Category: Selfishness

7 ways to ruin your marriage

07/23/2014

With more than 15 years of training and experience counseling couples before, during, and after marriage, I’ve seen what destroys marriages. Since the statistics on marriage and relational failures make it pretty clear that many people considering marriage don’t have any intention of seeing it through, I’ve created a list of Marriage Killers: Seven Sure-fire Strategies for Ruining Your Relationship. With tongue firmly in cheek to illustrate these strategies, I employ Daily Show delivery to shine the light on how absurd this behavior really is. If you are turned off by this style, that is unfortunate, but it’s necessary to break through silly excuses and lame assumptions regarding marriage.

WARNING: If you intend to take your wedding vows seriously and work hard at making your marriage last, then this article is not for you. Don’t read any further if you seek to see the best in your spouse, compromise as needed, or love them even when they may act unlovable. Are you planning on seeing the commitment through despite, and in spite of tough circumstances? Will you take the long-term view on marriage and realize the beauty of a life lived, through ups and downs, with your spouse? Do the words, “Until we are parted by death” have great meaning to you? Then there’s no need for you to with this article.

Read on if you entered marriage with an attitude of “We’ll see how it goes.” Marriage Killers is for people who look to entertainment stars as their examples of how to move in and out of multiple marriages and pairings. You’ll want to read this article if you think marriage is about enjoying the other person until someone better comes along. If you enter marriage with the thought that it’s your mission to change the other person into who you want them to be, the next few paragraphs can prove helpful.

1. “I Can’t Hear You!” The first Surefire Strategy is titled “I Can’t Hear You!” It represents the aspect of communication in a marriage. In fact, don’t worry about communicating, just assume your spouse knows and understands what you’re thinking and feeling. Under no circumstances should you share anything vulnerable or sensitive—they’ll just use it to shame you or hurt you later.

2.”It’s All Mine!” Next is “It’s All Mine!” which covers the topic of finances and money in marriage. This Surefire Strategy is all about keeping what is yours, yours. Keep your money separate and hidden because your spouse will rob you blind or keep you down if you share. Feel free to run up debt for what you want—they may get stuck half the debt when you divorce.

3. “Protecting Your Self” Surefire Strategy #3 is about “Protecting Your Self.” Don’t let your spouse suck your life dry with all they want to do. Stop wasting time wondering about their needs or what matters to them. Relax and let their love tank run on empty. They enjoy snuggling on the couch watching a movie? No worries, you’ve got to go for a jog. They appreciate a verbal pat-on-the-back for accomplishing a task? Immaterial—you need to do lunch with your friends. If you do activities they enjoy, your own life force will shrivel up.

4. “That’s Your Job” Two people in a marriage have divided tasks that they should handle. Surefire Strategy #4 reminds you of the adage, “That’s Your Job!” Live in your strengths. Do only those household tasks that you enjoy doing, if any at all. Forget about “helping out,” or “doing your part,” or even “pitching in where needed because we’re in this together.” You’re not a sports team, for crying out loud!

5. “They’re Just Pictures” In our fifth Surefire Strategy, you are reminded to skip the articles in your favorite magazine and just stare at the photographs of naked people. After all, “They’re Just Pictures!” Definitely get into porn. Skip subscribing to a magazine. Get it instantly online. Make sure you view it daily. Use it instead of a real, intimate, sexual experience with your spouse because that’s always the same thing, same position (and not very often!). Better yet, just take the natural next step and have an affair. It’s just sex, after all.

6. “I Married You, Not Them!” Your spouse has a family and you need to stay away from them and talk bad about them. If you doubt this, Surefire Strategy #6 describes the truth about “I Married You, Not Them!” Ignore your spouse’s family—they’re not who you married. Don’t call, text, or email on special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries. For your own sake, make every effort to avoid family gatherings at holiday times, especially reunions. Remember to neglect any issues regarding their siblings or aging parents.

