Tag: commitment

Our Relationship with Christ: A Powerful Analysis

The relationship you have with Christ is like a moving conveyer belt. On one end of this belt, we have God, and the other…Satan.

This conveyer belt is constantly going in one of the two directions. It is never turned off. When we sin, this belt is flipped to Satan. Even when we aren’t “sinning” in a direct way, but our minds get too absorbed in other things, the belt slowly reverses back to the adversary. Each second of every day, we are going in one direction or the other. Almost all of our decisions we make in life will bring us closer or further from Christ.

There is no way to press stop on this conveyer belt. It is in constant movement in one of the two directions. Every imperfection that engulfs us is pulling us in the wrong direction. The goal is to minimize this flipping of the switch…to keep it going only one way: to Jesus the Christ.

The relationship that you develop with God is variable, always changing…never paused. Do not forget this friend. The decisions you make every hour of every day, in some way, impact your relationship with Christ.

Satan Knows You Well

Have you ever been so busy with work, school or other responsibilities, that a week races by…only to have you sitting in guilt at the separation that subtly occurred? If you’re really close to God, even having one full day go by without him crossing your mind sufficiently is enough to create chaos from within. Satan, many times, works quietly and precept upon precept…he doesn’t act in such a way that is extreme or chaotic.

For example, the chances that a man who is close to Christ will wake up one day, out of the blue, with the intention of cheating on his spouse is virtually nonexistent. Satan slowly worked on this man, first sourcing a single thought…. then one becomes two… maybe this man clicked a link online showing him pornography, or replied to a direct message that he knew was crossing a line. Maybe he was absorbing Satan into his subconsciousness when he went off to a bar…or allowed his emotions from an argument to win him over. Satan had this man’s destruction all planned out, watching him as he ruins his life.

Satan is either (debatably) extremely intelligent…or just dumb with thousands of years of experience. I’ve argued this idea in my mind countless times, which direction the arrow points in these two possibilities. I lean to the latter, as the simple fact he attempted (and still does) to engage against a perfect God is a projection of his radical ignorance, stupidity and low EQ (emotional quotient). Regardless, he knows you very well. He is hyper focused on your every move, tediously influencing you by tossing thoughts into your mind…and even initiating emotions to persuade. He is a master at this. He wants nothing more than to see you afraid, hopeless and discontent. He smiles and laughs at every sin you engage in. I repeat, when you do something that you know is against God, Satan is laughing at you.

Just ponder with me, all the horrific acts of violence and evil that’s occurred on planet earth. The nightmarish wars, from the Civil war to World War 2. The Bullying of the innocent. Domestic abuse and broken homes, filled with tears and broken minds. Drug addicts, who would rather die than seek intervention. The drowning insecurities that make young adults feel depressed and pointless. Consider That the same entity who promoted, smiled and laughed (and still does) at these things is the same entity who you side with daily when you sin.

The Anatomy of Sin

Every sin we commit is a reflection of our love for Christ.

The brutal truth is when we sin, we’re essentially cheating with the enemy, and doing it right in front of our savior’s face. Each time we sin, or backpedal the other way, we’re doing nothing unique from what Judas and Peter did. We are rejecting our savior for our own personal gain, pleasure and self-preservation. Did not Judas backstab our God for a little cash? Did not Peter reject he knew the almighty God because he was scared for his reputation and safety? At its core, our moments of sin are nothing less than creating a different path, one that walks opposite of the Savior.

This doesn’t mean we don’t love God because we sin. That would be a logical error…a false dilemma fallacy. Someone can love their peers and still make mistakes; those mistakes do not immediately equate to a rejection of their love for the person. What it does mean is that the relationship needs to improve, grow and mold into something stronger.

Sin isn’t a complicated thing to understand. Sin is anything that is not the will of God in your life. Christians seemingly look at Sin in a very specific manner, which is understandable. Do not lie, steal, slander, fornicate, do drugs, bully etc… But the reality is the mindset of “I didn’t fornicate this past year” isn’t an accurate representation of what sin is. instead of looking at sin as a checklist, consider observing it in your life as a direction, overall. The conveyer belt analogy pinpoints it well. Every “sin” that we committed is only parts to the overall movement to or from Christ.

We all sin, A LOT. Even the most spiritual believers sin daily. Satan has fine-tuned us for destruction, making sure to expound on every weakness we have. He attempts to stomp on the parts of us that are spiritually cracked and fragile. He knows how to manipulate your brain chemistry through thoughts and emotions. He uses this as a weapon against you.

You must Be aware of who you are, of the thoughts that are produced into your consciousness, of the weak spots your soul has. Become a master of awareness, of knowing when Satan is influencing your soul.

