Continued from last week
Most people simply drift along in life following whatever impulses and ideas (“imaginations”) strike them from moment to moment. All of Ephesians 1 is Paul’s accounting to those brethren of their calling into God’s way of life. Take time to read it, possibly using the Moffatt translation of the Bible. The Ephesians had come out of the course of this world and were no longer “by nature” the children of wrath and were no longer yielding to the “prince of the power of the air.” They had begun to “dis-acquire” human nature by yielding to God instead of the impulses, pulls and temptations of Satan’s wavelength.
With the understanding of Satan the devil, society and self, one must realize the great danger we all face. Step back and recognize the pulls that have affected you throughout your life.
Realize that you live in a world completely devoid of the right way and therefore unable to produce happy, successful marriages. Realize that you have absorbed many ideals—and perspectives—of the world around you. These have conditioned you to assume the characteristics and values—the nature—of society. But, like the Corinthians, you can also dis-acquire the world’s values.
Combining Satan and society with human nature creates a dangerous, explosive situation, especially in regard to dating. For those with eyes to see, the world has proven that it does not know the correct way—God’s Way.
Are you now willing to examine the world’s wrong form of dating from God’s perspective?
LUST AND INFATUATION—THE WRONG FOUNDATION
Satan has counterfeited virtually all aspects of God’s Way. Think for a moment. Everyone understands the crime of forgery. A forger’s goal is to create a counterfeit that is indistinguishable from the original. For example, if one is going to make twenty-dollar bills, it would make no sense to produce forgeries that will not be accepted.
Consider. If you want to counterfeit Christianity, you would not offer Buddhism. You offer something that looks, feels and seems to be exactly like Christianity.
The Bible describes three forms of real—true—love. To confuse and trap the unsuspecting, the devil has produced counterfeits to these, which, among other things, form a faulty foundation for dating today.
Let’s now closely examine one of the biggest counterfeits produced by the greatest “forger” of all time.
True Love?
Various definitions and misconceptions about love abound. Some feel that it is devotion, others feel that it is sexual passion, and still others feel that it is affection. Then there are those who feel that it is adoration, or respect, or caring, or admiration or even warm feelings. Still others see it in poetic terms—or as a mystery that cannot be explained.
So then, what is love?
By looking at so many bad marriage results—separation, divorce, and the endless cycle of cohabitation for those who at one point thought they were “in love”—it is evident that the world simply does not understand true love. The problem is that so many initially felt that a relationship was right, when it was not. So many thought that they were in love, only to find out that their feelings were little more than “easy come, easy go.”
Society often bases its values on the opinions of the least-qualified voices—those of the entertainment industry. One such “voice,” Madonna, a famous pop icon, said, “The most important thing is to have love…that happens with a marriage, without a marriage, with a single parent, whatever.” What does this statement really say—other than give license for people to define love any way they wish?
