This morning we went to a little log cabin style coffee shop.... like the one I wanted to open and one day might :D.
While we were at this coffee shop, we continued to read sex god. Such a good book!!
I feel so bad for a few of my friends back at home right now that are going through a tough time. I wish I was there to hug them :( BUT i know that with God everything is good!
SIDE NOTE! I am getting a photo from home blown up!! super cheapp!!! ahhh yayy!! :)
I just want to put in a few things that I like/learned/wanna remember from Sex God.
If your curious about the book that I LOVE feel free to read! Its basically all quotes and I wanted a copy on here incase I lost mine or needed to refer to something quickly or somethin like that. There is seven full pages worth however so I do not expect you guys to read it :P But wow. It is GOODD maybe you should just go buy the book? Yes, I think so. :D
Okay, can’t believe I am writing a document on this but I just think this is sooo cool. I am in love with this book so I am putting it in a note. These are important things that I find interesting.
This is pretty much just all quoted but not put in quotations J Basically food for thought!
1.) Humanity
· Everyone everywhere are the "bearers" of the divine image. A divine spark resides in every single human being. EVERYONE.
· What happens when a woman becomes a "that"? She becomes an object. When people are treated as objects, something hellish happens. Hell is a void of any love or peace or beauty or meaning. God is absent here.
· We need to live with ”New Humanity". See people as God sees them.
· How you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the creator.
· In every action, decision, conversation, gesture, comment, and attitude, we're inviting heaven or hell.
· When you see everyone as HUMAN (not object), you see everyone with love.
2.) Sexuality
· Coolest definition of sexy: -"Sexy is when it feels good to be in your own skin. Your own body feels right. It feels comfortable. Sexy is when you love being you."
3.) ANGELS AND ANIMALS (actual title of the chapter.)
· Ever heard of What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Thats the week that you let yourself go. You lose yourself and give in to whatever cravings or desires or urges you have. Whatever happens in _____ stays in ________. When people return from this week, you hear "What have I done? I can't believe I.... We totally lost our minds! It was soooo out of control... The next morning I couldn't....
· Ever seen a magazine that says "Keeping yourself pure for marriage"? This topic is constantly criticized and is viewed as unrealistic in today’s world. It seems more normal to just "do it" outside of marriage then it is to not. ....
At the beginning of this chapter he talks about a time he went to Africa. They had an encounter with lions while being there. A male and a female. The female lion would periodically get up and walk back and forth in front of the male lion as it was mating season. The female continued to do this to get the male read for their “encounter”. He then goes on and says that you cant help but notice how strong the biological need is. They are going to mate because it is in their blood, DNA, and environment. They aren’t lying out in the fields thinking, I just really want to know that you love me for more than my body. They aren’t discussing how to make a difference in the world. They aren’t saying: “I just don’t feel you’re as committed to this relation ship as I am.” Its pure instinct.
· Its crazy when you think about that and then refer to humans encountering a scene like “Vegas”. . . or “10 NEW SEX POSITIONS” on the latest cover of cosmo … Humans everywhere are acting just like animals. Are we just the sum of our urges?
TONS MORE IN THE CHAPTER. READ IT.
4.) GOOD CHAPTER TOO
· “Lust can drive us to do frightening things. It can own us, it can take up massive amounts of head space, and it can make us miserable. AND once in a while, lust may even have something to do with sex.
Just once in awhile? Isn’t lust sexual?? … continue on
Rob Bell brings up the Garden of Eden when he explains this. He explains that God created all kinds of trees. They were good for food and very nice looking also. God made them for the enjoyment of them. God says that it is good. For something to be good however, it has to be a person’s choice. The reason that the tree was there was so that people were actually given a choice. A way that people could live that was apart from God’s view of things. If the tree wasn’t there, God would have been forcing people to be good and forcing people to be good, isn’t good. When Eve had the fruit, she saw it, noticed it, appreciated it, took it, and ate it. Her sight, touch, smell, and taste senses were all involved. Our senses are incredibly strong.
EXAMPLE:
Smoking isn’t just about the nicotine. It’s about opening a new pack, the feel of the paper, the smell of a cigarette.
Shopping isn’t just about new clothes. It’s about the tags and the fabric and the sound of the hanger sliding on the rack.
WE ARE SENSORY CREATURES
When Adam and Eve gave into the temptation, they essentially claimed that God wasn’t good. When they took the fruit with the promises from Satan, they gave into the deception that it is possible that apart from God, there can be good. Lust promises what it can’t deliver. When they took the fruit they were saying that creation was not good enough for them. Lust comes from a deep lack of satisfaction with life. Lust starts with a thought somewhere in our head or heart. “If I had that/him/her/it, then I’d be ______. Rob Bell explains that “if” is just such a terrible word and way of thinking. We as humans, always revolve around “if”. EXAMPLE: if I just… It’s a way of thinking that makes us think we are lacking and missing something. He explains how the word lust in the greek language is actually two words. These two words mean “In the mind”. Lust can take a hold of us. It is like slavery. Lusting leads to being fixated on something, which leads to addictions.
