Dating for Dummies ... (Part 3 of 3)

continued from (part 2 of 3) ...

6.) It is best to meet new people at a bar. Untrue. The best place to meet viable potential dating partners is at your local church. This gives you time to see people interact with others and with family. How a person interacts with family and friends is a good indicator of what you can expect to see from them over time with you. It gives you time to learn about them, before you decide to increase the level of socialization through dating. And finally, it gives you at least a cursory chance that you share some values and ideas common to your religious thinking, although as stated before, do not assume to know too much in this arena before extensive conversations and observation.

Meeting at social clubs such as a health club, gym, sports team events, etc is likely your next best location for date selection for similar reasons. Dating people where you work is less preferable as most people do not have the social maturity to maintain quality professional working relationships if a personal one ends or ends badly. Singles bars, drinking parties, and the like are the worst places to meet serious dating candidates as judgment is often impaired during these types of outings, and intentions can easily be misunderstood due to the surrounding environments. Where you meet does not destine a relationship for success or for failure, but where you look for one is an indication of what you are looking for and of what you intend to offer.

7.) It’s OK to date someone who is already in a committed relationship with another person. Untrue. People tend to rationalize the situations they create for themselves, often by blaming another. Bad marriages, accusations of an unfaithful partner, accusations of abuse, etc.. are all used as reasons why a person might show themselves as available for dating while not yet un-entangled with the perceived source of their pain. This represents a lack of judgment on their part, and may be an indicator of a particular personality weakness they are prone to. If they are willing to “cheat” on their existing partner, they are willing to “cheat” on you. No one likes to believe this at first, but over time the axiom proves true almost without exception.

Everyone who enters these kinds of “complicated” relationships thinks that theirs will be different. But this is mere self delusion. The entangled party should free themselves of the other BEFORE thinking they have 100% of themselves to offer another. If they enter dating knowing this cannot be true, they doom themselves to failure.

If you are not in a committed relationship, and choose to date someone who is, it is you that compromises your own self-worth. You effectively give license to date only a portion of the other person, knowing you do not have access to the whole. You will not get the attention, respect, or time you need to build a lasting relationship, because the situation of entanglement will prevent you from having it regardless of intentions. Relationships that start out on such shifting sands are doomed to end in a crashing heart. Best to avoid them, and wait until you are able to give and receive 100% attention from your dating partner.

 

If we had learned how to date properly, to value others properly, and to submit our own wills over to Christ so that He might lead us and change us into who He wants us to be, our marriages would be the epitome of happiness found on this miserable planet. With proper foresight, we would not be entering into divorces so often or so casually. We would have been properly armed with a better understanding of who we were committing to, and what that would require of each of us. And so as with all things good, evil creates myths to infect our thinking, warp our judgment, and send us headlong into a tunnel of despair. But it need not be so, with those who have discovered the beauty of surrender to Christ. For those who do, there is an entire world of discovery waiting to be uncovered.

So in summary, the purpose of dating is more about preparing us for a life of giving to another, sharpening our social skills, and teaching us what it means to explore interests that were not our own. Even young children can experience the joy of socialization and should be guided by parents, peers, and teachers to respect others, learn how to communicate effectively, and learn to experience new things and interests in a group social context. Our lives become enriched as we avoid the pitfalls, and warped thinking of evil. And the relationship of marriage that we prepare for throughout the dating process becomes something we can enter into knowing we are bringing a submitted heart, and the experienced set of hands and feet of a servant.

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Dating for Dummies ... (Part 2 of 3)

continued from (part 1 of 3) ...

3.) The three date rule applies. Untrue. The purpose of dating is NOT sexual intimacy. Dating should not be considered a “try it before you buy it” concept. The idea that you need to determine is you are sexually compatible based on experience is yet another myth. Sexual intimacy will be discussed in much greater detail in the marriage section on relationships, but for now suffice it to say, that giving to another, and respecting someone else should mean valuing them enough to refrain from becoming needlessly hormonally dependent on another person with little or no commitments or intimacy involved.

