The Fallout of Sexual Sin: What is it costing you?

The following is an adapted excerpt from our forthcoming men’s curriculum “Out of the Wasteland,” published by New Growth Press. We anticipate publication in late summer 2012.

Dave White

The Fallout of Sexual Sin: What is it costing you?

Do you know the experience of slavery? Do you want to stop masturbating, looking at porn, having anonymous sex, etc. and find that you can’t? You’ve probably made hundreds of promises to God and others, but your words increasingly ring hollow – even to yourself. Since you’ve been trying to change for years without success, you just expect you’ll be at it again eventually…

Even worse, have you suffered with uncontrollable thoughts? You try to restrain where your mind wanders, but it keeps straying back against your will to certain memories, individuals, or fantasies. Thoughts break in constantly, causing distraction. You’ve prayed, fasted, memorized Scripture, but nothing seems to work for very long. The thoughts, desires, attractions come back, leaving you feeling defeated and hopeless. You lose hope that victory over your thoughts is even possible.

How has your struggle with sexual sin – in your desires and behavior – impacted your life? It appears so innocuous at first: masturbation may be a “guilty pleasure,” but it seems relatively harmless. Using porn or fantasy to fuel your behavior is an obvious necessity. But there is always progression. What starts with provocative ads or romance novels turns into soft porn and explicit stories. Then you want to experience more and more. Eventually still pictures aren’t enough and the Internet has made video downloads so easy. What began as a pleasant escape from the humdrum routine or pressures of life becomes an obsession. Some people begin spending hours every day surfing the Internet for new porn. Others pursue connection through chat rooms or phone sex. Many end up doing what they previously thought impossible – seeking out sexual encounters.

This increasing escalation has a price tag. We all have a very finite life. The time, energy, and money invested in pursuing sexual sin is robbing from your family, future security, career aspirations, ability to serve God and others, etc. Every day men and women are sacrificing things of infinite value to pursue their sexual desires. Even our health becomes a casualty. HIV and other STDs abound. The strain of living a secret, “double life” results in depression, ulcers, anxiety. In Psalm 32:3-4 David describes the cost of hidden sin, “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” We willingly sacrifice everything most dear to us – spouse, children, career, financial success, even our faith (described as “more precious than gold” in 1 Peter 1:7) – on the altar of our sexual desires. It is crucial to reckon with this reality. What has your sin cost you?

Even if your struggle hasn’t escalated as just described, have you noticed that the desires are taking up more space in your head? Maybe you are able to manage your behavior on a day-to-day basis, but do you invest time carefully planning your next opportunity? Or savoring the memories of your last exploit? How do you respond to others when your carefully orchestrated plan is thwarted? Maybe your behavior looks okay on the outside, but inwardly you’re enslaved.

There is something incredibly important you need to know – you are not alone in this battle against sin. Too many in the Church either aren’t being honest or are blind to this reality, but every Christian who wants to grow in holiness needs to face the fact that there are places in life where he or she is still enslaved by sin. So Paul writes,

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:15-25).

Paul poignantly describes the experience of every Christian battling against sin. There is a profound sense of slavery and frustration in our inability to overcome particular struggles. You can almost see Paul beating his head against the wall in utter exasperation. And the battle is on two fronts: we both continue in sin we hate and at the same time woefully neglect God’s calling to love him and others in specific ways. Your situation is not unique – it was experienced by the most prolific writer of the NT, the eminent apostle who fearlessly took the message of Christ to Rome, the place of ultimate power and opposition to Jesus in the 1st century. And it has been the experience of every other leader in the Church since and every man in the pew. All of us continue to struggle significantly with sin as Christians and sexual sin in particular reduces us to slavery. But in the midst of his seeming despair, Paul clings to the hope of our Deliverer. The goal of this book is for you to see the heart of the gospel – Jesus came to deliver you from the kingdom of darkness now!

