We're All a Bunch of Junkies

Sounds bad, doesn’t it? - The idea that humanity in its present state is nothing more than a collection of addicts, how depressing. But those who have been acquainted with God for a while, and begin to see the wisdom of choosing right for their lives, are invariably puzzled by some of their own behavior. In short, we know that choosing good is what we should do in a given circumstance, but this knowledge does not prevent us from making the wrong choice. What’s wrong with us? And why do we keep on doing it?

To understand this phenomenon, one needs to closely examine the behavior of an addict. Nobody starts out in life addicted to anything in particular. When you are born, you have a relatively clean slate (crack babies notwithstanding). Over time, and as you grow, you begin to establish patterns of behavior, both in the choices you make, and in the actions you take. These patterns somewhat define who you are, because every time you do them again, an electrical impulse travels through your brain along a predefined route. Each time the process repeats, another electrical impulse travels the ‘same road’ if you will, and reinforces the ease of traveling this pathway. Over time the pathway builds, and the inclination to repeat the behavior becomes greater. All of this occurs without the use of foreign chemicals or substances. It is the natural function of our brains, as we understand them today. These pathways never really go away, but it is possible to build alternate routes in the brain, and make alternate behavior even more popular than the habits you formerly followed.

Given that normal brain function is affected by repeated patterns of behavior, when you introduce an external chemical into the pattern, it can act like an accelerant, altering the very chemistry of the brain to require repeating the act. Chemical addiction is far less likely to be simply undone by alternate choices. It becomes much harder to go ‘cold turkey’ off foreign chemicals, than as an example, to simply choose to eat your vegetables first in a given meal (i.e. changing a normal behavior to something new or different). And not all brain altering chemicals are external, some of them your body produces naturally, like endorphins. When you exercise vigorously your body produces internal chemical endorphins that make you feel like to could ‘run for miles’. They make you feel good. And they are natural. It is said, when a woman eats chocolate for example, the same chemical response occurs in her brain, as when she engages in sex. These internal ‘feel-good’ chemical reactions can also prove to be quite addictive, accounting for behavior we don’t always understand – gambling addictions, romance addictions, sex addictions, exercise addictions, etc..

This means that when we choose poorly, we begin to ‘teach’ our brains to repeat the choice. The more we engage in a behavior, the more we feel like it is natural to do so. Heredity also plays a role in this, as the habits our parents develop will both influence how we think, and likely pre-incline our chemical responses. How do we break this cycle? Let’s continue our analogy of a drug-addict as an example. Drugs are highly addictive as they alter brain chemistry. For the common drug addict to quit – they need to recognize they are addicted (step 1), and begin to seek outside help (step 2). Someone who is an addict, but refuses to see it, will not soon change his behavior. After all they are not even trying to change. But realizing the need is not enough to break the cycle either. We must seek help, outside of ourselves. The odds are stacked against the common drug addict for him to solve his problem on his own without help. Depending on the length of the addiction, the severity of the chemical alteration, the genetic predispositions he faces, and the ease in which his environment facilitates his access to the drug – he faces a nearly impossible challenge to quit. Every addict knows the behavior they engage in, is destructive to themselves and others. They realize this, but are quite literally powerless to change it.

Often we blame an addict for the conditions they find themselves in. After all, if the drug addict never took that first hit of cocaine, or smoked that first joint, they would not be so messed up now. And yes, the drug addict is solely responsible for that initial wrong choice. But once having made a wrong choice, the propensity to repeat it grows greater at an exponential rate. Within a very short period of time, the addict is out-of-control, and powerless to resist what they have begun. Not every Christian can identify with a drug addict’s rational or behavior. They think themselves too pious to be caught in this trap of addiction. Yet every Christian knows in their hearts, a certain sin (or choice of evil) that they repeat, despite their guilt over doing it. Yes we are forgiven for the poor choices and misdeeds we commit. But we want much more than simple forgiveness, what we crave is reform. We wish not to engage in wrong choices ever again. But this desire is not enough to prevent us from screwing up again. The reason, we are all a bunch of junkies, addicted to our sinful behavior. If you find yourself looking-down on a street walker who is plainly addicted to drugs, realize when you get home, the mirror can show you that sight once again. It may not be drugs you are addicted to, but a pattern of wrong choices is every bit as hard to break with.

Confrontation is rarely effective in long term recovery. Smacking someone in the head with what they are doing wrong rarely helps them see the value of the alternative. Instead, focus on the power of positive reinforcement. Whether trying to show someone else the error-of-their-ways, or simply trying to get past something you don’t like in your own character – stay focused on the cure. What is our cure, who can save us from the fate of every addict? Why our Creator God of course. Jesus not only is our master physician, who healed every variety of sickness while here on our world. He created us. He knows our owners-manual very well, as He wrote it himself. The advice He gives us in the Bible of how to stay healthy is from the perspective of the one who made us. He does not want us to suffer; this is why He saved us. And Salvation after all, is not about waiting to escape pain, it is about escaping it right here, and right now; even the pain of addiction.