Once sex enters the picture, it clouds the mind with pheromones and radically affects the judgment of both parties. Where before logic would have foretold impassable differences on the horizon in values, intellect, emotional maturity, etc., now hormonal need enters and postpones these concerns until far into the future when they will become much more painful to experience. Many potential couples would move on to explore other possibilities, and much faster, had they not engaged in sex prematurely.

Sex tends to enslave the mind of the uncommitted. It reinforces the thinking that people are mere objects of pleasure, rather than valued individuals. And ultimately, sexual promiscuity deforms the thinking until YOU are the one with nothing to offer in a relationship, as it is your mind that no longer has any ideas what it means to give more than to take. In short, sex without the confines of marriage creates and fosters selfish tendencies that may remain in effect over an entire lifetime. As hard as it may seem, forgoing sex is the best way to determine real compatibility in a relationship, and is a better indicator of long term viability.

Guys who think they can spend enough money on a date that she should feel obligated to sleep with them – are viewing women as objects that can be purchased – in short whores. Women who buy in to this concept see themselves in this way as well. Sexual intimacy cannot be purchased, it must be a gift. Becoming a good lover does NOT happen due to the variety of people you sleep with; it has to do with the care and interest you take in really knowing who you are trying to please. Having casual sex with 100 selfish idiots is not going to improve your “skills”. It is going to turn you into the 101 selfish idiot.

The idea that sex may only be exciting when it is “new,” is part of the same thinking that separates the intimacy, trust, and vulnerability from sex and tries to turn it into mere biology. “New” can never replace “trust” where it comes to sex, relationships, or anything else of value. Again, the best way to determine compatibility of life-long partner is to abstain from sex while dating, and reserve your trust until someone is willing to commit the entirety of theirs to you as well.

4.) Love at first site is real. Untrue. Chemical attraction at first sight is real. Desire at first sight is real. Having that indescribable feeling of wanting to get to know someone else at first sight is real. But none of this is love, and most of this will not last very long. Love as we said earlier is about what we give to someone else, not about what we take. How can we truly love someone without knowing what it is they care about? How can we claim to love someone, who we are clueless about how to please? Loving someone is about learning these things and practicing them.

It will take more than a lifetime to ever try to fully know anyone. But this fact leaves open the idea of virtual newness, new discoveries about the object of your affections that will happen over a lifetime. While age may change your physical appearance, and prowess, it may also bring new insights into just how deep love can run. The longer you date someone, the more chance you will have to experience meaning with them. Chances are higher over time you will need forgiveness, even from the object you are trying so hard to please. Chances are higher over time that shared experiences will become treasured memories, and that a life shared becomes more valuable to you than a life spent alone.

5.) Age does not matter when dating. Untrue. How old a person is radically affects their perspective and degree of experience in living life. A younger person who chooses to date a much older person may appreciate the wisdom, maturity, and vision of their partner; but may also be drawn to them for their wealth, power, and prowess. But in choosing someone substantially older, they yield up a degree of control over themselves to a person who has the means to use it.

The older person may not consciously manipulate the younger, but the potential to do this exists, as the skills learned over time make the older person much more formidable than the young. People of vastly difference maturity levels should ask themselves what it is about the relationship they seek that makes them happy and brings them fulfillment. Love must be a choice, if it can be manipulated, then it can never be real. How many years different in age is the right number? ,,, is the wrong question. This is considered better in realizing the maturity differences between two people, and avoiding the pitfalls of manipulation whether by intent or by accident from either party.

to be continued ...

Dating for Dummies ... (Part 1 of 3)

The most important aspect of dating to consider is the phase or age of the person considering entering this social construct. Dating for those under 12 or 13, or perhaps better stated for children not having arrived at puberty, is less about dating and more about socialization. This kind of dating is different than 13 to 17 year olds or perhaps better stated School age dating. Next would come college age or 18 to 23 year old dating, followed by early career dating 24 to 30. Past 30 years old, most people are engaged in serious dating meaning they are looking less at socialization for fun, and more at potential life partners. Obviously there are exceptions to the goals and desires of each individual at any given age, but the general construct we discuss here should apply fairly well to whatever your desires may be presently.

