Definition of Marriage

The Definition of Marriage

The PERMANENT God-ordained merging of the lives of a man and woman together, when consummating a sexual act that is, in it's essence, capable of reproducing another human being between them. In many (but not all) present day cultures usually preceded by a religious and/or legal ceremony.

A reality that precedes all religious and governmental influences

A deep rooted concept that has existed for thousands of years and in thousands of cultures and people groups. Even the most "primitive" ones. It is ingrained and built into the very fabric of humanity. All of the 7 billion people alive today on the earth have resulted from either the practice of marriage or the abuse of it's concepts. There are absolutely no exceptions to that fact. An incredible cloud of witnesses.

An Unchangeable Responsibility...

The same principles that govern the concept of "Marriage" (as defined above) also govern the universe, it's function and it's creation. If we could grasp that reality we would be able to see it's simplicity, beauty and importance in the scheme of things in ways we could never imagine. And we would never, ever try to redefine it as something contrary to the universe itself. (Much less the creator of it all) 

I guess what I need to say here considering the current confusion being passed for wisdom in some countries is that "marriage" in it's ESSENCE, in it's FOUNDATIONS for 1000's of years has ONE consistent factor embedded in it's foundation. That factor is NEVER going to change. That factor (already stated in the "definition" above) has not been embedded or created by societal norms or political law or religious tradition. It isn't a matter of anybody's "opinion". It just IS. 

Can society make water dry? Can government legislate the direction that the earth turns? Can religion, no matter how true change the orbit around the sun or remove the stars from the sky? 

There is a lot of emotional debate about "same gender" marriages lately:
 
If physical marriage as defined above were totally eliminated the human race would cease to exist in a short order. If same gender relationships were totally eliminated, the human race would continue without a single blip in its continuity. No society, government, religion can change that. Nor can someone make the two equal. They are diametrically opposed. 

EQUAL?
 

The TRUTH vs Opinion

Saw the below sentence written on someone's facebook page:

"He leads me beside still water which is not contaminated with opinions."

That kind of caught my eye  so I was thinking about this and the expression came to me to explain why opinions can be contaminating.

"Opinions by their very nature are an admission of the inadequacy of the level of Truth in the statement."

The world we live in is FULL of conflicting opinions because we are not searching for the Truth. We don't really want to know the Truth because then we would have to give up our opinions.

Is it possible to state an absolute truth? Sure it is and we do it all the time. If I see an apple tree (especially one that is presently bearing fruit) I can say with all certainty that is an apple tree. That is the truth. It is NOT my opinion. There is no need for an opinion because the truth is self-evident.

Here's a couple TRUTHS...

Eternity: No matter how far back in time we were to go or how far into the future we would travel we would never reach the "beginning" or the "end"...

Infinity: If we were to be able to travel to the very ends of the universe there would be something after that. If we were to travel to the ends of that, there would be even more after that endlessly.

Our temporal finite minds cannot even begin to comprehend those things yet we insist upon trying to instruct with our "opinions", a Being who fully comprehends the depth of those things. A Being who not only understands the Truth. He IS the Truth...

Jesus said something very provocative to the Jewish religious leaders of his day.

"Before Abraham was, I AM."

Now before we go offering any more opinions perhaps we all ought to chew on that for a while.

The Greatest Works

"God chose the weak things of this earth to confound the wise"

It is absolutely true that the greatest works of God that manifested on earth were precipitated by someone hearing the voice of God an obeying Him, more often than not in the most simple, seemingly insignificant act of faith that opened the floodgates of Heaven to pour out God's Spirit on man.

It's not the great buildings and organizations, well choreographed "services", the best worship bands, worldly marketing techniques or even great speakers, that bring down the power of God. The power of God that reaches out to and ministers to people, that changes the outcome of the lives of people and nations.

It's the simple acts of faith in response to God's speaking into someone's heart that further the Kingdom of God. And the beauty of that is it leaves the door open for any believer in even the most simplest or weakest circumstance to be used by God.

None Would Even Exist

Sitting on the deck last night with my 12-year-old grandson in one of those precious moments in life. He thinks differently than most kids his age and sometimes comes up with the most incredible perceptions. Sometimes I think people don't really appreciate the fact that he's becoming a pretty amazing "young man" or the rare giftings that he has. Well, we are talking and somehow the conversation turns to God and in one of the rare moments in my life I find myself telling him a story I have managed to tell only a few people in my entire lifetime:

When I was a young man (23?) God saved me from drowning when my car went into a ditch, flipped upside down and sank with me in it. The car was wedged between the 2 sides of the ditch and I couldn't get out.

So I'm telling him this story and he's asking questions like he does so I tell him that when I started to pass out I suddenly knew "I was going to die" and as I started to "go," for the first time in my life I began to be aware of God (really aware) and His presence. Everything I'd ever done, every thought and every motivation, as revealed by God began to be played out. And the horror of it was that I was found guilty before God. (Who I was convinced up until then didn't even exist.) It was utterly terrifying.

Then suddenly, there was this rush of indescribable power as I was "pulled" out of that car. Pulled through a space no bigger than my arm. I had a new breath of air in my lungs and I was alive and outside of the car as I burst through the surface of the water.

My two friends who were with me, who got out before the car sank, were a ways off sitting on a rock with their backs to the car. I had been down there too long.

So my grandson says to me, "So God saved you from death." and I answered him, "yep!" So then he said, realizing that I have 5 kids and 4 grandkids, him being one of them,

"Wow! If God hadn't saved you from death, then none of us would even exist!"