Regardless of where you are in your struggle with sexual sin, prayerfully consider the following questions and know that despite where you’ve been, Jesus is offering you a transformed life!
• What have you sacrificed on the altar of sexual sin? (Examples: money, time, relationships, etc.). Are you honestly assessing what it is costing you in your life, your relationships, your walk with God?

• What “encouragement” can you gain from Paul’s struggle with sin in Romans 7?

My Kids Have Looked at Porn! What Do I Do Now?

How Kids Can Get Hooked into Porn, and What Steps Parents Need to Take.

Parents are protective creatures. Healthy parents will guard and protect their children from just about any danger and harm. Kids are strapped into seat belts and constantly told not to run into the street. When they are older, they’ll listen to countless mini lectures on how to drive safely, how to stay away from drugs and to be home by 10:00.

But some dangers keep lurking along the edges of life. You can’t protect your children from every potential danger that’s out there. Even for the best of parents, “protective fatigue” sets in, resulting in reduced vigilance in areas that aren’t as visible as other dangers. When parents let down their guard—and we all do somewhere—it allows our children to walk through some doors that can do great harm and damage.

Pornography is one of those doors.

When a child or teen walks through that door, pornography can capture their minds and hearts almost in an instant, setting the stage for years to come of inner turmoil, a polluted mind, secretiveness, deceit and deeply broken sexuality. Porn warps their view of sexuality and relationships which can, years down the road, explode into the life of a dating relationship, marriage, family or vocation with destructive force.

Here is a fact: Almost every adult who struggles with sexually addictive behavior was introduced to porn at a young age. The sexual addictions that are sparked by pornography usage go on for years, unnoticed, hidden in secret by the struggler, with parents totally unaware.

Today, the technology of the Internet, cable TV, movies, Social Media and downloadable video entertainment is woven into the fabric of everyday life. Society is being transformed at every level by it. And like every thing man puts his hand to, it has both a good and bad side.

It’s the bad side which parents today are failing to notice, failing to address in a way that will protect their children. To give children unrestricted access to the Internet is like unleashing them alone in a large urban city to find their way around. No loving parent would do such a thing! But with media today, some parents are not realistically aware of the dangers (“My kids won’t do that stuff!”), while others are overwhelmed by technology they can’t seem to fully understand. On top of that, parents rarely bring the subject of sex up for discussion in the life of the family (except to say: “Don’t! Wait till you’re married”). This combination can leave children and teens ill-equipped to handle their emerging sexuality while being bombarded by a technology that puts sex in front of their eyes every chance it gets.

If you have discovered your child or teen has been looking at porn, the shock of the experience can be overwhelming. Some parents respond with anger and a hastily assembled response plan—they punish their child by temporarily removing his computer or mobile devices, and then “locking down” access to porn by installing parental filters. Maybe some brief discussions ensue about sex and what is right and wrong. Once the protective measures are in place, and the crisis begins to fade into the past, the feeling that the family is safe again takes hold. The family can then move on. Everything feels OK at this point.

But it’s not.

What has happened when you discover that your child or teen has looked at porn is not a singular incident that needs to be quickly addressed and then you move on. As devastating as it is to discover your child has looked at porn, now is the time to see this situation as a “gospel opportunity.” That is, see it as an opportunity to engage the heart of your child and not as a disturbing event that you will make sure doesn’t happen again.

Ps. 119:67 says, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.” Affliction whether it comes by unexpected suffering or consequences from our own or someone else’s sin, is an opportunity to renew our relationship with God and learn to practically apply the gospel to our everyday lives.

What is a Redemptive, Healthy Response?