When confronted by a desire to choose the wrong path again, try to focus your mind on Christ, and ask Him to take control of your circumstance, your desires, your actions, and lead you away from your pain. This is why it is so important to be able to trust our God, or else how could we learn to give up our control to Him. We need to allow Him to change the very desires of our hearts, if we are to affect real positive change in our lives. Our desires are suspect, after all. We have been trained to want what is harmful for us. We have abused our brains and built large pathways of destructive behavior patterns. Only God can take these away from us. Now that we recognize our condition, we must learn to release our will to Him. This is how to affect healing. And like the addictive behavior we have talked about so far, it is not a one-day effort. It is a continual struggle. Do not be fooled into thinking you only have to beat the bad decision once to gain the victory. No, you have to trust God to save you, every time you face it. You have to yield your will to Him perpetually, as the minute you seek to take back your control from God, you find yourself falling once again.

The good news about our God is that His forgiveness He offers us, is unconditional, and unlimited. But the better news about our God is that we do not have to resign ourselves to a life of pain from bad choices. He can remove these hurtful things from our lives. He is able. He is strong enough. You do not need to make yourself stronger, to fight the urges of evil – you need to recognize your own weakness, and allow God to win the battle for you. Take no glory in your own strength, but give glory to God, for what He will do on your behalf. Herein we learn that God interacts with each of us on a very personal, a very intimate level. He knows about us, what we hide from our families, and our friends. He knows what needs to be changed in order for us to escape pain, and it is different for each one of us. Through this process of reconciling with God, He will begin to reveal to us, where we need some help. Keep in mind Christians, it is HIS job to DO the work, it is only up to you to ALLOW Him to do it.

It therefore requires great trust in God, for us to allow Him the chance to change us, and to change those we love. But He alone is qualified to do it. This is the beauty of our God, that he loves us, even while we are junkies, and He treats us with acceptance, love, and hope. I love the hope our God gives us all, even to one such as me …

Getting High

There is quite a debate in this country about whether marijuana should be legalized. The basic arguments stem from the idea that this drug is no more harmful to you than is that of alcohol, or for that matter, cigarettes in general. So many people in our world crave the escape of getting high, whether to turn away from problems or just as a way to really “feel good” when nothing else seems to accomplish that for them. What’s wrong with getting high anyway, after all, isn’t marijuana a naturally growing plant? If nature makes it, how harmful can it be?

From a purely logical perspective consider that when in a state of chemically induced euphoria almost never does anything “good” actually happen to you. People make poor decisions when judgment is impaired, or perhaps more accurately, they make even worse decisions when under-the-influence. Sexual promiscuity is increased under-the-influence and seldom without making the experience memorable, let alone better. Impaired judgment leads to increased rates of pregnancy, and STD’s. Driving a car, operating heavy equipment, in short any behavior that requires concentration to remain safe normally becomes a virtual death sentence when carried out while being “high”. The best we can hope for in this state is a minimizing of the number of brain cells irreplaceably killed, and ideally a safe place to sleep off the after effects.

So assuming we have a safe environment that will minimize personal risk, and eliminate risk to others, is getting high OK under those conditions? The real question here is twofold. First, the reason we seek to get high should be examined. If the common answer is again – a way to escape our problems – we should stay sober. The problems do not disappear while we induce a chemical high to effectively forget about them. And as a result of our inclination to escape our problems we develop habits of avoiding them. Under these conditions, problems tend to get worse, not better. We would be far better off confronting our problems and learning to overcome them, than to seek the solace of an empty liquor bottle, or burned out joint.

Second, If we are just looking to get high for “fun”, it begs a different question. Why? Is the risk of killing brain cells and becoming chemically addicted to this substance worth the momentary pleasure it offers? Over time the human body does not react well to chemical stimuli. Alcohol destroys the liver, the brain, and increases risks for heart attack and stroke. Smoking is severely detrimental to health. Injections pose a huge health risk, eating the stimuli is about the safest way to introduce it into the system – but this does not negate its power on the body over time. We are effectively trading the health of later years for a brief moment in time here and now. Sound familiar? Isn’t this the argument that evil is constantly making to us. Don’t worry about later, live life for now. Who cares about the future? The problem is, this argument centers focus on self, and again away from others. This singular behavior is the worst of its kind. The biggest problem we face is looking inward for fulfillment, rather than finding it in service to others. Getting high fosters the idea of indulging self at the expense of others. We trade years for minutes in this way.

There is nothing wrong with feeling good. God wants us to feel good, and feel that way all the time, not just for a brief moment in time. But all the good feelings that come from following after God and learning about His character and love for each of us, has nothing to do with any form of chemical induced impairment. The joy and happiness that come from God, come to the clear-headed. You get to feel good without the side effects of forgetting everything about them right after they are done; or spending the next day throwing up. Again this is the beauty of following God. He leads us away from the things that would cause us pain and suffering. He leads us towards the things that would make us truly happy without the baggage of guilt, or worry of risking our very health and lives. And He does this for us EVERY DAY. We do not need to wait until a future heaven to start reaping the benefits of embracing good and rejecting evil. Those benefits show up right here, and right now.

