stars, then what's on earth may become disappointing and breed envy and other negative qualities.
Our spouses, family and friends have a lot of wonderful qualities. Think a lot about these. Love grows when we nurture it. Conversely when we don't, it dies.
It may take a lot of work to think about the good in our spouse, family or friends, but God put it there! Psalm 139:13-14 New Living Translation Bible says, "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it."
Five years ago you may have sent sexy and funny texts, emails and telephone calls to your spouse, but now it's mostly perfunctory. You used to enjoy the feel of mouth and tongue all over your spouse's body and yours, finding each others multiple moan zones, playing games like, "Does this feel good? How about this?," but now when was the last time you had sex? Try again. Ignite the flame of love that you let die, and keep it burning hot. Marriage is suppose to be filled with merriment.
7) Appreciate people especially spouses, family and friends. Sexual, emotional and other types of infidelity start by the negative way we are thinking about our spouse. Fault-finding is a negative mindset. Fault-finding is a focus on what is wrong with someone. We are betraying a sacred personal trust when we stew on the bad in our spouse instead of meditating on the good. If we have a low opinion of someone, then it is hard to feel good about them and to treat them well.
The Apostle Paul writes about his friend and co-worker, Epaphroditus, in Philippians 2:30 New Living Translation Bible, "For he risked his life for the work of Christ, and he was at the point of death while doing for me what you couldn’t do from far away." Paul thanked Epaphroditus for what he did without any undertone of criticism. A fault-finding person might have wrote about Epaphroditus, "Epaphroditus wasn't too smart in the way he tried to help us. He allowed himself to work so much for other people that he got ill. It's a miracle that we got any help."
A fault-finding person wouldn't make Epaphroditus or others feel good. Instead of inspiring others to choose to be together, to experience joy, the words of a fault-finder are repelling.
Fault-finding spouses, family members and/or friends are setting themselves up to seek appreciation in someone else. We all desire to be appreciated. Some fault-finders are surprised to find themselves sharing intimate thoughts, feelings and desires with the opposite sex that lead into sexual, emotional or other types of infidelity; they failed to associate the source of infidelity in their thinking unappreciative thoughts about their spouse.
The joy of God is in believers. If we don't seem to be experiencing it, then we aren't cultivating it.
With more than 300,000 people signing up for Twitter.com daily perhaps you are one of them? If so, let's
* tweet via my Twitter name "Michelelove30,"
* chat through the social networking site Google's G+
*and/or leave a comment at the bottom of this article.
Please share the juiciest details of the joy in your life. Sharing helps people grow.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Tie Me Up?
Mostly what God does is influence us instead of force us to change. Yet a lot of times conversely we try to change our spouses, family, friends and others by tying them up with ropes of intimidation, shame, blame, etc. Let's look at four ways God exerted influence recorded in John 8:1-11.
1) Some people will try to tie us up with the intimidation of screaming and/or drama. We can keep our influence -- our peace and wisdom -- in the midst of arguments. More than 2,000 years ago some religious leaders crashed Jesus Christ's class dragging in a woman caught in adultery and displaying her in plain view of the class. Jesus didn't display emotional upset or immediately speak. It's not that Jesus doesn't experience emotions -- He's the same one whose eyes flash like a flame of fire -- Jesus manages His emotions. He sought to slow down and cool down the exchange by stooping down to write on the ground. This gave Him and others time to contemplate what's happening. Then He could talk to God the Father for the resolution while allowing God the Holy Ghost to empower Him to implement it.
Jesus' pause models respect for people. It communicates, "I am smart. You are smart. We don't need to hurry up and make needless mistakes. Instead we recognize problems and are responsible enough to find ways to fix them." When we speak too fast we often say things that harm us and harm our relationships.
It's natural to think about the negative. It's spiritual to pause and meditate on the positive. A lot of arguments among spouses, family, friends and others are really about people not feeling valued or respected and not so much about the issues being argued about.
Twitter.com is a neat social networking website where participants must whittle their wonderful words to a maximum of 140 characters. Those who "follow" you receive your writing posts on their smartphone or computer. So value and respect your spouse, family, friends and others with posts like, "U R so GR8 that God gave up His life, so that U could have the best life forever!" Let's tweet via my Twitter name "Michelelove30," or we may chat through the social networking site Google's G+, or you may leave a comment at the bottom of this article.
