to morality, consider these descriptions:
Morality is an openness to turn toward a higher good for ourselves and for other people, even for a few moments. It is a concern that no one gets hurt.
Morality is an attitude or action that is unburdened by guilt or shame.
Morality is rooted in such historic junctures as the Ten Commandments as set forth in the Bible’s Old Testament in chapter 20, verses 1-17 of the book of Exodus.
Morality does not obstruct your view heavenward.
Morality helps you look at your soul and attempt to be real about its condition. Morality then helps you take the first steps into a journey toward an optimal heart.
2.2
I have suffered from immorality.
I remember it vividly.
I remember times when my immorality, in any of its manifestations, small or large, de-optimized my personhood and when it hurt other people.
Daily, I am alarmed at immorality’s remnants. I work to eradicate them. The most effective antidote to immorality’s remnants seems to be a wholesome dose of morality, of godliness. Whenever the high value of living honorably comes to mind, Jesus’ statement, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” often nudges me toward additional antidotes in Scripture that the Holy Spirit has used to help derail my soul from immorality.
2.3
Morality and immorality may seem like nebulous concepts. Granted, they have dictionary definitions, but they seem most clearly defined in other ways:
-- through the attitudes and actions of each person on earth.
-- through mankind’s noble aspirations.
-- through divine revelation.
Difficulties arise with each of these:
-- While the morality of some individuals can have positive effects for a person, a community, and a nation, the immorality of other individuals can have sorrowful or tragic effects. Think, for instance, of Adolph Hitler’s immorality and the unthinkable toll it exacted on humanity during the 1930s and 1940s. Think of a pornographer’s immorality and the unthinkable toll it extracts on women and children who are raped and molested by men fueled by the pornography industry.
-- Mankind’s noble aspirations, often manifested in great works of philosophy, literature, music, and art, likewise can be broadly influential. Oftentimes, however, its appeal is fleeting, akin to the phrase “in one ear and out the other.” Or a person may forget the noble message amid the pressures of daily living or a nation may stray from it amid the inevitable cultural battle between morality and immorality.
-- Divine revelation, meanwhile, can yield a consistency of honorable intentions and actions because it is rooted in the concept of a supreme being or an otherworldly milieu beckoning a commitment of one’s soul to its core beliefs. Sadly, divine revelation also can be ignored, debated, misunderstood, or misapplied, sometimes with tragic consequences.
If you’re wary of a supreme being or an otherworldly milieu, you’re far from alone. If, however, you are drawn beyond the inner workings of the human brain, you are among those who, throughout recorded history, have found the pursuit of morality to be compelling and even glorious.
3. Multitude of meditations
Opportunities for meditation abound, no matter how severe a person’s affliction with immorality.
A person’s meditative experience may be fleeting, such as a few thoughts about a troublesome facet of his or her life, or it may be intense, spanning ten to fifteen minutes of inner assessment or turmoil to an hour or several hours, perhaps day after day.
A person who succumbs to pornography, for example, may meditate on past encounters with nameless faces, the yearning for more encounters, and, yet, an abiding sorrow that the pornography industry fuels the horrors of sex trafficking, of women and children enslaved, raped, and rendered hopeless, if not murdered, by evildoers in our country and throughout the world.
The use of pornography, however, does not prevent a person from also meditating on Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
3.1
A person who is inclined to use marijuana or other drugs as part of his or her “recreational” activities may meditate on past, present, or future escapades into this self-focused form of euphoria. Sadly, their meditation may not stretch toward ruthless drug cartels and gangs who murder and maim in order to amass illicit fortunes through the delivery and sale of drugs to distant users oblivious to the mayhem.
Sad, too, is the stunted meditation that drug use is relatively harmless, dismissive of research showing that medical harm from marijuana can be similar to cigarette smoking or research demonstrating the toll marijuana-impaired driving can take, akin to drunk driving, on innocent victims killed or injured by a drug user’s thoughtlessness.
Nevertheless, the use of drugs, like the use of pornography, does not rule out brief moments of meditation drawn from Jesus, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
3.2
A person who is greedy, who has no charity in his or her heart, may meditate on bank accounts, the stock market, anyone who might be used for financial gain, and anyone who poses a threat to his/her pursuit of wealth. The meditation may be as simple as the cash in one’s wallet or purse, potential discounts at a local retail outlet, or coupons to reduce the expense of goods and services.
Immorality is not solely a matter of loose sexuality or drug abuse.
All immorality flows from the common human struggle with self-centeredness and its consequent lack of concern for other people.
Morality, meanwhile, lifts us, if only in tiny increments, to meditate on what is best for our souls as well as the souls of others.
3.3
Other forms of immorality may include unfaithfulness to one’s spouse; seeking to ensnare another person into a sexual encounter against his or her will or better judgment, often leaving emotional scars on the person; experimenting with same-sex relationships and opening oneself to a lifestyle at variance with Scripture. Apart from sexuality, immorality can manifest itself as racial bigotry; unforgiveness, revenge, and unbridled anger; vulgar speech; slander and gossip; and overeating or other behaviors that abuse the body, which is described in Scripture as created in God’s image.
You may feel that your manner of immorality is “just the way it is.” You may be happy in it, or somewhat happy, or terribly burdened. You may wonder, “Who is this Jesus? How can a dead man, or even one who ‘rose from the dead,’ speak to me about anything?” Or you may wonder, even in times of fleeting meditation, “Who is this Jesus? Can he help even me?”
4. Many pathways
Notions,
