31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”33 “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. 35 A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.
The season of Lent is especially helpful for calling our cravings (desires and temptations), and sin (missing the mark) into question. When we do not have the mind of God, we sin. We enact a way opposed to God, and his nature. It is sin that enslaves us. We become captive to corrupt desires, deeds, words, and thoughts. Sin is our Master, and we remain in chains.
What ungodly things are your master? The Son has made you free, and you are free indeed. If you remain faithful to God’s teachings, you will not be fooled by sinful things, and held in bondage.
Consider you sin, and your sinfulness. Confess it and Relinquish it.You have been set free! Live in that freedom.
Cuss / noun 1 an annoying or stubborn person or animal : he was certainly an unsociable cuss. 2 another term for curse (sense 2).
Disclaimer: I’m not using a moral arguement against cussing, though you might expect I would, at a site with spiritual flavor like this one. While, many may say it’s a sin to cuss, I think what may be the truest thing is that the intention of using the vulgarity that is the real issue at stake. Nevertheless, I won’t go in that direction. My contentions are not nearly so deep or heartfelt. This is simple practicality and common sense at work:
Simply put: I don’t think foul language is powerful enough. I finding it lacking. Any great use of the stuff tips me off that I’m in the company of communication amateurs.
In truth, I’m not very offended by expletives. The shock wore off in high school. And high school–childhood–is about the only time a certain amount of cussing is, sort of, understandable. By nature, kids don’t know how to express themselves very well. Salty language makes rookie humans feel older and more formidable. It gives them a sense of power, as they flex their ” ‘I’m growing up’ muscles”. Yet, it’s the running myth that if something is bleeped on tv, it resides in the realm of “grown-up language”, and signifies something more heady and legit. In fact, expletives are quite banal.
I cuss quite rarely, and when I do it’s actually because I’m having trouble expressing myself. In some foolish desperation I concede to inferior “describing words”. So, really, cussing takes away from our points, rather than aids them.
Just for the sake of developing better communication, we needn’t use them. Maybe you enjoy tossing around a swear here or there. I don’t really care. But here are 7 points to remember on this topic:
7 Cussing Tip Offs
misnamed swear tin (for keeping fines)
1. Cussing quickly reveals one has a diminished vocabulary or the inability to use their vocabulary very well. (This can become a worsening habit also. Hence, it is sometimes combated with a Swear (fine) Bank.)
2. It displays a rather uncreative mind. (What could help? Simple: A thesaurus.)
3. If a cuss word can be used as an adjective, noun, and verb, it’s hackneyed, and by consequence, impotent. Let’s just say it’s, “lame” in a hobbling sense.
4. While cussing may somehow help one reveal emotions, or relieve stress, it doesn’t help one’s case. Quite the opposite. Logic is a better choice. Give it a try.
5. Foul language tells a bigger story about the person and his/her hang ups than it does about whatever the person is trying to convey. (It’s sort of sad, really.)
6. Cussing offends people for a myriad of reasons, but strangely enough, much use of it boils down to spotlighting simple bad manners and poor taste. Throughout history, “vulgar” language has some sort of reflection on social or economic status. [Ex: A mother says to her child who has been running around with the kids from “the other side of the tracks”, “No, honey, we don’t talk like that (or them).”] Most often people mentally associate foul language with an uncouth boorish social class, or uneducated and unrefined upbringing.
7. “Dirty words” are given meaning by a culture, not the other way around. What is the massively cussing person trying to prove, then? And why? [That’s the bigger question.] Here, subtext trumps communication. so probably a #fail
What are your thoughts?
My favorite cuss quote:
“Are you cussing with me?” -Fantastic Mr. Fox
Have you noticed thatHonesty is sometimes confused for speaking out in a tactless way? Being “true to our feelings” can reveal the worst parts of ourselves.
Circumstantial Goodness
My goodness (shown in how I think, speak, or act) is too often circumstance or feelings based. Is that true for you? We may treat someone well, if we feel well and good, or if we fear the consequences of skipping out on kindness. Those two things, however, are not goodness or good character sourced from a deeper, formative level. They don’t reveal goodness engrained in our true selves.
FAKING IT?
While, I will not advocate deception, phony pretense, or falsehood, there is something to be said for acting and speaking in a most virtuous way, until our thinking catches up with it. In other words, do the right thing so often that it becomes the new normal for you.
So, it’s actually the idea of acting (living/interacting) from our “best self”, not from a fabrication.
Example:
Say you struggle with keeping a positive attitude: Try putting on a positive attitude until your way of behaving is difficult to separate from who you are…until your thinking changes. “Wear” a sanguine attitude, until you forget that you’re wearing it, and it becomes an extension of you. Think of it like how you would put on and wear a coat over your regular clothes during cold weather until you feel warm. (For me this would involve a hooded coat.)
Do it until you feel it… or ” option 2 “
I’ve usually advocated the opposite of what I have just said. I’ve thought its best to, “Get your thinking right, and then enact it.” But, you know what? Sometimes we’re just not “there” yet. Sometimes too many circumstances, or unmanageable sentiments block this from happening easily. Now, it seems we can get there from either side, and this, my friends, is good news indeed!
In Christian spiritual formation, we implement practices, concepts, and awareness of that which stimulates Sanctification (a.k.a. the process in which we develop into God-like (Good, like God) people through-in-through. We also consider: “What are God’s qualities?” One that stands out is perfect goodness. This perfect goodness is never based on feelings or circumstances when it’s attributed to God. It simply IS.
