Motivation Quotation: “Sin strikes the soul with wounds. For all the time we are pursuing sin we are running after death. That is why I have told you that sin is devious and strikes mortal blows to your soul.” –Julian of Norwich

Mighty Motivation: If you could kick the person who has caused most of the pain and problems in your life, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for weeks. Why? Because most of our pain is self-inflicted by our own self-destructive thoughts and behaviors — by our sins.

Self-destructive thoughts and behaviors are devious, masquerading as pleasure and excitement. They entice us and lure us into the path of death and misery.

However, there is great hope because if we caused our pain, then we can fix it. We can turn away from our sin. We can get off the path of death and get on the path of life. The is called repentance. We can do an about face. We can turn away from our focus on self and put our focus on God.

The mortal blows to your soul can be healed. Hope is in your hands. Will you use it or lose it?

Do we as Americans have nothing better to get turned on about than celebrities and shopping? Oh yea, we have football. But are we not expressing our excitement over emptiness – making mania over meaninglessness?

What if we put the same amounts of energy and enthusiasm into powerful purposes? We could get passionate about helping those in the inner city.

Thousands could wait in line at 5:00 am to clean up a poor neighborhood. Parents could get their young daughters all worked up about an inner city child and take the passion and money they spent to make Disney and the Cyrus family even wealthier and use that time, money and enthusiasm to make an underprivileged child feel like a winner once a week.

We could take our passion and apply it to personal and emotional growth. We could get thrilled about overcoming our negative emotions and compulsions. We could get worked up about living better lives.

And we could get turned on to the meaning of Christmas — we could get enthusiastic about the Creator and what He did for us. We could devote ourselves to passionately following and obeying Jesus.

What’s worthy of human passion? What’s worthy of your personal passion?

“Drunk with hope, you will be intoxicated with love.” –Hildegard of Bingen

“Avoid evil with the keenest consideration and choose good.” –Hildegard of Bingen

Pick one (or both) of these quotations, write it down on an index card, and carry it around in your pocket or purse all day. Take it out and read it at least 10 times today and you will discover that you will will become quotatvated — motivated by a quote. All the best to you today!

It seems that shackin’ up’s not all it’s cracked up to be. A recent Associated Press article points out “the dark underbelly of cohabitation.”

The AP article states: “the risk of child abuse is markedly higher in the nontraditional family structures.” Then it quotes Brad Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociologist, as saying: “This is the dark underbelly of cohabitation. Cohabitation has become quite common and most people think, ’What’s the harm?’ The harm is we’re increasing a pattern of relationships that’s not good for children.”

The article quotes several studies that indicate that living together outside of marriage increases the risk of child abuse, but that’s not surprising. Humans have known for thousands of years that for a man and a woman to live in marriage is much better than shakin’ up, not only for children; but also for the stability of society, and even for the mental and spiritual health of the man and the woman involved.

So why has cohatitation become so widely accepted in our time? Because we have been sold a series of lies that say that shackin’ up is a good thing, that everybody’s doing it, that disapproval is judging, and that there are no negative consequences from it.

Disguised as a defense of homosexual behavior, "The Tennessean" (the local Nashville newspaper) recently attacked the Bible. A staff writer, Bill Friskics-Warren, unleashed an attack against those who believe and take seriously what the Bible says against homosexual behavior.

For Friskics-Warren, evidently a new pro-homosexuality movie is a greater authority than the book that is a huge part of the foundation of Western Civilization. He bases much of his attack against the Bible on the pro-homosexuality documentary sarcastically called "For The Bible Tells Me So" that denounces much of what the Bible says.

Friskics-Warren shows a prejudice against the Bible when he calls the Biblical passages against homosexual behavior “clobber passages.” He also leaves off the the most important phrase in one of the passages that he tries to discount.

He quotes: “Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” But he leaves off the very important remainder of the thought: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

According to the Bible, people can become exdrunkards, extheives, exfornicators, and exhomosexuals. People who practice homosexual behavior, like people who practice any of those other sinful behaviors, can be set free through repentance and surrender to the supernatural power and presence of Jesus Christ. No one has to settle for and attempt to justify their passive slavery to their inner compulsions and cravings.