The difference between God’s idea of happiness and evil’s – is the forfeiture of your conscience to achieve it. God offers fulfillment found in service to others. Knowing what impact you can have to help someone else, can bring you a peace the world can never touch or take away. The changes in your character that occur as you learn to care, are profound. They are deep. They are meaningful in a way that does not ever require shutting off your mind to hold them. The absence of self, is the beginning of happiness, not the end of it.

Evil offers you self indulgence, self preoccupation, and an insatiable feeling that no matter what you feed this beast, it will never be enough. If you have three girlfriends you will need five. If you get five, then perhaps seven will make it all better. If you make a million dollars, then perhaps with just another five million you can relax. If you smoke that joint, you will feel better, but only long enough to remember you need another one to stay this way. There is never an end to seeking self, and it is an empty, meaningless journey. Looking out for Number One, is staring at a face in the grave.

What a contrast the idea of service. The impact we make doing it may not be fully appreciated in our lifetime, but its echo is felt through the ages. Divesting of self and investing in others yields a return we did not expect – a change in the core of who we are. Getting high begins to pale in comparison with experiencing meaning. Getting high looks foolish next to true fulfillment. The real problem with getting high, is that the experience is just not good enough. Real joy is so much better than a façade of joy. It does not matter to me whether marijuana is legalized or not. It matters to me if we allow our blindness to others to turn us into self-junkies (addicted to our own self interests and unconcerned about anyone else).

If you have spent your life looking for a way out, looking to fill a hole that just never seems to fill up, consider learning about who God is. Consider accepting the life He offers. Learn how much more to life there can be than the misery this world packages as “fun”. Learn about true joy, true happiness, and true contentment. This is what comes from following our God …

Ugly Prognosis

To see evil in a proper light is to understand its proximity to cancer. Often evil is masked with momentary highs, lapses in judgment, and a marketing campaign that encourages risk and danger as key ingredients of life – all the while selling Russian roulette with only one empty chamber (odds don’t look good). But therein is the point, when we finally realize what evil is in our lives, its effects, and what is required to treat it … we cringe.

Ectomy does not work; be it lumpectomy, mastectomy, pick your ectomy; when it comes to our character, attempts to remove a portion of evil are ineffective. For starters, we usually pick the wrong surgeon. We begin by believing we are fully capable of self-surgery given the proper motivation. After a few botched attempts, we may seek help from fellow sufferers. This is akin to getting directions for critical surgery from Wikipedia, put there by failed patients who died in the process of sharing their singular advice.

But were we to find a magical surgeon skilled enough with a blade to open us up and begin to remove the poisoned tissue, our doctor would be horrified to find there is no end to it. The problem with the cancer of evil is just how deep it runs in our souls. The deeper you look the more you find. It permeates everything. It spreads without notice infecting every single impulse, almost every single thought, or deed. A doctor after such exploratory surgery would be giving us quite the ugly prognosis.

People criticize the Old Testament for being arbitrary, or too explicit in its directions to us. But I pose it was probably easier for Israelites to rationalize they were “good” people when only having to compare their actual actions against the finger of the law on stone tablets. If I had not actually killed someone, I could count myself “good”. But when Christ came along in person, He reminded us that motives and thoughts always have counted and always would. Just to hate someone was “in effect” to kill them in my mind. Just to lust, was like committing adultery. Even my thoughts would be measured for evil. And to be fair, not many crimes are purely impulse without any pre-consideration. Most crimes are thought out intentions, plans, and then actions.

No there is only one outcome to get rid of all this evil. We must die and be reborn. Re-Genesis is our only option for treatment. Not the replacement of just a part of ourselves, but of the whole of ourselves. Completely reborn in Christ; having died to self. Everyone is fine with the living part of this equation. Living a life that is governed by impulses sent from heaven sounds great. Being freed from evil sounds fantastic. Being a servant and loving it, is beyond words. But didn’t I mention dying in there somewhere? Dying seems antithetical to living doesn’t it? Why must there be any kind of death in order to live?

At the root of all evil is self. Down past all the symptomatic behavior, past all the predictable human weakness outcomes, past all the rationalization about how comparatively we are really not so bad, is the root of all our evil – our focus on self. What happens when I am at the core of my illness? I gotta go. It is me that must be killed, and a new me constructed if life is ever going to worth living.

Being sick, really feeling badly, stinks … literally. I hate hurting, cramping, nausea, and of course pain. The cloudy head, and unclear thoughts, the dizziness, the tingling, sniffling, coughing, stuffy head, fever, so you don’t ever rest sickness. It is nasty and I hate it. Yet for no apparent or explainable reason it hits me like a ton of bricks. And while in this decrepit condition, I remember this is what it is like to live with evil within my soul. The effects my illness has on my body and mind, are matched by the effects that evil has on my soul and heart and hands.

But being sick, and living in pain is NOT what our Creator God ever intended for His created children. Pain is a reality of sin, not one of perfection. Disease and suffering are hallmarks of evil, not of perfection. God did not intend for us to exist in such a depressed or downtrodden state. He aches that we sometimes embrace our own conditions, relish ourselves in it, and seem to prefer living in the sty with the pigs, than in the mansion with our real families. None-the-less, our conditions as horrific as we sometimes find them, are useful if they point us to alternative way to live. A way to live past the death we see all around us. A way to live after we give up the death of ourselves. Real life. Real existence. Past the real pain, is real life.

