Genuine Motivation: Young Christian Man Nov 2011

V GENUINE MOTIV TION NOV

2011

YOUNG CHRISTIAN MAN

A CHURCH FULL OF PROSTITUTES RELATIONSHIPS ALL OUT OF SEQUENCE EQUIP YOUR PC FOR FREE

GOD GOT YOU HEMMED IN?

YOUNG CHRISTIAN MAN 04

Feature Article: Relationships All out of Sequence

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On The Couch: God’s Megaphone: Suffering

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Can You Relate: Good for the Soul?

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May God Bless the Hell Out of You: A Church Full of Prostitutes

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Press On: 10 Things You Need to Know About the Word: Part 1

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Cornered by Grace: Cornered by Grace

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The Tool Box: Equip Your PC for Free

BILLY LORNE

Randy kosloski

Thomas Mollohan THE MERRY MONK

WILL DOLE

ROB BEAMES

JEFFREY BRIDGMAN

a publication of On My Own now Ministries

www.onmyownnow.com

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Editor In Chief / Rob Beames Art + Creative Director / DANIELA BERMÚDEZ

RELATIONSHIPS ALL OUT OF

SEQUENCE

FEATURE ARTICLE by BILLY LORNE GM : 04

Through my teen years I was overweight, insecure and “somber,” as Mother would say. In my Bronx neighborhood, guys took pride in having sex with as many girls as possible — the more sex they had, the manlier they considered themselves. So I was in a real predicament at 19 — and still a virgin. I felt like a freak.

murder victim’s funeral and I was the murderer.

I thought something was terribly wrong with me. Maybe I have a biological problem…a physical problem. I’m ugly!

The pressure to have sex weighed down on me like an elephant stepping on a peanut. I felt humiliated, ashamed, the weight heavier with each passing day. No normal guy stays a virgin for so long, I thought.

What? I thought, horrified and angered. “Oh, really? Why?” I tried to act calm.

I finally met a girl who showed interest in me. And we did it. We were a top-class act — a real Romeo and Juliet.

I spared no expense. After all, this was my first time.

So I took her to the top of a dark, smelly stairwell in my apartment building — a climactic end to 19 years of waiting. It was over in 10 minutes.

That’s it? That’s what I waited for… felt pressured to do?

I didn’t need to be a Christian to know that something wasn’t right. I felt dirty, uneasy and just wrong.

I married the lucky lady, Suzette, six months later, and we moved to Astoria, Queens. We fought most of the time and separated after a year. I had learned about condoms but never used them. During our separation we discovered that Suzette was nearly six months pregnant. I almost fainted; horror seized my mind.

At 20 years old I didn’t have a clue about babies, pregnancy or fatherhood, nor did I have a place of my own.

I gave that up when we separated. And sadly, I didn’t like Suzette anymore. I knew she only married me to flee her overbearing father who would have never allowed us to live together unmarried.

Suzette decided to “terminate the pregnancy” — as the people at the family planning clinic called it. Looking back, I’m struck by the jargon the clinic used: terminate a pregnancy — it sounds like a sterile, harmless procedure.

What they did there was terminate babies.

Ignorant and afraid of pregnancy, I agreed with Suzette’s decision to have an abortion. The building stood on a busy Manhattan street. Once in the office, dim lights and partially closed blinds subdued smileless faces seated in the lobby. The receptionist, a short, sergeant-looking woman, glared at me several times while Suzette filled out some papers. We wrote a check for $500 and sat in the waiting area — I was the only guy. I felt like I was at a

I wasn’t allowed to accompany Suzette to the back. When they were done, Suzette’s tan complexion was pasty white as she paced slowly towards me. My stomach tightened and my heart pounded in my chest. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

She told me how the “lady in the back” explained that a “D and E” procedure for late-term abortions takes two days.

The first day is only to inject a fluid to stretch her uterus.

“Okay,” I swallowed hard as we walked out onto the busy street.

“I might have cramps and slight bleeding,” she continued, “so the lady told me to go home and rest.”

Cramps? Bleeding? I panicked.

We didn’t speak for the 40-minute subway ride back to my mom’s apartment in the Bronx.

That night I felt nauseated as I watched her in pain from cramps and bleeding. I didn’t, at that time, fully understand the fact that the following day our six-monthold unborn baby, whose organ systems were completely functioning, including body parts required to feel pain, would be pulled out of Suzette’s body — whole, or in pieces.

Suzette lay there tossing and turning that night, slightly moaning, an occasional tear rolling down her cheeks.

The sun hung high in the sky the following morning, illuminating the city. Yet its far reaching grasp could not touch the darkness I felt inside my heart.

After that event, though Suzette never verbalized it, her eyes screamed that the abortion was my fault. Our relationship never recovered from that experience. We divorced four months later.