The thought rather startled me so all I could say was, "yep." Then we both sat there on the deck for a while soaking in that thought.

I honestly had never thought about that...

The Mercy and Foreknowledge of God.

Are You Defending Slavery?

African Americans were enslaved by humans living in the evil of deception and were set free from slavery by people who recognized the evil of that deception.

Same Sex Attraction is for the most part, an enslavement by the evil of deception. It captures people, chains them to others and carries them off from the normalcy of life. Denying them the freedom to live a normal, natural heterosexual life.

Rather than desiring the slaves to be set free, there is a movement that is fueled by that same deception to participate in encouraging these slaves of evil to see their slavery as "normal."

That is exactly the same evil deception that southern whites were rallying for and living under in their day. They defended the deception that "There are some people who were born to be slaves"...

It is a profoundly right desire to see all slaves set free no matter who or what enslaves them. What is going on right now in Hawaii and the USA is nothing less than enshrining this sad and cruel slavery into law as a "normal" condition of life. That will only lead to a deeper form of slavery and the massive spreading of deceptions of all kinds into all areas of society...

So to quote One who knows more than all of us put together: "Choose you this day whom you will serve..." But be aware that who you serve WILL become your master...

Beware The Underlying Contract!

What is that?

For the benefit of a younger generation which grew up with copy machines and scanners, I'll explain a bit. In the old days they didn't have those modern machines to make copies. What they did have was something called "carbon paper" which when pressure was applied to it some of the coating on the paper applied to the surface below. So When signing a contract, a carbon paper was inserted between the contract and another copy of the contract. Thus when signing the contract, the signer also signed via carbon paper the other copy of the contract (which was also derived via carbon copy). Thus the term "carbon copy." The carbon copied carbon signed contract was the "underlying contract." A carbon copy of a contract was considered a legal copy.

A contract can also be described as an agreement. An agreed upon and signed compromise can also be a contract.

The problem was that in the old days, unscrupulous men would place an entirely different contract under the one you were signing with the signature space directly below the one you were signing. If you didn't actually read the underlying contract you would be signing your agreement to the underlying and different contract as well. Many people in the real old days lost their homes and lands by signing a contract for an easement through their property, etc that had an underlying contract giving the other person your property. That's all illegal now but in a modern sense the lawyer for the person you are dealing with today has likely written the 20-30 pages of a contract in his clients favor with a few tidbits for you in case you actually read the thing... How many people have actually read all their mortgage documents or their rental contract?

The reason most people fell for that type of scheme to swindle them was A: They were incapable of reading the contract. B: They were ignorant of the fact that someone was that unscrupulous or C: the other person managed to gain their trust enough that they didn't bother to check the underlying contract.

Here's another example of a type of a different kind of "underlying contract" placed under the one someone is in effect signing. A young chaste woman is asked by a handsome young man if she would like to go out to dinner on a date. He seems like a nice respectable young man so she says yes. In effect she is signing a contract to go to dinner on a date. Altogether too often, the young man has other ideas of where he would like to go with this "date." He has an underlying contract. All he needs is for the young lady to "sign" the obvious contract by saying yes and agreeing that he will pick her up in his car. (Thus giving him tremendous power over where they go after their dinner.) Being on his best behaviour thus obviously engaging in the original contract, he asks her if she would like to go to a place in his car to check out the city lights. He seems trustworthy. She can't imagine such a nice young gentleman would be anything but. So she says yes. When they get there the lights are beautiful but nothing else that happens that night after that is. The young man's "underlying contract" with her is fulfilled to his satisfaction...

So what am I getting at with all this? Well it's sort of a parable if you will. We live in a world full of agendas. Most of them present themselves to us as "respectable" causes that somehow we find ourselves trusting are right. Many of us are ultimately signing on to these agendas like we would sign onto a contract at it's face value. Most if not all of these agendas have underlying contracts that if we knew the real terms of what we are unknowingly agreeing to, we would never sign off on them.

We need to recognize this concept of "underlying contracts" and very carefully inspect the social engineering contracts, agreements and compromises we are signing onto in this day and age. What we think we are signing onto is NOT what we are going to get... In a way we are like a naive young lady agreeing to a nice respectable date with a guy who is an expert at manipulating someone naive into a position where he can rape her. If you think the symbology I used was harsh just hang around a while. You won't.

You cannot trust Deception no matter how seemingly respectable the cause he is hiding behind.

The only person I would ever trust in this day and age we live in is God. He lays it all out there in front of you. No hidden, underlying contracts. This is what He has done for us in Jesus. This is what we need to do. This is how we get there. This is where and how we will end up... And He is the best lawyer we will ever find to represent us in this maize of agendas, and underlying contracts...

Aloha!

RapozaCare: My proposal...

RapozaCare:

When are we (and by extension our govt) going to have the guts to stand up to the medical professionals, administrators, schools, manufacturers and pharmacutical companies and say you will either drop your prices -or else- ...

Some people go into a car lot, see the car they want and whether they can or should afford it or not they just pay the price. Me? I go into a car lot and I KNOW they have way overstacked the price and I will wave some money in front of the sales manager and dicker with him till he brings the price down to what the car is really worth. If he doesn't, I nicely tell him that there are other car lots in town... I rarely hit the front door on the way out before he is calling me back in to sign the papers on the sale...

We need a govt like that to handle the REAL reason for exploded health care costs.