This is the beauty of a creator God. He is uniquely able to re-create what sin and evil have systemically so gutted. Our God is able to bring life to the ashes we once called our existence. Past the letting go, is the rising up, free from everything that once bound the human soul. This is the life He offers. Not a life filled with soul-less self pursuits to satisfy a craving that can never be filled – but a life of service, ordained for the benefit of others, wherein the serving is the reward, and no small amount of it can ever be truly measured in full. Instead of a hole we cannot fill up, we are given a cup that won’t stop overflowing. Insatiable transformed to complete fulfillment, contentment, and peace. No more hunger, no more pain, no more darkness.

Illness cannot stand in this light, nor will evil tolerate its presence. It withers and dies in the face of He who so easily can transform the soul. Other purported deities match good against evil as if the odds were even of the outcome; this is folly. The only true God is complete good with no evil within Him. And He is not powerless against evil, but all powerful over it. Evil flees from love, as it cannot defeat its power. Evil would have you believe it is powerful and that you cannot defeat it, or get it out of your life, thoughts, and soul. But that is a lie. You cannot remove it, but Christ can. He will. He does. And Evil cannot stand against it. This is your hope. This is the good news of the gospel. That evil has and will be defeated inside of you, as well as everywhere else in creation.

There is no end to the love that could save a wretch like me. There is no hope like the hope I find in the only one true God. And there is no power like the power of love, for nothing can defeat it, and it has conquered all. I stand in awe of the creator God who cares enough to still love even me …

Hidden Sin

There are sins we hide from others because we know they are wrong, and we want to avoid the embarrassment of being discovered in wrong doing. Public humiliation is something we want to avoid, so our ‘pet’ sin is kept hidden. At least in this situation the wrong doing is understood and evident. Were it to be revealed in the light-of-day we would stand convicted, embarrassed, and just as guilty. But there is a more insidious kind of sin that lays hidden deep in every soul, affecting our actions, our speech, and our destiny. This sin is hidden and of its own power seeks to remain this way. Finding it takes no small effort, getting rid of it – a lifetime.

Public sin, things like sexual misconduct, drunkenness, theft, unwarranted violence – things that can be easily seen and discerned by others are the sins most Christians spend their lives focused on. They develop false senses of righteousness based on comparing their own lives to those caught in public oriented sins. Instead of measuring your life and deeds against those of Christ, it is easier to compare against other imperfect humans. The entire process is mistaken. But more to the point, it involves a pre-occupation with sins that are easy to define. Sins that live in motives and thoughts, the internal kind of sin – those are far more dangerous, and far more destructive.

Consider for a minute the sin of murder. Most of us have not committed this sin, so it is easier to discuss. But the act of the murder is seldom a completely spur of the moment action. It takes some time to develop the idea of murder into the action of murder. Christ addressed this phenomenon when he stated that “hating your brother” was the same as “killing” him. The action begins as a thought. Once the mind has embraced the concept of murder, the hands seem to find it easier to follow. The entirety of military training programs are based on the concept of ‘breaking’ down the mind of the young soldier and rebuilding it to take orders to both kill and even to die if needs-be to accomplish the objective. Replace individual morality with ‘group’ think. This process is not unique to murder, it is the same for every public oriented sin.

But there is even yet a deeper sin that hides even below motive. We witness its symptoms, but remain clueless as to its cause. Turns out, it is the origin of all of evil. Everything you see that is evil around you came from one small seemingly innocuous little concept. Murder, Lust, Greed, Glutony, Theft, Lies, Sexual misconduct all have their roots in just one place. All of these greater crimes are ONLY possible if you adopt the underlying core sin and make it part of your character. None of these greater crimes would have ever been committed first, in fact, it just would have been unthinkable save for the core of all evil, the tiniest of faults – namely pride.

God can save the murderer, He can save the thief, the adulterer, but we make His job an order of magnitude harder to save us because we refuse to recognize the core of our evil within us. It is our pride. Our arrogance is reflected in how we think. It is self motivation that leads eventually to theft, lies, and ultimately murder. It is selfishness that comes from valuing ourselves above all else, even God. Pride. The entire world of evil is slave beginning and end to simple Pride. It caused the downfall of the highest created being in the Universe. After the Godhead, Lucifer was the considered the highest of all of God’s creations. And it was he who fell victim to this insidious cancer called Pride.

Pride turned the focus from others to self, in so doing it catapulted evil into existence. It was effectively the opposite of God. The opposite of God is not hate, it is pride. It is self-obsession. Christians do themselves enormous harm in ignoring humility to pursue victory over sin. Instead of accepting their inadequacy to really change their own character they stubbornly attempt to change who they are. And we fail. Over and over we fail. It is because it is not up to us to truly change ourselves, it is up to us to come to God in abject humility and accept His power to change us from who we are. He makes the changes, not us.

Paul said we are saved by Christ “and not of ourselves, lest any man should boast”. Even our faith comes from our God. It too is a gift. Christ stated plainly that “a Leopard cannot change his spots”. This was not intended to cause us to lose hope, but to put our hope in the only Savior who CAN change a Leopard’s spots. We are powerless to remove our sin, but God is not powerless, He is all power. Love alone will change us. Love given without merit by God to us. Our role is not to ‘work’ at perfection, it is to ‘accept’ perfection from God.