7. “Are They Coming Over Again?” You need to limit your exposure to your spouse’s friends. Marriage is just about the two of you; you don’t need other people. Surefire Strategy #7, “Are They Coming Over Again?!” is all about how to downgrade your spouse’s friends. Since when do you have to be chummy with their friends? Make excuses for why you can’t make it to Zach and Jennifer’s party. When they want to have their group of friends over, be nasty about it, or schedule something else on top of it.

Follow these seven strategies and you can easily demolish your vows, diminish spousal love, and deter any growth in what was once a lifetime relationship—if that’s what you really want to do.

–

For more tongue-in-cheek marriage counsel, see John A. Page’s book, Marriage Killers: Seven Surefire Strategies for Ruining Your Relationship. . .If That’s What You Want.

For the original post written by John A Page, go to: http://seedbed.com/feed/marriage-killers-7-surefire-strategies-ruining-relationship/

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10 Ways Cyberporn Damages Marriage

07/22/2014

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Here are ten of the leading ways in which a man’s use of Internet pornography can damage marital love, according to Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons of the Institute for Marital Healing:

Growth in narcissism, the major enemy of marital love.
Lack of refinement in self-giving to the romantic aspect of marriage and to the intimate relationship.
Obsession with one’s own pleasure.
Decreased self-giving to one’s spouse.
Diminished communication with one’s spouse and harm to the marital friendship.
Damage to the wife’s ability to trust and then to experience pleasure with her husband.
Marital loneliness, anger and conflicts.
A disordered view of beauty, goodness, the human person and sexuality.
Increased vulnerability to commit adultery.
Marital separation.

This post was written by Dr Fitzgibbons. For the original post, go to: http://www.foryourmarriage.org/ten-ways-cyberporn-damages-marriage/

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Your porn habit is adultery

07/21/2014

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I know a guy who cheats on his wife. He cheats on her every day. He cheats on her multiple times a day. He’s a husband and a father and a serial adulterer.

I shouldn’t know this fact about him, but it came up in conversation a few days ago. We were talking about the divorce rate; both of us gave our theories as to why the statistics are so high. I mentioned in my diagnosis a few studies that show pornography to be a root cause in over 50 percent of divorces annually.

He laughed. “People don’t get divorced over porn.” He went on to explain that porn isn’t a “big deal” to most people. It’s not “like it’s cheating or something.” He told me that he looks at it multiple times daily. His wife, he insisted, might be a little peeved if she knew the extent of it, but only because women overreact about “that kind of thing.”

What kind of thing? Their husbands spending all day obsessively plunging through the darkest regions of the internet for graphic sexual images of rape, abuse, perversion, exploitation and other forms of filthy depravity previously unknown to mankind?

Yeah. That kind of thing. No reason why any wife should be too upset about that, apparently.

Listen guys, I know this is an uncomfortable conversation. But it’s time we man up and get real about pornography. First things first: if you’re married and you look at porn, you are cheating. Period. From a Christian perspective, this can’t be debated. Christ laid it out very clearly: if you lust after another woman, you have committed adultery. When we look at porn we are choosing to succumb to that lust; we are indulging it, fertilizing it, giving it respite in our minds. We are diving into it headfirst and soaking in it like a sponge. We are lessening ourselves, betraying our wives and participating in the violent exploitation of women (and girls). Our minds and our bodies belong to the Lord and to our wives; pornography, therefore, intrudes on their domain. If we look at porn, we are adulterers. We are adulterers in all the worst ways.

We don’t even need to refer to Scripture to figure out the simple equation that porn equals adultery.

Why wouldn’t it?

Because you aren’t physically in contact with another woman?

So what? That’s merely a matter of semantics and circumstance. The absence of physical touch doesn’t automatically free you of the scarlet letter — if it did, ‘sexting’ with other women would be fair game, I suppose. How would you feel if you looked through your wife’s phone and found racy, sexually graphic text messages she’d sent to a man at her office? Would you be alright with it as long as she could prove she never had any physical contact with him? Or is that totally different because she knows the guy, whereas porn is anonymous and impersonal? See, we find ourselves constructing many arbitrary lines of distinction when we are determined to rationalize behavior we instinctively know to be immoral and wrong.