Control your anger

It’s OK to be angry when you discover your child has been looking at porn. But keep this in mind about your anger—direct it to the sin and not to your child. Direct it to the brokenness of this world and to the evil one who uses such material to corrupt and destroy. You also need to keep in mind the world in which your child or teen lives. They are being assaulted by this stuff. When you do that, you will be in a better position to constructively help your child, because you will understand the difficulty of trying to live a life of sexual integrity in a world that has gone sexually insane. You probably know this from your own life. Allow compassion that flows from understanding their struggle in this area to transform your anger, directing it to the real culprits, and allow God to comfort your own grieving heart as you work with your child at understanding what kept driving their behavior to porn.

Go after their heart, not their behavior

Whether you have discovered your child’s porn usage or whether your child has admitted it under questioning, work to stay calm and engage your child’s heart. Ask him questions not just about his porn usage, but about what was driving him to do this—How did it start? How did you feel about doing this? How long have you been looking at porn? What do you think about what you have been seeing? What were the occasions in which you felt drawn to look at porn? Inquire whether they can understand some of the “messages” that porn communicates and “teaches” (power, control, “false intimacy,” escape from stress, degradation of women and men, etc).

Your child or teen may not be fully able to comprehend why porn was able to have such a hold over him or her, but by asking heart-directed questions, you will be helping them to do valuable life-work, work they need to keep doing their entire life—that is, how to examine the motivations of their own heart, motivations which drive their behavior and which their behavior exposes. This is one of those “gospel opportunities” in the midst of this pain. Don’t just attempt to shut down access to porn as if that was the end of the matter. Your children need to learn that all of us do what we do for a reason, not just because we have access to it or stumble across it. If your response to the crisis is to re-direct the behavior through parental control, you will not be helping your child at all.

To engage your child’s heart teaches them something fundamental about themselves—They have longings for someone or something that will give them meaning and purpose for their life. Our longings drive our behavior, but our longings have been fundamentally broken by the fall of Adam. Now these desires are disordered and twisted. The deepest longings of our heart—what we were created for—are for love and relationships, first with God and then for others, and it is this “mechanism” of the heart that porn utilizes for its destructive work.

Our children need to be taught that longings or desires, corrupted by the fall, lead us to find fulfillment apart from God and His design (that’s what sin fundamentally is). Those longings, whether actually felt or not, are painful, and our behavior moves in the direction of soothing that pain. That’s where the desire to keep looking at porn originates. It’s meeting a need for (fill in the blank: escape from pain, comfort, power, intimacy, control, pleasure, confidence, relationship, etc), and until they understand the “need” underneath the porn usage, they will fill their hearts with it (even if you try to block it). Paul wrote in Romans 1, disordered, sinful living is the result of fallen hearts that “exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” Sexual sin is about active idolatry, where we all “exchange the truth of God for a lie” and live for something—anything—that can fill our desperate hearts instead of turning to God. Do you see how this event is not just about behavior? It’s much deeper than that.

By engaging them with questions and biblical teaching you will be communicating your love for them, a love that is strong enough to address their hearts and shepherd them through the difficulties of life. The chances are good that your child is struggling with shame and guilt over their behavior, and a loving, grace-filled approach will give them a flesh-and-blood taste of the love and grace that Christ gives to sinners. As you do this, direct your child to turn to Christ and ask for His forgiveness and for His grace and strength to handle his or her sexuality in a God-honoring way.

Keep a Discussion Going about Sex

Your child’s porn usage may open a door that you may not have fully opened. That door is discussing sexuality, about God’s design for it and about their own emerging sexuality as adolescents. Here is another “gospel opportunity” that can emerge from the brokenness.

Here is where you must teach your child about God’s design for sex; that it is good and created for our good, and that its expression is best displayed within the safe and healthy boundaries set by God. Acknowledge the difficulty everyone has—but especially adolescents—to live God-honoring lives of sexual integrity in a world of 24/7 sensuality. However, when honestly acknowledging the difficulty, give them hope that by clinging to Christ and His word, this is not something that is impossible.