I moved back to the Bronx and moved on. I met Sophia, and it was lust at first sight. That sounds crude, but it’s true. I didn’t have the first notion of God’s plan for relationships or His power to carry it out. As a result, every relationship after my divorce followed a predictable sequence: lust, then sex, relationship and finally, unhappiness — the complete opposite of God’s plan for relationships.

Three months after my first date with Sophia — and by that I mean our first sexual encounter — we moved in together. We’ll save tons of money, I thought. Again, even though we both knew about condoms and other forms of birth control, we never used them. And not surprisingly, she became pregnant. Differences and arguments soon followed, though, as did our first of several visits to a family planning clinic. I was greeted with the same cold,

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“What are you doing here?” glare from the receptionist.

I felt like a loser. I could see why guys didn’t come to these places. I felt a constant indictment of all men’s irresponsibility.

Sophia and I stayed together, but not without problems.

Some days I burned with jealousy imagining all the handsome guys Sophia eyed out, while she seethed with suspicion, envisioning all the beautiful girls I flirted with.

Late night quarrels filled with hurtful words that never healed left me without focus and energy to accomplish much.

During Sophia’s second pregnancy, I reluctantly followed her to the clinic. To my surprise, we were in and out quickly. Nonetheless, it was sufficient time for my conscience to contemplate something new. For some time, I had been an HIV counselor working in a teen health center in the South Bronx. I warned patients about the consequences of unprotected sex and taught them how to use condoms, but I never practiced what I taught. My conscience screamed, “You hypocrite!”

Sophia became pregnant a third time. I figured she’d make an appointment at the clinic and take care of “the problem.” One day I received a call. Sophia was waiting to see a doctor in the emergency room at Montefiore Medical Center. She was bleeding and didn’t know why. After five hours of waiting, the doctor confirmed she had had a miscarriage. We never talked about it.

We had other problems that we did discuss, though — quite vociferously. As Sophia studied to become a nurse, I pursued a career in music. “Get a real job,” she often suggested.

Sophia had a preschool-aged son from a previous relationship and I burned with jealousy each time the child’s father visited.

I had been contemplating leaving New York and I wanted Sophia to come with me. Then she became pregnant a fourth time. She threatened to get an abortion if I left New York.

I left.

I had poured my energy and focus into Sophia for two years and in the end, all I had to show for it was heartache, disappointment, emptiness and regret.

I left New York and landed in Phoenix, Ariz., determined not to hook up with anyone. I stayed single eight months.

What a triumph!

I pursued my dream of music and landed a job working with a Reggae band. While performing on a cool October night in a sports bar in downtown Phoenix, I met Ashley.

We followed the same pattern as my other relationships: lust, sex, relationship and finally, heartache.

But this time, I decided to try a little something different.

I thought maybe we could make things work if we had a child together. I put the proposal to Ashley this way: we have a child, I play music to support us, and we live happily ever after. Ashley nodded.

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This is awesome! I thought.

But I warned her, “I could be out of town several weeks at a time. But that doesn’t mean I won’t help raise our child.

And, if for some reason your love for me turns to hate,” I continued, “please don’t disappear with our child or use her against me in any way.”

I took her blank stare to mean she agreed with me.

Ten months later our baby girl arrived.

Ashley could no longer hang out with me at shows late in the evening, and with only one vehicle, she couldn’t leave the house whenever she wanted. Trips to the mall were fewer than she liked, and without anyone nearby to babysit, going to movies was impossible.

“I’m a prisoner in this house!” she reminded me often.

With only me working, money was tight, so we shopped at secondhand stores.

“You want your daughter to wear clothes with holes in them?” she would say.

“It’s just that — ” “You’re so (expletive) cheap!”

“I’m doing the best — ”

“What type of father are you?” she asked, but already had an answer.

My work kept me out late at night. Ashley accused me of sleeping around. I don’t blame her for thinking that way, because at that point, I used any excuse to get away from her. I could tell we were nearing the end of the relationship sequence. Heartache was in full effect. Having a child didn’t better our relationship as I hoped; it made it worse.

Ashley’s love for me turned to hate, as I had unwittingly predicted, and our daughter became Ashley’s weapon against me.

One day I came home to an empty apartment. Ashley had packed all their clothes and left. I sat and cried. She came back two weeks later. And thus began a pattern of leaving and coming back, which continued throughout our three years together.

The last time she threatened to leave, I was more than ready for her to be gone for good, but I couldn’t bear the thought of not having my daughter with me, or of never seeing her again. Ashley made it clear that I was a deadbeat dad and had no rights as a father. I believed it.

I felt desperate, trapped in a corner. I had no clue how to work it all out, to be rid of Ashley but keep our daughter.

Meanwhile, I had come to know and trust a Christian girl, Christina, whom I met while I worked at my brother’s grocery store to supplement our income. Christina owned a hair salon around the corner from us and would come in each day and buy a cup of coffee, Snapple peach ice

tea, and Ruffle potato chips. In desperation one day, and because of her gentle prodding, I shared with her my dilemma. In turn, she invited me to church. I went twice then thanked her. I told her it wasn’t for me. Later I learned she continued to pray for me, even though I showed no interest in church.

