Love Out Loud: A Series on Sexuality & Intimacy

Whether you’re in a sexually active relationship or not, the reality is that we’re all sexual beings. God designed our bodies to make sexuality possible, pleasurable, and compelling, so this is something that applies to all of us, regardless of our position in life. Sexuality is both compelling and complicated. It is compelling in that it often pushes us outside of ourselves into the fearful but wonderful world of relationships. Other times, that same compelling power can really, really, really complicate relationships that otherwise should have been pretty straight forward. Captured within our sexuality is the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved — the stuff of the heart of intimacy. In it’s ideal, our sexuality contains the urge to create and to learn, to lead and be led, to rest in the safety of unswerving commitment towards one another and to communicate how significant the other is to me. At the same time, contained within sexuality is the urge to explore and to play, to be soft and tender, and yes, to sometimes be a little daring or even be playfully mischievous. In its idyllic expression, within sexuality we find passion, purpose and power, playfulness and pleasure. The stuff of life. The stuff of intimacy. A glorious echo of our relationship to God and the mysterious union we all share as the bride of Christ. It turns out that in many respects, sexuality and spirituality are in fact two sides of the same coin.

Love Out Loud: A Series on Sexuality & Intimacy

And when God decided to confront the problem of our sin face to face, adding rules, it turns out, was never God’s intended solution. Resurrection was. Getting better. Being better. Doing better. Finding better. Looking better. was never God’s demand for us to conquer the power of sin. A new chance. A new start. A fresh beginning. A new life. Resurrection has always been God’s answer to free us from the crushing power of deadly sins.

Lent: The Vector of Vices + Virtues

Our vice for the day - envy - is uniquely dangerous, because it targets our

core. Envy targets our center, our identity, our stability, the core of who

we are, the foundation that holds up everything else. The writer of

Proverbs put it this way: “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but

envy rots the bones.” (Prov. 14:30 NIV)

Lent: The Vector of Vices + Virtues

Neque est uiloentius ullum terrarum Vitium, of all the vices there is none more frightening, Prudentius writes, for Greed warps the lives of men into such calamities that they ultimately can only escape when they are thrown into Hell's fire. Hear how we can be free from Greed from this message on John 11 and 12.

Lent: The Vector of Vices + Virtues

The Vectors of Vices & Virtues