There are many myths even inside of Christianity at large that have developed over the years related to dating that need to be debunked if we are ever to have longer term successful relationships. These myths include …

1.) We should only date people we would want to marry. Untrue. In any dating scenario the first goal of the experience is to sharpen our own social skills and interactions with someone who interests us. This means our first goals should be to learn how to listen to someone, really listen, and figure out where we are alike and not alike. We must learn how to talk to someone and effectively communicate our own desires, ambitions, values, and beliefs – WHILE carefully insuring we do not offend them or imply criticism in theirs. We must learn how to read non-verbal cues to determine if we are listening or communicating effectively. If you really want to impress someone, listen to them. If you want to impress them further, step out of your own comfort zone and embrace doing something that interests them, not you. In so doing you broaden your own horizons and make your own life more full, even if it is to merely reinforce your current opinions on the topic. The effort of trying is important – to you, to your own growth and viability as a dating partner.

Next it is important that we create an enjoyable experience for both parties on a date. Beyond mere effective communication, this takes active participation. It means we value the person we are trying to get to know, more than the food we eat on a date, more than the movie which vies for our attention, or any other distraction we may choose to engage in to help us become better at our social skills. The idea that anyone would even know who they want to marry, before having MANY successful social encounters with a wide variety of people is simply counterintuitive. We do not know what we do not know. Dating is a way to educate us, while we learn really well, how to read and please another person,

2.) We should only date people of like faith, or like values. Untrue. Dating is not intended to be marriage; it is intended to be for better socialization. And people do not generally wear their true values, religion, or faith on their sleeves. What someone does under pressure is a better indication of who they really are. This would take time and effort to see, it could not easily be done on a mere casual date. Just because a person shares membership in the selected denomination of your church does not mean they share the submission of their will to Jesus, as you may be doing. It does not mean you can assume you know what they think or believe on any “accepted” doctrine of your faith. With a wide variety of differences between us, you cannot logically assume we are all on the same page spiritually or at the same point on our journey. This is what the dating process helps to reveal. You should not exclude or include anyone based on a cursory review of some title they apply to themselves. This kind of narrow judgmentalism leaves only you at a loss and puts unnecessary restrictions on your potential dating pool.

to be continued ...

Biggest Bang for the Buck ...

Once the core of your selfishness has been released to Christ to have Him change it, the question becomes what next? Outside of teaching you to serve others rather than to serve yourself which is going to positively impact your life beyond anything you may imagine to date; I believe the next area to focus on is our relationships. The most important relationship to focus on first is our marriages which should also cover the dating process. This would be followed by our parental relationships, then our families, friendships, and work place associations. When you consider that nothing of value in this world will transcend into the next one except your relationships, it seems to make sense we focus a bit here first.

To quote George Lucas … “You must unlearn what you have learned.” [Yoda, Star Wars Episode 5] This has never been more true than in the interactions and social relationships people have with each other. It begins with recognizing the true value of the individual. You are unique. You were created with a specific purpose in mind by a God who praises infinite variety. Your purpose may have many layers – something for this world, for the place in which you work, in your home life, and in the next Kingdom God as designed. But your purpose is unique to you, not just now but for all time. Therefore the loss of you, is a loss to the entire universe, and for all time. It does not mean that God’s plans will not go forward, they will. But your role will never quite be duplicated within them. You remain unique.

When you understand that each soul has a special purpose as ordained by God, then you begin to appreciate just how precious each life is. When looking to first form relationships with others, it is important to begin by understanding that this person you intend to interact with, has an equally important role in God’s work, is equally loved by God, and is equally critical to the family of God as yourself. Just as God compared our body to His church, so people can have radically different perspectives, talents, skills, and abilities – and NONE are any less important than another. Your eye and your ear for example share little, but you could not exist as well without each of them. They are both precious despite their seeming to have nothing in common with each other except improving your own life.

Respecting differences then is the first step towards having successful social interactions. Often men in relationships will dismiss differences with a potential dating partner or spouse as unimportant. But these differences make up the person you are interested in. They are in fact important, because without them, the object of your intentions would not be who you are drawn to. Women conversely dismiss differences as if on a checklist of “things to change” once they settle down with this man. Enlightened women understand there is no Mr. Right, or perhaps Mr. Perfect, but falsely believe he can still be built from Mr. Right Here and Right Now. He cannot. Perfection is not built by the nagging or encouragement of a woman, nor can Perfection be defined by one. Perfection begins once the will is submitted to Christ, and only then does one have anything to offer in a relationship with another.