If our attempts at frequent, fun, filling marital sex are frequently being met with, "I'm tired," or "I don't feel well," then perhaps we are saying and doing things to our spouse that communicate, "You aren't that important to me," "I really don't want to share my time by cultivating an intimate relationship with you and each of our children," "I just want to get my needs met," "I want to look good at all costs," etc. All arguments are not hot. Some are cool or cold. Even comfortably numb marital connections are ripe for infidelity. Arguments need resolution. If we can't, someone else will!
Jesus' stooping pause is not incidental or accidental, but essential. Indian Mughal Emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar sought rahi aql (the path of reason) in the late sixteenth century, but it can only be found effectively in Jesus. One of the ways Jesus changes people is by using reasoning to convince them that they are valuable people who have veered away from right reasoning, but through Him can veer into the best way of living. No matter what we have done, God doesn't disapprove of us. He loves us. He's tattooed a picture of us on the palm of His hand. He has pure motives in trying to persuade us to follow Him. James 3:17 Amplified Bible says, "But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned (free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity)."
2) Persistent pestering is a tactic of those trying to tie us up with intimidation. Refuse to be abused; influence grows by keeping on doing good. The religious leaders were hoping that by trying to force Jesus to say something, He would flub.
Some act like a dragnet of dullness. If someone refuses to come to the truth with subtle modeling, then make it plain with respect. "They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!"" (John 8:7 New Living Translation Bible).
The source of all arguments is sin. We all have sinned, are sinning and will sin. Some sins are deliberate; for believers as we grow in intimacy with God our sins are less deliberate and more unintentional. When we see sin, God designed believers to model Him humbly, not haughtily like the religious leaders, in seeking to assist someone in receiving a greater revelation of God.
If we never committed sexual adultery, it is not because we are so smart and strong; it is because God kept us out of situations that would have caused us to fall into sexual adultery. Cooperate with God to wipe off any smug sneers on our face when we catch someone in sin of any type. Galatians 6:1 New Living Translation Bible says, "Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself."
3) When someone zealously attempts to tie someone else up with shame, the attacker is more interested in punishing people than allowing God to work through them to point people to the path of life which is love, truth, joy, all that is good. Compassion is influence.
Many of the religious people of Jesus' day do not come across as compassionate or confident people. They seemed to unknowingly have a mindset of, "I can't do anything right because I'm a bad person. So to make myself feel better I need to put down someone else. I need a lot of attention and patting on my back and places of honor to mask who I am."
Shame-based people will try to shoot others with shame attacks. Shame attacks are ineffective against shielded minds that simply shake them off with loving truth. Ephesians 4:15 Amplified Bible says, "Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly]. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)."
An illiterate, white student called black, Chicago, Illinois, teacher Marva Collins a "jungle bunny." Collins had not internalized shame about being black, a woman or a teacher. She responded to this sexist, racial slur with tender, humorous truth by saying she would take offense when her sweetheart learned to read, write and spell jungle bunny.
Jesus did not take offense to the attacks of the religious leaders. He did not internalize any shame about who He is as the Son of God or His competence in understanding and applying the Mosaic Law. Jesus was not an adulterer. He didn't want to be one. He didn't envy adulterers. With simplicity, expertise and authority He pointed out the principal problem of all those involved, and offered the solution to adultery. ". . . And Jesus said, I do not condemn you either. Go on your way and from now on sin no more" (John 8:11 Amplified Bible).
The woman caught in adultery was impressed, surprised and delighted that Jesus was not going to punish her, look down on her or harm her in any way. She was likely willing to leave adultery because someone really cares for her. The way we are wired is, "If you care for me, then I'll care for you, and the things you want me to do." The spiritual maturity of loving the unlovable is something we have to cooperate with God to display with the unlovable.
All sin ties us down. Loves cuts the ropes and releases us into the responsibility of following Jesus' enjoyable life engaged in love with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ, God the Holy Ghost and all people.
