Insidious Adaptation

Love is the sacrifice of oneself for another. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."- 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 What love is can easily be defined by what man isn't. WE are typically love's anti-venom and we have redefined "love" in a culture of lovelessness. Love is not lust, nor is it a present, nor is it controlling. You do not love if you need to know where that person is or what they are doing or to receive reassurances about your worth or their feelings for you.  Love does not need to be proclaimed in some bold statement for others to see, nor does love have to break another person down, hoping they lose so that we can remain their caregiver. Love does not steal. Love does not covet. Love is not some romance movie where the unhappily married woman finds her, "true" love and is acceptab...

The omission was not an accident, but an imposition. I am imposing that we look at the nutrient transport system known as the circulatory system and what it carries, blood, as another thing altogether. Not only is it the heart, arguably the most important organ in the body, necessary to pressurize the arteries and veins to distribute oxygen to the brain and every other organ for its necessary functions, but it is blood outside the body that reinforces sacrifice. It is the explanation for hard work, along with tears and sweat, other fluids from the body. It is the demonstration for endurance as one who bleeds for their purpose. It is the love of someone, or our heart. Blood is also life-giving as blood donation shows compassion. Blood is as grotesque as the Halloween and slasher movies display, or as simple as a pin prick on a child's finger. It is the blood that we look to for a sign of wrong, but for everyone is the demonstration for what is right. It is the blood of Christ ...

One must realize that we invest in the worst investment ever when we toil away to make money. Yes, money is the worst investment out there, and that is not because I do not have any, but because what I do have can only buy things of this world. Like fun money at an amusement park, I don't really need a lot because I won't be here long. I figure maybe a few bucks here and there, get something to eat, something drink, sustain myself. Overall, the park will close, and I will go home, why be left with a bunch of worthless pieces of garbage along the way for someone else to pick up. The turmoil over money is one I am very familiar with and thought would save me one day. Yes, one day a yacht was going to show up at my house and take my family and I away to a different world. One where I would then be content and I would then be generous and then I could be the peaceful father depicted on the TV commercials and sit com shows. A lie I was sold on as the greed for more money leads...

Thou shalt not... Christians are commanded to, and commanded not to. Yet, this freedom Christ gave when he died on that cross has gotten distorted. A sense of entitlement has come about. It is not your church or church attendance that matters, the list of actions, charities you contribute to, or reciting of verses that are lingering words in your mind to sound haughty, that matters, but our love. We are commanded to love the Lord our God and love a neighbor like ourselves. These are non-negotibles. Due to needing to categorize and condemn a man for their actions, keep them away from us, we Christ followers sure think a lot and do a lot for ourselves. We justify a sin when we know better. It turns out we are good at one thing aren't we, reviving an old forgiven nature, going back to our own vomit, awaiting a time to be spewed out of the mouth of the one who gave us life. A nature that a conversion of the Holy Spirit should no longer be in love with, no longer stand. A Christian ...

"And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord."- Ephesians 6:4 What is it to provoke someone? What is it to influence a life in corruption? When we interact with people, do they walk away worse than before meeting us? Nobody wants to admit they could be a contributing cause to the destruction of another because that is a lot to take on, and counseling says that people are responsible for their own actions. All very true, even the painful part of acceptance. However, what if in our pursuit for self-satisfaction we eat up and produce noxious fumes polluting the purity of life along the way? What if on our way to weight-loss we post pictures promoting our thinner physiques as our salvation to an otherwise pathetic self? What if on the way to becoming a doctor we produce long, difficult sentences to show our knowledge, thus superiority? What if in my accepted way of self-promotion I provoke you in a negat...

Opposition at times seems to be the best method to describe something. When one cannot think of what it is, one can only know what it isn't. With that, what if Jesus did not die on the cross for our sins as the Holy and perfect Son of God in flesh to account for the terrible deviation against all that is true. Furthermore, what if He didn't exist. A world without Jesus, a world then without the Bible, for the Bible refers to His coming and God's sending His son for Redemption. So, no Holy Inspired Word from God. Therefore our sins, they still exist. They are still ours to account for. Life would not be full of rebellion, there would be nothing to rebel against. There would be no hope. All that is good would be lost to the evil of man in this world, and those that oppose Jesus now, or oppose God don't even realize the structure provided for them to defile God's nature by the ones who believe in Him. "For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will...