We do not seek to find sin, FAR from it. We seek the complete destruction of sin within ourselves, but we will never accomplish this goal of our own accord. We do not work in partnership with God either, somehow implying there is a work for us to do in this. We can claim NO credit for the changes that will come, for ONLY God can change us. It is God’s work from beginning to end. It is NOT ours. It is our Pride that causes us to think somehow we can. We are deceived into thinking there is a way for man to rid himself from his evil traits. Maybe some sort of twelve-step program for sinners will get us clean and sober from evil. But even the twelve- step plans recognize the need for a higher power. In the case of ridding ourselves from sin – it cannot be done by man – this predicates our so desperate NEED of a savior. We as a species NEED a savior, or we are doomed to die in our sin.

Again it is not the salvation that leads us to an eternal life in heaven I am referring to. It is the salvation that makes the concept of eternal life worth living because we spend every second in the total absence of sin, all sin, especially the core of sin – our pride. We need a savior to save us from ourselves. We need a savior to help us see our need. We need a savior, or we are doomed. How little we see our need.

Evil’s marketing plan is right on target with most devout Christians. It distracts them from seeking God in humility, rather having us seek God in guilt. We come to God after we have already transgressed with empty promises that ‘we’ will not do it again. But we do; over and over and over again. We’re doing it wrong. We need to see our NEED of a savior. We need to recognize what a savior is. Someone/something that can save us from us. The only way we will not be back on our knees asking God for forgiveness, is if HE does the work of removing the evil traits from our character.

Victory over sin is a tricky thing. So few achieve it because so few realize how it is done. When God does act on our behalf, often we lose the victory because we begin to think it was us that did it in the first place. We arrogantly site our ‘victories’ to our peers, and before you know it – our ‘victories’ disappear. The truth is we have NO victories, Christ has ALL of them. It is HE who is worthy, we are less than nothing. Our value is only measured in the love God gives to us. Of ourselves we are fragile clay, dirt, nothing. Our existence has value because God gives it value. Everything we need, everything we are to become, is found ONLY in God.

I worry so much; for me it is the torment of Jacob’s trouble, will I ever LET God kill the pride that lives within me? Or will I stubbornly cling to my deeply hidden sin, masking evil with the pretentions of righteousness without any of the substance? I fear that the evil within me has such a foothold that perhaps I have so warped my own thinking that I will somehow prevent God from healing me. Oh Lord, let it not be so. Save me Oh Lord, Save me a sinner. Kill the pride from within me, and kill it to the uttermost. I am overwhelmed at how desperately I need a savior. I am overwhelmed at how completely Jesus Christ fills this need. Only He is worthy …

No Tricks like the Old Tricks

Pop quiz question for you … what is the most effective way to focus the human mind away from things that would ennoble it, alter brain chemistry until it is powerless to resist, and institute a cycle of degradation that can be more overwhelming than a black hole? Drugs or chemical dependencies like Alcohol maybe? Nope. I am talking about something more insidious, more subtle, and much more dangerous. I am talking about something that is a literal part of our make-up but can be altered beyond all comprehension over time. And it is older than dirt. Well perhaps just a bit younger than dirt …

Man was created with many needs: The need to love and be loved; The need to serve. The need for food, shelter, and survival essentials; And yes, man (the species both men and women) were created with a need to procreate. This was originally intended to be expressed in the most intimate of relationships, namely a marriage of two souls, united with their creator in matrimony. But as the disease of sin entered our very consciousness, we became unable to maintain relationships in any more a perfect manner than we maintain our own characters in perfection. The ideals of marriage and intimacy therefore have no standard to live up to, no examples with which to focus our goals and ambitions. In short, the imperfection of people, infects the marital relationship itself, and all the shortcomings of character are revealed in the mirror of the relationship we hold most dear.

Love survives. Faithfulness survives but remains on life support. Look around. Ever notice the advertising motto of “sex sells”. You would have to be blind, death, and locked in the wilderness not to. Why; because the motto is a truism. “Sex” in fact does sell. The idea of sex causes men and women to drop loads of money on crap they do not need, and will not ever help them have sex, by the boat load. How many advertising slogans do you see calling for self sacrifice and temperate behavior when making a purchase? That does not work. Sex does.

And it is not as simple as drugs, or alcohol. Our bodies were not created with the need to drink or consume chemicals to alter our consciousness – we develop those needs through constant exposure. But we were created with the need for sexual fulfillment. We were in fact designed as a species to pair men and women physically for this purpose. Our bodies are designed for it, our minds have built in chemical stimulus for it, and the Bible lays out fairly clear instructions on the ideals for our souls to experience a higher form of closeness to God through it. To deny our created tendency for sexual fulfillment is to deny the God who created us. But our Creator had in mind that our sexual expression be perfect, not what we see today.

