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Friday, September 30, 2011

Great erotic lovemaking and why Christians can do it better!

Strange as it seems to non-Christians, we as Christians have the ability to have a more erotic love life than most.

Today I want to talk about it, but I do want to caution readers that there is an aspect to life that they need to protect themselves against.

This is the Pandora box aspect.

Once thoughts enter our minds they cannot be removed and if they are introduced at the wrong time, even good thoughts can generate bad influences.

The reason I say this is that I will be getting rather direct in this discussion. It should probably be for those who have a significant other, hopefully a spouse, or, who are already having sex but finding they are not getting enough out of it, or, for those about to have sex. Those who are younger or not in these categories should perhaps not read further.

To get back to our subject, Erotic lovemaking is almost never discussed in Christian circles because if incorrectly dealt with, it can cause as much pain as it does gain. The pain of missing out on deep love is almost the worst pain in life isn’t it? Notice I did say “love” and not “sex”.

What is the difference between Sex and love making? Sex in simple terms is the act of stimulation that causes an orgasmic release. This can be achieved in many ways; Masturbation, that is rubbing or using vibrators can do this. Having another do it to us while adding in caressing, kissing, etc, does it too.

This is typically what a prostitute male or female tries to achieve for a person buying the service of being massaged by them in this way. Prostitutes use their whole body as the massage machine with orgasm is the objective, the utopia. Often delaying it can increase some increased satisfaction but only for a short time.

Sex of this nature is a physically driven act. When done, it is over relatively quickly and generally only provides a very limited experience. It lasts a short time! Then the person wants more!

This need for more, fast, high gratification, without complete fulfillment and satisfaction is what sets up addictions.

This is why some people get addicted to sex. They never really get enough or at the right level. They search for the next experience, and the next, and the next. In this search, they often go from normal sex into more and more weird patterns of sex. This is where the many deviant forms of sex arise from. This is not a fulfilling existence. It is one where the person chases a dream into a hellish obsession.

Habituation is a characteristic of humans that builds this nightmare. The word describes the fact that when we regularly experience something, it generally has less effect on us each time we experience it. Habituation is the thing that makes sex without love a horrible thing. A boring, repetitive, reflexive type of compulsion. Unfortunately some people get driven by this obsession into sex with others in various deviant forms. Whipping, child molestation etc. all come from this need.

This damaging of others by deviant sex itself drives further problems. When people who are soft, loving and open people get exposed to this they sex, they can get sexually damaged for life. A hell ensues when they discover it was not love but deviant sex that exploited them. This hell happens as the realization of the abuse explodes into their consciousness.

Enough on what is wrong! Let’s move to what is right!

Christian lovemaking is just like non-Christian love making at the physical level. Love making should be between two people who really love each other deeply, who respect each other and who are intimate with each other. Note that word “intimate”.

Intimacy is a core to good lovemaking!

Intimacy requires we focus on the others needs, not ours. Intimacy means there must be love, not just a contract between the two people. However, intimacy also means there is normally a willingness to contract to make that person the only person with which deep intimacy will be achieved for the rest of one’s life. So it normally means there is also a contract involved. That is part of the reason people get married isn’t it. It may be the full reason a non-Christian gets married, but it is only part of a Christians marriage agreement. A Christian’s marriage is a three way contract because we contract with God as well. That’s why a court marriage is inadequate for a Christian.

I am focusing on erotic love today. I am sad to hear from Christian friends that they can feel trapped in a relationship with their wife or husband. This is so sad! Anyone who feels this way has already accepted lies into their life!

As Christians, we live in freedom, not fear. Entrapment is not a Christian attribute! To feel entrapped in a relationship with a spouse means something evil has come into our lives.

The depth of Christian erotic lovemaking takes away the risk of habituation, the risk of lack of intimacy, and instead exposes us to the potential of exceptional lovemaking.

What most Christians fail to explore and even understand is that the sexual experience right through to the time of orgasm can be a spiritual experience as well. Not in the way the ancient Corinthians thought of it (they though only at orgasm did you fully connect with God so they organized all sorts of sexual practices to follow this wild idea).

No! We as Christians need to understand God is to be present in every aspect of our lives, including our lovemaking.

How can this improve erotic sex?

The first way it does this, is that it sets up the conditions for sex in a new way. As we open ourselves to God’s “agape” love we reach an understanding that loving does not expect reward and it is purely directed at loving another despite anything they do or say.