Having learned to accept the differences we encounter with each other, we must begin to redefine what Love means in a relationship. Valuing another human being means they cannot be treated as mere objects, or possessions. Evil has fostered the idea that another person can be a mere plaything. You can trifle with someone’s emotions in order to get from the relationship whatever it is that you want. This objectification of the human species tears our value down from its core. If allowed to infect our thinking, it keeps us from ever understanding what true intimacy means and has to offer us. It makes us willing tools in the destruction of ourselves and of others. And it makes us wholly unfit to have or maintain any meaningful relationships with nearly anyone. People can simply not be treated like packages on the shelf at Walmart.

To love someone, is to give to someone. It is to act in that person’s interests above your own. It is to find joy in the giving, not in the taking. It is to care about the needs, interests, feelings, and well being of someone else ahead of every other competing desire of your own. When you love someone, you want that person to be happy. You will spend every waking minute trying to figure out new ways of making that person happy. And in so doing, you will find the greatest of contentment you have ever experienced. This is how our God loves us. This is what our God does for us. If our God is love, then this is what the example of our God and of love is to us. Not mere words, not mere feelings, not mere hormonal attractions that can fade with age – but daily meaning actions that demonstrate the desires of the heart.

Some have said that love is pain. This is untrue. It is the lack of love that brings pain. It is the rejection of love that causes heartache and suffering. But the embracing of love as a freewill choice between two people can bring more happiness than ever dreamed possible. Why two people? - Because it is nearly exhausting to respect the differences in another, and to try to find ways of making them happy in an imperfect world. Achieving unity with just one other person can be a life’s work. To add a third party to the unity quest is to make it virtually impossible to find. Our differences are vast, and the effort it takes to respect them, and perhaps even to embrace them, is no small self-sacrifice. But the level of intimacy that can be achieved can be life altering. And though love rejected can feel like a sharp stick through the heart, it can also reveal the true nature of what we call love for another. For if we truly love someone else, we would desire their happiness above our own, even if it means we will not be the one to make them happy. This may be a painful acknowledgement, but it means we know what love is, and someone else will one day be the beneficiary of this knowledge. We can only hope as much for those we wish well as they depart from us.

With these prerequisites in mind we are ready to discuss dating …

A New Perspective ...

You do not know what you do not know. We are finite creatures who have been conditioned to accept less than what is possible by an evil that is bent on our misery and ultimate destruction. It was never God’s intent that any sickness, blindness, disease, or addictive disorders would impact our lives and our souls. All of these maladies are a byproduct of evil. Death itself is a natural consequence of evil, as life is a natural consequence of God. But freedom from the shackles that have bound us, vision to see truth and beauty in a world that sees neither, and love poured out without measure are the hallmarks of a changed life; a life that has finally humbled itself and submitted its will to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Chemical additives (by this I mean recreational or even misused prescription drugs), cannot come close to offering you the experience of a liberated mind, heart, and soul. Endorphins that your body produces when you exercise strenuously are a mild alternative next to the feeling of freedom to the unbound heart. This is something new. This is something unheard of. This is truth and knowledge we have not had, for we stood in our own way of obtaining it. This is the experience and exhilaration that only comes when Christ sets you free from the chains of evil that have so long governed your life.

We spend so much time consumed with our sins. Either we are trying hard to avoid doing them again, or consumed with guilt after recently committing them again, or cleaning up the mess they cause – our lives, minds, and even prayers are consumed with living in bondage. In so doing, we have focused on the disease and not the cure. By turning them over to Jesus, by admitting that we actually like sin and evil and that without Christ changing our wicked core, we are doomed to continue in it – we are MADE free. Note that the work still belongs only to Him, but the freedom is far more liberating than you can imagine if you are still bound in sin. This freedom of the mind offers you an entirely NEW perspective.