Thanks for reading today. I can almost hear the gears moving in your mind, so remember, your comments are welcome.
What can you tell us about feeling/thinking good before doing, or the other way around…doing before we’re feeling it? How does it work for you?
Verse of meditation: Colossians 3:12-14 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
About 500 years ago there was this spat. At the time, having your sinsforgiven was a sort of pay as you go thing. It was a bit like a toll road.
The toll booth worker was the Priest. If you bought “indulgences” the Priest could better settle up your debt with God.
Handy little business model, especially when folks hope to avoid damnation, right?
This became rather upsetting. So these Reformer types started protesting. It was not so much to split from the Church, but to transform it–at first.
Of course, men can get pretty riled up about their new fantastic ideas (ever seen that?), and before anyone realized it, a huge split…others might say a heresy or rebellion… was cemented into place in history–forever changing the landscape of Christianity.
Spiritually speaking, some good was gained (and Catholics adjusted to these grievances by the 1960s with Vatican II), but as more and more people are beginning to realizing now, some very good and important things were lost because of going this route.
So, what is the real purpose of a priest, or priest-like figure? Is it necessary? Can absolution of sin come from a man in a white collar? What about a teenager in a crew neck? Or a lady with a scarf?
Drum roll, please…..
Oh! Wait! Before, you start gathering firewood and a sturdy stake for my conflagration, please hear me out the entire way. (Then have at it; I’d like to hear from you.)
The I Timothy 2:5 “one mediator” verse is often used to underscore that Christ alone can forgive sins and be our mediator to God. It’s true. This was the mission of the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.
But Protestants have, by the over-reactive trailblazing of the Reformers, missed quite a bit of the spiritual benefits of what Jesus’ brother James talks about:
James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
What is James saying…that confession and other believers’ prayers are powerful and effective against sin? Yes.
GASP.
Okay, not a total gasp. But how does this play out? You may wonder…
This confessing to each other is not the same as be able to actually take Jesus’ place (obviously). James shows us that confession to each other works. It does something important. God wants it to be done this way.
It absolves us (because God absolves us). So, it is true that we personally experience the relief of our guilt being removed. We experience, in real terms, the agency of God’s forgiveness of our guilt. Someone is there beside us, standing in the gap for us, so we can be reconciled more thoroughly, more completely than we can experience it otherwise. It is God’s work; and we are agents of his ministry.
These confessors to whom we confess become a flesh and blood representation of God’s love that promotes gracious forgiveness and offers wholeness. It offers us freedom from guilt (felt guilt, and feeling or thinking as if Christ‘s work is not complete). It puts flesh on our spiritual justification.
It seems we can’t handle our sin on our own too well, at all.
We are sinful, and it’s not a private matter.
Just confessing to God, and keeping our mistakes and sin to ourselves, is not the recommendation and requirement of Christ’s disciples.
The Community of God (i.e. the Church; our brothers and sisters in the Lord) plays a vital role in our spiritual growth and growth in grace. Confession ushers in that felt healing of the sin and guilt which weigh us down, and disables us.
Our sin is a rejection of community (aka The Bride of Christ) and an act of selfishness.
Our sin is a destructive thing. Socially and spiritually destructive.
Confession and absolution, (the kind you might say/declare out loud to another person) restore us at a core level. To ourselves, to God, and to community (aka The Bride of Christ).
In this way, we act not as God, but on God’s behalf. We minister.
It is simply true that he forgives us. We concur and offer social restoration, and remind the confessing one of God’s gracious work and love for us.
We minister to each other, on equal footing, and we may offer God’s grace to a brother or sister who cannot yet properly apprehend it. We can accept their confession and offer forgiveness, so we speak the Truth of God’s Kingdom into their life. We help set the captives free. (Not because God can’t do it without us, but because he wishes to use us this way.)
YES. We may say, “You have confessed, and you are forgiven. God absolves you. I, too, forgive you. Go in peace, and rest in his love.”
Please offer this to others. Ask for it on your behalf, too.
Will you comment on this topic, please? Your input is vital on this one. Thank you.
OKAY-It’s possible something was lost in translation on this cosmetic.
Perhaps white or pure was translated as “virginity”. Maybe the English word “virginal” threw off the dictionary. You might have a better guess than me.
This so-called “skin-whitening” soap is supposed to make the skin inviting to touch, so it actually, um. maybe it could end virginity.
But I wonder if the idea of purity, cleansing, and ridding us of our shame is so wrapped up together, that longing for a kind of “virginity soap” isn’t all that big of a stretch.
On some level, doesn’t everyone want a second chance?
Doesn’t everyone want their sin to be “washed away”?
Do you have a memory you wish you didn’t have, or a past sin that plagues you?
Christianity has promised this same thing with “Jesus Soap” for quite a while now. But is it that simple? And, do we co-opt with the renewing power of the Holy Spirit enough to live in a “washed clean” kind of way?
The spiritual discipline of confession works a bit like “virginity soap”. It is an imperative to confess and turn away from sins. And we are told to confess to each other. It gives us a real life engagement with grace, via the willing and trusting ear of another.
Do you have a confessor to whom you can confess your shame? If not, why? Do you think it would help you?
