The four pillars: Internet

The last entertainment pillar, and perhaps one of the main means of communication, is the Internet. You may begin to think “yes, you’re right. Everything from movies and TV end up on the Internet”. I’m not even going to talk about that. But a little note: it’s not a surprise that full movies and TV series are available online, with their sexual scenes. No, today we’ll be talking about a bigger evil: pornography.

I’m not talking about implicit nude scenes from other places. About that, we have the other posts about other pillars. I’m talking about full explicit nude and sex scenes. Here’s som statistics for you t understand how serious this is: since the beginning of 2015 (only two months) over 360 MILLION people have searched for porn contents; 56 % of USA divorces are caused by porn addiction; almost half of the youth population thinks that pornography is a healthy way to express their sexuality. Click HERE to see more stats about this.

I know, they’re just numbers. But here’s something that makes me feel uneasy: while I was writing this post, the counting never stopped going up. And that’s sad not only because they’re putting lots of money in the pockets of this industry, which is rotten to the core, but also because they’re harming themselves while doing it. Porn is something that has been considered, from a biological point of view, as addicting as nicotine. And, although it does not cause lung cancer, porn causes other type of consequences. In a world where porn is becoming something normal, and also profitable, it’s not hard to imagine that love is becoming more and more an idea from the past, ending up being substitued by cheap sex.

It’s up to us to stop this madness. How? As for the newer generations, we have to be really frontal and just talk to them about what’s happening out in the world. We should talk with them about what’s porn and what are its emotional and spiritual consequences. As for the ones that have already walked this path for some time, and think they’re too old, there is a way. Porn, as any addiction, seems like a dead end. But, as any dead end, there is one way we can take: turning back and follow the path from where we came. We’re still in time to go back, ask for forgiveness, fight this addiction and reach a new brighter future that we never thought we could have.

When we take down for real this four pillars, we’ll be able to rebuild something that should’ve never been taken down: the true meaning of Love, as stated in the Bible!

Super love – cont.

We spent this month talking about love and its enourmous power, but right now it’s time to let it work. As we have seen, our heart is not always in the best of shapes, it’s something fragile. After all, we have a flesh and blood  heart, and not one made of stone. But, sometimes, we become our own problem, we are the ones that won’t let the power of love free to act and to completely heal us. We are the ones that keep our wounds open and fresh enough to remain painful. We live in the past, reliving all that we have heard and all that we let to be said.

But why are we so clingy to the things that hurt us? Well, we are complex beings, that’s a fact. We simulate the scenario a thousand times in our heads and we imagine that everything could’ve been different IF… and that’s where the millions of “What if…?” appear. It seems that the world around us is against us and everything we hear or see is against us. But is it really like that, or are we looking for excuses to keep the wound open?

We are not saying that moving forward is easy. But it is the right thing to do. We have to give up on the past to be renewed by this amazing love, one that is capable of healing every wound. How about we stop fighting and we start moving on, once and for all? Who knows what’s ahead…?

“Brothers, it is clear to me that I have not come to that knowledge; but one thing I do, letting go those things which are past, and stretching out to the things which are before,” – Philippians 3:13

The four pillars: Television

Cinema’s little sibling, television has established in our society as one of the biggest pillars in entertainment, if not the biggest one. Like cinema has been implementing love as sex, television has been consolidating this perspective and using its programs.

Programs such as soap operas or series have a great power to share these messages in a much efficient way. This happens because the majority of series and soap operas has two main characteristics:

1. “Real” characters – Although some series picture fiction, there’s always a sympathy and identification factor that strike us when we watch television. We see a character with a personality, problems or life experiences close to ours and it’s sufficient for us to put ourselves in the same shoes as him or her. Thanks to that, in what concerns love relationships being characterized as sex, we are led to believe that the real world, the one where we live, works like that. If we let this happen, we are losing the big picture about the great potential love has for our lives.
2. Drug behavior – Come on… we all have been through this: seeing a whole season of our favorite series in a day, or watch our soap opera until the midnight. There’s no point in denying that this has happened to us. This type of programs is just a plain drug. It makes us want the next fix, review old seasons, read books about the series, and other things.  However, this characteristic is of great importance to make us think that love equals sex. We have seen this happen so many times what we end up living what the series shows to be the truth.

If we let television say what is to be real, and not the opposite, well be making a mistake. The truth is that love relationships do not work like what we see in television, or at least they didn’t before we started beliving they do.

Only one pillar left!