This world is oftentimes like a piece of gum. When the gum is taken in, it is so sweet and fills the mouth with flavor, for nothing is like a good piece of mint gum after a meal. This gum however, becomes a burden when we chew it for too long. Yet, oftentimes the obligation to continue chewing past the pleasurable part keeps us in misery. We hold on to the movement of this formless wad between our teeth, and yet all flavor and thus pleasure is gone. We think to put another in, and then another, for if two tastes good, imagine three. The pleasures of this world, the promises to satisfy our needs sadly fall very short. I only say sadly because that after all is where most people waste their time, me included. Yet, we know the truth inside that we are meant for more than this world, that we have a higher standard, and that we aren't born good. We are sinners who fail to do the right thing, think the right thing, and perform to at least some kind of moral compass everyday. We know ...

"All our steps are ordered by the Lord; how then can we understand our own ways?" - Proverbs 20:24 What are we called to do with the short amount of time we have here on earth? Honestly, are we to live in this perpetual cycle of ups and downs, building some self-fulfilling legacy that in 1 year, 10 years, 100 years is dead anyway? The man who invented some of our most-common household items, what was his name again? We look and glorify the people of the present as though they are what we would like, yet, we fail to see that the focus and adherence to the present makes us die in the moment. " Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding"- Proverbs 3:13   Looking to the future is deemed "unhealthy" in the world of psychology. We are called to be "mindful" of the here and now, yet, we fail to see what mindfulness is anyway. We fail to see that when we are being "present" what we are doing oftentimes is succumbing to...

What shall we say, then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?   By no means! We are those who have died to sin;  how can we live in it any longer?- Romans 6: 1-2 Certainly not.  More casual than bold. A "dog returning to its vomit."(Proverbs 26:11) Casual Christianity seems to be the norm, unless of course you are so bold to deny Christ altogether. In that case, the critical perspective of your life, I have witnessed, seems to bring you closer to truth than those who know it and still turn away.  Christianity, what I have come to understand in the church, is a belief in God the Father, sending His Son that died on the Cross for the wretched sins of mankind. Christians are "born again" living life dead to sin. Christ the son, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit now reside in us. Our sins are forgiven. Christians recognize this. This recognition and "new life" is now the part where casual Christianity diverts. Rarel...

With a new book in the works (for there is always a new book in the works) editing has taken over my free time. What this leaves is scraps of time, like pieces of bread, unworthy of your time, your clicks, your thumbs up. So I will make this brief. “Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.”   Ephesians 4:32 NET This the premise, turn around now if you took a wrong turn.  Where this road goes is nowhere but within, you get to indulge a little self-idolatry here. Not the kind you want, but even an anti-hero gets to have a movie every now  and  then.   This  one is obvious, or at least should be. Yet, somehow what gets lost in translation is our part in the matter. What have we done, or not done, to allow ourselves to get stuck in  such   debacle ?  Why  are we forever caught in this limbo of things being good to not good enough, satisfied to  disc...

For one to, "lose weight," one has to place the body in what "experts" call a caloric deficit.  "Experts" are  people who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area. "Knowledge" is  information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. "Understanding of a subject...."  The rabbit hole goes deep, for one can eventually dig to a basis they can question and therefore erode the basic foundation on which one believes. Unlike weight loss, which isn't actually understood by anyone, there are other, more prominent facts in the world that do require understanding.  Jesus for one.  For two, Halloween Candy.  Yes, Halloween Candy, has little to do with weight loss and even less to do with Jesus, right? I mean, Halloween itself, has some believe is the promotion of demons or satanic rituals. All Hallows' ev...

It is the manner in which we make sense of something, our justification. Like a dog peeing on the floor because they had to go to the bathroom and the door not being open to the outside, it is their nature to pee when they have to go. This nature, or natural event, is what leads to a puddle of pee. Pee, I have to clean, interfering with my time, thus putting my mind in a rush, for I had to clean when I didn't plan, and then looking at the time, seeing I was behind, getting the red lights on the way to work, getting to work late, sitting to a computer with a mind in a tizzy. Maybe that is what it takes for the perfect scenario of infiltration, a message as clear as a bell only to be heard in that mindset, one that teaches a life lesson. Whereas without the event, the dog doing what it does, I might not have been in that state of mind to get the message. It's too easy to make sense of an event as "coincidence" or "chaos" when in reality it was all part of ...