But, OK, what if she didn’t know the guy? What if she was engaging in “fantasies” with men she never met? Imagine that, in your cyber travels, you stumbled upon a porn site featuring pictures and videos of a particularly alluring young female: your wife. How would that sit with you? Your wife selling digital sex all over the internet — how would you like that? It might cause a bit of a marital dispute, wouldn’t you say?

If you wouldn’t want your wife being a porn provider, you ought to understand why she wouldn’t want you to be a porn consumer. If you wouldn’t want her to invite and encourage other men to violate her in their minds, you ought to understand why she wouldn’t want you to accept the invitation to violate other women in yours.

I don’t mean to concentrate only on married men. Porn is poison for everyone, married or not. And I’m not here to castigate you if you’ve stumbled. We live in a society that preys upon a man’s weaknesses, shoving sex into his face at hyper speed every day, all day, all of the time. This isn’t an excuse; just an attempt to put things into context. I won’t yell at a guy who fights a porn addiction anymore than I’d yell at a guy who fights a crack addiction. But at least the crack addict likely won’t encounter very many people (besides his dealer) who will tell him that it’s actually healthy to smoke crack. If he ventures outside of the abandoned shack where he scores his dope, he probably won’t find any respectable people who will say, “hey, crack isn’t a big deal — it’s totally natural to smoke crack, man!” In that way, the crack smoker has a leg up on the porn addict. The porn addict, by contrast, has to fight both the compulsion itself and the myriad of creeps who will try to convince him that it’s all just a bit of innocent fun.

That’s a lie, of course. It’s not innocent. It’s not fun.

I could cite for you the mounds of psychiatric research proving the detrimental effects of pornography on the brain. But you can do that research yourself.

I could tell you about sex slavery, human trafficking, drug abuse, and child molestation, and I could explain how the porn industry wouldn’t exist without these necessary ingredients. But these are conclusions you can draw on your own, if ever you take even a moment to think about it.

I could remind you that these women you find on your porn sites might not be women at all — they could be children — and there’s no way for you to know for sure. I could then point out that any avid porn customer has most likely at some point been a child porn customer, whether he knew it or not. But this is, indeed, an obvious and inescapable reality.

I could tell you that many children view graphic porn for the first time before the age of 12. I could tell you that we haven’t even begun to reap the atrocious fruits that will come from an entire generation raised on the heinous perversions of internet pornography. But it’s probably too late for these warnings.

So what is left? Perhaps nothing, really. Pornography is evil, empty, deadening, dirty — this is something we all know. That’s why, unless you are either psychotic or utterly despicable, you wouldn’t want your daughter to get into the porn business. That’s why most people hide their porn habits. That’s why it still isn’t considered acceptable to browse “adult” websites at your desk at work or at a table in Starbucks (although people still do, in both scenarios). That’s why you only find porn shops and strip clubs in the slummy, rundown parts of town. No matter how hedonistic and “open minded” we become, we still recognize porn as something that ought to be stowed away in the dank, dark corners of our lives. This is Natural Law, and we can’t escape it. We have an innate understanding of right and wrong, whether we want it or not.

Married men: I think we should be spending our free time with our families, or reading interesting books so that we can sharpen our minds, or building things, or exercising, or doing anything else that will make us better men. Porn will not make you a better man. It will make you smaller. It will make you a liar. It will kill that instinct inside you that calls you to protect and honor women. It will turn you into something you never wanted to be. It will turn you into a sneaky, shameful pervert.

It will turn you into an adulterer.

This post was written by Matt Walsh. For the original post, go to: http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/11/25/married-men-your-porn-habit-is-an-adultery-habit/

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Becoming great: A Memorial Day meditation

05/26/2014

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"...the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves." Luke 22:26b

We men devote so much of our mental attention and hard work to our own greatness. We plan for advancement; strategize next moves; put our heads down and grind. Deep in our inner machinery there’s something that drives us on toward securing greatness . . . of some kind or another . . . for ourselves. Maybe it’s on a small scale. Maybe on a large scale. Maybe in our work, maybe in our communities, maybe even in our faith. The drive is just there.

