Relationships - Slogans
The other day I walked into ford auto and bought a cherry red ford mustang with black strips. It was a convertible with 300 horsepower and high performance McPherson struts. This car was sweet! When I signed the papers I thought to myself, “I am going to change some things in the driving world with this car!”
I decided I am now independent. I can go where I want; I can do what I want. No one can stop me I am free! Immediately I drove the car off the lot and I decided I am going to do things my way, I am out from under everyone’s authority I am my own person. So I went to the grocery and I bought a five pound bag sugar and I began to put into the gas tank until it was all gone. You see I was going to do things my way!
When I started the car it didn’t quit run like it did when I first got it, but I knew I was right for doing what I did because it felt so good. As I left the grocery store I decided to go down the highway and I began to bang my car into everyone else’s. In my heart I knew that was sorta wrong, but as the opportunity arose my heart started beating really fast, and I really wanted to, so when I banged into my first car it was sorta exhilarating and it felt really good.
After I banged into the first car it made it a lot easier to bang into others. So I as another car I liked came around I banged into it also. As time went by I began to bang all the cars that came my way. I have this theory, if I give there cars a little piece of my car the owners of their cars will love me more knowing how much I gave. When I banged into the last few cars It was really cool because I didn’t feel as bad and I didn’t get in any trouble, so I just kept going until about ten cars later I heard one of my tires blow up.
So I pulled over on the side of the highway and I put some more sugar in my car and I began to change the tire that blew up. I wanted to be a little different so I decided to put on my car a cinder block instead of a wheel. When I got up from changing my tire I noticed that my car’s body was just completely beat up and mangled. It looked nothing like when I had when I bought earlier.
I became furious and decided to look immediately into the book the Maker of my car gave me. When I turned open the book I found nothing about driving into other cars, I found nothing about using sugar for gas, and I found absolutely nothing about using cinder blocks for tires. So I decided to take my case to the Maker.
When I drove up, the Maker of my car was just astonished, he was sad, he felt violated, and couldn’t believe what I have done. I immediately screamed at him and told my Maker that the book he gave me sucked, and all it did was tell me what to do and not completely what not to do. I pleaded my case but it was to no avail.
My maker after hearing me out finally said to me,”inherent within this car are the laws of its nature. If you go against these laws, you break the law and suffer the outcome. Logic and reason will keep you from the absurd, but rather then reading what the manual said you choose to make your own set of rules, rather than putting on the right tires you chose to go your own way, rather, then fueling your car with the correct fuel you decided to make your own, and rather than taking care of your body you have violated not only your body, but the others you crashed into!”
This upset me greatly! Who is the Maker to tell me how to treat my care, to tell me which lane of the highway to drive on, to tell me to obey all the signs, and how my car should look?
So, I have an announcement I would like to make! Everyone want to here it!
I am announcing that Ford no longer exists, that the laws of free will are relative to my condition and environment and those who align themselves up with the laws of Ford Company are intolerant, and I believe that people of Ford are psychotic and have some type of mental deficiency.
Absurd?
Now I know that this story and the so called conclusion seems to be ridicules, but it does paint a rather real picture on how we base our relationship with God on our knowledge or lack there of, and how our knowledge God, or lack there of, effects our relationships in the world.
So many times we want things that are bigger, that are ahead of us, that we aren’t ready for. In the scenario I spoke of I used a new mustang. However, it was obvious from my emotional and mental state that I wasn’t ready for a car let alone a mustang! It was clear that my heart may have wanted to drive, but I just wasn’t ready yet! How many times in our lives are there significant or maybe even insignificant desires in our heart, things we want, things we think we need, that we, if we admit, aren’t ready for yet.
1 Corinthians 6:12
12 “Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything.
When we look at this passage we see a “slogan” that the pagan world held. Not only do we see a slogan that people in Corinth held but we see what Paul answers their slogan with.
In our culture we equate freedom with fulfilling our own desires. This is not unlike the issues Paul had to deal with during the time when he wrote the book of Corinthians. In our own lives we are bombarded with slogans from every form of media possible.
Some of them we pay no attention to, others we absolutely love. You see songs have slogans, there called chorus’, movies have slogans, there called categories, food have slogans; football teams have slogans, and so on.
Now in our lives we here these slogans and we immediately identify that slogan to the maker of that product. In the same way we align our identities with these slogans and either say, “yes” that’s me or, “no” that’s not me!
For example if you own an ipod, your stating to everyone around you that you think ipods are cool and its OK to own one. So by now you might be asking, “What do slogans have to do with anything we are talking about?” Here is my point.