EXAMPLE: An alcoholic may have once enjoyed the taste but now he is using drinking to numb and escape and avoid. The last thing he is now thinking is about the quality or brew of the alcohol.
The loss of sensitivity and enjoyment leads to things owning us. It leaves us always wanting more.
It leaves us satisfied momentarily.
Lust leads to despair.
Despair leads to anger.
Rob Bell ends with a very good point.
“Life is not about toning down and repressing your God-given life force. It’s about channeling it and focusing it and turning it loose on something beautiful. Something pure. Something pure and true and good, something that connects you with God, with others, with the word. What do you want more?
How can you make your life about that so that you wont be tempted to give in to this?
CLEARLY THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHAPTER HENSE THE LOOONNNNGGGGNESS J
5.) RISKY
· Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don’t want it. That’s why it’s such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn’t wanted.
· Love is giving away power. When we love, we give the other person the power in the relationship. They can do what they chose. They can reject it, or accept it.
· Love is giving up control. It’s surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two- love and controlling power over the other person- are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.
When it comes to love, it’s a crazy thing when you think about God’s love.
Jesus was born in a stable amid dung and straw. He was placed in a feeding trough. His brothers and sisters thought he was out of his mind. After his first sermon in his hometown, the people he grew up with formed a mob and tried to kill him. Jesus identifies with the outcasts, the people of the land who aren’t good enough, clean enough, or wealthy enough. He touches people with infectious diseases, lays hands on dead bodies, engages in conversation with promiscuous women.
Jesus’ entire life was about the stripping away of power and control. He always chose the path of love, not power.
Throughout Jesus’ life, he was in more and more conflict with religious and political leaders of his day. He threatens power. When he was arrested he was asked to perform miracles. He didn’t because that wasn’t the type of path he was on.
Its crazy when you really stop and think about it. Jesus was put on the cross. Completely naked. Bleeding. Vunerable. Jesus says “My God, my God, why have you forsake me?” Jesus did not even consider himself equal with God. By putting himself on the cross, he had to make himself nothing.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
In matters of love, it’s as if God has agreed to play by the same rules we do. God can do anything- that’s what makes God, God. But God can’t do everything. God can’t make us love him—that’s our choice.
Love is risky for God too.
6.) Submit.
· Submit: To place yourself under, give allegiance to, to tend to the needs of, to be responsive to.
Rob Bell talks about a time that he went to ground zero. He said that the most moving part however, was a couple blocks past ground zero. The place that had the memorials of the firefighters that lost their lives trying to save others. This is more emotional then ground zero itself because people are proved to be worth dying for. When someone actually does it however, it is overwhelming.
In Ephesians there is a passage that says “Wives, to your husbands as to the Lord.” Notice that the word “submit” is not in the verse? The verse before says that people are supposed to love and serve others around them, placing their needs ahead of their own, out of respect and reverence for Jesus, who gave his life for us. The ultimate act of love and sacrifice is to die to ourselves so that others can live. A wife is not commanded to do anything different from what everybody else is. She is supposed to place other needs ahead of her own especially in her most significant relationship—the one with her husband. The next verse says: “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” AKA the husband is supposed to be like Christ. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
Christ’s “headship” comes from his giving himself up for the church. His sacrifice. His surrender. His willingness to give himself away for her. His death.
The husband is commanded to lay down his life for his wife, the wife is commanded to submit to her husband, but they are both commanded to submit to each other because everyone is commanded to submit to everyone else, and all of this is out of “reverence for Christ”.
AGAPE:
Agape is commonly used in the context of God’s love for his people.
The man is to love the woman, to agape her, like God agapes the world.
Agape is a particular kind of love. Love is often seen as a need, something we get form others. Agape is the opposite. Agape gives.
Agape doesn’t love somebody because they are worthy; agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love.
Agape doesn’t love somebody because they are beautiful; agape love in such a way that it makes them beautiful.
Agape doesn’t need a reason to love.
7.) CHUPPAH
· A chuppah is an ancient marriage tradition with roots in the book of Exodus, when the Hebrew people were in slavery in Egypt. Exodus begins with the God of compassion, the God of justice, hearing the cry of the slaves in Egypt and setting out to so something about it. God sends a man named Moses to rescue them. Its through Moses God makes four promises to the slaves.
o 1.) I will take you out.
o 2.) I will rescue you.
o 3.) I will redeem you.
o 4.) I will take you to me.