The twelve Apostles—men, human men—had this drive. In the upper room, a dispute “arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest” (Luke 22:24). But Jesus stopped them and taught them (and us) that this drive must be refocused. “But I am among you as the one who serves” (Luke 22:27). That’s our blueprint. His life is the blueprint for our lives. We must follow it and no other. We must reject all blueprints drawn by our pride, or envy, or selfishness.

Refocusing this drive, away from lifting ourselves and toward lifting those around us, is one of the most important things we can do, as men. It moves us into true masculinity—where we lend our strength to others, who need it, rather than use it solely for our own gain. We must trust that this is a better way to live . . . better for God, better for us, and better for those we are to love and serve.

Okay, so what do we do?

Look around you—today, this week—for people you can serve. Keep it simple. Whom will you come into contact with, naturally? Whom do you have influence over, in the normal course of your days? Whom might you have overlooked? Ask yourself, what do they need and how can I help?

Copyright © 2013 Gather Ministries, All rights reserved

http://www.gatherministries.com/wire/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Are you sabotaging your marriage?

05/15/2014

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“You’re going to vacuum before they get here, right?” Leslie asked in an anxious tone as we were pulling into the garage.

“I’ve got it under control,” I murmured.

We jumped out of the car; each grabbed an arm full of groceries and hurried toward the kitchen.

“I’ll take care of these groceries so you can get started on the vacuuming,” Leslie said.

The tension was rising because in less than an hour, two other couples would be at our doorstep expecting a dinner party.

“Don’t forget to light the candles and turn on the music before they get here,” Leslie hollered from the kitchen.

I heard what she said but didn’t reply as I walked into my study to look through some “urgent” mail.

Only a couple of minutes passed, it seemed to me, when Leslie came in to my study and in exasperation asked: “What are you doing?”

“Reading my mail,” I responded defensively and with the best look of confusion I could put on my face. She didn’t buy it. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll take care of the other stuff.”

Leslie sighed and left the room.

Five minutes later I heard the sound of the vacuum in the living room. I’m almost done here and then I’ll go in and help her, I said to myself. Ten minutes later the vacuum stopped.

I bolted from my chair and walked to the living room. “I thought I was going to do this,” I said to Leslie.

“So did I,” she replied.

We’ve all weaseled our way out of our spouse’s “to do” list at one time or another. Haven’t we? After all, we’ve worked hard, we’re tired, busy, preoccupied, maxed-out, whatever.

However we defend it, subtle selfishness is a deadly for couples. It lurks just beneath the surface whenever we are tired and there’s a household chore to be done or an errand to be run. That’s when we pretend we don’t notice the chore or we “forget” about the task, hoping our spouse will take over so we don’t have to.

Subtle selfishness seeps into our marriage in a myriad of ways. I (Leslie) am the first to admit I can selfishly hoard my husband’s time, for example. I can complain to Les about his busy schedule but never consider adjusting my own calendar for his benefit.

Or, I might think nothing of spending extravagantly on a luncheon with one of my girlfriends and later snip at Les for indulging himself with another computer gadget he “doesn’t need.”

Let’s face it. In big and small ways we all squirrel away money, energy and time for our own advantage.

Here’s the problem with subtle selfishness: it cuts the heart out of marriage. We can rationalize our selfish ways all we want, but we are missing the point of our partnership when we do not pitch in with a generous spirit and help our spouse with the task at hand.

This blog post is from Drs Les & Leslie Parrott. I encourage you to order their book, Trading Places

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Can I Really Change?

05/14/2014

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One of the things that is exciting about being involved in a church plant is the influx of new people coming to know Jesus, seeing miraculous things happening and being energized by new Christians. It is absolutely thrilling when a person who previously didn't regard Christ as his/her Savior experiences a life-changing decision. It boosts my faith when these people "who don't know better" really believe that God can do anything.

