The Absolutes of God

I suspect that Ephesians Chapter 5 is the least popular,
most ignored, passage in the New Testament.

It actually contains a hidden treasure more relevant now than ever. (See verse 32).

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. 3 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; 4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not be partakers with them. 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.” 15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of God. 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.  33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Ephesians 5 NKJV)

Ephesians Chapter 5 ought to shake up everyone who reads it! The main theme is traditional marriage. The trouble is, few traditional marriages these days are performing as designed. It is the younger generations (x, y, and z) who are suffering the most as raw paganism invades. A few generations back, half of our nation professed to be "Christian." The core of true Christians in the United States, I think, may now be only 10%.

Here, for example is an email this week from a young man who wants to be free from his porn addiction. His cry for help is all too common! But few kids trust their parents or consider their point of view credible.

(I am) attempting to end what could potentially be a generational porn addiction. I am 20 years old and I have been watching porn since I was 11 years old.

I was 11 years olds when I was inadvertently exposed to porn by my father. We were watching the Heat game one night in his bedroom, and I fell asleep before the game finished. When I woke up in the middle of the night, something completely different was on the screen: pornography. I was still half asleep, but I vaguely remember him making trips between the bed and the bathroom, all while a voluptuous woman was naked on screen.

After that event, I would use my iPad to search up “girls naked”, “girl and boy naked”, etc. in hopes that it would bring up images that resembled what I saw on the screen that night. (Important note: my technology usage was extremely unchecked. For example, as a 6 year old, I knew what “French kissing” was because I would search up kissing videos). The keywords that hit were “naked sex”, and upon hitting search I saw images that would kick start nearly a decade of porn addiction. I spent about an hour looking through images of naked women; this became a nightly thing, looking at porn without masturbating. I then discovered videos, and I spent even more time with my new addiction (all at 11 years old, mind you). Eventually, I was interested in what was the white stuff that shot out of the penis, why it was always the concluding act, and why the man always seemed to have a great deal of pleasure when this happened. I searched up “how to cum” and, well, you can probably extrapolate what that meant for me.

In the past ten years I have so many shameful stories that I have kept to myself. My (much) older sister seeing the porn links that me and my friends were exchanging. Accidentally leaving an xvideos tab open for my friend to see in the middle of a physics class. Masturbating to porn on a hotel floor while multiple family members are asleep—or in a fucking stall during Sunday school. Canceling plans or showing up egregiously late because I would rather watch porn. I remember not making an effort to see my girlfriend that lived a few towns away during high school, because I found a pornstar that resembled her and found that to be sufficient (this eventually lead to someone I loved leaving me). More recently, I’ve found myself reluctant to “shoot my shot” because of the rationale that “I’ve got porn and my hand”. That’s not even including the fetishes that I developed over time, particularly ones of “cheating” and “bullying”.

I’ve done a lot of self-reflection, and while I don’t think I’ve have a main catalyzing moment or an “epiphany”, I have decided that I will put in all my effort to quit watching porn.

I realize that I don’t want to be my dad. I love him dearly, but it would be dishonest to say that he hasn’t perpetuated his own porn addiction to his own son. I don’t want accidentally record porn on DirectTV so that it shows up next in the recorded folder next to my kids’ cartoons. I don’t want to watch porn in the living room with audio and scramble to turn it off when my 7 year old comes down the stairs. I don’t want my porn addiction to manifest into something like being a womanizer, or much worse. I don’t want a porn addiction to further my depression and self-esteem issues. On the other end, I want to experience life without having porn embedded within my thinking framework. I want to spend my time finding out what I like to do (that isn’t masturbation) and then actually doing those things. Most of all, I want to feel real love again.

I’ve done this many times—I’ve downloaded tracking apps, had other addicted friends act as agents of accountability, add restricting settings to my browsers—but to no avail. Hell, even now, the only reason I’ve discovered this sub was because I was searching up the efficacy of weaning yourself off porn. Part of me believes that I’ve always failed because I’ve never addressed my addiction fully. I have never externalized my feelings about my addiction as I’m doing right now, and I’ve never fully acknowledged it’s consequences. So, here you go, a brutally honest statement of the role that porn has played in my life. 