The four pillars: Cinema

In honor of the Academy Awards, I chose to talk about this pillar today. There’s nothing wrong with cinema by itself. I love movies! What I don’t love are the not that healthy messages or the trivialization of a love relationship. It’s hard to watch a movie and to think that the truth is nothing like that.

When we think movies, we can divide them in two categories: fiction and non-fiction. However, in either of the categories, we end up using human thinking, seeing humanity and human beings. There’s no way to go around this in any of the categories. Eve in different dimensions or with aliens, we are projecting humanity and our reasoning about human behavior to those characters.

With all this, I’d like to talk about this real quick: think back on all the movies you’ve seen recently (asking about your whole life might seem too hard) and think about the love relationships that you saw. What kind of relationship did they have? Dating? Engaged? A well-tought marriage? Or maybe sex on the very first night they met? Maybe a wedding after one month, in Las Vegas? You get where I’m going with this, right?

Hundreds of movies characterize this type of physical relationship, without commitment, or objective. Any love, and The Love (with capital L), has an objective, whether it is to take care of someone that we will love forever more, or to create a joint life with such person, or even save us all from our sins. Whatever the objective, the fact is: there is one! However, the majority of movies seem to show that the objective of a love relationship is limited to a night well spent in bed with your lover. This tendency has been building up this idea, which we see in our society more and more, that a healthy and normal relationship is equal to, or built around, sex, hot nights and a quick marriage.

Don’t you let these people lie to your face. Two more pillars to go…

The four pillars: Music

The first pillar that I want to destroy is music. We all have heard several songs (and music videos) on the radio, Spotify or Youtube. If we compare songs from other ages, we see some differences about the sex theme. We want to warn you right now: we have nothing against music and we won’t talk about extreme musicians that in the past used music and sex for their work. We wanted to talk about nowadays, because the previous decades were not the same as today.

Even in the 80’s rock, we can see some sex on concerts and on the clothes that they used on stage. However, we must see everything on context. This tendency of being naked in music videos and on shows, with sexual scenes shared across the world, is quite recent. During the history of music, we see several composers talking and objectifying women and their bodies. But I think it was never as massive as today.

Nowadays, we have several names of pop music that, to get the audience’s attention, use (or rather, don’t use) tight clothes,, showing most of their bodies to everyone. We have to talk about the current set of songs about butts, sex and, sometimes, talking good things about betrayal. We can, for sure, recognize such themes and even quote some lyrics. Besides that, this type of songs seem to be the most profitable. We just need one person to get together four chords, some ryhmes about butts and whatever, appear naked to his or her video and BAM: we have ourselves a success.

What does this means? Ever since we’re kids we listen to music and, if these themes seem to be “normal” and the behaviors conveyed in them also seem “normal”, then, in the future, we’ll live in a world where this type of behavior will became banal. So will the importante of a long, pure and stable relationship. The love that they’ll talk about and search for won’t go beyond body and sex.

Next time we go looking for the most recent songs, think about what kind of idea are you defending while listening to it. Do we want music, a means for artist to pour our their hearts, to become just one more way to sexualize the world? We are the ones that control the world of music. If we show them, in mass, that we don’t like these themes, maybe we could destroy this pillar.

However, we have 3 left..

Super love!

We can’t go through this month without talking about the power of love (not the song…)! Love has a huge potential and it can change a motivate us for greater conquests. In it we find strength and hope, but also comfort. Love provides the most sweetest moments of joy, and shared dreams. Wow, love is really amazing! But, if love is all this, why do we suffer with it?

We all heard the expression “broken heart” and we also have lived it, either in a friendship where we got hurt, a boyfriend or girlfrind that hurt us or even among family, in some sort of fight. However love wasn’t at fault, but the person that didn’t love correctly was. I know that we are not perfect and many times we make mistakes. We won’t always love properly. We can disappoint the people who trust us, but that can’t be an excuse to not give them our all!

How about we stop looking at love as the guilty one but as a cure? Love has to be seen as a solution capable of regenerating even the most deepest wounds. Let’s value love, see it as it is, because it is something perect: a true gift. And the best way to love is looking and learning from the One that loved us without flaws, because He Himself is Love.

“He makes the broken-hearted well, and puts oil on their wounds. ” – Psalms147:3

The four pillars: Introduction

While some of us are talking about love, what really matters, I think it’s important to look outside and see: where does this idea of sex being sufficient  for love and for dating. There’s no doubt that it was human’s creation. In the four articles on this subject, I’ll show you the four pillars of entertainment in our society that, year after year, have been planting this idea.

That’s right, i’m talking about planting an idea almost Inception style! Little by little, we let this idea out there, getting stronger and stronger, until everyone was believing in it. Actually, some of us might even think that some situations are less extreme and more ‘acceptable’. I guarantee it: they are not.