One day Christina gave me a sermon on tape from which I learned God’s design for marriage. I also learned that God regarded “shacking up” as a sin, and when two unmarried people have a child, he or she is considered illegitimate in God’s eyes. My heart broke.

As Ashley once again packed her bags to leave, I knew I needed to change, not only for myself, but for our daughter as well. So I committed my life to Christ and began going to church.

I mourned when I learned that all those abortions were lives of my own flesh and blood that I had cut short. When I confessed the abortions to Christina, she told me I’d see the children in heaven one day. I wept (and have tears in my eyes even now as I write this).

Though God forgave all my mistakes in a moment, the natural consequences continued to play out for many years. I went months without seeing my daughter because Ashley would disappear with her, cutting off all contact.

When my daughter became old enough to tell me stories of her mom’s boyfriend pushing her mother to the floor, police visiting their apartment, and her mom leaving her alone for several days at a neighbor’s house, I initiated a court case. The proceedings dragged on for three grueling years at great financial and emotional cost. But through it all, God gave me strength, support and resources to do the right thing.

My daughter has suffered many consequences of my mistakes as well. She’s had to deal with the pain of having been shuffled between parents, hearing one parent hurl insults at the other, and eventually being abandoned by her mother.

Even as I was dealing with my past, God was giving me a new start. Christina later became my wife and eventually adopted my daughter. With Christina, I followed a different relationship sequence, one that I learned from the tape she gave me: relationship first, courting second, marriage third and finally, happiness! My local pastor was also quite serious about no sex before marriage and he effectively reinforced this teaching for me. And at this point, I didn’t need any convincing to understand why God ordained this order in relationships. I knew first-hand the cultural enticements of premarital sex and the awful consequences that follow.

Christina and I were strictly friends for a year — no kissing, no hugging, no nothing! Then we counseled with our pastor before we began officially dating. We dated for six months, got engaged, and then dated another six months before marrying. Over two years together, we built a strong friendship.

If I started getting a little too touchy-feely with her, the Holy Spirit would “slap my hand” and lovingly tell me, “You’ve already blown your life in this area many times.

Do you really want to do that again?” I answered, “No,” and I would stop and ask God to forgive me and to give us strength to keep our hands off of each other.

Many people have a hard time believing this, but our first kiss was on our wedding day, seconds after we said, “I do.” When I went to kiss my wife, she reacted by slightly pulling back. Stunned, I looked at the pastor as if to say, “Tell her it’s okay, we’re married now!”

I’m amazed at how God restored a sense of purity to my life after so many years of promiscuity. On my wedding night, I felt like a virgin. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.

For the first time in my life, sex felt right, clean and pure — just the way God intended.

This story was excerpted from the new book Purity’s Big Payoff/Premarital Sex is a Big Rip-off, edited by Donna Lee Schillinger.

The most difficult task in the life of a Christian single today is maintaining purity until marriage. The payoff is perfect love and sex, just as our Creator intended. But if that’s so awesome, why aren’t more people choosing it? And how can premarital sex be so bad if so many people are doing it and loving it? People who were virgins when they married aren’t usually the type to kiss and tell. And when premarital sex goes wrong, no one wants to Tweet it. This awkward silence from both contingents isn’t helping the next generation to decide well on the issue of premarital sex.

Purity’s Big Payoff/Premarital Sex is a Big Rip-off is a collection of 17 first-person narratives about successfully waiting for marriage to have sex—or not. Contributors on both sides of the issue candidly share in face-reddening detail what they learned on their way to the wedding bed. Young people aiming to remain pure will be encouraged and learn practical strategies for resisting sexual temptation. Those who wish they had waited will learn that it’s never too late to restore purity with God’s grace.

Learn more at PuritysBigPayoff.com. Now on sale at major online booksellers, through your local bookstore or for a special price of $12 plus free shipping at www.OnMyOwnNow.com, which receives as a donation half of the proceeds of its sales. Also available in Kindle through Amazon.com.

También en español: La Gran Recompensa de la Pureza / La Gran Estafa del Sexo Prematrimonial. Visita www.VivaLaPureza.info.

GM : 07

on the couch

GOD’S MEGAPHONE: SUFFERING

by Randy Kosloski

“I’D RATHER LIVE INSIDE MY OWN SKIN. IF I SUFFER, I’LL SUFFER HONESTLY.”

I have a pastor friend who stutters. Every time he has to speak, in person or on the phone, with anyone, his struggle punches him right in the diaphragm. I love this guy, so I asked to speak to him about his stammer, arrogantly believing that I could help him overcome his hindrance. During our conversation, he shared some of the heartbreaking difficulties he had as a child living with a stutter. Just when I felt I was going to devote my life to helping him, he said that he was glad that God had given him the stutter because he was afraid of how prideful he would be without it.