Having been a Christian for over 40 years, I think that I got this Christian thing down. I can easily become complacent and lazy. Yet, these new Christians are an inspiration. They remind me of how I need to rely more on Christ and less on myself.

I was in a small group from our church and we were praying for these new people. I was struck by a thought that I am sure came from God. I remember thinking, "you don't really believe that these new Christians are gonna make it, do you?" It was difficult for me to admit that to myself. But I sensed a further prompting, "tell these people in your small group what you have been thinking."  So I said, "this is hard to say but I'm gonna say it. I have to confess to the sin of pride, of elitisim. These new people that we have been praying would come to our church, I have been thinking that they wouldn't last. That they aren't really gonna make this Christian thing work for them. I've been thinking that they will never be as good of a Christian as I am." Now, I would like to say that my statements changed somebody but these statements only changed me.

I am glad that I was brave enough to say out loud what I have been thinking for a while. It was difficult but humbling. I didn't experience any condemnation from my small group friends but rather an open discussion about attitudes and how we need to allow God's Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out.

I was thinking about my comments and my attitudes a little later, and I had another thought, "If these new Christians don't make it, you will be partly to blame. It is up to you to offer encouragement, discipleship, friendship and support."

That's one of the many things that I like about the Holy Spirit. He's direct, to the point and doesn't just blast away at me. God's Holy Spirit is an expert marksman. He never misses His target. He sees something that needs to be corrected and all I have to do is listen, trust and obey Him.

I'm glad that after being a Christian for all these years, that God hasn't stopped with molding me into the image of Christ.

If I'm honest and humble, He will do just that.
He will do the same for you.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Know thyself

04/29/2014

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How well do you know yourself? Often I have learned aspects of my character or personality from other people -- facets that I didn't recognize but others have known all along. Because I didn't know myself well, nor did I understand who I was (identity), I often thought and behaved in ways that were inconsistent. Only within the last few years did I discover that I lived much of my life in pursuit of pleasing others, or at least trying to be viewed by others as they wanted to view me.

I came to discover that I am a unique individual -- all of us are unique persons. Our respective, unique personalities and quirks not only identify us but are a gift from God our creator. But our uniqueness can also cause us problems, especially when others do not understand us, or do not care to appreciate us. Henri Nouwen, in his book The Inner Voice of Love, writes (emphases added):

"When you discover in yourself something that is a gift from God, you have to claim it and not let it be taken away from you. Sometimes people who do not know your heart will altogether miss the importance of something that is part of your deepest self, precious in your eyes as well as God's. They might not know you well enough to be able to respond to your genuine needs. It is then that you have to speak your heart and follow your own deepest calling.[1]"

The temptation is very real for you to try to be what you think others want you to be, or what others have even told you how you should be, but that will only cause you problems. You must refuse to allow yourself to be molded by what others want you to be. Why? I can think of three reasons.

First, God created you as a unique human being. No one has ever been exactly like you and no one will ever exist exactly like you. Only you can be you in this life. To attempt to be any other person, or exist in any other manner, would betray God's special creation of you. When He redeemed you, by grace through faith in Christ, He did not destroy your unique character and personality -- He reformed and refashioned it (even if sinful desire remains) and He enjoys your unique existence.

Second, God wants to conform you to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29). God, your creator, is not interested in you becoming like what others want you to be. He is ultimately interested in progressively transforming you into the image of His one and only Son, for your good and His glory. To attempt to be any other person, or exist in any other manner, would betray God's design for you in Christ.

Third, for the sake of honesty, you must be true to yourself. Were you to conform yourself to the wishes of others, you would be living a lie, and a lying life does not honor your creator. Attempting to be any other person, or to exist in any other manner, is to live a lie. What could go wrong for you if you tried? Nouwen writes:

"There is a part of you that too easily gives in to others' influence. As soon as someone questions your motives, you start doubting yourself. You end up agreeing with the other before you have consulted your own heart. Thus you grow passive and simply assume that the other knows better.[2]"

You will become increasingly more unstable, incapable of making your own decisions, and codependent upon others for much of the issues of life. You will become an easy target upon whom others can prey; be taken advantage of; lose your sense of self-worth and dignity; and become an object that is neglected, dismissed, and abused by others. Know thyself, be true to thyself, and be faithful to your creator who created you in His image -- who recreated you in Christ's image.