The promises are so significant. It’s the promises a Jewish groom makes to a Jewish bride. In a Jewish wedding, a Ketubah must be signed. It’s an agreement and legal document that gets signed by both parties. The Ten Commandments are God’s ketubah. Its an agreement between the people and God. The God who travels with his people in a cloud of smoke and fire. The God who is with his people. The God of the Shekinah. To represent this coming together, the Jews fasten four corners of a prayer shawl to four poles. The wedding vows happen under this canopy, the chuppah. It is symbolic of God hovering over his people of Israel. He does the same with a married couple blessing them in their union.
(This part I would find embarrassing but hey, whatever works for ya!)
In the ancient world, after the ceremony was over, the couple was still not officially married. The one thing that made them married was their physical union. The wedding party would lead them to their bridal chamber and attach the chuppah about their bed, leave them, and then the couple would consummate their relationship.
With all the guests waiting outside.
Then the couple would come out and the celebration began. Now that they have had sex, they’re married.
In the ancient world, if you have had sex, you are married.
Marriage is saying: “Out of six billion people on the planet, I chose you. And no one else. No one else gets this. No one else get me in this specific, holy, sacred, emotional, spiritual, physical way.
That is one reason that wedding ceremonies stir us like they do. The bride comes down the aisle and gives herself to this man and no one else. They have something with each other that they have with no one else.
We have to be careful what we share. When you give it away, you no longer have it.
We live in a world that constantly tries to pull sex out from under the chuppah. A culture that shows it, films it, examines it, comments on it, analyzes it, and then wonders why everyone has lost interest.
8.) Johnny and June
This chapter starts out by referring to Johnny Cash and his wife June. Rob Bell got a Johnny Cash box set and in it there was a book. He read about the marriage that Johnny and June had. People had described their marriage as just an amazing sight. Everyday they grew more and more in love. The love they had spilled over and couldn’t be contained by just the two of them. It affected those around them it inspired those around them. Rob Bell then digs in deeper and refers back to the Garden of Eden.
When God created the earth and man, the only thing that he called “Not Good” was the man’s being alone. No animal or thing was adequate to be Adams partner. God said that he would make a helper for Adam. When referring to Eve, Adam says: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Bones is a way of talking about strength and flesh is a way about talking of weakness. What Adams means in this phrase is that “Where I am weak, she is strong and where she is weak, I am strong”.
They are better off together than apart.
They both leave their parents and a new family forms.
When they bond together, their first loyalty is now to each other. Not to their previous family.
When you get married you become one.
Rob Bell then talks about how the Hebrew language is much smaller then the English language. English has around 1 and 2 hundred thousand words while the Hebrew language only has 7 thousand. A single word in Hebrew can have tremendous depth and significance. When it is said that the man and woman will become “one flesh”, the word for one in Hebrew is the word echad. Echad is oneness made up of several parts or members. The man and woman are two people, to separate, independent beings but when the come together, they are one.
There is one God. Sex between a man and woman have something to do with God. Adam and Eve are one as God is one. SAME WORD. ECHAD.
Our world isn’t echad. It isn’t one. It is broken, shattered, fractured, with pieces lying all over the floor.
When our trust has been betrayed and those who were supposed to stand by us don’t, the naturally has consequences for how we think about God. It becomes hard to trust that God is good when our significant relationships simply aren’t that good. A marriage is designed to counter all of this. Not to add to the brokenness of the world but to add to the “oneness” of the world.
Marriage is something bigger than just the marriage itself. It’s two people showing in the flesh and blood what God is like. It is a Love that is unconditional with absolute acceptance.
Rob Bell points out: “It’s easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams…. That is being naked. That is why when people sleep together after they’ve just met, they are raising the chances significantly that the relationship will not survive. Racing ahead of the progression always costs something.
When there is no common mission, no shared task, no sense of bone of bone and flesh of flesh, no bonds that take years to develop, many end up moving from relationship to relationship, having sex but never really being naked.
9.) LAST ONE
In Revelation, John has a vision. It is not about people leaving the earth and going somewhere else, it is a vision of God coming here and taking up residence in our midst. He says that we do not need the sun or moon to shine because God’s glory will give it light. In this city, there will no longer be any curse. For many people, sex is a brief moment where everything is okay with the world even if it isn’t. It is an escape from the pain and suffering and brokenness of life. God announces “I am making everything new!” Isn’t that the longing of every embrace, every act of love, sex itself? When God comes and makes everything new, what happens when we are all complete on our own? If marriage is meant to show people what the oneness of God is like, what happens when everybody is one in the presence of God? If marriage is a picture of something else, what would happen to marriage if we found ourselves living in the midst of that something else?
Is sex in its greatest, purest, most joyful and honest expression a glimpse of forever? Are these brief moments of abandon and oneness and ecstasy just a couple of seconds or minutes of how things will be forever? Is sex a picture of heaven?