Learning comes through suffering. My friend understood this much better than I did. If we suffer, it is likely that we suffer either for God’s sake or because God wants to change something in our lives. Either way we should rejoice in our suffering.

Naturally, people go to a therapist because they are suffering and they want the suffering to stop. No one has ever paid me a visit just for an emotional health check-up. Most people who decide to see a therapist chose to do so out of some emotional anguish. It is usually after they have suffered for a while that they begin to acknowledge their pain. After trying to ignore the suffering for a time they finally decide they cannot deal with it any longer and then they come to see someone like me. People hope that someone will end their suffering. However, most therapists ask these tormented souls to return to their suffering in hopes that the individual will think through their pain and come up with their own solution.

It’s been said, “I’d rather live inside my own skin. If I suffer, I’ll suffer honestly.” Job is an example of this.

In Where is God When it Hurts, Philip Yancy points out that God was more accepting of Job’s honest cries of grief than He was of the pious responses by Job’s friends. Job’s honest cries allowed God to intervene and help. Through his suffering, Job’s image of God was changed from the classic theology, which says blessing equals godliness, to a richer theology of suffering equaling godliness.

In Yancey’s book, he refers to C.S. Lewis’ remark that suffering does not lead to evil or cynicism. Lewis sites the example of a front line in a war having no more of these negative emotions than any of the other factions of the military unit.

The variety of suffering abounds and so do the reactions to it. In the end, it is our reaction to suffering that ultimately defines us. It is in our reaction to suffering, whether in response to our own or that of someone else, which God uses to reveal Himself in this world.

Suffering is inevitable but our reaction to it is still in question.

So our challenge is to suffer honestly. We should not blame our suffering on anyone – including God. If we accept it, question it and prayerfully endure it, we will someday see where it leads. Life does not exist without suffering. It is not as if anyone could live so perfectly as to avoid all suffering. Jesus lived perfectly, and no one suffered more than He did.

Hunger is a form of suffering, yet still God asks us in the Bible to fast. Why is this? I used to believe it was so we could use the time that we would normally spend with food to be with God. That may be part of the reason, but for the most part, we fast so we can suffer. God often reveals Himself in these times.

My pastor friend understands this far better than I do.

Like the pain in Paul’s flesh that the Lord would not take away, my pastor friend’s stutter reminded him to lean on God no matter what he was doing. Whether it is talking on the phone or preaching the Word, he cannot rely on his own strength.

Consider it joy when we suffer for when we suffer we draw closer to Him. Lewis sums this up appropriately, “But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Suffering is not something we should relish or strive for, but when it comes, we do well to somehow allow it to draw us nearer to our God.

GM : 09

GOOD FOR THE

SOUL?

CAN YOU RELATE by THOM MOLLOHAN We’ve all heard the saying that “confession is good for the soul,” but just what does the Bible mean when it says to confess? Why is it important for us to learn how to confess in a Biblical sense? To understand this better, let’s first look a little closer at the word: confess.

It’s used in the Bible as a rendering of two Latin roots. The prefix con means “with”, and the latter root fess means “to say”. The Greek word from which the word “confess” is derived is homologeo which literally means “same word”, and is commonly translated as “to acknowledge” or “agree with”.

For those of you who’d rather just have the bottom line, the word involves an utterance of the mouth and outward acknowledgement of truth. It means, in a spiritual sense, to speak out. But what does it mean to speak out?

For starters, saying, “I’m sorry,” is not confession. Neither is asking for forgiveness a form of confession. These things might be related to confession, but they do not completely define confession by themselves.

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When we confess, we must openly agree with God that He is Who He is and that we are sinful by nature. To confess means to declare that God is really God and that He is the rightful Lord of both the world and of our lives. As Romans 10:9, 10 says, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

Confession candidly admits the wrongs that we have done, the hurts that we have contrived, and the sin that we have committed. In confession, we do not rationalize these things, nor do we excuse them. We simply own up to what we’ve done and what we’ve said. Although this doesn’t necessarily mean airing all the details of our dirty laundry, it does mean that we no longer deny the corruption within our fallen hearts, that we “fess up” to God in prayer, and even learn the art of admitting our failures to those we’ve hurt or to whom we are accountable.

And as bad a rap as confession gets, we would be making a terrible mistake to dismiss it as archaic or irrelevant, and hence miss out on its blessing. In a purely pragmatic sense, confession allows me to address destructive habits and attitudes that may characterize my own life and sets the stage for both change and release from cycles of failure and injustice towards others. Furthermore, confession opens the door to the restoring of relationships that have suffered because of the wrong I may have said or done.

Most importantly, confession is a manifestation of my openness to God’s grace when I admit that I have broken His divine commandments and violated His trust – whether outwardly or secretly in the hidden places of my heart and mind. Through confession, I make no excuses for my sin and instead throw myself on the mercy of the highest court of all and before the Judge who eternally rules.

In confessing my sin to Him, I allow His forgiveness to wash me and make me new. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness,” (1 John 1:9).