The world’s oldest profession (prostitution – or perhaps begging that may have predated it) is called that for a reason. The first incidents of man altering what God had in mind for sexual perfection and finding a ‘different’ method of expression go back a long way. The entire Old Testament is filled with stories of the Children of Israel ‘mixing’ with the neighbors until it got so bad, they were allowed to be overrun by a foreign nation. The cycle of repentance and restoration, was generally followed by the cycle of sin and degradation, until the entire circle just kept repeating itself. And I am not just talking about Israelites engaging in simple prostitution with their neighbors. It never ended there. There were in fact ritual orgies held at night under a moon goddess for fertility. And you really cannot have fertility without human sacrifice; which eventually leads to sacrificing the male born children in the fires and preserving the females for future temple prostitutes (again age being no boundary). About the time Israelites were tossing babies in the fires, God would send in an invading army.

Thinking about this cycle, like all things evil and insidious, it never starts with murdering children and innocents. But it inevitably winds up there. I’m sure when the Israelite men first considered getting a little ‘extra’ action away from ‘home’ it never even crossed their minds what it might eventually lead to. It never does. Evil seldom reveals its true nature or intentions right away. That would scare you off. You need to ease into the idea, taking one small step towards wrong-doing at a time, until you are “too far gone” to stop now. Of course the idea is a lie on its face, but the premise found a home in our minds, and we embraced it both then and now.

And like usual our new and improved, socially responsible Christians in today’s day of enlightment, read these stories in the Bible and scoff at the weakness of ‘those’ idiots. This as we get into the Mercedes we did not need, wearing the clothes and perfume we hope to use to attract others, and go home to watch sexually explicit and immoral shows on our widescreen high-def TV’s. Yeah, those guys were the idiots … No, today’s Christian is much more sophisticated than the old Children of Israelite males. We can simply watch porn on our computers when no one is around. Keep a special DVD in a hidden location. Or perhaps find another willing partner somewhere in the world.

And what’s more, we no longer practice throwing babies in the fires for heathen gods; they tend to be abused right in our own homes, or worse churches. We are in that sense different than our spiritual ancestors. We have found a way to make our crimes worse. Instead of participation with willing partners our own ages, we force unwilling underage participants into our immoral degraded world. And what is more, the young are abused by people holding religious authority both priests and those in the laity forever perverting the image of a loving God by cruel association with direct evil.

No you scream. I would never engage in child pornography or support it in any manner. Yet all too many Christians live the secret life of porn perusal where the models are all 18 years of age. Do you think those girls turned 18 and decided randomly to pursue the life of a porn model? Or perhaps they started much earlier in situations where control was never an option, and what you see online now is a reflection of how wide-spread this disease has taken hold of our world. Like it or not there is no such thing as non-support where this industry survives.

Nationality, race, and religion seem to present no barrier to perversion. While there are child molestation laws in every country in the world, there is also known abuse of those laws in every country of the world. The US may be the worst offender, as all too many purported Christians participate in this crime. And as usual it never starts out as abusing small kids, it starts much more ‘innocent’ than that. But eventually regular old porn is no longer enough to achieve stimulation. It requires something more unusual, something different. This progression knows no end, and its direction is only downwards.

The cycle worked thousands of years ago, and it works now. We stupidly fall victim to it now, just as then, just as always. And treatment is much more complicated. With drugs and alcohol, your goal can be to abstain. But how do you abstain when you’re already married? How do you abstain from the nature you were created with? Not drinking is easier than not having sex. The addictive changes in brain chemistry are almost identical between drug, alcohol, and sexual addiction, but treatment poses an entirely different problem: The gravity of a black hole. And the compromises we propose would have us end our fates as those who have gone before, in abject failure. So what is the answer?

Like everything else it begins and ends with God. It starts with learning to think differently about sex itself. Restoration of the concept of intimacy in the life must become a goal before intimacy with sexual expression is possible. Reliance on God to affect the changes you need in character, and allowing those changes to affect your very desires, wants, and perceived needs is a must. Understanding there is no such thing as “too far gone”, accepting there is “hope” for everyone and anyone regardless of the your past whether as victim, perpetrator, or somewhere in the degenerate cycle. Thinking differently. Focusing differently. Learning not to hunt, not to look for trouble, not to place yourself in situations where failure is all but assured. The problem here extends beyond the normal bounds of addiction treatment and requires realigning broken processes into healed ones. It is impossible for you. But it is real for God. God can restore what was broken beyond recognition. God can heal, and really ONLY God can heal…

Dark Side of the Force ...

Yes the next installment of the Star Wars saga was released today albeit in animated format. Critics will muse this may not be George Lucas’ best work, fans may see it regardless. But I was wondering if perhaps in no small way, George has captured the imagination of believers and non-believers alike in his saga related to the all powerful Force. The story (again only fiction) claims a sort of kinetic invisible living force binds all creatures together, working both in cooperation with and sometimes in control of our motions, thoughts and actions. Those that deny any form of deity are merely entertained by this superstitious notion. Those that believe in a creator God, are they entertained, or do they perhaps believe in some way this may even be true?

