hosea 4:11-14

11-14 "Wine and whiskey leave my people in a stupor. They ask questions of a dead tree, expect answers from a sturdy walking stick. Drunk on sex, they can't find their way home. They've replaced their God with their genitals. They worship on the tops of mountains, make a picnic out of religion. Under the oaks and elms on the hills they stretch out and take it easy. Before you know it, your daughters are whores and the wives of your sons are sleeping around. But I'm not going after your whoring daughters
or the adulterous wives of your sons. It's the men who pick up the whores that I'm after, the men who worship at the holy whorehouses— a stupid people, ruined by whores!

well... my first reaction to this is to be mad at God...
if we were taught understanding while young... of the sanctity of giving your body to another person... we would be much different than we are... fathers do not act like fathers... husbands don't act like husbands... could be wives don't act like wives... we are all basically looking for love and many people use sex to try to find it... if we understood that sex does not bring emotion for a man-brain, it turns it off... because the physical release the man-brain is looking for was reached...we might not jump to sleeping with them... now when I say man-brain, this is not necessarily a man... other's shut all emotion out to stop any pain from being able to seep in and get near them... this is the mind of my man-brain... shutting someone out... I would say these people usually sleep with very few people because it is a violation of their body to let someone in... but you feel like your body needs this release... the ones looking for love seem to sleep with lots of people because they are just looking for some type of intimacy...
we allow man to be our god... and think he can replace the God of the heavens... that will never work... the only pure love there is comes from the love God gives to you... He is the only one who's love is secure... and from this passage here... God is really mad about the way that people take sex for granted... the way that we use it and allow it to be a controlling force in our lives... I have been celibate for 3 years now... I promise you that my entire look at sex and intimacy is different now then ever before... now I want it to be about love... while I am terrified to let someone in... that is just what I intend to do... to stand naked and not ashamed before the man God has chosen... naked emotionally and intimately... (whew... that was scary to say out loud...) all the while keeping God as the focus... not the man... I asked God recently how you are supposed to love a man but not let him have your 1st place... He told me to let him in my heart... but keep my MIND on God... I think that is one of our greatest mistakes... when we love a man (or woman..) they get our head... God is to keep your focus...

15-19 "You've ruined your own life, Israel—but don't drag Judah down with you! Don't go to the sex shrine at Gilgal, don't go to that sin city Bethel, Don't go around saying 'God bless you' and not mean it, taking God's name in vain. Israel is stubborn as a mule.
How can God lead him like a lamb to open pasture? Ephraim is addicted to idols. Let him go. When the beer runs out, it's sex, sex, and more sex. Bold and sordid debauchery— how they love it! The whirlwind has them in its clutches. Their sex-worship leaves them finally impotent."

what is it that has your focus? is it a person? is it a job? is it money?
we talk about being saved and being a good christian... but are we really? or do we instead turn our heads when we see a need? do we keep our thoughts focused on our own desires and not maybe on the needs of someone else... I am thinking if we think alot less about ourselves and a little more about others... then we would probably be able to keep our focus on God...

I read somewhere that God uses marriage to make us a better christian... that marriage is the one place that God can grind our selfishness down and change us faster than any other... because we don't have a choice but to look at the other person... we don't have a choice but to hear their voice... we don't have a choice about tending to their needs... unless we divorce them... could that be why marriage seems to be so rough for people... we want to run from the thing being used to change us... the scripture says the the church is the bride of Christ... I think that Christ uses the church to change us and purify us... the same way that marriage is done to do that same thing... we can have all the bible knowledge in the world... but unless it changes our hearts and purifies us... what has it done for us? what good is knowledge that you don't use?