There is an old computer axiom that states – “garbage in – garbage out”. Its meaning is that if you put in bad data or bad coding practices, you can expect to get inaccurate, misleading and false results. Evil has fed us nothing but garbage our whole lives and has told us we were eating cake. Take the scriptures for instance; the Old and New Testaments are considered by a great many believers to be very different from each other. Bill Maher’s famous joke line that … “having a kid seems to have mellowed out God” in the New Testament; is tacitly agreed to by many. This of course is not logically possible. God does not undergo a personality change, nor would we ever want Him to abandon the Good that He is for any alternative. So why the perception difference? It is because we view things with blurry vision, and prejudiced minds. The truth of God’s infinite love is all through the Old Testament writings, but is ignored in favor of the blood, guts, and errors of man that are so vividly described.

Many people non-believers accuse God of genocide because of the wars the Children of Israel waged on the inhabitants of the Promised land. But these wars were not God’s plan, they were made by Man’s interference with God’s ideas. God wanted to send in wasps to the promised land (plague style) to drive out the inhabitants of the land so that His people could just walk right in and settle down. No blood, no bodies, no genocide, and no wars that continued because the Israelites did not finish the job of driving their enemies out, instead getting lazy and having to contend with them for generations to come. But God’s idea about using wasps is long forgotten, next to the blood and gore of warring exploits.

People site the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of the vindictive nature of God. Yet Christ Himself went to these two cities in the flesh before making a final decision of their destruction. And all those who were not guilty of their crimes were spared. This example of the ultimate extinction of evil was designed to remind us that evil is on a time clock. It will not be granted liberty to exist forever. Someday it will be fully consumed and disappear. Think of it, Sodom and Gomorrah are not STILL burning, their residents are NOT still tortured. They were burned up and dead. The place has been grown over, and the evil that existed there is NO more. This is not a story about an Angry God, it is a story about a God who one day offers us the hope of existence without evil, in both this life and one to come.

How you see the Bible depends much on your history with it, your parents views, your pastors views, and your own clouded desires. We often try to use the Bible to justify our decisions, or prove our doctrines are correct. This is a huge mistake. In so doing, we are attempting to lead the learning ourselves, instead of being led to the truth God would share with us in His word. Using the Bible to condemn the actions of others indicates a COMPLETE lack of understanding of the message of the Bible. This book is NOT about punishment and guilt. It is about freedom from pain, about reclamation of addicts, about reconciliation with a God who is suffering from a major case of empty-nest-syndrome. We have a Daddy who wants us home. This book is a love letter from cover to cover. It is real, not dressed up, or exaggerated, it shows the mistakes so that we can learn from them, not learn to repeat them. But this requires a new perspective to see. It requires a freedom from bondage. It requires a changing life, or I am guessing you have NO idea what I am talking about. Why not give up your will to Christ and see what happens in your own life …

Truth Begins ...

A gift is something you cannot earn, you may not deserve, and you are free to return. So it is that the saving of man from his own evil was devised as a gift of God to His erring creations, namely us. It was not because we deserve it. We openly and freely rejected God, we broke trust with Him. Our lives and our actions remain in this state from Adam to me. But love was larger than justice, love was greater than evil. And so Love found a way to redeem us from our first decision and the slavery that would follow. And Love knew it must do all the work of our redemption, for it relied upon us, we would remain doomed. You cannot trust an addict to voluntarily give up his drugs, so are we with our nature to please ourselves.

Evil would not be content to just let God bring us all back to Himself. Far from it, Evil had to find a way to mask the plan of Salvation, to alter it just enough as to keep it from being effective. And given our nature, it was not hard to accomplish this. A simple insidious plan to introduce self into the core of the Christian religion has been slowly introduced over the years. Instead of accepting the gift of our freedom from evil, sin, and ourselves – Satan altered the design by insinuating that the work of removing evil from us, was up to us. Catch phrases like “Sanctification is the work of a lifetime” and mis-applying scriptures like “Faith without works is dead”, have led Christians to believe they too have an important work in the saving of man. Over a period of time, we adopted the idea that we must be responsible for ending our own bad behavior. If we are failing at it, it is because we are praying too little, reading too little, or trusting too little. We were told to try harder. No matter the reason, we would be held accountable for our failures in a coming judgment.

