Archive for the ‘Sex’ Category

It’s the same thing as Video City

November 3, 2009

One of the teens made an interesting comment to me this morning; a line of thought that I had not considered. “Downloading pirated movies again I see.”. My comment didn’t have a chance to even lose it’s moment before she replied “It’s the same thing as Video City.”.
I had nothing to say in response to that. I had nothing to say because I had two lines of thought and I didn’t know which one, if either, would be of any benefit at that moment. “Wow” I thought to myself, “if this teen really did think that Video City was renting pirated movies than that shows that this teen’s conscience has no problem with watching stolen movies from ‘any’ source as long as they can watch the movies. This just confirms how little this teen must know about what Jesus and the apostles taught about the seriousness of what we do against God’s will … in consideration of Heb 10:26-27 … What someone wants to watch is another story.

Now there are ’some’ debatable issue in life ( Rom 14:1 ) which we should not go back and forth about. If anyone doesn’t think that taking something “for free”, without the permission of the owners, which others are selling in stores isn’t stealing; then well there isn’t much for me to debate. It might be helpful for me to understand ‘why’ they don’t think that is stealing though. Usually those that are doing this like to bring up issues of how much the owners are charging for the product or how they can’t afford it. How would either of those points make stealing ok to a God that could give us anything anything He wants to give us. I think if God doesn’t give us enough to have more than food and clothing, than He must in his divine wisdom know that we don’t need those things.
And as for the point about Video City having pirated videos, well there is no way I could know that for sure, just as it would be so hard to be sure if ‘any’ DVD or SVCD were pirated. All I can say is that this news article and also this report I read and the licensing information that I looked at, make it difficult to believe that the Video SVCDs are of the pirated variety. Yes, it’s still possible. But just quite unlikely.
I think that, as a God that searches the heart, that God is looking for those that are ’so’ affected by what they know was done for them through the sacrifice of his Son, that they will do everything they can to fight their inner self gratifying natures. Does this mean we will be perfect, no. But each of us can answer the question ourselves as to whether we are doing ‘everything’ to fight that inner self seeking nature for the sake of Christ. Am I fighting that nature at all?; are you?

Posted in Culture and Contrast, Evil of Man, Faith, Money, My Family, My Story, Self-Esteem, Sex, Spiritual Milk | Leave a Comment »

What Would a Follower of Christ Watch?

October 30, 2009

First off I’d like to address the title of this journal entry. In very few ways to I believe that I have truly addressed the topic of “What Would a Follower of Christ Watch?”. I believe to address it as if there could be some sort of “do and do not” watch list, would be to reduce God to something stagnant and written. What should and should not be watched is much more personal than I could possibly address below. It has to do with the relationship that each of us might have with the God that gave Jesus for the sacrifice of our sins. Without further ado however, I present the below.
.
I had originally started to put this together for a movie night for a group of teens. They wanted me to get this movie list to them a lot quicker than this. However with such a short time left I know that they will not be able to use my recommendations now. So, my primary purpose for composing this is more for reflection and prayer. Most of them will not get to see this until ‘after’ the JCF get together.

JCF Movie List

The following movies were put together by the JCF. As I looked over the list and thought of the titles of the movies, I wondered what each of them “stood for”. I didn’t know the answer to the question however. I also didn’t know whether Christ was in front of every decision that each of them made when selecting the movies.
.

In other words did each of them ask theirself “In reflecting on how much God loves me and the life that Jesus has given for me, what kind of things does God want me to listen to and watch? What kinds of things does God want me to be exposed to so I will become the kind of son or daughter that God wants me to be.”. Check out this resource.

How to use the review below

You can click on each of the movie title names in order to see a review that I looked at.
.

I think this movie looks pretty good. Though I do think the sentiment described in this link is something that should be considered while watching it. Oh, and here is the quote from the previous link “Troubled by it: This response comes, surprisingly enough, from Christians who feel the message of the film is that no matter how bad your problems are, if you turn them over to God, every single problem will come out with the happy ending for which you pray. You’ll get a raise. Someone will replace your old car. Your team will win. Your infertile marriage will be blessed with (multiple) children. Get a grip, they say. God doesn’t work this way.”
.

From what I read about it I like it.
.

