Pandora’s Box

Long ago, the Greek god Zeus sent his daughter, Pandora, to earth.  Zeus gave Pandora a little box with a heavy lock on it. He gave the key to Pandora’s husband and told them to never open the box. 

Pandora was very curious and wanted to see what was inside it, but her husband said no.  She became convinced it must contain something very important and desirable, and she didn’t want to be denied.  So one day, when he was sleeping, Pandora stole the key from her husband, and opened the box.

Out flew every kind of disease and sickness, hate, envy, poverty, death and everything bad that people had never experienced. Pandora slammed the lid closed, but it was too late. All the bad things were already out of the box and in the world.

Most of us have heard this myth before and are aware of it’s moral: “All that glitters is not gold.”  Have you ever pursued something only tofind it didn’t give you the satisfaction you thought it would?  It might have provided brief pleasure, but then you were left feeling empty and longing again.

Sex outside its intended purpose is a huge Pandora’s Box.  It promises so much pleasure and self-fulfillment, but its rewards do not last.  In fact, over time they become less satisfying and more and more brief.

I remember staring at the moon one night and feeling total emptiness inside.  I was 17 and lived for sex, drugs and rock n roll.  In fact, I had just finished having sex with a girl I desired who now lay sleeping there.  I knew she thought she was in love with me, but as I stared at her, I felt nothing.  The sex was pleasurable, but already gone.  I could only think, “There must be more than this.”

At that time, the idea of abstinence and sexual purity seemed absurd to me.  Why deny myself something enjoyable?  Yet if I was really honest with myself, I had opened the Pandora’s Box of sex, indulged in it, and it wasn’t really delivering what I thought it would.

God created sex and it’s one of His biggest gifts to us.  In its intended use, inside a committed covenant of marriage between a man and woman, it provides the deepest form of intimacy and ecstasy imaginable.  He designed sex to give us the utmost pleasure and fulfillment.  But when we pursue sex outside its created purpose, we open up a Pandora’s Box that leads to disappointment, and a host of unwanted consequences like emotional pain, regret and shame, STDs, unwanted pregnancy, HIV etc.

Unfortunately, most of us fall for this “false gold” while we are still very young.  Two-thirds of US teens report having engaged in sexual intercourse by age 17.  God knows the gift of sex is very powerful and that many of us will give away our sexual purity by opening the box.  

In John 8:1-11 there is a story about a woman caught in the act of adultery and brought to Jesus for judgment.  He does not condemn her, and reminds her self-righteous accusers that they are no better.  He tells them, “Let those of you who are sinless cast the first stone at her.”  He offers her a clean slate and tells her, “Go and sin no more.”

God does not condemn us when we repent and come to Him.  Instead, He forgives us and restores our sexual purity.  He promises to “make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)

Join us this Sunday at 9:00AM or 11:00 AM as we look at the subject of sexual purity.  My son, Gabriel, will talk about “The 30 Year Old Virgin,” part 4 in our series on “Sex in the City.”

The Road to Nowhere

We were late, and I was determined to make up for lost time.  Our best friends had bought a home with a spectacular view, and tonight was their housewarming. The directions sounded simple: “Take Red Fern to Northwest Fern and go 2.5 miles.  It’s a gray stone and glass house on the left.”

We easily found Red Fern, but were unprepared when the road forked in two directions without any signs.  Sue, my wife, felt we should go left because it was west, but that road plunged down into a valley area.  I chose the road to the right with a steep ascent.

We wound along a canyon rim and my confidence steadily grew, but we hit the 2.5 mile marker with no house fitting the description.  “It’s probably up here just a little further,” I assured myself.  We passed 3, then 4 miles, and I became more determined that this had to be the right way, even though Sue began to protest that we had taken the wrong turn.

The road suddenly made a sharp left switchback toward a high vista.  “Aha, this is it!”  I just knew it!  Immediately there was a dirt turnaround and our headlights hit the reflectors of a sign that read “Dead End.”  Frustrated I turned around.  Despite all my confident feelings, we had been on the road to nowhere after all.

Do you ever feel like you are pursuing something that seems to be just beyond your grasp, and keeps evading you, no matter how often you repeat your attempts to obtain it?  If so, you may be trapped in some form of addiction.

We equate addiction with substance abuse, but we can develop a persistent, compulsive physical or psychological dependence on any object or behavior.  Gambling, shopping, texting, sex, pornography, eating, work, TV, video games (etc.) can all become addictions.  In fact, many social researchers state that we are a nation of addicts.

Addiction is an emotional relationship we create with an object or behavior.  Through the compulsive use of the object or behavior, we try to relieve stress, find comfort, and meet our needs for intimacy, while avoiding the reality and responsibility of everyday life.  In the short term it works and we find temporary satisfaction, which strengthens our attraction. 

However, addiction is an escape and does nothing to fulfill the real needs we have.  Over time it yields diminishing returns, and we must engage in it more and more to gain the same satisfaction.  Eventually addiction interferes with our daily life activities, our work, interpersonal relationships, even our health.  We become trapped in the vicious cycle of increasing addiction.  We are on the road to nowhere.

God warns us that compulsive overuse of anything will harm us.  In Proverbs 25:28, He states: “A person without self-control is like a city that is invaded by enemies who knock down the walls so it is easy to invade again.”  He describes addictions that can never fulfill us in this way:  “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without being burned?  Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?” (Proverbs 6:27-28)  The very thing we addictively pursue to fulfill us is destroying us!