One way it won’t be impossible is this—you will keep this conversation going. They need your shepherding to grow up well, and that includes being shepherded through the turbulent years of their sexual development. There is no such thing as having a one-time talk about sex and then sending them on their way. Pornography will have engaged your child’s heart about sex in significantly harmful ways, and you must be up to the task of guiding them toward the healing that comes from learning, understanding and following God’s wonderful design for sex.

Do not underestimate their need for you to talk about sex in healthy ways! Unless you talk about sex in its good and healthy aspects, your child will be left with conflicting messages—that sex is something that is engaged in but never talked about; that sex is shameful; that information about sex is secret. If you don’t keep talking about sex at opportune moments, your child will be left, alone, with all the memories and images of the porn they have seen. One of the insidious dangers of porn is to leave the person with volumes of images that pull and tug on the mind and heart, leaving the person with a greater desire to view more porn, and further distorting the way they think and act about sex.

Examine your own heart

Of course, if you are going to own your parental role of shepherding your child’s sexuality, then you must first be living within God’s design for it. You will not be able to help your child if you are engaging in porn or other out-of-bounds sexuality. Here is another “gospel opportunity” where the grace of God can surprise—He will use suffering and struggle in your own children to show you what you need to learn about your own relationship with Him. Now the opportunity afforded by this crisis is not just about your child, it includes you.

If your own sexual behavior is sinful, now is the time to draw near to Christ for His forgiveness and grace. You cannot lead someone where you are not first willing to go yourself. Accept his forgiveness and grow in His grace, and as you grow in this area of struggle you will find yourself being an honest and authentic help to your child.

Should you admit and confess your own struggle to your child? It depends. If he or she is young, it’s probably not wise. But if your child is an older teen, it may be a great opportunity to appropriately share some of your own struggles and the way you are finding grace and obedience in Christ. Our children can grow tremendously in the faith when they see their parents, not as perfect, but as persons who struggle like them, all the while grasping hold of Christ in their own walk of growing faithfulness and obedience.

Blocking the Doors

You also need to take steps to restrict Internet and media choices. The thing to keep in mind is that you can’t just put controls and filters on the family computer anymore. Families access the Internet through desktop computers, laptops, netbooks, tablets, smart phones, iPod Touches, Internet-enabled DVD players, cell phones, game consoles and Internet-connected TV’s. A good protection plan must encompass all these devices. (Read Is It OK to Snoop On My Family? at our Resources/Articles page at www.harvestusa.org for some great tips).

Don’t Let Up nor Give Up

Remember, this is not just a behavior issue to be fixed with controls. Though it is appropriate to be saddened that your child has seen and engaged in porn usage, at least you know it and can take steps to shepherd them forward. Most kids never get discovered or caught. They are the ones who wrestle most terribly with deeply entrenched sexual addictions. It is always God’s mercy when our sin is exposed!

Will your kids be in the clear once you engage their hearts, talk about God’s design for sex and “block the doors?” Yes and no. You will help them by doing all these things, but keep in mind that they remain sinners, like you, always prone toward moving away from God and His design and toward false gods and idols. Anticipate struggle and even failure at times. See these stumbles as further “gospel opportunities” to shepherd your child toward a deeper faith in Christ, for them and for you.

There is more to this article than what is here. Go to www.harvestusa.org and read some more helpful sections, especially whether or not your child might need professional counseling.

Rescuing Young Minds from Pornification (part 1)

Dan Wilson

 Don says to Dave, “What’s you major?”  “Business Administration,” replies Dave.

“What’s yours?” asks Dave, and Don says, “English Lit.”

Predictably, Don says, “So, what’s your minor?”

And Dave says, “Porn is my minor.”  

After a long pause Don incredulously asks, “Is that in  . . . the Women’s Studies Department?” 

The fictional Dave in this snippet of dialogue would probably never be this honest. But a recent study of 29,000 North American college students revealed that 51% of men and 16% of women spend up to 5 hours each week online “for sexual purposes.”  [Cited in Porn University: What College Students Are Really Saying About Sex on Campus, by Michael Leahy (Moody, 2009)].