I didn’t think the violence and sensuality were things that any of us (including myself) needed to fill ourselves up with.
.

Looks like Fun
.

Hannah Montana (The movie)

Not crazy about this movie because of the “worldy” things that it teaches us to admire. I haven’t seen this movie, I’ve only looked at the reviews so I could be wrong. But if I ever watch a movie and I see people get excited because someone has the “cool stuff” or the “cool life” then I immediately think to myself that Jesus and his disciples were the only ones that had the ‘real’ cool life.
.

My first impression of this movie was that it was funny and relatively harmless. I’ll spare the reader of some of my more personal convictions regarding the life we should live motivated by Christ. I’ll leave those for another time.
.

I think in “modern society” that are a lot of things that we find amusing that God (in His wisdom) does not want us to find amusing. And if we have the heart of God, if we love the same things that He loves and hate the same things that He hates, then  rebellion will be one of these things. In Rom 1:30-32 we can read how those that are insolent and/or disobey their parents are on equal terms with those that are faithless, heartless, and ruthless. … Do we show that we approve of these kinds of things by our laughter?
.

In the first review that I saw I didn’t see anything in the description that seemed too far off base. However I heard Gilbeys mention that there was too much gore in this movie. And since I hadn’t watched it I decided I would trust Gilbeys’ assessment on this. Better to lean on the side of caution. But then I saw this review and a youtube video. And I have to say that the intensity of this film is something that I personally don’t want lurking around in my heart. “Above all else, guard your heart,for it is the wellspring of life.” – Proverbs 4:23
.

This is a movie about a deranged serial killer and how he tries to take over the world. Is there anything admirable there? “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” - Philippians 4:8


Hopefully I’ll have time to flesh my thoughts out on this one some day. But in short there are a couple of scenes in here that are just a bit too intense and graphic (I don’t even want them “in my head”). If I had an entire day to import the movie into a fast multimedia editing computer I could take out the parts and the story would be completely in tact.
.

My First Romance
I will have to review this later.
.

One of the excerpts that I read of this movie said “Bridget, the soccer player, does manage to seduce the coach, and though he resists at first, finally gives in to his sexy, young pursuer. Afterwards, though, Bridget is devastated and depressed, and she tells her friends that premarital sex left her feeling incomplete, rather than healed.” This is actually one of the problems of movies that are marketed as wholesome or even worse marketed as “christian”. The idea of avoiding premarital sex ‘because’ it leaves you feeling incomplete is totally not something that Christ taught. … If the motivation for living a Godly life isn’t ‘because’ you understand the love that God has given you by the pouring out of the life of his son Jesus, then it is ‘not’ “Christian”.
.

Resources you can use in the future
*to help you decide what movies you can both enjoy and ’should’ watch.
.

Posted in Culture and Contrast, Faith, My Family, Sex, Spiritual Milk | 1 Comment »

Set Free To Follow Christ (by Clay Brown)

February 13, 2009

Set Free To Follow Christ:
Freedom from Pornography
by Clay Brown

I’m writing this, not as one who has finished the journey to freedom over sin, but as a man who faces trials and failures every day of his life. I’ve learned a great many things since I have faced my sexual addiction. Perhaps the most difficult lesson has been learning to deal with my failures. I don’t consider the issue of sexual addiction one I can turn my back on. I feel like a character from a western novel who never sits with his back to the saloon doors. My victory over this ugly sin has spanned mere months. When those months turn to years I may develop a different view.

I’ve traveled such a long way since coming to First Stone Ministries for help. It’s not just sexual issues that have been overcome since that day nearly two years ago. My walk with God was shallow and unimpressive. Days – no, weeks – would go by before I’d have any real spiritual time with my Savior. I was coasting and I couldn’t see the increasing distance between myself and God. How often we fall to the subtlety of Satan rather than to his bully tactics. “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” (I Peter 5: 8-9). Have you ever watched a lion on the hunt. The unsuspecting victim is busy filling its stomach with leaves or grass. Too engrossed to stop what he’s doing to notice the tale-tell signs of approaching danger, he will pay the price. How does the lion attack? Does he roar and charge head on from two miles away? I’m learning more and more to see those fields of tall, luring grass that lie off from the path I must walk. For if I stray from the my path I risk being devoured by the lion as he lies silently beneath the grass, waiting.