Get off the road to nowhere!  Accept God’s free gift of love in Christ Jesus that can break the bondage of any addiction.  God promises to supply all our needs according to His riches in heaven through Christ.  (Philippians 4:19)

Come and join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM.  I address one of the most insidious addictions in “The Peril of Pornography,” the third installment in our current “Sex in the City” series.

A Perfect Fit

One of my favorite stories about my wife, Sue, is when she baked a cake when she was 9 years old.  A week earlier she had baked her first cake from scratch under her mother’s watchful supervision.  It was delicious and with all the family compliments ringing in her ears, Sue wanted to repeat her performance, this time making cupcakes.  But she insisted on doing it completely on her own.  (Sue has always been independent!)

Unfortunately, she mixed up the baking soda and baking powder.  Her cupcakes were little round disks, less than an inch high and hard as rocks!  For years afterward, Sue heard her family kid her, “Remember the time you made us hockey pucks for dessert!”  It was such a small deviation from the recipe instructions, but what a difference it made!

To be fair, I have a similar story about myself.  We were expecting our son Gabriel and needed a new crib.  Sue bought one and brought home the box, you know the one that says, “some assembly required.”  Like most men, I tossed the instructions aside and dove into the project. 

A half an hour later, I looked at my construction and realized there was a bracket and 2 bolts left over, and I had installed the sliding panel backwards.  It took me another hour to disassemble my project, and this time following the instructions, to put the crib together correctly.

Before laughing too loud at us, I’m sure most of you can tell a similar story on yourself.  Maybe it was the time you got the colorful, kaleidoscopic laundry after failing to separate the whites from the non-fast colors, or you shrank your favorite T-shirt because you failed to follow the direction which said “line dry.”  Perhaps it was trying to use that standard screwdriver to tighten a philips-head screw, or the time you ignored the break-in directions and took a long hike in your new boots!

Most of us have learned the hard way that ignoring the manufacturer’s instructions, is a recipe for disaster.  We thought we had a better, simpler way, but we found out we were wrong.  The product’s maker had it right all along.

God is our Maker and He designed us for relationships, declaring that it is not good for us to be alone. (Genesis 2:18)  He also designed the perfect types of relationships for us: marriage, family, friendships, in which we could discover our identity and mature in an atmosphere of security, safety and love.

He gives us very specific instructions on how to engage in these relationships so they will best satisfy our desires and needs.  We may think we have an alterative way which will work for us, but God cautions:  “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to complete destruction.”  (Proverbs 16:25)  Ignoring our Maker’s instructions can be disastrous, robbing us of everything we desire.

Maybe you hesitate to accept God’s directions for relating because you think they will deny you fulfillment.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God assures us: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)  God loves you and wants to give you a far better life than anything you can imagine.  Discover His instructions for “a perfect fit” in your relationships!

Join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM for our second discussion on relationships in our current “Sex in the City” series.  My topic is “The Gay Myth: Beyond Will and Grace”.

Are You Drinking Living Water?

I will never forget the first time I saw it happen.  I was on a ministry trip to Asia.  She was a young child with scraggly hair and worn, dirty clothes, holding a plastic bottle filled with muddy water.  As I watched in shock, she put the bottle to her lips and took a long drink, feeding the bacteria and intestinal parasites already flourishing in her swollen belly. 

Her village bordered a small lake, its only source of water.  That lake served as their all purpose laundry, bathing and toileting facility, and provided their drinking water as well.  On that trip I learned that contaminated drinking water causes more disease and death in the world each year than even hunger and famine.  That little girl was drinking in death.

We have access to pure drinking water at the turn of a tap, and wouldn’t dream of polluting our body by drinking muddy water, but what about our mind and soul?  How pure and life-giving is the material we are pouring into the rest of ourselves?  We are bombarded daily by constant information and images from the world and technologies around us.  Do we know what we are consuming?

Take television for example.  The average adult views 30+ hours of TV each week.  Two out of 3 shows viewed depict some type of sexual act, with an average of 4 sexual acts per one-hour show.  Only 6% of the sexual acts portrayed are between persons married to each other.  References to the risks and responsibilities inherent in these sexual encounters occur less than 10% of the time.  The dominant message seems to be that these activities are normal, pleasant and harmless.

Studies indicate otherwise.  Watching TV definetly affects our attitudes and behavior.  In sponsoring a recent “National TV Turn-Off Week” campaign, the American Psychiatric Association called the impact of TV viewing on behavior “a public health problem.”  It went on to state that at least one third of Americans fit the clinical description of being addicted to watching television.

And television is only the tip of the iceberg of potential contaminants that confront us daily and subtly pollute our minds and hearts with their influence.  How can we reclaim control over our souls and keep ourselves pure?  

God knows that each of us struggles with these influences and has difficulty regaining our own purity.  Jesus met a Samaritan woman who came by herself at noon to draw water at a well where He was sitting.  She picked this time to avoid the ridicule of the other women. You see, she had lost the struggle to maintain her purity and was well known for her immoral behaviors.  She probably felt very alone and rejected.

Jesus offered her “living water.”  This water would cleanse and refresh her soul and fill her with joy and renewed hope for her future.   He told her: "If you only knew the gift God has for you and whom you are speaking to, you would ask Me, and I would give you living water. Everyone who drinks this well water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the living water I give him will never thirst. It will become in him a spring of water welling up to abundant life.” (John 4:10, 13-14)

Are you drinking “living water?”  Let God cleanse and purify you with His life-giving Spirit.  Say “Yes” to Him and experience His joy and renewed hope for your future! 

Please join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM.  We will be discussing “Overcoming the Spirit of Immorality with Purity” the first part of our new “Sex in the City” series.