And catch this, an additional 11% of men spend anywhere from 5 to 20 hours on porn per week!  That is a lot of carnal study.  No wonder many say that, “Porn is the norm.”

Is pornification just a crisis among non-Christian students? Not by a long stretch.  Every campus minister that I talk to says that almost 100% of the men who are student leaders in their ministry have a fierce struggle with porn.  Likewise, they add that most of their female student leaders who are dating stumble a lot with varying levels of sexual activity with their boyfriends.

What will happen to these Christian students if this practice is not dealt with?  What will be the impact on their relationships, now and in the future?  What will happen to the Church if most of today’s rising Christian leaders have been habitually pornified and promiscuous?     

If Christian students today see little or no problem with such sexual behavior, then it means they will use sex and porn as their recreational drugs of choice, as their habitual escape from the pressures and struggles of life.  Whatever the motive, the end result will be disastrous—Pornified and promiscuous behavior leads to a divorce between love and sex, between committed relationship and intimacy. 

Sex becomes just another commodity for consumers to consume.  Sex is used, not to glory God within the parameters of His design, but for sheer personal/self-centered reasons.  This consumer mindset about sex will have devastating implications for when they do marry.  Expectations about sex will run up against the all-too-familiar struggles that every marriage encounters, and the odds are good that when dealing with such pressures they will use the same escape mechanisms they utilized as students—porn and sexual encounters (but this time it will be adultery). 

Broken sexuality is not victimless—porn usage and affairs devastate spouses, and they often lead to the break-up of families.  Children then become the most innocent victims of a worldview mindset, so prevalent today, that sex is merely about my pleasure and my needs.  Sex, used within that worldview, is far from harmless—it’s dangerous, especially for society as a whole, as more and more families are torn apart.  

How do we intervene into the lives of Christian students today to try and stop this tsunami of broken sexuality?  This is what I’m going to explore over the next several posts.  Let me hear your thoughts, as well.

Rebuilding Trust with Your Wife When it’s Broken

Bob Heywood

I mentioned in my last post that one of the most devastating things that impacted your wife when your porn usage finally came out in the open was this fact:  You were living a double life.  You lived one way in front of her, and you lived another way behind her back.  That type of secrecy in a marriage causes great damage. 

One of the first things you need to do to rebuild your marriage is to learn—carefully and with sincerity—how to rebuild the trust that was broken.  Here is one of the first steps you need to learn:  Give your wife space to walk her road of healing.

Please don’t move toward your wife, putting pressure on her, as if the future of your relationship depends on her and her response to you.  She is disoriented from living with a man who lived two lives. Jesus said sexual sins were legitimate grounds for divorce.  You need to face the reality that you crossed that line—whether your sexual sin involved a physical encounter or “just” a virtual one. 

Your wife will be struggling with the reality that you crossed sexual boundaries; that you took your heart and your body outside of your marriage.  That’s bad enough.  But she will also be struggling with your deception.  Your wife can’t fix all that.  You’ll have to give her emotional space as she struggles with how to move on. 

One thing that God will be working on in your own heart is your desire to control things and make them work out your way.  That’s what your sexual sin was about.  Your desire for control is what plunged you into porn and what kept your deception going.  But God is now trying to teach you that your supposed control was an illusion and that you are going to have to deeply rely on Him.  You can’t fix this on your own.  Your promises, your new intentions, at this point, are going to have to be seen to be believed. 

You must now learn not to depend on yourself—your “wisdom,” your schemes, your manipulations.  You can’t make this thing work.  God is trying to make Himself real to both you and your wife.  You are both going to have to trust Him with situations that you can’t foresee coming.    If all you did was stub your toe, it wouldn’t take long to heal.  But this is a lot more than a minor bruise.  Don’t rush. Don’t pressure your wife to heal faster than she can.  Love is a long road.  It’s worth the trip.    