4) Some want to tie us up in blame for our sin while taking little or no responsibility for their sin. Influence is available by receiving God's blameless view of us and His power to resist sin forever. The religious leaders attacked the woman without having first dealt with their own sin, and they discriminated against her by trying to pin all the fault for adultery on her instead of equally on the man also involved who is totally missing from this drama. When Jesus encouraged the woman to sin no more Jesus is engaging her not only with Himself but also with the man she had sex with, the religious leaders and others. Jesus wants everyone to learn to have frequent, fun, filling sex inside of marriage and to learn to celebrate single sexuality without sexual sin. No matter how much some may try to present sexual sin as beautiful, sexual sin is the advocacy of loveless sex. Jesus is about marrying as many people as possible into God's family of love. Romans 12:5 Amplified Bible describes the family of love, "So we, numerous as we are; are one body in Christ (the Messiah) and individually we are parts one of another [mutually dependent on one another]."
Since God designed us to help each other, harmful ropes like blame need to be taken off our lives. Jesus Christ has already paid the price for all the blame, shame, false fear, adultery and sin we have ever done, are doing and will ever do. His death and resurrection in three days took care of this. If we receive Him, then we need not continue to receive harmful things like blame, shame, false fear, adultery that hurt us and our relationships now and if not dealt with will leave eternal damage. Romans 6:23 New Living Translation Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord."
Tie me up? No thanks. Free in love forever is better. Please share an on-line comment about how Christ has set you free and/or participate in my relationship group by contacting me via email at michefrancesjackson@gmail.com.
1) Some people will try to tie us up with the intimidation of screaming and/or drama. We can keep our influence -- our peace and wisdom -- in the midst of arguments. More than 2,000 years ago some religious leaders crashed Jesus Christ's class dragging in a woman caught in adultery and displaying her in plain view of the class. Jesus didn't display emotional upset or immediately speak. It's not that Jesus doesn't experience emotions -- He's the same one whose eyes flash like a flame of fire -- Jesus manages His emotions. He sought to slow down and cool down the exchange by stooping down to write on the ground. This gave Him and others time to contemplate what's happening. Then He could talk to God the Father for the resolution while allowing God the Holy Ghost to empower Him to implement it.
Jesus' pause models respect for people. It communicates, "I am smart. You are smart. We don't need to hurry up and make needless mistakes. Instead we recognize problems and are responsible enough to find ways to fix them." When we speak too fast we often say things that harm us and harm our relationships.
It's natural to think about the negative. It's spiritual to pause and meditate on the positive. A lot of arguments among spouses, family, friends and others are really about people not feeling valued or respected and not so much about the issues being argued about.
Twitter.com is a neat social networking website where participants must whittle their wonderful words to a maximum of 140 characters. Those who "follow" you receive your writing posts on their smartphone or computer. So value and respect your spouse, family, friends and others with posts like, "U R so GR8 that God gave up His life, so that U could have the best life forever!" Let's tweet via my Twitter name "Michelelove30," or we may chat through the social networking site Google's G+, or you may leave a comment at the bottom of this article.
If our attempts at frequent, fun, filling marital sex are frequently being met with, "I'm tired," or "I don't feel well," then perhaps we are saying and doing things to our spouse that communicate, "You aren't that important to me," "I really don't want to share my time by cultivating an intimate relationship with you and each of our children," "I just want to get my needs met," "I want to look good at all costs," etc. All arguments are not hot. Some are cool or cold. Even comfortably numb marital connections are ripe for infidelity. Arguments need resolution. If we can't, someone else will!
Jesus' stooping pause is not incidental or accidental, but essential. Indian Mughal Emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar sought rahi aql (the path of reason) in the late sixteenth century, but it can only be found effectively in Jesus. One of the ways Jesus changes people is by using reasoning to convince them that they are valuable people who have veered away from right reasoning, but through Him can veer into the best way of living. No matter what we have done, God doesn't disapprove of us. He loves us. He's tattooed a picture of us on the palm of His hand. He has pure motives in trying to persuade us to follow Him. James 3:17 Amplified Bible says, "But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned (free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity)."
2) Persistent pestering is a tactic of those trying to tie us up with intimidation. Refuse to be abused; influence grows by keeping on doing good. The religious leaders were hoping that by trying to force Jesus to say something, He would flub.