I have made many Reddit porn accounts in the past, and I’m proud to say that this throwaway is for the exact opposite purpose. If anyone wants support, feel free to PM me, comment, whatever. I know that my story isn’t an isolated incident, but one that basically a whole generation has experienced. I can get through this, and so can all of you.

Porn entered my life unintentionally because of my dad, but I’m making the intentional choice to stop it.

Men and women, boys and girls in the younger generation (x,y,z)--under about age 40--don't always bother to get married these days. Yet virtually all of them are sexually active. A catharsis ("revival") might help, but it may be too late for that. The blame for this low state of affairs rests on the "professing" Christian Church and its hypocrisy. Instead of a grass roots revival, the visible church misrepresents Jesus more now than ever. Ephesians 5 spares no punches. God says what He means and means what He says. Our wholeness (holiness) as individuals matters big time. For single men and women, or married, God expects we will each walk with Jesus throughout life.

Hypocritical marriages are part of the problem! Half a century ago marriage was a big deal, as it ought to me. Two families were involved. Courtship with accountability was required. The person who presided over the wedding knew the bride and the groom well and had counseled both in depth.

What is surely about to happen to us is the Rapture of the church: the catching up in the Bride-to-be chosen and called by Jesus. When the world last saw Jesus, He was a bloody corpse being taken down from His cross by loyal women followers. They placed that body in a borrowed tomb as the weekly Sabbath fell on the land. The following Sunday morning Jesus showed up alive and well to the utter amazement of all of his disciples. Forty days later He ascended into heaven, and ten days later Jesus and the Father dispatched the Holy Spirit to call out a Bride for Jesus. Jesus never sinned--by inclination or by choice. He was denied a wife and family on his first visit to planet earth. God, His Father has chosen an amazing bride for Jesus--all of us!

Jesus is a man, not a woman. Each person in His family will enjoy perfect one-on-one intimacy with Jesus. Like now, each believer can enjoy the perfect love Jesus has now for each of us. The expression of physical sex in heaven will be obviously be inappropriate. Living holy lives for everyone will be the norm. The reasons for the strictness of Ephesians 5 ought to be obvious! (There are eight mysteries in the New Testament. "Mysteries" in the New Testament are bodies of truth previously hidden but now disclosed.)

The present world population is 8000 million people. If 10% know Jesus know, that's a very large number of men, women, boys and girls, just from the present generation. Jesus has been adding to His church for 40 generations. Assuming 10% of people in each generation knowing Jesus is my wild guess. You are invited to do your own math, see: Demographics of the true Church.

The term "Bride of Christ" is feminine, because, as C.S. Lewis said, "God is so masculine that we are all feminine in comparison to Him." There will be no gender confusion in heaven! Men will relate to Jesus as brothers, women will be His sisters.

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—-not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. " (Hebrews 8:8-13)

Only one nation on earth (out of 195 nations) has a covenant relationship with God. That nation is Israel. Another group, however, with followers in every country, is the true church which enjoys a covenant with God.

The Apostle Peter left special instructions to that group:

Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking,  as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture,

“Behold, I lay in Zion
A chief cornerstone, elect, precious,
And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.”

 Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient,

“The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone,”

 and

“A stone of stumbling
And a rock of offense.”

They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.

 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men—as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:

“Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth”

who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. 

For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (2 Peter 2)

The League of Nations, founded after World War I, and the United Nations founded after WW2, both bear silent witness to the great difficulty in bringing these 195 desperate powers to the table where they might find common ground. God has a candidate standing by.

The bad guy waiting in the wings is commonly called "The Antichrist." He is really coming INSTEAD OF Christ. He will deceive everyone except for God's people. He has to look and act like the Real McCoy, a wolf in sheep's clothing--of course.

Jesus the Light of the World
A Glorious Church
I Sing the Mighty Power of God
Jesus, The Light of the World
Pachelbel: Canon in D

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