Do not confuse your God-created attractions and physical desires with sexual depravity. One can misuse God's gifts. That does not make God's gifts evil.
Before we can stop evil, we must know the difference between good and evil. So, here's a thread.
I once had a Christian husband come to me confessing that he had "lusted" after his wife. He thought he was a pervert, a predator, a monster, because he found his wife attractive. I asked, "Do you love your wife?" and he said, "Dearly." I told him to read Song of Solomon.
I have had pastors, church leaders, and Christian men demand that I change my Twitter avatar because it causes men to sin. Um, no? God made my face (and yes, even my "clavicles"). If God has created something evil, then we have much bigger problems to deal with than my avatar.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Our standard of morality must be based on something other than “who’s motives do I relate with more?” Murder is evil. Burning down communities is evil. It doesn’t matter why you did it, who you are, or who you voted for. It’s evil.
I also see many people making dangerous assumptions. Like, all evangelicals motivated the Capitol riots, all police are racist, all minorities play victim, all people who get stopped by police are up to no good, all people who get shot at riots deserved it.
No.
This is not logical at all.
At all.
The man who killed George Floyd didn’t do it because he was a cop. He did it because he was a murderer. He had the capacity and heart for murder long before he encountered George on that terrible day.
Celebrating a minor milestone. Over the past year or so I’ve been really stressed and not eating much. We added up my calorie intake and it was around 700 a day, which is ... terrible. Well, yesterday, after much effort, I made it to 1,200 😂 🏆
My fitness trainer said this is a really common problem for busy moms and anyone stressed. But when you eat that little, your metabolism stalls, and your body clings to fat because it thinks it’s starving so you don’t lose weight 😭
These are the goals my trainer gave me:
And this all has to be healthy whole foods. So, fats are coming from things like eggs, avocado, yogurt, etc., protein is coming from beans, fish, lean steak, chicken, nuts ... and carbs are everywhere so it’s not difficult filling those in 😂 But this is where I got yesterday:
According to the US Dept. of Health & Human Services, in 2017, 51% of child abuse victims were girls and 49% boys. What this means is, roughly 1/2 the victims and survivors we encounter will be male. This underreported stat should drastically alter how we ID and help victims.
Here's another underreported stat.
54% of perpetrators were women, and 45% were men. The rest were unknown.
Abusers don't look like who we think they look like. Don't miss or ignore a red flag because you're looking for a stereotyped predator.
77.6% of perpetrators were the victim's own parents.
Have you noticed how, in most countries, walking on a flag or religious symbol is an insult, but in the US we paint our flags and slogans on the street to be trampled and run over?
While this may seem trivial, it’s an important clue as to where Americans are psychologically. /1
We tend to be a superficial people. Between Hollywood, the media, Instagram, and our positive thinking gurus, we value the appearance of things over the reality. We also tend to think if we believe something hard enough, it will become true. We’re learning this is a lie. /2
We also tend to expect “rights.” Most of us have never had to fight or even work for the right to worship, vote, or express our opinions. We’ve come to define rights as, “whatever makes us feel happy and proud.” But we’re not happy or proud. We’re depressed and angry. /3
Repentance is an incredibly vital concept that you absolutely must understand correctly. Besides being foundational to Christianity, if people misunderstand repentance, lives can be lost.
Let me give you some examples:
If a pastor convinces an abuse victim that her violent husband is repentant, and she moves back in, she and her kids may be hurt or killed.
If a racist police officer thinks he's repented of racism, but makes no changes to his thinking, he may make wicked decisions on the job.
I cannot emphasize enough how critical a proper and Biblical understanding of repentance is.
Lives hang in the balance.
Faith hangs in the balance.
Souls hang in the balance.
Study this, meditate on it, pray about it, and search Scripture for God's wisdom.