This drives us towards correct relationships with our chosen partner. Criticism, in-fighting and all those things that lessen intimacy are simply disengaged. Instead the opportunity to be truly open and loving towards our spouse opens up.

True erotic love means truly surrendering selfish desires and deeply focusing on the desires of the other.

True erotic love for a Christian means truly surrendering selfish desires and deeply focusing on the desires of our partner and God.

As we caress each others bodies, we are not only in awe of their beauty but worshiping and praising God for their body, their life, and the fact that God has brought them to this wonderful place where we can become naked in the thought, deeds and spirit with each other.

We are not so interested in getting to our own point of orgasm, but more interested in building an intensity of love towards the other that is being expressed physically in the caresses and gentle massages we provide. “Agape” love is central and driving the deep friendship between us which in turn fuels the erotic love. There is no rushing of the time and in fact time becomes distorted as in the moments, the mingling of these loves remove an experience of time.

Then as the sexual passions arise, they are channelled to provide the most for the other.

This means that as men we realize to fully provide a full body experience of orgasm for our woman, we need to not only stimulate her clitoris, which is where we often jump to too quickly, but we have to take time to stimulate her g-spot as well.

As woman we need to respect that men get aroused quickly and that once ejaculation occurs it tends to be over for a period of time so that the building of our men towards the point of orgasm, but then letting of the arousal subside again for a while is important. That a male is not a penis only and his whole body needs to be part or the love making as much as a woman’s whole body must be part of love making. Successive plateaus where the arousal gets to the “almost but not quite there” place can definitely increase your guys final experience.

In all of this, if we praise God for the other, the feelings as we experience the intimacy, the level of experience increases and the passions are greater than where God is absent.

Orgasming together is great objective! However it takes control and multiple experiences of this type with the same partner to achieve regularly and even then due to the influences of life we don’t hit this objective all the time.

Agape love says this is not important, but it is good when it happens! The offering of each other to God as living sacrifices, the worshiping of God in the act, the focus on the other as more important than ourselves, all makes Christian lovemaking special when done right.

The beauty of this is that we as Christians don’t habituate easily to this depth of experience because our lovemaking is intertwined with our spiritual worship of God.

This introduces an eternal infinite set of experiences waiting to be revealed in different nuances, passions and emotions. Christian’s are not just having sex, but making great love. The depth of our life’s walk with God and the righteousness, hope and faith we have all add to varying the dimensions of this erotic love.

Now that’s why I think non-Christians have a lousy deal when it comes to erotic lovemaking and would not give up what I have now for anything. How about you?

Fri, September 30, 2011 | link Comments

Thursday, September 29, 2011

I am confused, what do I do?

    Ever had that feeling of despair of not knowing which way to turn? It forms a dull ache in our stomach and our thoughts flip from subject to subject. Sleep becomes elusive and ability to switch-off the mind from the painful ambiguities and their complicated web of to do or not to do erodes our confidence.

Ever felt like that?

I felt like that this morning! Complex heavy problems weigh down on me and while I did get some sleep it was only just sufficient and I head out into a day of turmoil and trying to make sense of the senseless. Worse, I have to make decisions that force me to cause pain to someone in some way no matter what decision I take. There is no decision that can eliminate this and all I can do is limit damage that will happen.

What do I do?

I remembered a similar problem faced by Jehoshaphat an ancient King. Here are some ancient texts describing how he dealt with this, he is recorded as saying when faced by three armies set on destroying him and his people. . .(NIRV 2 Chronicles 2)

“But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from them and did not destroy them. See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

  All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the LORD.

So here is a King with his subjects facing obliteration or at least slavery if they fail. That’s pressure! It’s not as if they are in the right, their forefathers had not done what God had asked and now they were reaping the consequences.

There was no apparent way out!

All they did, was to first turn to God and wait, asking Him for direction.

So it appears to be the first step when we are horribly confused, to turn to God, truthfully expose our situation in prayer and ask for Him to intervene.

Silly for normal business logic, but wise for Spiritual logic isn’t it?

So, what happened?

It continues. . . “Then the Spirit of the LORD came on Jahaziel son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite and descendant of Asaph, as he stood in the assembly.

  He said: “Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the LORD says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s.”

Notice that the answer didn’t come to Jehoshaphat but another person God spoke through. God will use the bible, circumstances and others to communicate with us. Sometimes he will be more direct with us sometimes less.