Like so many others, I was a child when the seed of sexual addiction was planted within me. My father loved me very much, but his own addictions led him to introduce me to pornography and masturbation. Once the seed of corruption was planted Satan nurtured and watered it through the worlds system. When I became a young man I left home and joined the Marine Corps. I was stationed for four years in Southern California. Drug dealers, strip bars, peep shows and hookers littered the streets outside of Camp Pendleton. My time and money went towards staying high and feeding my sexual addiction. I couldn’t identify my sexual perversion as a problem. You see, the world may give lip service to drug abuse, but no such concern is directed to ungodly sexual behavior. Since I didn’t have God to guide and advise me I was left to seek happiness as the world advertises it. Looking to the world for moral guidelines is like going to a dermatologist who thinks band-aids are a cure for leprosy.

Pornography’s hold on me grew stronger as I grew older. The effect this had on my sexual life was always obvious to me, even when I was unable to see it through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. One effect it had on me that I was unable to see until I was well on my way to recovery was my inability to be intimate with others. Godly sex is an extension of the intimacy between a husband and wife. Worldly sex is a perverse, destructive form of self-gratification. I remember sitting in Stephen Black’s office one evening when he said something that opened my eyes. He told me that whenever we sin sexually we’re hurting our very souls. I Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” The way we treat others is a mere reflection of how we feel about ourselves. When we allow sexual sin to pollute us we’re damaging our image of ourselves to the point where we may loose sight of who and what we are in God’s world. If we aren’t able to see ourselves as God does then we can not react to others in a true spirit of love.

You would have thought that when I asked Jesus Christ to come into my life I would have instantly been cleansed from all my sins. Actually, in one sense this did occur. “And this is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (I Corinthians 6:11). We are instantly washed by the blood of Christ at the moment of faith. Being transformed into the image of Jesus on earth (sanctified), however, is a gradual process. I used to daydream that God would appear in the midst of my troubles and shoot me with His “Acme Holiness Ray-gun”. I now see God’s wisdom more clearly than I did in those days of Warner Brothers cartoon fantasies. The painstaking method of sanctification has added strength to my walk with God that quick fixes could never have accomplished.

There is nothing as important in recovering from sexual addiction than our walk with god. Yet so many sincere Christians are trapped in this habitual sin. “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each others burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:1-2)

God never intended us to be spiritual islands. Yet one of the destructive elements of this sin is that it isolates us emotionally. Before anyone can climb out of the pit of sexual sin they must reach up and grab the hand of another. I believe one of the greatest holes to be filled in the body of Christ is the shortage of laborers in the ministry of sexual recovery.

Brokenness is a prerequisite to spiritual victory. Taking the time to find First Stone Ministries, and keeping that first appointment with Stephen Black, was an extension of my brokenness. I had lost my wife, I was afraid of passing my sin to the next generation, and I felt a million miles from God. But once I made that first contact I was on the road to sexual freedom. God will deliver each and everyone of us from the sin that entangles us, but we must keep our end of the bargain. I’m reminded of the story of the slow-witted farmer who purchased a chain-saw. “This beauty’s guaranteed to cut down 40 trees a day”, the salesman boasted, “or we’ll give ya’ your money back.” “I’ll take it”, he replied. And moments later he was driving home with his new purchase. One week later, however, he was back in the store. “This thing don’t work”, he complained, “I’ve been workin’ my tail off and I ain’t able ta’ bring down more than five trees a day.” The salesman frowned at the saw. Then he took it and pulled the starter cord. Hearing the chain saw roar to life, the farmer jumped back in shock and exclaimed, “What’s that!” How often do we fail to use the power of God in our lives. I now realize, several years into my journey to sexual freedom, that my relationship with God ultimately enabled me to overcome my habitual sin. That may sound too easy to some, but like the slow-witted farmer we tend to get it wrong nevertheless.