Real confession cannot take place only inside our minds or hearts, but must ultimately be articulated verbally – largely because speaking the truth realigns the direction of one’s heart and will with that of the Father’s. But even so, there isn’t any sort of script to this. Each example of confession in the Scriptures has its own flavor and is unique to each individual that Jesus called to Himself.

Consider Peter who fell at the knees of Jesus and confessed, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

(Luke 5:8) and then later confessed to Jesus that He was indeed, “The Christ of God” (Luke 9:20).

Another example is Zacchaeus who said to Jesus, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount,” (Luke 19:8). Or consider the sinful woman of Luke 7 who stood behind Jesus at a Pharisee’s home and was so choked up by His acceptance of her, in spite of her past, that she could only weep while wiping His feet with her tears in heart-wrenching humility.

Compare her confession to the Samaritan woman of John 4 who also ultimately agreed with the Lord when she appealed to her fellow villagers to, “Come, and see a man who told me everything I ever did.”

Even the thief who hung beside Jesus on the cross confessed when he recognized the Lord of lords and King of kings for who He is: One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:39-42, italics mine).

Again, confession of sin is not the same thing as saying “I’m sorry”.

Any effort on our part to justify or excuse our sin is extremely offensive to God. It’s interesting to note, by the way, that our word for apology comes from apologia which means “defense” and refers to a plea in which one attempts to clear oneself of guilt. Be that as it may, the Biblical principle is this: inasmuch as we defend or rationalize sin seeking to justify ourselves, we will fail and fall short of God’s glory.

In contrast, when we confess, we agree with God that He is holy and just, and that we are, in fact, poor in spirit. When we can bring ourselves to do this, we can then expect Him to deliver on His promise to give us the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). So let us each then learn to pray honestly to the one who knows our hearts anyway. Let us also seize the joy and victory He intends for those who confess Jesus before men for Jesus will also confess us before the Father Who is in heaven (Matthew 10:32).

Thom Mollohan and his family have ministered in southern Ohio the past 15 ½ years and is the author of The Fairy Tale Parables. He is the pastor of Pathway Community Church and may be reached for comments or questions by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com.

GM : 11

OF YOU MONK

A CHURCH FULL OF MAY GOD BLESS THE HELL OUT OF YOU

BY THE MERRY MONK

PROSTITUTES I’ve been thinking about prostitutes, the Church and Jesus lately – not necessarily in that order.

There’s a story in the Bible about a prostitute who simply had to get some time with Jesus.

She wanted to get close to Him so desperately that she went to a dinner put on by a religious bigwig. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

“Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

(Luke 7:37-48)

Think about that scene. Hooker hygiene must have been atrocious back in the year zero. So you have this stinky prostitute who crashes the party of a priest who is probably trying to impress all his churchy friends by having the people’s prophet over for a meal at his house.

Imagine the stares and the whispered comments. Imagine the condescending tone of the servant sent to show her the door. Imagine this woman’s determination to put up with all these religious jerks so she can weep and pour expensive oil on some preaching carpenter’s feet and wipe them with her hair. Imagine the contrast of the hooker’s smell mixed with the fragrant aroma coming from her alabaster flask.

What was it about Jesus that attracted her? Was it because she saw Him treat the drunks, outcasts and the diseased with dignity causing her to desire the same? Was it because Jesus gave her hope by telling her she was clean in spite of all evidence to the contrary? Who knows for sure, but clearly this woman desperately wanted to be with Jesus and the priest was a hindrance to her.

I feel like a prostitute in church a lot of the time.

Unfortunately, some who claim to follow Jesus have created churches which are unattractive and uncomfortable for hookers. Women of such poor reputation were certainly comfortable around Jesus. Show me a church that can’t keep prostitutes away and I bet Jesus is there. I’d rather be in a room full of forgiven sinners who love God than in the house of an uptight priest any day.

Eugene Peterson, who wrote The Message, once spoke about how the experience he had working in his father’s butcher shop impacted his idea of church. Peterson said: “The brothel was just about two streets down from our shop. And there was always talk on the street about the prostitutes. But when they came into our store, people knew their first name, they treated them with dignity. They were in a safe place. Later, that translated for me into a congregation. When you come into a sanctuary, it’s a safe place.”

I used to have a safe place. I experienced it in a small church for eight simple, glorious years. That church is gone now and I’m mourning the loss. While I don’t feel comfortable around a lot of other Christians, I felt at home there. You know what made the difference? We were all prostitutes and we knew it, but more than that, we were Jesus’ prostitutes.

St. Augustine reportedly said, “The Church is a whore, but she is my mother.” Yes, Jesus loves prostitutes so much He married one, but bad things happen when the Church forgets she’s Jesus’ prostitute bride.

First, bad religion has a deceptive way of lulling us into a false sense of security. We believe all the right stuff and do our best to avoid our big sins so we figure we’re not as bad as all those sinners on the streets. It’s dangerous to live up to our own selective standards while forgetting God’s law of love. It’s been said, “Self-righteousness is like bad breath. Everyone knows you have it except you.”

