Putting Passion in its Place

Intercession - sometimes we need help to get our breakthrough, if our faith is lacking, we can call on our friends to take up the burden with us and intercede for our break through.

We saw a mother that pleaded for the leftovers of the Jewish blessing, and he request was granted

Stones & Temples - The Presence of God is Accessible By Everyone; We Are Actually The Temple of The Holy Spirit

Peter brought to our attention that our bodies are more than just instagram models. We are royalty, a holy nation, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

God’s Spirit was something that used to be accessed by one person one day a year, and if there was any misstep, that person was dead

Are we keeping our temples clean? Can God’s Spirit dwell inside of us?

Breaking Babylon - Selfish Greed Makes You A Slave

Babylon represented man’s way of trying to gain materials to become god-like

The Spirit of Mammon - the god of riches

Money is neutral; you can use it for good or bad

You break greed off your life by being a generous giver

Losing Control - doing less allows you to do more

The Spirit of Baal - the god of control and power

We lose control when we rest

6 days are “good” 1 day is “Holy”

The Sabbath - 1 day out 7 to rest and God will refresh, replenish, and restore you body, mind, and soul

The Spirit of Asherah // Passion, Lust, Sex

1 Peter 2:9–11 ESV

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

The passions of our flesh are waging war against us, and this passion is actually also powered by a spirit.

Asherah was a sensual Canaanite goddess who is actually the spouse of Baal.

You have the god of control married to the god of passion and lust, is it any wonder than many times the two show up together.

Mammon = god of possessions

Baal = god of power

Asherah = god of pleasure

We see all three of these spirits show up in the very first sin...

Genesis 3:6–7 ESV

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

good for food (Asherah)

delight to the eyes (Mammon)

desired to make one wise (Baal)

Define // LUST & PASSION

LUST: passionate, inordinate desire for something, usually sexual in nature

PASSION: a strong, barely controllable emotion

Modern Culture // Tinder, Snapchat, Pornography

Tinder

Tinder is a dating app, where profile pictures will pop up based on interests you have and you can swipe left to deny a math or swipe right to accept a match.

The idea is to find someone that you would be compatible with - assuming most people would want to be married one day.

What it has become is mostly a way to “hookup” with people you have enough in common with to have a care-free night of fun.

Disclaimer: not all people use Tinder for these purposes. This is just was the current statistics are showing based on people that swipe right for a match.

What Makes Tinder Different?

There are a lot of dating apps, the creators of Tinder wanted theirs to rise above the rest.

The Tinder founders’ biggest trick was to turn the app into a game that you would want to play even if you weren’t looking for a date.

“We always saw Tinder, the interface, as a game,” Rad said. “What you’re doing, the motion, the reaction.” So Rad and Badeen modeled the original stack of potential matches’ faces after a deck of cards. When playing with physical cards for inspiration, their natural urge was to interact with the top card by throwing it to the side. Thus, the iconic Tinder swipe was born.

“Nobody joins Tinder because they’re looking for something,” Rad said. “They join because they want to have fun. It doesn’t even matter if you match because swiping is so fun.”

http://time.com/4837/tinder-meet-the-guys-who-turned-dating-into-an-addiction/

They have created an application that has addicted people to the idea of picking and choosing what fuels their passions - it’s all a game to them

Snapchat

Snapchat was conceived by a college student while he was smoking weed

He was in the midst of a conversation with his buddies about the weekend plans (parties, girls) and he had the thought that he wished the pictures he sent could “disappear”

THE GOAL: to create an easier “hookup” scenario by allowing himself to send pictures to a girl, in hopes that she would send more racy pictures if she knew they would disappear after a few seconds.

Pornography & Sexting

93.2% of boys and 62.1% of girls have seen online pornography before age 18.

More and younger children are accessing internet pornography. The average age of first exposure is 11

Teens are at a great risk of developing a pornography addiction as their brains are still developing.

Almost half (46%) of teenagers say “sending sexual or naked photos or videos is part of everyday life for teenagers nowadays.”

Sexting is sending or posting a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude photo or video of oneself.