An older comedian Flip Wilson’s famous line was … “the Devil made me do it”. Always used in satirical presentations and for humorous effect, his audience understood the message. There are times when people take actions in the real world, that they blame on influence that comes from the supernatural world – both for positive and negative results. Killers have sometimes claimed possession for their actions. Healers sometimes say they “feel” the power moving through them. There are documented cases of exorcisms that the Catholic church has done over the years, though skepticism by the mainstream masses remains high. To admit there is a Devil, is to acknowledge there is a God. Mediums have long claimed to have ‘spirits’ inhabit their physical bodies. Is this what Lucas may be referring to in his fictional tales? Could he be trying to define an outside-of-body force that somewhat controls our destiny?

On a very profound level even the plan of Salvation we have discussed in this book seems to indicate you have no real control over your life. You have but to choose your master – either evil or good – either Satan or Christ. Once your choice is made, your destiny seems to be laid out in front of you. Your biggest worry even then, merely changing your mind about who you choose to serve. When you choose Christ, you seem to be yielding up control to Him. In order to effect real change in your behavior He must have the ability to change how you think. To impact your basic desires, likes and dislikes, becomes a prerequisite to meaningful change in your character. When you yield your decisions, your thinking, and even your likes and dislikes to Christ, He makes real progress transforming your character. The core of who you are is molded into His image. This is part of the gift He offers you, and quite necessary if you are to escape the bondage of sin, and get past the addictions you suffer from.

When you do not choose Christ, you make a default decision to choose evil. There is but one escape from evil, that is to choose the protection of Christ. A non-choice then, is a toleration of the conditions you find yourself in – a denial that evil is in charge of your life – and therefore a tacit acceptance of evil as your current master. Non believers do not accept this premise. As always they believe there are no outside influences in life that you must choose between. And frankly evil wishes for this myth to continue. Were the true nature of evil to be put in the spotlight, no-one would consciously choose it. The biggest myth put forward to the human race has always been one of self-reliance and self-destiny. But the truth remains, as evil remains in the world – you have only to look around you and you can find it everywhere. If man (un-influenced by any external evil force) were truly in control of his own thinking and choices, why would evil continue to remain in the world?

And once under the influence of evil, is it ever really possible to make right choices? Knowing the truth and turning away from it, or perhaps denying the truth altogether – what basis is that for performing good actions, making good decisions, or ever serving others? While there may not be an all powerful kinetic invisible force that controls our lives and destinies, the truth of the influence of evil is unmistakable.

Look at it another way. Would Ted Bundy, or Jeffrey Dalhmer ever have made the series of decisions and actions they made without any evil influence in the world? It is easy to dismiss them as crazy but think about the depravity of what they did. The level of pain they inflicted on others in a one-on-one setting; killing sometimes without guns but with sharp instruments; torture – this kind of sickness is beyond the scope of most ‘normal’ people. To actually take another human life is traumatic enough, but to systemically or randomly continue this action is pure evil. This is the sort of behavior that defines evil. Do we truly believe these men were free of outside influence?

One characteristic of evil is the nature of its insatiability. It is never satisfied, always hungry. While good dwells on emotions like contentment, fulfillment, meaning, and service – evil dwells on greed, hunger, excess, and a preoccupation with self. Lest you believe only murder defines the influence of evil, look at Enron. Greed in the cases of corporate fraud of recent years seems to have no limit as well. No matter how many millions these executives had, no matter how many homes, or cars, or goods – the quest for more could not be stopped. The lives they crushed along the way were mere collateral damage. After all, it is war to make money, all is fair in war, right?

Lest you think an outside force could not control your physical being, you need only to read the stories of the demoniacs in the Bible. They were ‘compelled’ to take actions no one could understand. Unseen influences can interact with the real world. So could George Lucas be on to something here, even if only by accident? The biggest problem with his vision of the Force is its lack of character. In his movies, the Force is painted as fairly benign, with good or evil capabilities. He puts control in the hands of the human (or intelligent being), to decide which avenue of the Force to explore. He does talk about the domination of one’s destiny, but seems to have the small choices waiver back and forth from good to evil (at least in the character of the main hero/villain). Is this the story of us?

Do we treat the outside influences of the universe, beyond our sight, as something to be trifled with? Do we make God or Satan mere playthings to explore when we have interest? I hope not. While I do not believe in a singular all powerful invisible Force, I do believe in two beings of powerful opposing natures. One being is my creator God, who sacrificed Himself to save me from the other unseen being, the father of all evil. While I may be unable to defeat evil, my creator is more than capable. I willingly choose to follow my God. I gladly accept the gift He offers. I rejoice in the fact that He saved me, from myself, from evil, from death itself. In His plan for my salvation, I take great comfort. While I may find some momentary entertainment value in watching a Star Wars saga movie, I am also cognizant of the constant attacks and ever looming presence of a truly Dark Force – and I am comforted that my God, has already defeated it for me.

 

Mystery of Iniquity

Ever heard one of those seemingly unanswerable questions like … how many Angels can dance on the head of a pin? Or perhaps, could there ever be a question God could not answer? Well, the answer to the first one might be “as many as want to”, but an answer to the second one is a bit more tricky. For if God is ALL-knowing and infallible, then how could He be presented with a Mystery too great for Him to figure out? Yet the Bible speaks about the Mystery of Iniquity even from God’s point of view. Let’s take a closer look.