In our relationships we align what we believe with our friends and the people we date beliefs. We all use slogans align our relationships with what they advertise about themselves.
For example, on a date we go out to eat and we have conversation. During that conversation we are both stating little motto’s of belief and goals. When we hear these slogans it determines whether we will continue dating.
The reason is many times these slogans or mottos are things we truly believe or don’t believe, and that belief system will most likely not only determine that person’s goals, in the short term, but your goals in the long term if marriage is the reason for dating.
Now inevitably there will be things we will not agree on completely, however, there are things as God Children’s or as his walking slogans, we must absolutely agree on.
Here in lies the problem. When searching for a serious relationship the world will state that “Everything is permissible.” However, when trying to understand that type of thinking we find that this type of thinking is absolutely not true. That in fact consequences themselves make this statement point to what Paul’s truth is. That being, “everything is not beneficial.”
When we as God’s walking slogans align ourselves with a person who is making up his own slogans or only partially believes God’s slogans then we, like the person who bought the mustang, are saying that our rules are the only rules that matter despite the wreck it leaves behind. Despite the wreck it causes in our own lives.
There is a lot of talk about addictions and a lot of fear placed in church about having an addiction, but while I believe that addictions are horrible and should be addressed it is not in my experience in ministry the number one reason why people don’t fulfill Gods will in there lives.
The number one reason is because we go align ourselves with people and relationships that carry around there own slogans or slogans contrary to the word of God and we allow it to become permissible in our lives. We see a hot guy or a hot girl we know that we that they sleep around, we know that they like to party, but we think we can change there slogan and instead of standing on the word of God, we choose to go by our passion rather than by the Spirit.
Inevitably, in every case I have ever been associated with, what ends up happening is we end up trading our believes for our passion, we rewrite Gods word to fit there slogan, and ultimately we become addicted to these unhealthy relationships.
In every case I have been associated with these Christian people never end up with what God has for them, but rather what they want God to have for them. In every case the person who is not a Christian affects the person who is twice as much and that persons so called “morality” has twice the effect on the Christian rather then the other way around.
If your friends boyfriend or girlfriend are sexually immoral, or drunkards from the outset of your first conversation then it is not your job to understand there situation, get involved in the situation, or even allow there thinking or slogan into your life. When considering relationships of any kind your job is based on two things, first the word of God and second the call of God in your life. A coward is someone ashamed to stand on the word of God for the sake of Jesus’ name.
Two examples:
A girl I know, who is a nice girl, is currently having a relationship with someone. They have been dating for about two or three years. She is not a Christian and neither is he. The only time she brings her relationship up to me is when of course she is having problems. Well, during the years she has been dating she and her boyfriend were going to school.
After they would get done with class they would go to each others apartment and talk about school. She would ask him about classes and he would go into great detail about his day and he would ask her about her classes and she would tell him about hers.
Well as the years went on she realized that his stories would start to contradict one another until she finally found out one day that he never was going to school at all, that for 3 years he sat and made up stories about his day and classes. These two fought and separated for a couple of weeks and then got back together if you can believe it.
Several weeks later she decided to go over to his apartment and surprise him. When she walked in she found him having sex with some one. In this conversation she asked me what I thought she should do. I of course retorted back to her before she could finish her sentence, “Get rid of him.” So what do you think she did?
To this day she is still with him. When I confronted her on it she actually justified her action by stating, “That although she knows he is wrong that dating is a process of sorta weeding out the worst from the worst!”
Imagine if you can what you think there first conversation was. What are some of the slogans he through around at her. I’ll bet he through out a bunch of slogans until he found one that she liked. I’ll bet she dismissed some of his slogans she disliked until she found one she wanted to hear.
I’ll bet she based her entire decision for going out with him on the bases of how he looked or some type of lustful thought process. Furthermore, you know that the only reason she stayed with him was because they had a physical relationship and the fact he was a liar, the fact the he cheated on her many times probably, didn’t override the bond that she made in the flesh with him. In my opinion if they were not fornicating in some way then thought of leaving him wouldn’t of took but a second. If your not attached physically then all that is left is the heart and it is left exposed.
Paul puts it this way:
1 Cor. 6:15 - 17
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”
In this case she chose not to read the manual by the maker when it came to relationships. But just like that car, the mustang, has natural laws by which it operates which can be found out by the maker. So in our own lives are their natural laws by which we should be operating under. Taking the spiritual side out of it for a second, there are no places were being a liar is acceptable on this planet. It is a natural law lying is not acceptable. However, when we dismiss natural law and have no sense of Spirituality through God, we align ourselves from that which is natural with that which is unnatural.
