superliminal

Lisa: But you have recruiting ads on TV. Why do you need subliminal messages?
Smash: It's a three-pronged attack. Subliminal, liminal, and superliminal.
Lisa: Superliminal?
Smash: I'll show you. (opens the window and shouts at Lenny and Carl, who are standing on the corner) Hey, you! Join theNavy!
Carl: Uh, yeah, all right.
Lenny: I'm in.

It struck me the other day that temptation has moved to this 'superliminal' method.
banners on the internet which say "be naughty", the classically identified use of 'sinful' in chocolate advertising campaigns etc. it's not like in the spiritual battle that anyone's trying to hide what is going on any more. we're not falling into traps, we're coming up against clear options to obey or disobey God. and still, we're walking into it (willfully?).

my friend and i talked about the misuse of the word 'struggling'
when we say we're struggling with a sin we really mean that we're giving into it. we noted that if someone said "i'm struggling with x" we should say "praise God! you're in the fight! i'm just giving into sin but this guy's struggling that's awesome!"

but we're not really struggling all that much, are we?

"In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."

hebrews 12:4
that's sure true. i've barely resisted to the point of my own discomfort.

the next verse of hebrews 12 says "and you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons" - is our failure to fight sin tied up in our forgetting that we're adopted and ingrafted and we're sons and daughters of I AM? without a clear understanding of our identity we will start to think that our lives are trivial and that decisions should be made on our personal (and immediate) preference

quote

Is there any doubt that the handwriting is on the wall for where we are heading? ... We see in such cases that manners have been corrupted, morality has sunk into depravity, indulgence is out of control and, above all, faith has been discredited and unbelief has become fashionable. When a culture reaches this point, it becomes so out of touch with truth that masses of people deny outright the existence of God. God’s will for the nation has been abandoned and man has been made God.

William Wilberforce

come back

When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. You will again obey the LORD and follow all his commands I am giving you today. Then the LORD your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

sometimes He says

"that's quite enough.
stop it.
come Home"

and i stop
and i go back to Him

easter

death in vain forbids Him rise

Christ has opened paradise

drugs and drink

there's a funny pressure that people put on you when they meet you.
if they're a heavy drinker or into drugs it's kind of rude if you're not.
i told a girl that i didn't do drugs and she said "but you do drink, right?"
as if to say 'you're not completely weird are you?'

i once talked to a guy who said that he didn't want to be a Christian because he liked making his own decisions and he didn't want to give up drugs. we talked through drugs for a bit, about how he would save up all his money for them and how he liked the 'escape' they provided. then i said to him -
"so at the moment, your life (which you don't want anyone to change) is one where you get out of reality as often as you can? that doesn't sound like you really enjoy your life at all. how can that be better than what Jesus is offering?"

and he didn't know what to say,
but i don't think anything changed.

advice

i love the concept of 'advice'
[i love ethnography]
that there would be a situation that we come up against and we know that there is a 'right' or a 'wrong' thing to do, a 'good' or a 'bad' outcome. sure, most of the time it's minimising the pain of all parties involved (that seems to be the greatest desire of man; minimal pain and evading death) - but there is still a proverbial path we need to take and we can't see it.
so we go to someone else who's living and breathing and facing their own intersections and we say "can you take a look at this for me?" we invite them to come and see the puzzle we've been handed and we want them to solve it for us. so we paint them the events leading up to the situation and as much detail and information as possible surrounding the events. and then from two dimensional awareness we are given the advice we were after. [as if life in its symphonic complexity could be relayed in a series of sentences and events]. the logical guess towards the future from a person who is looking into a black and white photo we've taken from our limited angle and then have developed poorly. and daily we're walking down roads that we've been encouraged towards, we're following something we hope turns out to be good advice.

time is love

i know that they say time is money
but i think that time is love.

i got thinking about it the other day
people were saying things like "I've got time for him" / "I've got time for you"
and i thought about how willing we are to spend time with people and why and what it communicates and what it costs us.
and i figured; it's a value system.

when i give my time to someone, i'm giving them myself.
i can't be anywhere but where i am and the time it takes to be there is the extent of how much of 'me' they get. so why would you give yourself to someone? why would you 'have time' for someone - and be willing to give yourself away when they need/want you?

i'll get up and go to work because i have to
but i only have to because i need the money.
and it's essentially springing out of this desire, need, love for money.
it can be a deferred love like that. i can love my dad so i help his friend with some work. and i can give my time to a project that i hate because i love what it is intended for, or the big picture that it is a part of.

i'll put a date in the diary to see you just so that we can be near each other, spend time together, give of ourselves in the exclusive way, where we're both tied to the same place. and i'll do that because i appreciate you, i enjoy you, i have affection for you, i love you.

and if you love someone enough you give them your whole life. you marry them.

i think that the cynical capitalist option of time being money is just missing the bigger picture that time is love,
(and the world's love is for money).
i think that throws a different angle of light on eternal life. that our unending reality is with the Trinity. we are bound with God forever, spending all our time and all our love on Him.

O My Soul

O my soul arise and bless your Maker
for He is your Master and your Friend
Slow to wrath but rich in tender mercy,
worship the Saviour Jesus
King of grace His love is overwhelming,
Bread of Life He's all I'll ever need
For His blood has purchased me forever,
bought at the cross of Jesus

And I will sing for all my days
of heaven's love come down
Each breath I take will speak His praise
until He calls me home

When I wake I know that He is with me,
when I'm weak I know that He is strong
Though I fall His arm is there to lean on,
safe on the Rock of Jesus
Stir in me the songs that You are singing,
fill my gaze with things as yet unseen
Give me faith to move in works of power,
making me more like Jesus
And I will sing for all my days,
of heaven's love come down
Each breath I take will speak His praise,
until He calls me home
Then one day I'll see Him as He sees me,
face to face the Lover and the loved
No more words the longing will be over,
there with my precious Jesus

being new

repentance is necessary before change
i've been trying to kill sin while holding onto it
but a lot of the change is clearing your life out first
because there's a difference between regret and repentance

i think satan ups the anti around easter.
my heart is usually far away on good friday
i feel like i'm working up some emotion
as opposed to just feeling it
but i don't think it's even about the feelings