Prayer, reading the scriptures of God and scripture memory have been the key disciplines to my building a powerful relationship with God. Freedom didn’t occur over night. The times I fell back into my sin were too numerous to count. Yet each time I did fall I got back up and turned to God. Continuing in God means not giving up. It means really wanting to put God first and the world behind us. “When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him,`Do you want to get well?’” (John 5:6) I never realized it until after the facts, but I didn’t have complete freedom over sexual sin until I truly wanted it. How often do we hear someone say they’d do anything to be free of a particular sin? But are they willing to put God first and the world behind them? Like so many things in life the answer to our problem is easy to understand but hard to practice. That’s because choices are made on 10% knowledge and 90% determination. Just as intellectual acceptance differs from true faith, true freedom over sin is a world away from lip service to the same.

I will never be the same since that moment I walked into First Stone Ministries like a wounded puppy, ready to face my sin. It wasn’t until I was well into my journey that I began to mature in my walk and experience victory. This journey will never end until Christ returns, and I’m glad for it. There are more meaningful endeavors than returning to the Egypt of our lives. That’s right, I don’t plan on bowing to Pharaoh ever again. I want to be where the presence of God shines, even if it means 40 years in the wilderness.

There is a tale about Abraham Lincoln before the Civil War. He happened upon a slave auction and noticed from the crowd the object of the next sale. A beautiful young black woman stood on the auctioneer’s stage. The bidding started and the men in the crowd began raising the price one after another as they appraised her with cruel stares. But with each bid Abraham Lincoln would raise it one dollar higher. As this continued the young slave girl eyed the tall awkward man with a look of suspicion and fear. Finally the last bid was made, and it fell to young Lincoln. Lincoln paid the auctioneer and the slave girl was brought to him. “Remove her chains”, he ordered her former captor. The girl rubbed her wrists and glared at her new master with uncertainty. “What ya’ goin’ ta’ do wit’ me now”, she asked. “Why, I’m going to sit you free miss”, he answered. “Free? What you mean, free?” “I mean you are a free person. You are no longer a slave.” Ya’ mean I can do whatever I want?” she exclaimed. Ya’ mean I can go anywhere I want?” Abraham Lincoln just smiled and nodded his head. “Then I want to be wit’ you!” she shouted. He looked down at her, puzzled. “You can go anywhere. Why would you want to follow me?” “Cause I wanna be wit’ the one who set me free.” When God set me free from sexual sin it was more than just a case of my overcoming a stronghold in my life. It was a renewal in my walk with God. It is the realization in my heart that I want to follow the one who has set me free.

- Email this to a friend
copyright © 1995-2009 Leadership U. All rights reserved.
Updated: 13 July 2002

Posted in Culture and Contrast, Faith, My Story, Self-Esteem, Sex, Spiritual Milk | 3 Comments »

More Thoughts on Relationships

December 14, 2008

My return to the Phils have been a long time coming. My hope is that I will be able to keep my emotional wants and desires “out of it” long enough for me to listen to the wants and desires of God. I know that God wants us to do ‘His’ will and not our own. After all, that’s what makes the most sense. God made us so he knows what he made us for.

As for my “girlfriend” (Malu) goes I would have to say I don’t believe in that sort of thing. It would be more accurate to say that I know that God is my father and I have allowed God to make the decision whether or not I should be single or be married. My soon-to-one-day-be marriage to Malu is the result of my listening for God’s will and not my own. That is if that every happens; only God knows.

I think the whole concept of boyfriends and girlfriends only gets singles in trouble with matters of purity. Malu is actually the one that introduced a book to me called “Choosing God’s Best” that reflected a lot of the things that I believe the Lord had already shown me. The purpose for our lives is to glorify God, so I know that the Lord has chosen someone for me that is none better for that purpose. If the only thing that draws a man to a woman (or visa versa) is that woman’s beauty, intelligence, humor, or other qualities, then I believe that relationship/marriage would be built on something substandard.

The only thing worth building a relationship or future marriage on is the same reason that anything should be built on; the foundation of Christ. And with that in mind I will also add that any man/woman that would allow God to make that decision for them would naturally find that they would find everything they need in the person that God had chosen for them (or even being single). In addition to being intelligent and beautiful, I also believe Malu will more importantly help me to do God’s will in ways that I don’t yet understand and only God knows.

Posted in Culture and Contrast, Faith, My Family, My Story, Self-Esteem, Sex, Spiritual Milk | 2 Comments »