Sad Bunch of Believers

i'm not really sure how to start this post. it's something I have *extremely* strong convictions about, something I know that 99% of the world disagrees with me on, and something 90% of the Christians I know will disagree with me on. and that's too bad. because I know that my opinion is based solely off of God's Word, which is always true and just.

sigh. where do I begin...

As children of God, what is our desire supposed to be? "as far as WHAT?," say you.

in every matter, says i.

our desire should be to please our Father. seek His will. WAIT on Him. do I see this happening often? NO. absolutely not. and i'm filled with a righteous anger for my Lord, who is not getting the life worship and devotion He and He alone deserves.

NOW, based on this truth, let's approach the topic of relationships. Hooooboy.

Reminder--Who is it that demands, is worthy of, is JEALOUS for our love? Our Lord, Savior, Father, and Redeemer--Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, what does He say about loving Him?... hmmmmm:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart

heart: "regarded as the center of a person's thoughts and emotions" and "the center of the total personality"

and with all your soul

soul: "the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being" and "the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans

and with all your strength. (Deut. 6:5)

strength: "the quality or state of being strong" and "a good or beneficial quality or attribute"

God is to be the first and foremost in our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Living to please and honor him should be our priority in every area of our lives.

however, if you just take a look at the church around you, you'll see something on the far end of the spectrum.

God has given us freedom. he's *granted* His children freedom. not many people understand what that "freedom" means. so what *does* it entail?

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Gal. 5:1

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Gal. 5:13-26

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

1 Corin. 8:9

This is the thing: our desire should be to love our Father and love each other. ALL THE TIME. In everything. I do not see this happening. I see contention, jealousy, grudges, unkind words, impure thoughts, and ungodly intentions all OVER the place. The church isn't trying to pursue holiness! Instead what I see is Christians with an attitude of "what can I get away with?" It makes me so angry.

Believers try to justify their actions with statements like "well I'm 'free' in Christ" and "you can't judge me, I'll let the Lord judge me," and all sorts of crap. Dude!

For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

1 Peter 2:15-16

This same God you're mentioning has already told you what He desires and how he wants you to live, no matter what.

as far as relationships with the opposite sex go, this is how I believe they should be viewed:

God has a design over each of our lives. Every one of His children (yes, that means you), He has a good and wonderful plan for (Jer. 29:11). So first and foremost, BEFORE and while we are thinking about possible careers and dating or marriage, we are to be constantly bringing our life before the Lord. he wants His children to talk with Him constantly. not TO Him, but with Him. that includes bringing before Him our struggles, our sin, our hurt, and our desires.

that also includes praising Him for who He is, thanking Him, humbling ourselves before Him, and earnestly seeking His specific will for our own life. That means listening and waiting.

some believers I know think that God doesn't have a specific plan for them. or at least that's what they say. what I *see* is their being too lazy and not caring to serve the Lord with their time, their money, their entire life. They don't understand the huge blessing, the GIFT we have been given to walk with our Creator, to have a loving relationship with Him, to serve Him. there is no higher calling, and it's a wondrous gift that is sadly taken for granted.

Back to what I said about earnestly seeking God--when we do this, God will lead us where He wants us to be, and He will provide. His desire is that we trust and obey. He wants to pour out His blessings on us, His children. That's wonderful! And we receive these blessings by going where he leads, doing what He wills, seeking to have a heart full of Him, full of His Word. that's awesome.

Here is where I ask, "what is your reason for dating?" Or what I more blatantly ask, "what is the purpose of dating?" the typical dating I see happening does not consist of a man and a woman who have a godly, loving, friend relationship. Nope, dating is a pastime. an ego-bloating, vain pastime. It's about two people coming together to see if the other approves of their attractiveness. there's also the mentality of needing to be approved sexually. it becomes a priority when it shouldn't be.

so that i'll be clear, i'll just go ahead and mention that it's good for friends to "go out" to talk and have a pleasant time together. but that's still to be done with the intention in mind being the pursuit of holiness and blessing the Lord and each other with what you say and do. our purpose should be to encourage and build up our fellow believers, no matter if man or woman, in their own walk with the Lord.

but frivolous dating and flirting are distractions. we are not only allowing ourselves to be distracted from serving Jesus, we are distracting the person we're dating as well if we don't go into the relationship with the intention of both sides clearly being to honor the Lord in all words and activities. and if that weren't enough, frivolous dating always opens up doors of all sorts for temptation and new sin that we never wanted to get into in the first place.

the way it should work in OUR culture (since some cultures elsewhere have arranged marriages) is that a man and woman both pursuing Jesus, both already friends who are in a loving, godly relationship, are brought together in God's timing to have a marriage relationship. see that? In HIS will, with HIS leading. Not because you randomly feel like it, or because the person is really attractive to your flesh.

it's so easy to get side-tracked...

I mentioned this same verse in another post of mine a few months ago, but this is what i'm trying to help you understand. in Jude:

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

...and he goes on later:

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires." These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

Those are powerful words. And they're the truth. We are to despise, even hate wickedness, because God hates it. God is holy, and we are to pursue holiness, which is the opposite of all wickedness. What more do you need to know?

from 1 Corinthians 6:

Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Flee (Hello! FLEE!) from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Thereforehonor God with your body.

I feel like putting several exclamation points after that last sentence. It's talked about so SO much in God's Word that *He* is the one who sets the standards, and our bodies, our lives, are His. He gave our life to us in the first place! Since He has called us to be his children especially, why wouldn't we want to live our lives to honor, worship, and adore our wonderful Father and God? He has called us to Himself. We've been called out to walk as children of God.

"...to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God."

John 1:12-13

"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me;
I was found by those who did not seek me.
To a nation that did not call on my name,
I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'

All day long I have held out my hands
to an obstinate people,
who walk in ways not good,
pursuing their own imaginations-

a people who continually provoke me
to my very face."

Isaiah 65:1-3a

Paul mentions again in 1 Corinthians, this time in chapter 10:

"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

and he goes on to say...

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

Do everything for *His* glory. His! Not what your body tells you feels pleasant, not what your current mood demands or based on how you're "feeling" at the moment.

Being aware and understanding what's going on and how the enemy works and what God has said is truth is the key to living a holy life. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge," God says in Hosea.

Believers are supposed to correct, encourage, help each other along in their pursuit of living a holy life that's pleasing to our Father. That includes pointing out areas in each other's lives where we need some help getting on the right track, or helping them see an area where they're distracted from Jesus. I don't think it's generally understood that our enemy will use ANY and EVERYTHING to keep us from walking with Jesus and accomplishing what He wants to do with us. The enemy wants us to live mediocre useless lives instead of living up to the plan God has for us. He'll do everything he can to pull us away, and that includes deceiving us. Hello, he's the great deceiver!

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

1 Peter 5:8-9

Revelation says that Satan leads the whole world astray. And he does it by whatever means he can.

Even good things can be distorted and used for evil. Seriously, how ignorant is the church? I see ignorance everywhere. it's unbelievable. even my own teachers in the church say things and practice things that are not honoring to the Lord, people I *look up to*. Sure, I am misled as well sometimes. I'm not claiming to have reached perfection, believe me! I'm grateful that our Father is a merciful and loving one, because I am the chief of sinners.

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

1 Peter 4:1-3

It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable.

1 Thes. 4:2-4

For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

1 John 2:16-17