Marriage Is the Unity of Christ And the Church

Undoubedly, the world is trying to teach us if we do not accept two men or two women as a legitimate marriage, we are bigoted, foolish, and insecure.

Marriage is much easier to understand when seen as the perfect image of Christ's marriage to His bride, the church.

God created marriage to be a mannifesation of His relationship with us. He wanted us to be one with him, just as He and the Father are one. We are one as man and woman, just as we are one with Him. The woman submits to the man as the church submits to Christ. Man lays down his life for his bride just as Christ lays down his life for the church. It's odd to think of the woman as having authority over the man, just as it is odd to think of the church as having authority over Christ.

Physically, water gives life. Dead bodies are dried up and hard. Living things have water in them, are soft and fluid. The woman's body submits to the man's body, who comes into her and gives her his fluid. She can't receive it of her own free will. Similarly, the church submits to the Living Water, which produces spiritual life within the body of the church. The church cannot save itself, or give life to itself of its own free will. It is the will of God that Salvation and new life come into us.

Every miniscule nuance that can be seen between a husband and wife can be seen in the relationship between Christ and His bride, the church.

Please give me some suggestions of peculiarities in marriage, and I'll show you how that aspect of marriage is realized spiritually between Christ and the church.

State-Sponsered Indoctrination For People Who Want Guns

"A Florida legislator wants anyone trying to buy ammunition to complete an anger management program first, in what critics say is the latest example of local lawmakers reaching for constitutionally-dubious solutions to the problem of gun violence."

Published March 06, 2013

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/06/florida-lawmaker-wants-anger-management-courses-for-ammunition-buyers/?test=latestnews?test=latestnews#ixzz2MsrfXbAk

This is just one legislator proposing his or her ideas. Hopefully, this won't be put into law. What is really sad about this is what I discovered when going through state-sponsered anger mangement classes. These state-sponsered anger management programs are based on  Feminism, more specifically the Deluth Model, and Feminism actually yields violence.

Feminism actually tries to teach men to treat women more like men, and erase gender inequality. But if a man tries to erase gender inequality from his mind, does he see the woman as a man, or does he act more like a woman himself? Sadly, men try to accommodate for Feminism both ways. The ideology also teaches that men are inherently prone to violence against women because men are physically larger. But men often resort to violence when in conflict with another man.

God has given both genders equal rights to the Kingdom of Heaven, and gives each of them equally rewarding and fulfilling roles on earth. There are many ways that men and women can share in the same tasks here on Earth, but many ways in which they can't. Childbirth is the most ovbvious example, and leadership at church also comes to mind, according to many passages in the New Testament. I know that many Christians who also try to embrace Feminism will hate to hear that, but the Bible is very clear about male leadership at church, and we should try to understand why, not ignore it.

In my time in the anger management programs, I actually felt less sensitive and compassionate toward my wife, and more temptation to argue with her, expecially in proving her wrong. I felt that I was recently armed with valuable insight from my anger management counselor, and that my wife needed a lesson. I also remember the temptation that since I presumed she already knew this - because I had to take the class and not her - then it wouldn't be a problem to say it sternly, or with punishing words.

In the two examples that I give of gender inequality, the female example is the utmost of our carnal experience on Earth, and the male example is the utmost of our spiritual earthly experience. Both the spiritual and carnal are part of being a human being.

Lastly, I would like to add that Feminism is a wordly response to a spiritual problem. When faith weakens, the world reacts in all kinds of weird ways. They don't have direction. But God uses the shake-up to strengthen the Elect and show His glory. We know from Matthew 24 that the world is a very wicked, evil place at the end, and we are always progressing (liberal action word) toward that end. The right response is repentance, pouring out the heart, seeking the Lord's face with a humble heart. He said that he will hear from Heaven, heal us, and heal our land! There are always good blessings in store for the ones who are meek and humble in the Lord!

It's Not a Sport

They're saying that guns and bullets can now be made on 3D printers. So you can download any weapon you want off the Internet, or in a peer-to-peer network and avoid the coming Internet regulations. Evil will always find a way to eliminate that which it wants to destroy, but they can only kill the body and then do no more, and God will destroy evil on Armageddon. Boxing and Football lightened the damage done through improved technology and rules (aka regulation and law in the real world) and it works because players can be eliminated for violations that cause great damage. I knew someone whose place on a "minor-league" soccer team was to literally break the opponent's legs, because we was rich enough to afford the $1,000 penalties! But in the game of good vs. evil, both of which are much greater than us human beings, regulations and laws don't work. Only adherence to one spiritual force or the other: Good: repentance (to God), love, and mercy, or evil: ignorance (of God), selfishness, and contempt. So pick your team, and may the best God, or god, win.

The goal of evil goes back to Genesis 3. The devil tempted Eve, saying that she will be like God, and will not die. Evil wants to have everything about life, without God. That's why Christians ride on the heights of the land, whether it be in humble or rich circumstances, and non-Christians can only copy Christians to get ideas that work. And yet they don't truly work because they're not done in faith. They're trying to copy everything and have life without God. So Jesus tells us that He brings peace, but not the way the world does. Sometimes 2 people can commit the exact same action, but only 1 is acceptable to God because it was done in faith.

Is It From the Office Or the Officer?