Prostitutes don’t have this problem. They know they’re nasty!

Jesus said, “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many...” (verse 47).

IF THE CHURCH WOULD REMEMBER THAT SHE’S A PROSTITUTE, SHE’D GET OVER HERSELF, HER RIGHTEOUSNESS AND START OBSESSING ON JESUS’ RIGHTEOUSNESS, INSTEAD. When the Church forgets that she’s still the unfaithful bride of Jesus, she’s not only lulled into a false sense of security, she also loses her ability to love.

Jesus continued, “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven.” Understanding that we’re bad and He’s good only deals with the first half of the problem.

Believing that we’re made clean by union with Jesus, despite all evidence to the contrary, gets to the second half of the issue. We need to see that Jesus’ righteousness is 100% free and ours for the taking. The prostitute and her Husband are now one flesh.

But, Jesus didn’t stop there, “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.

But he who has been forgiven little, loves little.” When we forget that we are forgiven much, our love grows cold.

That’s why Steve Brown says, “The worst thing you have going for you is your goodness... when you know it. And the best thing you have going for you is your sin... when you know it.” Knowing our sin, acknowledging it as such and turning to God in faith for His free righteousness, replaces stone hearts with those softened by gratitude. We love Him because He first loved us! Get that backwards and we have a loveless religion. A lack of love leads to a multitude of sins, including creating whitewashed tombs and calling them churches – pretty on the outside, but inside they are full of death.

That’s not a church even

PROSTITUTES LIKE US WANT TO ATTEND!

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10

PRESS ON

BY W I L L D O L E

THINGS

YOU NEED TO KNOW t u o b a

THE WORD PA R T

1

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.�

John GM : 14

1:1-5

The first five verses of the Gospel of John are among the most beautifully arranged passages in all of Scripture.

Their flow and use of imagery remind me more of poetry than prose which is how most versions of the Bible present it.

That being said, there is an immense amount of truth packed into these few short verses that we often miss. Perhaps it is because we have heard them so many times that we simply assume we understand their meaning. Or perhaps, we have never actually stopped to take the necessary time to thoroughly ponder their significance. Whatever the case may be, the next two articles will delve into these verses in an effort to gain valuable insights into what God is using them to teach us.

John opens his book with some Christology 101.

Any question about the identity of the Word is quickly answered allowing John to focus on the life and work of Christ in the rest of his book.

Yet, the first five verses make ten statements, which if understood correctly, will aide both our understanding of the nature of Who Jesus really is and help us identify teaching that is contrary to His identity.

2.

“And the Word was with God.”

In addition to using the same opening line as Genesis 1:1, John now points to the congruence of the two passages.

Genesis states that in the beginning was God and John has now stated that not only was Jesus present in the beginning, but He was present with God. God the Father and God the Son are present in the beginning in perfect unity along with the Holy Spirit, (see Genesis 1:2). Jesus has eternally existed with God.

3.

“And the Word was God.”

Jesus is God. The weight of this statement cannot be overstated. It helps make sense of claims that Jesus made that He is eternal and that He has an intimate union with God the Father. It asserts both His right to our worship (Exodus 20:3) and His sovereign rule over creation (Psalm 103:19).

This statement ought to immediately caution us against any attempt to marginalize Jesus or to relegate Him to a role which is not congruent with His deity. If He is God, He cannot merely be a nice man, a good teacher, a humble prophet, or even a lower form of a god. He is the God of the Old Testament, YHWH.

4.

“He was with God in the beginning.”

1. “In the beginning was the Word.”

This is a restatement of the first part of verse one. Anytime we see repetition in Scripture it should cause us to pause and consider that something extremely significant is being communicated. The truth that Jesus is eternally existent with God, possible only because He is God, is of the utmost importance since His primary purpose was to bear the penalty of our sin. Only an infinite being could bear the weight of all mankind’s sinfulness and rebellion.

John echoes the opening words of the Bible from Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning”. The claim that Jesus is present in the beginning is huge. For John to make this statement is essentially to say that Jesus predates time. For Jesus to be present in the beginning He must be eternal, that is, without beginning or end. Since He existed before time, it means He must also exist outside of time. Jesus is transcendent over it and is not constrained by it.

There are six remaining statements we’ll investigate at a later date. In the meantime, let’s open up our Bibles and examine these statements further. As we do so, our challenge is to embrace their truth, not only in an intellectual sense, but in a way that truly causes us to sincerely live in the light of their meaning. We should seek God, desire Him, and press on so that we may know Him at a deeper level.

Let’s begin by looking at the first four statements these verses make:

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CORNERED BY GRACE

BY ROB BEAMES

Every individual wants to be free. It’s rare to find a person unwilling to risk a great deal to escape from harsh imprisonment. We naturally want to go where we please, and constantly fight restrictions placed on the decisions we make. We want life to be easy. However, perhaps we aren’t as free as we would like to think. Don’t worry, it’s actually a good thing.