Spiritually speaking a liar goes to hell, sexually immoral people, and fornicators go to hell! The Bible states cowards go to hell! Yet, in this room I will bet we have allowed alliances with people who have unnatural, immoral slogans and are flaunting it. We are aligning that which should be holy in thought and deed, with that which is unholy and going straight to hell.
The Bible states:
15. Flee from sexual immorality
When we here this we often think about people who are sleeping together, and while this is true in part it is not the whole truth.
Lets see what Jesus states:
Matthew 5:27-29
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Again we see Jesus himself dealing with a Biblical slogan the Pharisee’s threw out, but he corrects there thinking stating that lust starts in the heart, and how that is adultery.
He just doesn’t stop there though, he talks about sin in general. Saying basically it’s your heart were sin starts, adultery will lead you to hell, not only that but if your eye causes you to lust get rid of it or you will go too hell, if your hand causes you to sin cut it off or you will end up in hell.
Sin ultimately takes us to hell whether we call ourselves a Christian or not, rather we rewrite our slogans to suit our desires or not. The fact is some of us need to meditate on this passage of scripture and here is why, because we are not spiritually minded yet.
Some of us are babies and babies don’t get involved in relationships they still are relying on the father for everything. Some of us in this room when we are dealing in relationships don’t consider in there hearts that the very thought of immorality affects our relationship with God, let alone that they should flee from it.
Instead, we discern by our passions and our own nature. What makes a baby a baby is its inability to discern what is harmful and helpful to him. It takes time for them to learn, and understand the principles of right and wrong. It takes time for their parents to help shape them so that they eventually will have the ability to discern correctly.
A baby Christian makes decision from the flesh based on his passions, on his desires, on his wants and his needs. He thinks from the flesh because it’s all he knows. His sinful nature rules his natural life and he or she constantly make the same mistakes over and over. They are blind to and oblivious to anything spiritual in there lives, yet make major life decisions anyway.
On the other hand, a mature Christian who seeks to please God first, who through prayer and the word of God has put of the desires and passions of there sinful nature to the cross and allows God to allow them to discern life with a spiritual mindset becomes something entirely different then the world. They become a child of God!
Paul states:
Galatians 5:19-21,24,25
9 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 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 … 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Paul starts out in this passage with the statement, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious.” This is because as someone who has allowed the Lord to shape him through the work of the Holy Spirit they are!
I mentioned earlier that when I bought that mustang, that maybe I wasn’t mentally, emotionally and spiritually ready to even be driving let alone driving a mustang. What I am suggesting here to you guys is that maybe there is a possibility that some of us in this room shouldn’t be even considering a relationship or dating at all. Your simply not ready yet.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5,7,8
3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; … 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
It’s time in your lives to examine truthfully yourself before God. Some of you have some serious issues in your life that have affected not only your relationships but your life. They affect your decisions and they need to be given to the Lord. Some of you are trying to play adult because of your age but your emotional, and spiritual state are no further along than a baby.
A lot of you are looking to me to give you a biblical basis for how to better your relationships when in fact very few in this room can answer the question, “what is your call” or can even recite 3 verses of scripture, or have ever been to prayer consistently or understand its importance or purpose.
Are you seeking first the kingdom of God. Some of us need to get our emotional, mental and spiritual self in order before considering any type of relationship at all. I hope that you will see that this isn’t a negative I am talking about here. It’s ok when God removes a boyfriend or a girlfriend in our lives, it’s ok if we aren’t in a relationship. It’s ok to allow God to just put Christian friends in your life, it’ s ok to seek God’s holiness, to week his will, to learn his principles, to understand how he communicates through the Spirit, to know his will before we are tied into a decision that isn’t God’s best.
We have to allow God to teach us, to mold our every thought, to not be mastered by anything in this world including being addicted to having a boyfriend or girlfriend. We have to allow the possibility that God has a plan for you in his perfect timing. We have to allow the thought they maybe you have not because you are not ready and God is saving your life from disaster.
Will you give God the areas in your life you know are screwed up, will you allow him to heal the past hurts, the daddy syndrome in your life or will you continue to live your life by your passion contrary to Gods will.
Ask yourself are you ready?
If honestly your not then the relationship you need to be worried about is not with friends or boyfriends its with God and submitting wholly to his principle for a season.