Finally, just to let you guys more interested in this matter, I have some numbers to show you. More than half of the teens in the world who are seventeen years old have been in a sexual relationship. Per year, in Europe, over 48 million people get STDs (sexually trasmitted diseases). Nine out of ten Internet users have searched for pornography. And (according to the stats) half of the christian males and one quarter of the christian females are assumed pornography addicts.

This sex tendency is everywhere, even inside our churches. But fear not, in each article I’ll look into some solutions abotu this. All we need to do is go fight!

The big outbreak

Alert, there’s a contagious disease around! Truly, love appears to be just like one. It’s something that disrupts our balance and reveals several symptoms. It begins with a pinch in our hears, followed by slow breathing, shivers through the body, nauseas or, as the romantic folks call it, ‘the butterflies’. We can also experience brief moments of stupidity and the silly smile that we can’t stop showing. Everything in us changes and what appears to be disposable, becomes necessary. When we meet that special someone who completes us, we don’t want to return being to halves. That’s where the sighs and the dreams and the thoughts night an day appear.

But that’s not all. Love is also contagious! When we see a couple holding hands it’s impossible, specially if we’re girls to not think “Ohhh that’s so cute!”. These behaviors reach its peak at this season, where teddy bears and flowers are decorating every shop. And all of a sudden there comes the feeling that we have to have something similar to that, to create new moments.

But, although we have symptoms and we can catch this flow, I think love can’t be considered a disease. Love is something that does no harm and that by itself is good, and not something that ruins us. All of the symptoms above are a result of our experience with love, and how we choose to react to it. That’s what ruins us. Not everyone reacts the same way: some embrace the changes, others fight the feeling and others just go too far. If we want to still compare it to a disease, it would be one that protects us from worse diseases, like selfishness, greed and envy, and that help our welfare.

“I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my Beloved, what do you tell Him? That I am sick with love.” – Song of Solomon 5:8 (MKJV version)

Fifty Shades of Grace – part 2

That short story makes you think, right? Here’s something even more amazing: this is a true story. This man really existed and the love that he believed in and felt is as real as you, the person reading this text.

In case you don’t know, this is the story of Paul, the biggest church persecutor after Jesus died and, after having that meeting, one of the main figures of the church at that time. He travelled several times to distant places and was, truly, arrestes, whipped and severely punished for many time.

Let’s leave Paul for another time… what about the love he had received? Where is it? Well, it’s at your reach. It’s as marvelous as at that time. It’s just waiting for you, as it waited for Paul until he understood he needed it.

This is just one of the many stories about love.

Fifty Shades of Grace – part 1

To start the week, I’d like to tell you an incredible love story.

There once was a man who was deeply loved by someonte. However, this guy didn’t care about this love, and punished everyone who was talking about it. One day, the one who loved this man decided that it was time for him to stop running. So, this person appeared in a clear way to that man, and the man was marvelled.

What happened afterwars was a life change. This man accepted this great love and he couldn’t stop himself from talking about how he felt and about how much his life had changed. He stopped resenting, he helped people, he travelled a lot… a great living. Meanwhile, other kind of people weren’t enjoying this change, and they sent this man to prision several times. The man didn’t resist, because that great love had changed even how he behaved.

Enraged by this peaceful attitude, these powerful men didn’t like that man’s love at all. They whipped that man and his life on prision continued for a long, long time. The scars on his back, face and body accumulated over years. I’m certain that his skin color changed from the one that we are used to see to a more shady, bloody or purple tone. But his attitude didn’t change. An attitude out of love.

You may wonder where was the one who loved this man when all of this happened. The answer: right beside him. This person never left him in each day, whipping and punishment. Because of this, that man never stopped being happy. The love that he was given was bigger and greater than any wound anyone could give him..

The end.

Why should I do my best?

I'm known as a nerd. Everyone says that I study too much, and that I cling to books too much. It's not that bad, but it's almost true. I have the habit of putting all of me in everything I do and this applies to studying too. Being the best of the class has always been my ambition and no, not because I want to be better than others, but because this is what God asks of us. In Ecclesiastes 9:10 we read: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might(...)" and in Colossians 3:23 says: "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;" These verses complement each other perfectly. God not only asks us to study but He asks us to do it with all our efforts as if we were doing it to Him. In this way we will achieve good results and creates the opportunity to show our friends that God blesses us when we give our best!

 

Proverbs 3:13

ENJUV 2014 Photos

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August 2014 Photos

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