“Man, that was awesome!” Ethan said. Joel laughed, “Yeah, my favorite part was when he finally got the girl in bed. Dude, she was hot! “Yeah, but I think I liked it better when the villain was killed. Did you see the way they made him convulse as he was knifed?”
The two friends were walking out of a movie and the general consensus between them was that it was “a really good movie.” Often today, the two things most applauded, especially in movies, are sex and violence. A few of the words that God uses in scripture to describe these two things are: sexual immorality, lust, impurity, anger, rage, malice, and slander.
We are told that one of the fruits of the spirit in the Bible is goodness. Many people think that to have goodness, one must simply be good. However, if you look at the Greek meaning of the word you would find that goodness means “innocence”. A good summation for someone who has lost their innocence is boredom, hyper-stimulation of the emotions, and lack of imagination. Nothing is interesting or fascinating anymore. Consider this Biblical definition of innocence: to not even consider the possibility of participating in evil. God wants us to walk in His wisdom, “ . . . I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil” (Romans 16:19). If you allow pettiness, hypersensitivity, criticism, or anger in your life, it will eat away at you until there is no room left for laughter, and no insight, imagination or passion left about life. Ask God to make you innocent again.
Of the 3 goals that I had for my children as they were growing up, guarding your innocence was the biggest challenge to teach them. They have the knowledge and tools to be good at:
1. Conflict Resolution
They all understand the:
2. Power of the tongue and the importance of floating their tongue in the river of life not death and to use their words for speaking blessings and not curses over their lives.
But guarding their innocence possessed much more of a challenge. I think loss of innocence can be compared to the frog in the boiling water. Gradually the heat on the stove is turned up until the happy frog swimming around in the warm water is cooked. This generation of young people does not know how to blush. They are so desensitized, innocence is something they can barely recognize. If you are going to operate in the fruit of the Spirit of goodness and innocence you are going to have to be intentional about it. One of the ways that I'm intentional about that is by owning a ClearPlay DVD player. It will edit sex, violence and language out of the movies. Check it out: http://www.clearplay.com/
Media is not the only challenge to guarding your innocence, but it's probably the biggest. Another issue is who you hang out with. Friends who are vulgar or constantly causing your mind to go to things that are not wholesome and innocent can also deter you from reaching your goals of guarding your innocence.
Pornography is another big issue that is destroying our young people by the millions everyday. If you don't have a filter on your teenagers computer you are a fool. The Bible says: "Lead me not into temptation." If you give your teenagers access to a computer and then do not provide any accountability for them, its like you are leading them directly into temptation. Deliver them from evil by letting them know that they will be held accountable for every computer sight they go to. We have used eBlaster http://www.spectorsoft.com/products/eBlaster_Windows/entry.asp?refer=12290 for years.
I will blog on the issue of pornography in the coming days. This is something that I have spoken on in youth before, and it is destroying so many homes and young people.
Cheering you on,
Naomi
Of the 3 goals that I had for my children as they were growing up, guarding your innocence was the biggest challenge to teach them. They have the knowledge and tools to be good at:
1. Conflict Resolution
They all understand the:
2. Power of the tongue and the importance of floating their tongue in the river of life not death and to use their words for speaking blessings and not curses over their lives.
But guarding their innocence possessed much more of a challenge. I think loss of innocence can be compared to the frog in the boiling water. Gradually the heat on the stove is turned up until the happy frog swimming around in the warm water is cooked. This generation of young people does not know how to blush. They are so desensitized, innocence is something they can barely recognize. If you are going to operate in the fruit of the Spirit of goodness and innocence you are going to have to be intentional about it. One of the ways that I'm intentional about that is by owning a ClearPlay DVD player. It will edit sex, violence and language out of the movies. Check it out: http://www.clearplay.com/
Media is not the only challenge to guarding your innocence, but it's probably the biggest. Another issue is who you hang out with. Friends who are vulgar or constantly causing your mind to go to things that are not wholesome and innocent can also deter you from reaching your goals of guarding your innocence.
Pornography is another big issue that is destroying our young people by the millions everyday. If you don't have a filter on your teenagers computer you are a fool. The Bible says: "Lead me not into temptation." If you give your teenagers access to a computer and then do not provide any accountability for them, its like you are leading them directly into temptation. Deliver them from evil by letting them know that they will be held accountable for every computer sight they go to. We have used eBlaster http://www.spectorsoft.com/products/eBlaster_Windows/entry.asp?refer=12290 for years.
I will blog on the issue of pornography in the coming days. This is something that I have spoken on in youth before, and it is destroying so many homes and young people.
Cheering you on,
Naomi
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