After building the great city of Egypt, which would serve as a prison to the chosen nation of God for over 400 years, God responded to the cries of His people for freedom.

The process of events which God used to set Israel free was amazing from the first of the plagues to the devastating final blow to Egypt via the death of the great city’s first-born. Each part of the process was clearly done to bring glory to Israel’s God, but even after what Israel saw, doubt remained as the huddled masses of Hebrews clung to each other in fear staring at the enormous cloud of revengeful rage approaching them in the form of the mighty army of Egypt. Their backs were up against an equally daunting mass of water which promised to quickly serve as a massive sepulcher for the former slave nation. Many of the Israelites probably would have chosen the watery grave rather than have their body parts spread across the dry sand with their blood watering the unforgiving desert.

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They were in this predicament not because they took a wrong turn, but because they followed the mouth-piece of their God. Now they were cornered by one gruesome form of death behind and a watery grave before them. God would use this situation to make a lasting impression on them as their sole deliverer. They were not in the wrong place. They were cornered by grace. We know it ended well for them, but it doesn’t mean things always go so well for us.

Perhaps the Psalmist had this one famous historical event in mind when he wrote Psalm 139:5. “You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.” At least, the writer of this Psalm understood that God is active in the lives of His people, and implied what others tend to forget after 400 years, 10 plagues, or a sometimes just a few hours: God is the one who stands before us, no matter what it looks like to us. And He is the firm presence we feel from behind.

When we struggle to move forward against opposing forces, it is God working against us. He might block our every career move, shoot down our every proposal, or thwart every attempt to do what we believe is right. Sometimes the way is clear, but if it’s not, we can’t blame random events, or even the devil. God uses all things for His purposes, including the two forces just mentioned, but in the end, He is the one who stands before us. It’s for our own good, although we don’t always see it that way.

Sometimes He opposes us for a time because we need to stop and examine our disobedient hearts and humble ourselves before Him due to our sin. He may hinder our progress to develop a greater faith in Him, to grow our persistence, or build our character. We might not be doing anything wrong at all. Sometimes, He turns up the heat of His great refining fire (1 Peter 1:7) in order to help us identify our imperfections or to force us to flee toward Him. Most of the time, it doesn’t make much sense.

We all want an easy life, but being conformed to the image of Jesus necessitates drinking from a cup which is embittered with trials, much like the cup from which Jesus willingly chose to drink (Mark 10:39). God can seem really cruel when we don’t get want we want, or what we think we need. Naturally, we hate the strife of this world. He does, too. If there were another way, He would have told us.

It’s not like our lives are always like this. God often blesses us beyond our understanding. But when undesirable things happen, they come swiftly and strike hard. These things don’t come into our lives because He’s harsh. He takes no delight in our trials.

His actions are much like a parent who obstructs the pathway of a wayward crawler. At every turn the baby makes he finds his parent blocking the way. It doesn’t take long for frustration to set in accompanied by wailing in agony.

To a crawling baby the actions seem unfair. He doesn’t comprehend the harm he could get into if allowed to go his own way.

In a similar way, God’s grace can hem us in. It may not seem like a loving gesture, but in the end there is no place we’d rather be. His hand may weigh heavy upon us at times and we may feel like we take the brunt of His fury.

Sometimes it may seem more like His grip is around our throat! But His loving hand is upon us and He knows what He’s doing. If He has to obstruct our every move to keep us where we need to be, He will do it out of His great love for us.

If necessary, He’ll block our way going forward, and He’s also there when we turn around in an attempt to return to the more familiar circumstances we left.

He burns down bridges, rips apart safety nets, and sends birds to scarf up the trail of bread crumbs we left behind as we desperately wait for His direction.

In this life we can really feel cornered at times. We can feel penned in all around. It can feel like we’re between a rock and a hard place. But, if we are cornered with no way out, it’s His grace which surrounds us before and behind.

His love places the rock before us. His mercy causes the hard place to remain firm behind us. No matter where His providence takes us – sometimes to places we might have never thought we could possibly be – we are exactly where He wants us to be. This defines the power of His love.

Even if we think we’ve painted ourselves in a corner, even if we’ve arrived at our desperate location due to our own sin, we are still right where we need to be – at least for the moment. It doesn’t mean we’ll stay there long, but then again… it might. He knew where we were going and He prepared the way for us. His grace gently corners us until He lovingly nudges us to move.

Sometimes, we feel like we’d be better off on our own.

Even in our darkest trials, we echo the question Peter asked, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” (John 6:68). He has us right where we need to be: in His love.

(I believe He wanted me to remind you of this.)

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THE TOOL BOX

EQUIP YOUR PC FOR FREE

BY JEFFREY BRIDGMAN

Get the freewarez lolz! (Did I even spell that right?!)