Finally, recall the words of St Paul to the Galatians: "Am I now seeking human approval, or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10 NRSV). Though our context may differ from that of Paul, we learn that even he had to discover and embrace who he was, in Christ, and not to let people intimidate him or dictate the course of his life. He had to be true to the Lord, true to the Church, and true to himself. May all of us learn the value of being true.

__________

[1] Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom (New York: Image Books, 1998), 44.

[2] Ibid.

This post was written by Anonymous. You can find the original blog post with comments, here: http://credendum.weebly.com/1/post/2014/04/know-thyself-and-be-true.html

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I'm giving up self-righteousness for Lent

03/06/2014

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I’m giving up self-righteousness for Lent.

I don’t even know if you can do that. Does that qualify? I don’t come from a faith tradition that regularly observes the church seasons, but I see all my Facebook friends giving up sugar, or television, or even Facebook itself, and I think “that’s good….wow, that’s gonna be tough….I hope they can pull it off.”

What’s something I hold onto more tightly than anything? What’s something I could lay down as a sacrifice during this Lenten season?

My self-righteousness.

I know, I know. It sounds all existential doesn’t it? But the last few years have reminded me of something incredibly important.

I’m a broken mess.

Now you wouldn’t really know it to look at me. I’m not a heroin addict. I don’t run around on my wife. I’ve got a good job, live in a respectable neighborhood, do my best to love my kids and give my life to those around me. The addiction I migrate back to isn’t going to land me in any rehab I know of. It’s socially acceptable. In fact, it’s socially admired.

It’s my belief in me.

I want to fix myself. I want to earn my way. I want to be admired and respected. I want you to think I’m more than I am. I want my good deeds to outweigh my bad. I want to control my own destiny. I want to be my own Savior.

And even though I fail every single time, I crawl right back and try again.

I need the Gospel. I need Jesus. The only One who can really fix what’s wrong with me. The only one who can redeem the power and potential that’s inside of me.

I can’t. But He did.

Jesus did.

And so this Lenten season I’m laying down my self-salvation projects. And if it’s all the same to you, with God’s help, I’m not going to pick them back up again.

If you begin recognizing Lent today, don’t allow the ritual to lose its meaning. Let it point you to Jesus. He’s the only place righteousness can be found.

This post was written by Erik Cooper. For the original post, go to: http://beyondtherisk.com/2014/03/05/im-giving-up-self-righteousness-for-lent/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Do you practice sin in your life? - part two

12/27/2013

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The acts of the flesh 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.

Yesterday, we discussed the first part of this section of this scripture. Today, we will finish. Let God's Holy Spirit speak to you about your life.

9. Fits of rage (wrath) - The Greek word thumos is used throughout the New Testament to picture a person who is literally boiling with anger about something. Although the person tries to restrain his anger by shoving it down deeper into his soul, it intermittently flares up. When that happens, this person is like a volcano that suddenly blow it top, scorching everything within its reach as it hurls its load of deadly molten lava on the entire surrounding landscape.

10. Selfish ambition (strife) - The Greek word eritheia describes a self-seeking ambition that is more concerned about itself and the fulfillment of its own wants, desires, and pleasures that it is in meeting the same needs in others. When eritheia is working in someone's life, it means that a person's principle concern is to take care of himself and to get what he wants. He is so bent on getting what he wants that he is willing to do anything, say anything, or sacrifice any standard, rule, or relationship to achieve his goals. Because this self-consumed, self-focused attitude is engrossed with its own desires and ambitions, it is blinded to the desires and ambitions of other people.

11. Dissensions - The Greek word dichostasia means to stand apart, as one who rebels and steps away from someone to whom he should have been loyal. Thus the word "dissension" gives the impression of disloyalty. It is the ultimate act of defiance or disloyalty to an established authority.

