Nakedness

Nakedness

Pope John Paul II “Nakedness itself is not immoral. Immorality is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person…”

We must get by the stigma so many religious spirits have unrighteously placed upon the naked body. Being a Christian means putting on the divine traits of Jesus. There’s no longer a need to feel shame in private or public about our bodies. All things are lawful unto believers.

Clothing in biblical times was worn for warmth or prestige, not to cover their bodies for fear of someone seeing them unclothed.

When we respect the nude we will no longer have any shame about it. A creator honoring view of the human body dispels the fantasy, porno-prudish religiously taught and exploited concept in western culture. The church urgently needs repentance and reformation from the flight from the body. A prudish view is a pornographic view. Placing an obscene or indecent sexual connotation of the sight of gender body parts creates a sexually objectified body allowing the features of personal gender identity and distinction to be ignored. We have abandoned the human body by surrendering God’s image and temple into secular hands and Satan. We need to start behaving as if the “fearfully and wonderfully made” naked human body never stopped being “very good”. (Gen 1:31)

The crowning touch of God’s creation is regarded as something shameful to be covered and hidden. Time after time the prophets in the Old Testament came under the influence of the Holy Spirit, took off their clothes, stood or fell down naked, and prophesied and praised God.

This sense of shame is not inborn. It is learned. Babies have no shame and neither did many early Christians in biblical times. We live in a society in which sexuality is very distorted. God made nothing more beautiful and dignified than the human body.

Clothes were for man’s mental comfort, thinking he could hide, and were not for God’s benefit. When one builds a temple, he usually doesn’t mind if people look at the masterpiece and admire it. We are God’s masterpiece, a temple wonderfully made. The misuse of God’s gifts, not using our bodies as God intended is what makes God angry. Our bodies are not obscene. The problem is that society makes us look at the body as a sex object rather than the beautiful creation God intended it to be. Being unclothed is not immoral, the immorality lies in not respecting our bodies and the bodies of others.

It's an insult to God to hide the gift of our bodies in shame. A gift from God should be displayed proudly.

Acknowledging God Before Others

Acknowledging God Before Others

Live according to our calling, as a child of God, different from the world.  Do everything we do for the glory of God regardless of context (church, work, home, or elsewhere).  We are not to put our Faith in a box.

Do we deny God explicitly or are we denying God by the way we live?

Do we deny God by what we selectively stand for, versus what we choose to remain silent about?  Truth, reason, and justice are not excused from acknowledgement.  Simply because they are not popular in culture or the church.  Passivity is not a justification.  If we do not fight for truth, it will become irrelevant, and one day we will wake up without any basis for the freedoms or voice we once had for God’s glory and the good of other people.

God has given each of us unique gifts, voices, platforms, and influence to be effective agents of light in a world ruled by darkness.  Our enemy is the darkness and sin of this world that Satan is using to destroy God’s creation.  Man has been deceived by Satan’s demons leading the charge of the culture of death.  Where are we as Christians who should be acknowledging God and Christ in our lives and who led by the Holy Spirit must work to restore the creation of God in preparation of the return of Christ, His Son, to its rightful glory and nature?

Too often we are hiding from God’s presence, just as Adam and Eve did.  We may hear that “still small voice”, but we turn off our minds and just go with the flow, unresistingly following the dictates of our human nature, which has been under Satan’s influence since the Garden.  We believe Satan and the men who follow his direction, corruption, deceit, and destruction.  We fail to be as God made us, intended us to be, wants us to be, following the purpose God mandated for us in His creation and world.

We are told not to love the things of this world because if we do, the love of God is not in us.  James said, “don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?  Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God?” (James 4:4).  Most Christians spend more time on the computer, watching TV, or spending time on their own hobbies than they do in the Word of God (the Bible) or in prayer.  Of and by themselves, these things are not wrong, but when we spend most of our time doing these things, we are showing God that these are the real priorities in our lives.  How our time is spent shows us where our hearts are.  What absorbs our will, our time, our resources most of all?  Is it careers, material possessions, money, health, even our families?

We should desire to build up our knowledge of God.  We seem to have lost that desire these days.  Apart from the Bible, which we should be reading daily, we need to supplement our knowledge by reading other good books, too.  We need to fill our minds constantly with the things of God; God should always be on our mind, and everything we do should be done with reference to Him.  We need to return to the Garden, walk and talk with God, and be as He intended us and purposed us to be.

The Greek word for “worship” in Romans 12:1 can also mean “service”.  Our daily lives should be considered as worship.  Everyday we should offer ourselves wholly as living sacrifices, being and living as He intended, holy and pleasing to Him.  We, the church, should be impacting the world and Satan’s agenda, but too often it’s the other way around.

We should be living as God created us, how He created us, fulfilling the commission He gave us, and whatever else He may place in our hearts to nurture His creation and each other.  In this way we acknowledge and honor His Son, Christ, who died to redeem us, and give glory to God.

Faith – A Spiritual Gift?

Faith – A Spiritual Gift?

Too many of our judgements and decisions appear to be based solely upon the input our brains receive from the world.  Our senses also have been corrupted by what the world would have us believe.

Faith is a gift that God has given us.  Not something we can manufacture. 

Faith is the belief that what we hope for will assuredly happen.  It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see or perceive.

Perseverance is not giving up because we fail to see with our physical eyes. That physical evidence is not perceived or seen.

In the world physical evidence is presented and judgements made on that evidence.  Faith is evidence that many would deny because it is not physical in nature.  We are not to judge by our senses or physical evidence but by Faith and the belief it encompasses.

Prayer is a key component of Faith.  Continuous prayer.  Prayer is not a sign of little or weak Faith but rather a sign of persistent Faith.

When we become discouraged and loose Faith we are giving Satan the opportunity to accuse us and the world reason to revile us and not believe in what we believe and give witness to in our lives.  Actions and words do have importance in Faith.

Faith and prayer go hand in hand.  We pray, we trust, we believe, we speak, and we act in accordance with what God reveals to us without fear.  We believe in God who is master of all.  We reject Satan and man’s ways.  We do not fear the world for our Faith and prayer keep us in God’s care.  His world and kingdom are more important that the Satan driven world man has embraced.