The very definition of Salvation went from saving man from evil and himself, to strictly “going to heaven”. This removes the timing of getting rid of sin until a far future date. It sets expectations of perfection to a far off distant future, and given our abject failure at getting rid of our own sins, it seems more than reasonable. People start getting obsessed with when Jesus will return, because they pin all their hopes on a better life with less pain on “going to heaven”. We have consequently placed self at the core of our religion, and have thus robbed it of both its good news, and its power; time for truth to re-emerge.

Christ said “come unto Me all ye who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” It was Christ who defeated evil, paid the penalty we deserved, and in so doing won back our chance for freedom. We were condemned to the evil we chose, our guilt was never in question, but remarkably our defense attorney (Christ), upon hearing our sentence decided to take it upon Himself in our place. He would offer us as a gift, what we could never earn. He would do the work it takes to remove the sin from our lives, if we would just let Him do it. We would have to choose to allow Him to save us, but in so choosing, HE WOULD SAVE US. The plan of salvation was not enacted to make us free TO sin, but rather to make us free FROM sin. We do not need another excuse to continue in the pain we choose to inflict on ourselves, we need a method of escaping it. We need a reform of our thinking. We need a recreation of our very nature, of our desires, of our souls. And this is what Christ offers us each one.

His work in our souls is highly personal, as each of us is highly unique. We learn differently, we respond differently, we have different motives and thinking on almost everything. How He removes our sin and changes our thinking is a mystery, but the fact that He does only rests on our willingness to let Him do it. Think of it folks, REAL relief from real pain that has infected your existence since birth. It is available to you right NOW, right here, no matter your condition, no matter how deeply you dug yourself into the hole of pain you wallow in; there is hope and immediacy in the relief in Christ. Stop trying harder to kick a habit you cannot kick. Stop trying to put your own strength in a place God never intended it to be. Instead rely on the only God capable of beating evil, and of recreating the heart of man. You need only take His gift and submit your own will to His.

The key to changing our lives, and ending our pain lays not in how strong we are, but is made perfect in our weakness as He does what must be done in each life. Christ removes our pain. Christ changes what we want, and how we think, so that the nature and causes of our addictive behavior are ended permanently. We begin to wonder as time passes, how we ever wanted the things of the past, and why we did not allow Christ to end them sooner than we did. This level of freedom brings rest. We can give up the fighting, and turn over the battle to the only one who can win it. We need not judge each other any longer, nor condemn each other pointing out obvious flaws in each other, for Christ can fix all of this. Our witness transforms from condemnation and guilt, to redemption reclamation and joy. Our vision is opened up. We begin to see truth on an entirely deeper level. The mis-application of scripture begins to fade as we no longer look for a club to beat people with, we look for love to save people with.

When someone throws the phrase “Sanctification is the work of a lifetime” at me; I respond yes it is, it is the work of submitting our will and our desires over to Christ so that He can change them forever. Even in this, I depend on His strength to cover my weakness, as God is both the Author (creator of) and Finisher of my faith. When someone says “Faith without works is dead” to me; I respond yes it is, and it is like life without breathing in the air. When you have the one, you cannot help but have the other. The works follow the faith, for it is the nature of faith, to redefine our actions, our motives, and our behaviors. This text is merely a statement of the obvious, not a condemnation of those who do not try hard enough.

I can accept anyone in any condition, not because I endorse their particular sin or pain, but because I know Christ can fix it in them, as He does in me. I am free to love without condition or prerequisite. I am not constrained to love only those who think like I do, but to love those who disagree with me, or even those who hate me. I have no need to preach to people, for I have nothing of value to say. But I can answer questions about how my life has improved and why I am so happy being connected to the source of all love and happiness, and how you can achieve it too. The good news of the gospel has returned, for saving us from evil is truly a gift once more. The power of the gospel has returned in that real change can happen right here and right now, by the miraculous redeeming power of Christ’s love. This is exciting. This is the birth of truth.

Freedom to Choose ...