God is in the business of redeeming lives but He also insists in doing it His way.  You’ve got to learn this yourself.  Are you willing to be a disciple, willing to walk with Him at His pace?   Then realize that His pace includes the time your wife needs to heal.  When you give her space, you walk at the Master’s pace.                          

Building Trust Again

Picking up the Pieces When Your Sexual Sin Has Been Discovered

Bob Heywood

You’ve messed up and you’ve messed up big time. You have desecrated God’s arena for sexual activity and crushed your wife in the process by what you have done. Sexual betrayal runs deep, and our sensitive, image-bearing wives feel it most because they live the closest to ground zero. Yet, all too often, we as husbands expect a simple “I’m sorry and I won’t do it again” to solve the problem, to heal the pain. We ask ourselves: “Why doesn’t my wife just accept my apologies and move on? Why doesn’t she see the steps I have begun to take to help me not do it again, and stop feeling so hurt about it all?” In other words, when is she going to stop making this such a big issue so that we both can move on with our lives?

We may not actually say or think those thoughts, but I’ve seen them in so many hearts of the men who come to Harvest USA. I’ve seen them in my own heart, too. But I believe the real issue is that we don’t want to honestly look at the damage we have done to our wives. We’ve bought into the world’s take on things. Whoever started the idea concerning a victimless crime forgot about our wives. Pornography is not a victimless activity, on many levels, but especially when it comes to our spouses.

How do we build trust again with our wives when they hear the words coming out of our mouths but they don’t see the reality of it in our lives? At this point, at the beginning of the journey when you’ve been caught or you finally confessed, all I can say is that it’s hard. You have to understand that both you and your wife are in a tough spot. You have to own up to the fact that your behavior has crossed lines that bring death to a relationship. We can speculate about what Adam and Eve were thinking about before they ate the fruit. But it was when they ate the fruit that death occurred. They crossed the line.

By engaging in porn, we crossed the line; we’ve eaten the forbidden fruit. The fallout is deeper than we think. Maybe Adam and Eve wouldn’t have eaten the fruit if they could have seen the possibility that their one action would eventually lead, countless years away, to nuclear war as a result. But that doesn’t really matter right now. We are living in a world with that possibility because of their behavior. So we must face our own self- made catastrophe even if we didn’t consider the consequences.

No matter how your wife found out about your involvement with sexual sin (whether you got caught or you “self confessed”) she is trying to process the discovery that a part of your life—a part of who you are—she didn’t know about at all. Now she feels like she has been living with a stranger all these years. Can you imagine what the wife of Dennis Rader felt after finding out that she was married to a serial killer for 30 years? I know that sounds like an over-the-top example, but do you get the point? How can she suddenly, or easily trust you again, when for (how long?; how many years?) you presented a part of yourself to her that was a lie?

You shouldn’t be surprised that she is now asking herself questions like, “Does this mean that every time he walked out the door and said he was just going to the store he was really going somewhere else?” She feels like she has to turn into some sort of private investigator or detective or something. This wasn’t her calling when God asked her to be your wife. She is wondering what these women on the internet have that she doesn’t have. Is she supposed to get surgery or have a pole installed in the bedroom?

How do we as husbands help to heal all those wounds? What are our expectations?

I know I’ve been very negative up to this point. But one thing I’ve learned is that God works in the real. It does us no good to paint the picture different than it really is. The corner we’ve painted ourselves into looks bleak. But there is hope! And it can only start when we get real with what our behavior has done—how it has deeply hurt—our spouse, and honestly face up to the damage we have inflicted. It can’t start any other place.

I want to start a small series of blog postings to delve into the question of how God works in this particular dilemma of rebuilding trust when we’ve damaged it in such a serious way. I’ll be interested in any responses from those who have had to walk this road and found hope.

Finding Your True Self?