9% of 13-18-year-olds have sent a sext

17% of 13-18-year-olds have received a sext

According to a 2013 ChildLine poll of 500 children in the UK, ages 13 to 18:

60% said they have been asked for explicit photos or videos of themselves.

38% said they had created a sext. Of these, 32% said they had sent it to someone they knew online only (not in real life).

Of those who sent a sext, 20% said it had been shared with others, and 28% said they did not know if it was shared.

In 2009, Michael Leahy released results of a survey of 29,000 individuals at North American universities:

51% of male students and 32% of female students first viewed pornography before their teenage years (12 and younger).

42% of male students and 20% of women said they regularly read romance novels, sexually explicit magazines, or regularly visited sexually explicit websites or chat rooms.

Sexual Abuse

1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;

During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;

According to a 2003 National Institute of Justice report, 3 out of 4 adolescents who have been sexually assaulted were victimized by someone they knew well

Personal Testimony

Discovered pornography at age 10

Friend taught me about masturbation at age 13

Sexted at age 17

Crossed boundaries before marriage

Purity was restored, and thankfully was married still a virgin, however I now had baggage that came into marriage with me

Merinda and I knew everything about one another before we even started dating - that’s a story for another time

Got married, but hadn’t conquered my pornography addiction

1 year into our marriage I came to the conclusion that the only way to get out of my addiction was to confess it now, rather than be caught or let it consume my life and ruin the beautiful marriage that God gave me

I wrote out a 2 page letter apologizing and asking forgiveness for the sin I had committed against Merinda and God

I came up with a plan to put this addiction to an end once and for all - I set up restrictions on my phone with a passcode that only Merinda knows. I set up a filter on our internet router that sometimes worked too well.

To my surprise, Merinda forgave me and walked through the process with me.

I also confessed this sin to 2 friends that I knew would check up on me and ask me the tough questions I needed asked.

In order to conquer this, I needed an army fighting with me, and for me through prayer.

Proper Passion

Godly Marriage

God created a system when 1 man and 1 woman were to become 1 flesh

God gave Adam and Eve the gift of sex and He expected them to have a lot of it!

He only had two humans on the Earth and told them to be fruitful and multiply!

God never intended for the unity of marriage to be taken outside of marriage - it can’t be blessed outside of marriage!

When passion is put into its place - God can BLESS it

Breaking the spirit of Asherah

1 John 2:16 ESV

16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

If the Bible says that

We can see the three gods (Baal, Mammon, Asherah) are not from God - and therefore are not honoring to God

2 Corinthians 6:16 ESV

2 Corinthians 6:16–18 ESV

16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

We see that our bodies are a temple of God, and He wants to dwell in us - however we know that He will not dwell with sin.

2 Corinthians

Psalm 5:4 ESV

4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.

So how do we create a place for God to dwell?

2 Corinthians 6:17–18 ESV

17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

2 Corinthians 6:17

In order to create a dwelling place for God we must...

HONOR GOD WITH YOUR BODY

Repent

vs 18; be separate from them (them = world)

Repent means to turn 180 - that means if you are headed in a bad direction, you need to turn and head the opposite direction

Receive Forgiveness

1 John 1:9 ESV

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He has forgiven you; do you believe you are forgiven?

Forgiveness is more for the person receiving it than the one giving it

Reorder Our Lives

2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV

1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

Conversations with someone that can help you

Throw away things at home (music, pictures, magazines, posters)

End relationships that are not healthy

Come up with a vision/plan for you life - aim for where you want to go (if you wander through life you will find yourself in a bad situation)

God’s Plan for Redemption

Back in the garden when these three spirits made their entrance on the scene - God took what was a bad situation and turned it into an opportunity for redemption.

Genesis 3:15 ESV

15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Gen

From the beginning His desire was to have an intimate relationship with His creation - that’s why He made us in His image

God’s Passion

GOD’S: From the beginning His desire was to have an intimate relationship with His creation - that’s why He made us in His image

He wasn’t going to let that be foiled because man went a little off course.

He made the decision that in order to beat false passion, He would have to display true & real passion - the sacrifice of something loved