To end the pain, and see truth, one must make a choice to do so. Life does not require it. It is deeply personal and it cannot be forced by circumstances, peer pressure, or even supernatural forces. It is the singular choice we make in our lifetimes. Every other choice we make stems from this one, whether for our benefit, or our ultimate destruction. We are in fact, free to choose only whom we will serve. In our addicted and pathetic state of slavery to evil, it requires God’s grace to even have the freedom to make this rudimentary choice. But this is the choice we are offered freely. And we are free to choose our end as a result.

The outcomes are sure, but the selection is up to us. To choose our Creator God and His plan for our Salvation from evil, is to destine our lives towards success. To not make this selection, to delay or quibble, to remain in a state of contemplation on the topic and avoid commitment – is to prolong the condition we are in today, and keep pain as an active part of our daily lives. Our own nature of self interest will someday cause us to implode. The core of how we function is based on a premise to cause us immeasurable pain throughout our lives. It is the recognition of our condition that leads us to the need of a Savior. When you do not see the pain you cause yourself, refuse to recognize it, or blame it on others or even God – you remain bound to its power over you, and a slave doomed to feel its effects again and again.

Love is a choice. Love cannot be forced. This is why God offers us His plan and never commands us or forces us to choose it. It is logical to choose love. It is smart to choose relief over pain. It seems ultimately what the best choice is, but it remains a choice many walk away from. Satan is about control. He is the opposite of God in every respect. Where God offers you love, Satan would impose his will over even your basic decision to choose. This is the nature of the evil kingdom, where slavery, addiction, and power over the weak are things of praise. Obviously none of these facts would do well in a marketing brochure, so in order to deceive the masses, evil presents the alternative choice to God, as merely self-control, self-domination.

Evil would have us believe that should we choose to avoid a choice for God, we are free to run our own lives, free to do anything we want without guilt or condemnation. Evil would have us believe that we cannot be free while serving God or others, we can only be free when serving ourselves. And this alternative choice has been very popular for a long time. It fits well with our nature. It appeals to our ego and natural self interest. It is what we WANT to hear, and what we WANT to believe, whether it is true or not. But facts on the ground reveal its fallacy. The pain we continue to inflict on ourselves and others while we remain under the illusion of control is a real-world testament to the fallacy of freedom absent God. To deal with this fact, Satan simply blames God for it. Rather than let you take any responsibility for your own actions, decision, and behaviors which have caused you inordinate pain, Satan blames God for allowing you to do all these things. And very often we buy into his arguments hook, line, and sinker.

The truth and the facts, when examined without the rose colored glasses of self interest on, show that indeed we are our own worst enemy. Acting selfishly is the primary cause of pain in our lives, and our condition of addiction requires something outside of ourselves if we are ever to break this cycle. In short we need a Savior to save us from ourselves, from our natures, from our thinking, from our behaviors. This is what each of us desperately needs, and as each of us is different, a unique individual, so the work of saving us must be personalized to fit our unique needs. This is exactly what God has offered us in His gift of love.

But some Christians have taken God’s gentle offer of love, and tried to turn it into a mandate of enforcement over “the guilty”. While Christ Himself did not condemn our guilty world while here on earth, some of His purported followers spend their entire existence doing just that. They reason that sin must be called by its proper name. They reason that attention must be drawn to the law of God so that evil doers can see the error of their ways. Yet they do not look in the mirror. They do not see the evil that lies within them, nor that they are doing the very work Satan does – accuser of the brethren. It is not a question as to whether the world is guilty of sin and evil, it is. Neither is it a question as to whether we are guilty of it, we are. Guilt has never been the question. Our pain alone should tell us that. What to do when you are guilty is the question, how to save the guilty is the question, ending the pain of the guilty is the question. Redemption itself is the goal for all who feel the sting of self inflicted pain.

For a choice to be true it must be free. This is the peril of our existence, that we are truly free to walk away from the offer of our Salvation. God actually does allow us to reject Him. He does not recommend it, His love fights hard to lure us back, He does everything He can to try to show us why choosing Him is our best decision. But at the end of the day, God unlike Satan, does not compel anyone to do anything, or make any choice. His followers would do well to learn this lesson and stop imitating Satan and calling it the work of divinity. We are indeed free to choose. Life or death, it is our choice, and therefore someday our responsibility and no one else’s.