MRLPJ

Where violence is concerned, I think both men and women want people to give it to them straight. As much fun as I have engaging in and teaching life-preservation techniques, lives are truly changed when people start to gain a better understanding of violence as it could be used as a tool against them, to either dominate or destroy them. Being able to discern between the two—1/Antisocial aggression (that is, dominating violence, which includes “dueling aggression”); and 2/Asocial violence (that is, predation violence)—is critical. Violence intended to destroy is usually asocial and hits you rather silently (like a bee sting or a snake bite) and, seemingly, out of the blue. All rapists (except, say, some date rapists and incest perpetrators) fit this category. Violence intended to dominate is usually antisocial and erosive, and is characterized often by a lot of posturing (like a silverback gorilla beating his chest, or a monkey shrieking and throwing his poop, or a bull rampaging in...

Friend… God loves you. He loves you not because you’re a well-behaved person but because He’s so prodigally extravagant and inexpressively good that He cannot help but love you. At the risk of sounding blasphemous (and I pray you see the spirit behind what I’m about to write), I believe God loves you so much, and I believe He’s driven so much by the desire to give Himself away to you, that, where you and His desires for you are concerned, He almost doesn’t quite know what to do with Himself. Have you ever felt that way about someone? Perhaps for your husband or wife? Or for a newborn child? That’s what God’s love for you stirs within His own Heart! You, my friend, are that dear to Him… that valuable to Him… that loved by Him. YOU move the Heart of God Almighty! Let me write that again (in case you missed it!):  YOU ... move the Heart of God Almighty—The Supreme Master of Forces and The Eternal Lord of War and God of Angel Armies! Sit with that thought for a moment... maybe ev...

  Self-knowledge (the primary form [ see Note below ]), a meditation… Note :   There are, essentially, two kinds of self-knowledge:   1/The Primary Form, which I discuss in this mediation.   And...   2/The Secondary Form, with has to do with how well a person understands his [or her ] unique (as a God-Imager) glory, gifts, calling, personality, life-skills, longings, etc. It’s been said that the highest form of human knowledge is self-knowledge.   I both agree with and disagree with that statement.   My disagreement lies, mostly, with the stopping of the argument at the general (and exquisitely broad) category of “self-knowledge.” T o begin, what is self-knowledge?  Is it knowledge?  Certainly.  Knowledge about oneself?  Most assuredly.  But it’s more— MUCH MORE !!—than just knowledge about oneself.  Self-knowledge is knowledge about oneself that’s truly “lived” and “experienced.”  In a word, self...

In many of the church circles in which I move these days, there’s much talk about God’s love (as there should be!) and the identity we now have in Christ (also, as there should be!).  Yes, of course (!!), we’re loved by God!  And, yes, of course (!!), we’re New Creations in Christ .  And I don’t want to gloss over those holy truths in ANY MANNER .  In fact, may Heaven and the entirety of God’s Kingdom forbid it! But (and I offer this with a bit of fear and trembling)… rarely do we talk about our sin and how its eradication from our lives is an important—if not central—component of God’s progressive conquest of grace in and through us.  By “conquest of grace,” I mean His on-going and progressive works of redemption and salvation, through [ see Note below ]: Note :  The below is not intended to be an exhaustively complete list of God’s work in our lives, for His works in and through us are infinite.  Additionally, while I list these as discrete works, th...