I took an online test for narcissistic personality disorder at psychcentral.com This test doesn't seem to differentiate between a person and the offices that the person holds. One particular question asks if I deserve respect for myself, but it doesn't differentiate between me as a person and any particular office that I am holding, like husband, father, etc. I hold the offices of husband and father, handed down to me from God through marriage and through fathering a child (children, in my case)(Romans 13:1). Someone could get critical of my parenting and partnership skills, and bring up their concerns in front of my wife and/or children, whoever is on the other side of my relationship. This attacks not simply me, but my office. It could be well-received advice in a private context. But because the other end of the relationship is also present, it questions the office itself. The other person is called upon to question their own way of interacting with the office. Fortunately, I have my faith in God and trust in the Scriptures to differentiate between what is ordained by God and what could simply be a temptation for narcissistic thought.

I think that when the office isn't recognized as being from the Lord, the default is to designate the individual as the designer. With the individual as owner, and with the assumption that the individual is flawed, the office then loses its integrity.

There is still a lesson I think that we as Christians can learn from having an office questioned, even if it is misappropriated to the person instead of the office. The Lord himself does not want us doing things that leaves other Christians, particularly those weaker in faith, to suffer from our actions because they don't understand (Romans 14:13-18). That isn't a loving attitude that looks after our brother and sister. If there is ever a doubt about our actions in office, we can ask ourselves if we are being sensitive to the measures of faith of others.

Not My Will...

One psychological inventory that my therapist gave me indicated that I hold on to several irrational beliefs. One of these is that I'm stricken with stress and irritation when things don't go my way. I tend to think things like, "Why me?" "I thought I had enough to deal with!" I had to confess it to my kids as a grown-up temper tantrum. That struck a chord in the 3-yr old's mind!

Of course, the Lord never forsakes us (Hebrews 13:5), and He disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:6). I stop my kids when they're misbehaving, even if they're intentions are good, and I expect compliance. I should practice what I preach, as God's child. If he cares enough to not give me exactly what I want, it would be smart of me to stop my behavior and listen.

How Feminism Yields Violence, and the Blessing of Power and Control

My belief is that feminism is a cause of domestic violence because it teaches men to look at women as other men. Men learn that the similarities negate the differences. Men often get physical with other men, ultimately, to defend the Gospel. In other manifestations, their physical violence is used to defend their people from annihilation by other people - particularly the other people's men. Violence is more closely related to swift justice than to domination, as the feminists try to insist.

A counselor explained to me that feminism rose up in the legal system from the Duluth Model. The movement began when a group of feminists pleaded their cases before congress in Duluth, MN, and won the passage of new laws. Unfortunately, an article in Wikipedia on feminism reports that feminism is almost entirely based on pseudo-science .

When going through therapy, and being held up against these views, and even worse, have your actions legally defined by these views, one feels the need to speak out.

I was not surprised to meet a man who never had a problem with violence against women until he was mandated to go to one of the domestic violence classes. He told me that was when he started having problems. The reason is clear to me, as I mentioned. And the proper response is repentance to God. Repentance for not understanding our male and female difference better, not loving God more than the wife, and not lovingly using our God-given power and control to protect her from the evil one, so that the Holy Spirit can raise her up to be the woman of God she was re-created through Christ to be.

Why feminism? Our sinful nature wants to know right from from wrong, and leave God out. It's the sinful way to respond to the sinful problem of abuse while still leaving God out. Women are just as guilty as men are of trying to live life without God. Feminism makes sense, especially to women but also to men of little or no faith. It's following the voice of the stranger (John 10:5) (John 8:44), who promises enlightenment but also wants to destroy God's people and creation.

I write to other Christians about the legal and psychological systems and our faith I hope that this blog encourages you to stay active in your faith in Christ. You know the system can't destroy you, but God can use psychology to show us our sin and lovingly help us stay on the straight and narrow (Matt 7:14).

I'd also like you to consider the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and our theology. It is a strong Christian organization that takes nothing out of the Bible, and can explain concepts that other theologies often leave untouched, like male headship in the family, and why Christ's body and blood are truly in the bread and wine, not merely "represented." (John 6:24-65)

Do They Understand That We Are One, Not Two?

This is a comment I left at the site: Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, http://www.minddisorders.com/, by AdvaMeg, Inc. Addressing the need for more Spirituality in social science.

"I have been diagnosed with features of NPD. The only thing that bothers me is the lack of Spirituality in science. I love the work that they're doing, and understand that many psychologists are Christian. I think one thing that exacerbates the diagnosis of my problem to society ("Psychotherapy," 2nd par.) and clinicians is that in reality (by faith) I am one with my wife, not two anymore (Mark 10:8). Yet they continually treat me as an individual on my own. I think their view is exacerbated even further (sorry about the over-usage!) because most of my psychological systems are government-funded, not private - and privately funded - practices. They may have their own recommendations get nixed because of the funding source. So I'm trying to find treatment that doesn't turn me into an Obamite (socialist). I'm also in need of funding because my wife is an illegal alien (immigration is another one of my areas) with severe mental problems as well as me, so work has been very difficult. I'm trying to foster more communication in this area through my blog, if it would be helpful to anyone: http://mynarcissismjournal.blogspot.com"