Laughing at the Bad joke/story

You know what I’m talking about… you’ve been there… you’ve laughed. You’re sitting in you chair minding your own business when some people near you start telling the story about their adventures the night before. You pretend not to listen, but you can’t help it. The story gets raunchier, the jokes get dirtier, and a smile sneaks onto your face. You quickly wipe it off, but the stories continue and the inappropriate giggles are still coming out. It’s not really funny. In fact, it’s usually disgusting, but everyone’s laughing and you aren’t harming anyone… maybe.

What does is mean for everything to be legal?

Something that often comes up, and that I don’t fully understand is Paul’s statement in I Corinthians that “all things are lawful.” He immediately follows this up saying that we shouldn’t do anything immoral. However, I still wonder what exactly does this mean in the scope of sin? I was reading I Corinthians in my morning devotions, and I had to dig deeper. Sure, I know what the Sunday school answer is. Still, I wanted more. After reading it several times it seemed to me that Paul was actually trying to impress on the Corinthians how bad sin was. Before they could break the law, and then offer a sacrifice and it would be all better. Paul first separates these ideologies by saying the law has nothing to do with it. He then impresses on them the importance of keep their bodies temples of the Holy Spirit. He seems to be trying to bring them back to the higher standard the Jesus tried so hard to get in their brains. What does this me to me? I think it reminds me how much God forgives, while at the same time trying to make me focus on WANTING to do the right thing rather than HAVING to do it.

Porn

Porn… there I said it. Porn, porn, porn, porn… it’s everywhere. It’s out of the closet. Christians finally are willing to talk about it. They have books everywhere, and advice galore. There’s only one problem… it doesn’t go away. Why do I look at it? I don’t know. It’s an easy question to ask… it’s easy to say, “don’t do it.” It’s easy to say, “I won’t do it,” but in the end I end up in the “bunny” section of Frye’s discreetly looking for a not so discreet title.

Yes, I’m disgusted with myself, but that doesn’t solve the problem either. It gets to the point that you don’t want to even ask God to forgive you anymore, because you feel bad for always coming back with the same sin. God has to be going, “GET IT TOGETHER ALREADY.” I have a detailed system to keep me away from it. I’ve thought through exactly how to make sure it the hardest possible thing for me to do. I seriously can’t think of a single way I could make it more difficult on myself to get porn… but somehow, someway I do it anyway. I’m so close to saying, “I’m sick of failing. I’ll just give in and accept it.” But I don’t want to accept it. I might fall many more times than 70 times 7, but no matter how many it is, I’m determined to rise up that number plus one.