Conclusion

Ultimately, when we pass from this life, what many people consider valuable will be meaningless.

The moment we leave this life, in that very moment, your social media accounts will be worthless. The likes, follows and cute Dm’s will be nothing. in that moment, all the petty drama you were involved in will cease. The drug called “validation” will be puffed no more. All the overtime work you put in for more income will be worth as much as the same dirt you are buried in.

The only thing that will matter is how much you turned to Christ for your stresses, pains, fears and salvation. He will be all that matters..

-Jarom

The Great Ethical Dilemma: Relationships and Standards

You finally meet the man of your dreams.

Finding him was impossible…until it wasn’t. He is everything you could have asked for…your checklist has no empty spots. It isn’t just his looks, but also his ability to communicate and his intelligence.

As always, you have your emotional guard up. This time around though, it seems to be dropping far more rapidly than usual. He seems to say all the right things at the right time. The cold heart you handed him has begun the process of defrosting.

After several months of deep conversations and fun dates…you commit to him. A few days after your fairy tale beginning…a conversation comes up unexpectedly.

The smile falls off your face as soon as you hear it…“I do not want you to go off to clubs”.

This comes as a shock to you. No man in your life has ever cared about you going off…enjoying life (as you should). Your girlfriends all have boyfriends…and they seemingly could care less about it. The social circle you’ve created would immediately see this “perfect” man as a screaming red flag.

Your whole life has been filled with beautiful (at times chaotic) moments with your rowdy friends. The theme of your life is to be in the moment, to party hard but work hard. This sudden contradiction in ideas is a sucker punch to your excitement.

“Why does it matter to you if I go have fun? You already seem controlling.” The passive reply from your mouth is full of offense and dissatisfaction. The butterflies you felt were hit by a fly swatter and left for dead.

“I’ve never had a woman go off to clubs and I cannot believe this is an issue for you” is his firm reply back.

You hang up on him, hop on TIKTOK and watch as many bias videos as you can in regard to justification for this issue of yours. By the end of the night, you’re certain that he is a control freak and a narcissist. The idea of breaking it off has already begun and you’ve just started.

My opinion is right…yours is…wrong?

What started off as a cute conversation between to love birds has now turned into an ethical dilemma: Who is right when both parties create their own subjective standards for their relationship?

One of the biggest flaws within relationships is that of standards. We all have developed our own personal set of standards for ourselves and our relationships. What we deem to be fine to do in a commitment is very much personal for each one of us. To counter this, we also have certain matters we set that are wrong and unethical to do within a commitment. Ultimately, many commitments are swamped with anxiety, anger and resent from this conflict of interest. Ethics are already a sensitive subject…and two parties finding mutual agreement on them can skyrocket into many negative emotions. For many, negative emotions are just the nails being put into a coffin slowly…the end of their relationship is inevitably going to happen.

Subjective means varying, changing and not firmly set. If you are using the word subjective in regard to people…than whatever you are referring to would be dependent on each and every individual. A good example of subjectivity in humans is opinions. We all have opinions on different matters, and for the most part we are all valid in them. If I like pizza with no cheese, call me weird but I’m just as much valid as someone who likes extra cheese on their pizza. If I love pineapples on my pizza and you don’t…we both are right. I cannot tell you that disliking pineapples on your pizza is wrong, and if I did you would call me unethical and wrong. (as you should).

Let’s drag subjectivity over to our commitments and our standards within them. It’s no different than our favorite flavor of ice-cream. My set of standards are just as valid as yours. In the example above, the woman (I used you, the reader) is no more right or wrong than the man is in regard to the situation. If he says she shouldn’t go to clubs, he is right. If she says she should be able to…she is right. They are both right. They both have their subjective reasons based off their social circles and life experiences.

This creates an ethical dilemma, one that, if not fixed…can destroy a relationship.

The only way for two parties to come together and make sense of this would be to somehow find an objective standard somewhere, one that is firmly set and accurate. Since science cannot solve any ethical problems, there is no scientific peer review you can find that could possibly prove what objective standard is right for any commitment. Science has its hands tied on anything ethical…logic and microscopes do nothing within the world of abstract values such as these.

Whatever would create these objective truths would be something outside this realm. Something that would be outside logic, physics, time and space. In order to present anything ethical as factual for our commitments…it could not use science as its source.

If we all had one source of factual standards somewhere to go to, it wouldn’t matter what they felt or thought on something…they would know that following the objective standard is the only right way. What this would mean in regard to the club dilemma above is that one of these individuals would be factually correct and the other…factually wrong. Therefore, they could both look to this objective standard for assistance in these matters.

What could I possibly be talking about here?

You’re smart, I know you can figure this one out.

-Jarom