12. Factions - The Greek word hairesis carries the idea of a group of people who adheres to the same doctrine or who ardently follow the same leader and are sectarian. The adherents of a sect are usually limited in their scope and closed to outsiders, staying primarily to themselves. In New Testament times, these groups were considered to be unauthorized because they were not submitted to the authority of the church leadership. In today's contemporary language, we would call them "cliques" - a group of people who believe or conduct themselves as if they are exclusive.

13. Envy - The Greek word phthonos implies a deeply felt grudge because someone possess what a person wishes was his own. Because this person has a chip on his shoulder, he begrudges what the other person possesses and is covetous of that person's belongings, accomplishments, relationships, or titles in life. Every time he see that other person, he inwardly seethes about his success. He deeply resents that person's blessing and tries to figure out a way to seize it away from the person he envies in order to make it his own.

14. Drunkenness - The Greek word methe refers to strong drink or to drunkenness. The consumption of wine for the sake of intoxication was common in the first century due to many pagan religions that employed wine as a part of their religious practices. A drunken state suppressed the mind's ability to think correctly and releases the flesh to fully express itself. The believers in the first century were trying to walk free from the power of their flesh. The last thing they needed was to drink wine, inhibit their ability to think correctly, revive their flesh, and then do things that were sinful or damaging! That is why Paul urged them to leave wine alone!

15. Orgies - The Greek word komoi describes a person who can't bear the thought of boredom and therefore constantly seems forms of amusement or entertainment. This person is actually afraid of being bored, so he constantly contemplates what he can do next to have fun or be entertained. The word komoi can refer to a person who endlessly eats at parties or who seeks constant laughter and hilarity. Although there is nothing wrong with laughter, this person is consumed with the need for comedy, light moments, fun, pleasure, entertainment, or constant eating. He lives for his next meal, the next restaurant, the next movie, the next vacation.

16. and the like - Paul ends this list with this Greek phrase, which alerts us to the fact that this list of the works of the flesh is not comprehensive; it is just the beginning of the works of the flesh! Many more examples of works of the flesh could be added to the list, but Paul uses these as examples of how the flesh behaves, ending the list once he has sufficiently made the point to his readers.

If you routinely do these things as a matter of lifestyle, I believe you need to go to God and ask Him to tell you the truth about your spiritual status!

You cannot afford to make a mistake about this eternal question!!

This entry and yesterday's entry are taken from the book, Sparkling Gems From the Greek by R. Renner

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Sunday Meditation

12/01/2013

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If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.

It is easy to judge other people. Judgmentalism and blame come naturally to us. Other people's faults and failures are not difficult to identify. Many of us can remember a time in our lives when throwing the first stone was not just easy - it was what we thought good Christians were supposed to do.

One of the most dramatic changes which takes place early in the recovery process is an increase in self-awareness. We begin to see patterns in our own lives that need changing. We see our own self destructive tendencies. We see how we have brought pain to others. As these insights dawn on us, we begin to lay down our stones.

Of course, as our self-awareness increases, many of us attempt to refocus the blame and judgmentalism from others onto ourselves. We can blame and judge ourselves as ruthlessly as we may once have blamed and judged others. But it's not really progress in recovery to give up throwing stones. . and then start banging our heads against a stone wall.

Judgmentalism and blame are not helpful in recovery. What makes recovery possible is when increased self-awareness leads to an increased capacity to experience forgiveness. Gradually we learn to accept forgiveness from God and others. We receive mercy. As a result, we begin to treat ourselves and others with mercy.

It is increased self-awareness and the humility which self-awareness makes possible that are the soil in which true community can grow. When we accept ourselves as humans even though we struggle and sometimes fail, we can become far more gentle with ourselves and with others.

Lord, you know how quick I have been to throw stones.
Thank you for the self awareness that has allowed me to see more clearly that
I am not without sin.
I know that I am in need of forgiveness.
Give me the courage to accept your forgiveness and mercy
and in this way begin to live in true community

Amen.

Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan
National Association for Christian Recovery

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