Some act like a dragnet of dullness. If someone refuses to come to the truth with subtle modeling, then make it plain with respect. "They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!"" (John 8:7 New Living Translation Bible).
The source of all arguments is sin. We all have sinned, are sinning and will sin. Some sins are deliberate; for believers as we grow in intimacy with God our sins are less deliberate and more unintentional. When we see sin, God designed believers to model Him humbly, not haughtily like the religious leaders, in seeking to assist someone in receiving a greater revelation of God.
If we never committed sexual adultery, it is not because we are so smart and strong; it is because God kept us out of situations that would have caused us to fall into sexual adultery. Cooperate with God to wipe off any smug sneers on our face when we catch someone in sin of any type. Galatians 6:1 New Living Translation Bible says, "Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself."
3) When someone zealously attempts to tie someone else up with shame, the attacker is more interested in punishing people than allowing God to work through them to point people to the path of life which is love, truth, joy, all that is good. Compassion is influence.
Many of the religious people of Jesus' day do not come across as compassionate or confident people. They seemed to unknowingly have a mindset of, "I can't do anything right because I'm a bad person. So to make myself feel better I need to put down someone else. I need a lot of attention and patting on my back and places of honor to mask who I am."
Shame-based people will try to shoot others with shame attacks. Shame attacks are ineffective against shielded minds that simply shake them off with loving truth. Ephesians 4:15 Amplified Bible says, "Rather, let our lives lovingly express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly]. Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)."
An illiterate, white student called black, Chicago, Illinois, teacher Marva Collins a "jungle bunny." Collins had not internalized shame about being black, a woman or a teacher. She responded to this sexist, racial slur with tender, humorous truth by saying she would take offense when her sweetheart learned to read, write and spell jungle bunny.
Jesus did not take offense to the attacks of the religious leaders. He did not internalize any shame about who He is as the Son of God or His competence in understanding and applying the Mosaic Law. Jesus was not an adulterer. He didn't want to be one. He didn't envy adulterers. With simplicity, expertise and authority He pointed out the principal problem of all those involved, and offered the solution to adultery. ". . . And Jesus said, I do not condemn you either. Go on your way and from now on sin no more" (John 8:11 Amplified Bible).
The woman caught in adultery was impressed, surprised and delighted that Jesus was not going to punish her, look down on her or harm her in any way. She was likely willing to leave adultery because someone really cares for her. The way we are wired is, "If you care for me, then I'll care for you, and the things you want me to do." The spiritual maturity of loving the unlovable is something we have to cooperate with God to display with the unlovable.
All sin ties us down. Loves cuts the ropes and releases us into the responsibility of following Jesus' enjoyable life engaged in love with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ, God the Holy Ghost and all people.
4) Some want to tie us up in blame for our sin while taking little or no responsibility for their sin. Influence is available by receiving God's blameless view of us and His power to resist sin forever. The religious leaders attacked the woman without having first dealt with their own sin, and they discriminated against her by trying to pin all the fault for adultery on her instead of equally on the man also involved who is totally missing from this drama. When Jesus encouraged the woman to sin no more Jesus is engaging her not only with Himself but also with the man she had sex with, the religious leaders and others. Jesus wants everyone to learn to have frequent, fun, filling sex inside of marriage and to learn to celebrate single sexuality without sexual sin. No matter how much some may try to present sexual sin as beautiful, sexual sin is the advocacy of loveless sex. Jesus is about marrying as many people as possible into God's family of love. Romans 12:5 Amplified Bible describes the family of love, "So we, numerous as we are; are one body in Christ (the Messiah) and individually we are parts one of another [mutually dependent on one another]."
Since God designed us to help each other, harmful ropes like blame need to be taken off our lives. Jesus Christ has already paid the price for all the blame, shame, false fear, adultery and sin we have ever done, are doing and will ever do. His death and resurrection in three days took care of this. If we receive Him, then we need not continue to receive harmful things like blame, shame, false fear, adultery that hurt us and our relationships now and if not dealt with will leave eternal damage. Romans 6:23 New Living Translation Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord."
Tie me up? No thanks. Free in love forever is better. Please share an on-line comment about how Christ has set you free and/or participate in my relationship group by contacting me via email at michefrancesjackson@gmail.com.
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