What we need to do is place our trust in him understanding our situation better than ourselves, and his ability to resolve the situation, probably with supernatural intervention (intervention that may appear natural as it executes but is actually spiritually driven).

Next God gives them direct instructions that appear weird. . .Tomorrow march down against them. They will be climbing up by the Pass of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the gorge in the Desert of Jeruel. You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.’”

In normal terms this advice was walk to your deaths and don’t fight back! Seems stupid and illogical doesn’t it?

When we know God has spoken we need to follow the advice even if we don’t agree with it. When in a situation like this we need to stick to God’s truths and let God work out the way. Standing firm on God’s righteousness is as solid a place as any to be.

Next we need to get rid of fear! This means facing it! This means denying it a hold over us. Those people were afraid but they did what was necessary despite their fear. They didn’t let it stop them doing what was right. Neither should we!

Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying:

    “Give thanks to the LORD,
   for his love endures forever.”
We put God ahead of every decision and action! We praise Him realizing he is big and we are small, he loves us, and all we need to do is return that love!

It says, “As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”

God allowed the evil in the midst of those who planned it to expand and cut them down. They turned on each other destroying each other without a single person of Jehoshaphat’s people getting involved physically.

God will win our battles if we simply have faith, reject fear, stand firm on righteousness and praise him.

This is a way out of impossibly confusing circumstances.

A good thing for me to remember today, what do you think about this as a way out of confusion. You got a better plan? I am not sure there is a better plan is there?

Thu, September 29, 2011 | link Comments

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

We read but how do we understand?

“[The Bible] has to be interpreted. And if it isn’t interpreted, then it can’t be put into action. So if we are serious about following God, then we have to interpret the Bible. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says. We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people.”

― Rob Bell

Reading is not understanding!

These symbols on paper mean nothing to a person who cannot read don’t they?

This means you are part of a privileged group, the ones who have learned how to take symbols, combine then and then give them meaning.

Have you ever thought about that process, how its done, how we actually take light into our eyes and transfer it to thoughts and actions?

This means reading the bible is not as simple as taking the words at face value.

We attribute meaning to them. More tricky is the fact that we would have to be experts in ancient Hebrew and Greek to read the words.

Even more complex is the fact that knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Greek is insufficient since the context and social environment also influences the meaning. Think of that English word "gay" that meant happy a century ago and now it can mean homosexual or lesbian!

Social environments change meanings (the word is the same).

This said, if we can understand the original meaning, that is the meaning that was inserted into the text at the time. It cannot mean totally different things now!

Here is where the real kicker comes in. . .God inserted additional meaning into the words over the original meaning in some circumstances.

We know that Isaiah is almost spooky in the way hundreds of years before Jesus even existed, he for told exactly the type of death Jesus would endure. Accurate to the fact that he would die as a criminal but end up in a rich man’s tomb. How often does that alone occur? Particularly in those times! That's not the limit of his predictions, there were many, many more!

So Holy Spirit influences the choice of original words to give us overlays of meaning. Now, let’s be sure it’s the original words and not an English or other language translation we pin our hopes to.

I heard a famous preacher on the radio attaching all sorts of meaning to the word dry-shod, but when we go to the Hebrew it means with shoes on their feet! The dry part was an English translation addition. So he preached to tens of thousands what amounted to an inflated opinion.

So today I want to understand what God said to us, but I also want to understand that my perceptions are limited. God only provides limited information through the texts, so my understanding of God is very limited.

Thankfully, we have Holy Spirit with those of us who accept God into our life. He helps us understand! So, let's try to find out more about the times and events around when the text was written that we are reading. Let's try to know that we cannot take modern social assumptions and apply them to ancient writings. Let's read the words carefully and attempt to clearly define what they mean't at the time. Now, and only now, can we try and find out what they may mean in our time. Once we understand this, we can consider what they mean for us and those around us. We need to be careful that we also look at the context, for example ,Paul sometimes gives an opinion, but clearly states it is his and not a spiritual rule. This said, Holy Spirit helps the most.

So today my plan is to keep my mind and will open to Holy Spirit’s guidelines, what about you?

Wed, September 28, 2011 | link Comments

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Why do we stick to what the bible says?

Sometimes it seems as if the bible is focussed on excessively by people. Why is this so?

No other book is dealt with this way and in this depth by the western world. Even those who criticise it it focus on every word of what it says, building what they believe are alternative meaning to it’s words.

Many go beyond the words into that mystical place where they add their own ideas and new structures to form new religions. Some do so top their own detriment and those around them. We can think of sects that have self-imploded due to this behaviour.