A purely logical look at God reveals that He must be made of, or embody if you will, every good thing. If God were tainted by any evil in any form He would eventually self destruct, as this is the natural result/state of evil when allowed to run freely. Therefore since God has existed from before our concepts of time and space, and will continue to exist beyond our understanding of either, He must only embody that which is good – no evil ingredients.

This is not because He does not know evil when He sees it. Nor is it because He is constricted from choosing an evil path – you could hardly constrain the author of freewill after all. His lack of evil is due to both His knowledge of evil’s true nature, and His logical choice not to have anything to do with it. The English comedian Eddy Izzard once did a routine set on an airline where a stewardess walking down the aisle would offer her customers . . . “cake or death”. Customers consistently chose cake. God consistently chooses good over evil.

So then if God embodies everything that is good, then any departure, any deviation, from God would define evil. This is merely extending our logical view of God to its natural opposite conclusion. If God is everything Good, then outside of God is everything evil. Makes sense. So then to better understand evil all you need to do is more closely examine what we know of God.

God is love. God is life. God is happiness. God serves others, constantly, no matter how they react to Him. Just to name a few. God defines self-sacrifice and service to others. Then what must evil look like? Evil is hate. Evil is death. Evil is misery and pain. Evil serves only its own interests, constantly, no matter how it impacts on the lives of others. Therefore Evil defines selfishness and the entire pursuit of pleasing one’s self. The differences are stark, but even the more subtle ones tend to be profound. Such as; good is always content, evil is always hungry. Good can relax, Evil is always hunting. Good recognizes and supports others, Evil cannot be bothered with others as it has no time for them.

So the first mystery becomes if you understood the true nature of evil, why on earth, or anywhere else for that matter, would you consciously choose evil over good? The next mystery becomes an even greater one, knowing that evil embodies self inflicted pain, and having had personal experience with that pain, do we continue to choose to bring it on ourselves – doing the same self destructive thing – over and over and over again? To me this is the definition of addiction. Helpless to stop self destructive behavior due to an “inability” to act rationally. But where does addiction come from? I believe it is part of the nature of evil itself.

Compare evil to cancer for a minute; cancer spreads and destroys every good thing it comes into contact with. Cancer is not content to remain still, not content to remain fixed on a certain part of the body, it seems to want to spread out and infect as many things as it can. Evil is much the same way. It is not content to minimize damages. It wants to spread them out so that not just the doer of evil is punished with pain. So are his victims, those that care about both the victims and the perpetrator, and of course God who loves us all. The ripples of the pain of evil extend quite a distance.

When Lucifer became Satan, he did not begin his career in evil by committing murder, adultery, or homosexuality. His launch into evil was far more subtle than that. He merely posed an unanswered question to that point in time … what would happen if I stopped serving others for a minute and served me for a while? After all, how bad could it be? The answer, as bad as killing the Creator of the Universe on a cross of torture by those He was trying to save. It did not immediately look as bad as all that. It was just a simple question. But its answer should have been self-evident. Remember if God embodies all that is good, any deviation is bound to define evil, and so it did.

But Satan having known the paradise of serving God, and the infinite fulfillment of Heaven, chose to forsake it all in pursuit of pleasing Himself; an empty pursuit with no value in the end. And so a mystery is born that I believe even God cannot fully answer – Why – Why would anyone ever do that? What’s more, why would they do it again and again and again? But this is the nature of sin.

One of my favorite texts in the Bible is Nahum 1:9 (one of the minor prophets, you know those small books right before Matthew). It says that “affliction shall not rise a second time” meaning that in Heaven at the end of time and our world as we know it, there will be NO more sin ever again. It points out that there will be a definitive ending to ALL evil. It means we will never be slave to evil again. But how? It is not free-will that is extinguished in God’s kingdom. Free-will has always and will always be a principle of Good upon which His kingdom is built.

Therein is the point. While we will maintain our ability to choose good or evil, we will no longer have ANY desire to ever have anything to do with evil ever again. There will be no more Lucifer’s turning into Satan’s in our distant future. No more fallen worlds. No more fallen species to redeem. We are it. This is all. The conflict will be over, both in the world between good and evil, as well as in our hearts and minds. Having been made free from evil and our slavery to it, we will not ever wish to return to it.

I submit, if you are unwilling to part with something in your life that you know to be evil, it is perhaps because you have not seen the pain that accompanies the evil you are playing with. But know this, evil is by design inextricably linked to pain, and whatever evil you are engaged in will naturally result in an abundance of pain in your life and the lives of everyone around you. This is not intended to be a threat of any kind, instead it is intended to be a definition to be applied to everything in your life. If it is not good, it will be a source of pain. The timing of the delivery of pain, and the amount of pain it may bring may be different with each evil you entertain. But the more you indulge evil, the more you give the cancer license to expand, until one day it dominates your every thought, every deed, every motive.

See evil clearly, and go to God. Go to the source of both forgiveness, and reform. Only God can change what it is you want, what it is you do, and what you are bound to. Give it up to Him, and let Him rule over it, and you will be made free from evil. Having been made free, your choices to return to slavery will become less and less likely, as you are rooted deeper and deeper in His love…