Always Reforming

Few emotions are worse than hatred.  Few things divest a person of his dignity and sense of purpose like knowing that someone hates him.  This is particularly true when those who hate him are those who are closest to him, especially his family.  Nevertheless, there are a few things worse than hatred, and one of them is being despised.  In modern usage  despise  is often used synonymously with hatred, but, historically speaking, it had a much different meaning.  To despise a person once referred to looking down upon a person or viewing him as worthless.  For many of us, being hated, as degrading and hurtful as that might be, would still be preferable to being despised.  You can still be respected, even if you're hated.  Once you're despised, however, you've lost all respect.  Being respected is a fundamental desire of all mankind, a desire we seek to fulfill through two (at least) different means.  The first is personal self-a...

It seems to me, and the statistics confirm my feelings, that marriage is in disarray these days. Psychologists, counselors, and pastors could list a myriad of reasons (money, sex, etc.) for the current instability of the marriage bond, but the more I observe broken marriages around me, the more I conclude that there is essentially one reason: we don't really believe in commitment anymore.  We think we do, but we don't because we don't really understand what commitment is.  You see, people used to commit to something and see it through, despite their feelings.  Now we list our feelings as a valid reason for breaking our word.  If you can break your commitments because you feel like it, then you haven't really committed.  That, after all, is the very purpose and intent behind commitment.  We commit because we know we aren't always going to feel like following through.  Our commitment is a means of holding ourselves responsible to follow through even whe...

Remember when people used to stay together for the kids?  Yeah, no one does that anymore. Marriages continue to fall apart as often as they stay together.  Commitment seems to be an issue especially for Millennials.  While the divorce rate is actually down for that age group, that's probably because they are waiting longer to get married or are simply not getting married at all.  You don't need scientific studies to realize that there's an issue with marriages these days.  We've probably all seen it: a couple gets married and everything seems great, but, before the couple celebrates their fifth anniversary (or even their first), one spouse tells the other that marriage just isn't for them.  It's depressing to see how many of my friends/acquaintances have gotten married and then separated very soon afterwards.  Sometimes it's the husband.  Sometimes it's the wife.  Sometimes it's mutual. Let me begin by saying that I have personally known ...

I.                   Introduction a.      Chapter 3                                                              i.       In Chapter 3, Paul has been describing for us a heavenly-minded lifestyle.                                                           ii.    ...