Life Matters - December 18, 2024

‘’A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him to find her.’’ – posted by Lisa Funderbirk. Men who seek God first and foremost will meet godly women. Men who seek fleshly satisfaction first and foremost will meet carnal women. That is a fixed law of nature expressed by the ‘’Birds of a feather flock together’’  maxim that one might refer to as a self – evident prophetic word. And especially so as we reflect upon and observe the downward slide of mainstream western culture in the past 60 years and continuing to this day. 

People who are serious about God and upright living also have a tendency of flocking together, a tendency to enjoy each other’s company, and all the more so when pressured or persecuted by those of other persuasions. Other persuasions persecute because they are not really ‘’persuasions’’ but rather, are denials of truth and reality, the adherents of which are so insecure as to desperately ‘’need’’ the ‘’acceptance’’ of the secure in Christ, which they have no hope of securing outside of force. Which really is no acceptance at all because ‘’a man persuaded against his will is of the same opinion still.’’ 

There is no denying that today’s world offers a lot of ‘’fun’’ but the ‘’fun’’ is often a mere distraction more than it is fulfilling and there is also no denying that pleasure, outside of meaning, has no lasting fulfillment. There is nothing fulfilling, there is no meaning, in seeking pleasure for its own sake. And so ‘’fun’’ when offered or sought after as an end in itself finally is no fun at all but only becomes elusive, seeming in equal degree to the fervency it is sought after.  

True pleasure has good relationships built into it and when saying ‘’good relationships’’ I refer to those with a flourishing good conscience. Herein is true freedom. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from the bondage of sin slavery. Freedom to bring all needs to God. Freedom to ask for cleansing when needed. Freedom to love Him. Freedom to love people. Freedom to appreciate His creation. To revel in the laughter of children. To praise God with the rising sun. To enjoy the changing seasons. To smell the flowers and the earthy scents of spring, of a fruitful summer wafting to us on the air, the crisp smells of fall harvest, of hot coffee on a cold winter morning. The sound of a cooing baby is a pleasure all its own as is the relationship that formed the little one. That is, when the conscience is at once awake, healthy, alive, and free. Alive and submissive to God and His Word.  

A guilty, stained, or brainwashed conscience is not free and therefore cannot be a happy one. There will always be something missing, something not quite right, an unnamable fear of the unknown. A ‘’need’’ to immerse oneself in some useless activity or the other. We cannot have lasting pleasure unless lasting love is woven into its very life, and so when this world fails us, the pleasure, love, and life of Jesus within goes on and may even increase in the midst of the hard things we endure in this space called time.  

In this space called time, the 1960s endured the women’s liberation movement on steroids. I was only there as a youngster still in the single digits, but in hindsight I verily believe that carnal men enjoyed the rebelliousness of young women against established norms even as upright, godly, men struggled against it. In fact, I’ve spoken to enough men of that era to give much validity to that belief, besides having the testimony of God in His Word.  

The chaste virgin of Bethlehem fame endures in stark contrast to the loose morals run rampant in past decades. As does her husband, who, as her betrothed, thought to put her away for infidelity upon the discovery of her being ‘’with child’’ (a more elegant way of saying ‘’pregnant’’) because he knew that he could not have fathered the child. Let me point out the obvious; there was only one way he could be so certain. By a chastity of his own coupled with the chastity of his young lady, at least, when with him. 

God assured Joseph in a revelatory dream that he need not fear in taking Mary to be his wife. The child, He revealed, was fathered by He Himself as Mary was ‘’with child’’ of the Holy Ghost and that the child to be born of her was to be called the Son of God. 

The picture of Joseph, Mary, and the baby in a manger, has an aura of purity and beauty about it that transcends the reality of a smelly barn with its animals. The man, the woman, and the baby. Let us retain that vision, that sense, of purity. Of beauty.  

Life Matters!