For practically any type of software it is possible to find some sort of free alternative, usually called freeware (or open-source software). In fact, if you think you can’t afford a computer, visit a used computer store and ask for their bargain basement box with a decent hard drive and Wi-Fi and wave off the expensive software.

Load up Linux from a CD (see below) and then head to the closest free Wi-Fi spot and start equipping your machine. Not all are equal in quality and you may end up wanting to opt for fancier programs that have a more polished look and extended functionality; but for most tasks you can deal with the free stuff – where there’s a will, there’s a way.

There are so many options for good freeware any sort of exhaustive list isn’t really possible in this space, but here are a few of my favorites.

OPERATING SYSTEMS Linux is a type of operating system (based on Unix, the same thing that’s running beneath Mac OS X, actually) which is free. It comes in countless distributions (or distros) tailored to whatever purposes (data recovery, gaming, multimedia, education, server and even science). For a beginner I’d recommend Ubuntu, one of the more popular distros. You can download it and run it from a CD first to give it a try if you’d like.

DOCUMENTS/EDUCATION OpenOffice: Free office suite. Not as attractive of an interface as Office 2007/2010, but hey, it’s free.

PrimoPDF: Make anything a .pdf file with the print to pdf feature. Also handy for when you don’t have a printer and need to print a copy of a online purchase confirmation, etc.

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GraphCalc: Don’t have one of those expensive graphic calculators? This program can do 2D and 3D graphing.

Google Earth: See satellite images of the earth overlayed with various information layers. It fits the images to the terrain so you can do a 3D fly-through as well. You can check out Mars, the moon and the stars too!

E-Sword: free Bible study software.

VIDEO AND AUDIO Audacity: Audio editing software. Not exactly super handy for actually making music, but you can use it to filter and splice tracks together or convert from one format to another. Great for prepping music for use with video.

Realplayer: Ever wanted to save a video from YouTube? You can with the video downloader included in Realplayer.

VLC – The “play anything” player: Not its actual name (VLC media player), but this program is generally held in well-regard to be able to play almost any type of video, no matter the codec.

Mediamonkey: If you’ve tried iTunes but don’t care for it, and don’t like Windows Media Player either, give this media player a try. imTOO Movie Maker Got raw video footage you want to jazz up? This freebie allows you to create movies from multiple videos with professional-looking transitions and music.

INTERNET

UTILITIES

Skype: Video-chat, calling program. Use your computer as a phone, basically... not very useful without internet, obviously ;)

Recuva: Ever deleted a file and then realized you still needed it? … and you just emptied the trash can? Well, the truth of the fact is, your 0’s and 1’s on the hard drive for your file are probably still there. This little utility can help you get those files back.

Filezilla: For any older-school technology people out there, this is a good FTP client for uploading/ downloading files. This is not a P2P (peer-to-peer) client.

Try PortableApps.com to find versions of free and popular software that can be installed to a flash drive so you can take it with you wherever you go. I used to have my favorite browser installed onto one so that where ever I went, I always had my favorite bookmarks, saved passwords, and browsing history with me for convenient browsing.

PHOTO AND GRAPHICS GIMP: Think Adobe Photoshop alternative. You can use it for anything from editing photos to painting something from scratch or doing some graphics design.

Inkscape: This one is similar to Adobe Illustrator. Useful for vector-based graphics design.

Blender: I haven’t played with this one too much, but you can do some amazing stuff with this like 3D model design and even animation.

Photoscape: If GIMP is a little much for the simple editing you want to do, give Photoscape a try. It has a bunch of easy to use, handy and fun tools to make the most of your photos.

Picasa: A very well-designed easy to use photo editing and organization application. Includes handy things like face recognition and the ability to tie into your Google account online to share photos.

7Zip: Can handle almost any file compression format.

We typically just think of .zip files, but his can also handle .tar, .tzip, .gzip., .7z., .rar, .lzh.... the list goes on.

CCleaner: Tool to help clean up various files that exist on your system.

Launchy: In Windows 7, the start menu now has a place you type to launch any program, or access any of your files, but that doesn’t exist back in XP. With this program, finding things in various places like my documents, bookmarks or that start menu is just a few keystrokes away. It’ll take what you type and make suggestions for what you might be looking for.

All the “A” Anti-virus Apps... there’s a bunch: AVG, Avast, Avira, Adaware.

WinDirStat: Running out of space on your hard drive?

This program graphically shows you what files/folders are using the most space.

WinMerge: This one takes a bit more time to figure out, but the basic concept is you have two almost identical folders, but they’re aren’t exactly the same. This program allows you to compare the differences between to folders and chose which files from each you’d like to use where there are differences.

For even more free software try sites like SourceForge. net or CNET Download.com (fair warning, not all software on these sites are free to try, i.e., demo).

GAMES BZFlag: 3D online multiplayer tank game with free-forall, capture-the-flag, etc. Has an older look, but is fun nonetheless.

Battle for Wesnoth: Fantasy turn-based strategy game.

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