So why do Christians focus so much on God’s word?

In the ancient world their was one bunch of Christians that lived in the party city of the ancient world Corinth. Surrounded by pagan god’s that promoted excess and sexual practices as part of the religion, they needed to know how to stay the course and do what was right.

Apparently they failed to do this because Paul, that guy who started some of them on their lives with Jesus writes back,

“You can learn from us the meaning of the saying, ‘Don't go beyond what is written.’”

Why is writing important? In those times word of mouth was prevalent and they had way better memories than us modern people (perhaps they just practiced remembering more) since we know that 13 year old Jews remembered the first five books of the bible as part of their training.

They didn’t embellish their stories as much as we do today and could recount things more accurately.

Despite this Paul suggests that they stick to what was written down to guide them. It keeps people from going off the track and when we have something written down, it doesn’t change (at least in the age before computers it didn’t J ).

Without the humbling power of God’s written word pulling us towards truth, we have a tendency top become heavy handed and controlling. See how Paul suggests this was happening with the Corinthians in 1 Cor 4.

“You already have everything you want, don't you? Have you already become rich? Have you begun to rule as kings? And did you do that without us? I wish that you really had begun to rule. Then we could rule with you! It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of a parade.”

Those corinthians were acting in judgement over others.

Without God’s word holding us in check we can become very judgemental. That is not Christian, although I do believe many non-Christians would say that Christians are judgemental.

Let’s try to shake that cloying image from us! Let’s be known as people who read and do God’s word. Let’s be people who look past others mistakes to their strengths.

By building up others and not ourselves, we serve honestly and truthfully.

Let’s do that today shall we?

Tue, September 27, 2011 | link Comments

Monday, September 26, 2011

Should Christians Meditate?

           “We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.”
- Alan Watts

We rush around so much! Getting the kids to school, going to that concert, shopping, fighting our way through traffic to work, and I am sure you can think of many other things we rush towards or away from.

Even when sitting still we are often still very active in our minds. We are listening to music, reading the book, interacting with our computer, iPhone, iPad etc.

This way of life has it’s advantages, but where is that deep sense of connection with the universe and God that permeates our every thought, emotion, to the deepest points of our spirit and soul? Do we even know how to connect at this deeply intimate level? Can we disconnect from our schedule and array of electronic paraphernalia long enough to make a connection of this depth and intimacy?

“Do we want to?”

I think that is the fundamental question. “Do we want to?”

At a visceral level, if we could get to that primal depth, our cry would be “yes” since we all want to have spiritual significance and experience the connection with God. It has been around since cave men time (if you believe they existed as I do J ).

Yet, modern life seems to say that this connection is not important, wastes time, or is a stupid activity.

Is it? Does it?

When I read my bible, I see numerous points at which it says to meditate. For example (all references are NIV). . .

Joshua 1:8
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

  Psalm 1
Blessed is the one
   who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
   or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
   and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
   which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
   whatever they do prospers.

Psalm 19:14
May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

There are more, but this gives us a sample to look into.
When it comes to meditation, we need to understand that as Christians we meditate not to empty ourselves of ourselves, as do most other forms of meditation, but to connect ourselves with God.

I guess that Martial arts expert Bruce Lee explains the wrong type of meditation the best when he says. . .

“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

Bruce Lee

This is NOT Christian meditation! Christian meditation is a way of talking to God, or rather communicating with God in an all encompassing way. We focus the mind on God, reviewing his direction, allowing the content of God’s word to wash over our minds, renewing it and making it more alive and vibrant than before.

In no way do we strive to empty our minds, but rather to full it with the presence of God, His word and the empowering of these by Holy Spirit, who connects with our spirit to influence our mind, emotions and will, and through this path to give peace and joy to our bodies.

At no point do we lapse into a state of ignoring ourselves or emptying our mind, instead we will allow the power of God to flow in vibrant patterns into our consciousness, to connect us into an eternal experience. We are active in spirit, but inactive in our body. We slow the physical senses to open our intuition, considering the revelations in the light of God’s word and removing sin from our lives as we start to deeply experience ourselves in Gods light.

Empowered, we gain a deeper sense of ourselves, God’s love for us and through this, can re-enter the world rejuvenated and ready to pour God’s love into the needy rush of life.

So how about it? Are you ready to experience Christian meditation?

Mon, September 26, 2011 | link Comments

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