In a recent NY Times opinion piece, In Search of the True Self, Joshua Knobe, an associate professor of Cognitive Science and Philosophy at YaleUniversity, discusses his recent study on our quest to find our deepest identity. Citing everything from Greek philosophy to pop culture, he rightly sees that this yearning is a “distinctive ideal of modern life.” Knobe is wrestling with the questions: Who am I?    What drives my search to discover my deepest—and hence, real–identity?  And how can we find the answer?

According to Knobe, philosophy has traditionally maintained that our ability for self reflection makes us truly human. (Remember Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” from your western civ. class?) Accordingly, philosophy posits that our reflection on our deepest held beliefs is the greatest indicator of our true self. These beliefs trump feelings and desires  (For an interesting read along these lines, see the recent NY Times magazine article, Living the Good Lie, that discusses “Sexual Identity Therapy” and Nicholas’ blog response).

But Knobe goes on to say that outside philosophical circles, people recoil at this idea. The broader public believes the exact opposite: it is our suppressed feelings and desires that reveal our deepest identity. These desires must be obeyed for our lives to be authentic to our true self. Hence anyone with same-sex attraction (his opening illustration to his op-ed column) is urged to forsake religious beliefs, marriage vows, etc. in order to “come out” and express their true self.

So, do deep-seated moral values or feelings or desires determine our true self? Rather than a strict either/or, Knobe concludes that both views are too simplistic. His initial investigation suggests that we find our true self through a complicated process that combines both aspects – we develop a value judgment based on what we believe makes life worth living, what will create the most satisfying experience of existence.

He’s right to reject the either/or, but fails to see that our true self is only found in a radically different “third way.” Any search for our true self that focuses on desires, personal beliefs, or a combination is still limited to the self. It elevates individual perception – with all its biases and distortions – to ultimate reality.   

Fortunately, our true self is revealed by a source outside of us. Objective truth exists, reality beyond personal perception. Scripture offers our ultimate identity as those made in the image of God, created to live in a relationship of love for all eternity. In love, Jesus redeemed us while we were his enemies. The Father invites us to live within his perspective – one that sees us “in Christ,” outside of time, in our totality. Not defined by desires, behaviors, or failures, but as those who on the last day will be purified. The beautiful Bride, seated at the Wedding Feast with his Son in a marriage he arranged from before the foundation of the world.

 Are you struggling with feelings and/or attractions that the world says should define who you are?  Look to the objective truth of God’s Word, and in Him, you will find your true self as you align yourself with His design.

Identity Theft!

Bob Heywood

How would you feel if someone steals your identity? Stunned? Shocked? Think about it: Someone is acting recklessly and irresponsibly in your name! In your heart you are saying, “Wait a minute, that’s not me! That’s not who I am!” You wouldn’t hand your identity over to someone who would act so shamelessly in your name, would you?

But that’s what we do when we cave in to temptation and commit the same sexual sin again and again. We give our true identity—our identity in Christ—over to the one who steals it from us. The devil delights in that transaction!

One of our mantras here at Harvest USA is: “Don’t let your temptations tell you who you are!” One of the biggest faith battles men face in their struggle with sexual sin is: What is your identity in Christ? What does God see when he looks at you? The answer to these questions is critical if you want to experience freedom from sexual sin!

The Bible teaches that Christ endured the cross for the “joy set before Him” (Heb. 12:2). Do you want to know what that joy was? It was you! Paul called the people in the churches that he ministered to, his “joy and crown;” you think he would think of them like that if God thought of them otherwise? (Check out Philippians 4:1 and 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20). Has it sunk in that Jesus himself calls us his brothers (Hebrews 2:11), to those of us who desperately cling to him and trust in his saving mercy and grace?

You are new creatures in Christ! You have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. Your sins are forgiven and you have a living hope that when Christ comes you will appear with Him in glory! You have a new nature, a new heart and a new start. You’ve been born again! This is your new identity! Start believing it!

One way to begin getting this to sink in deeply, is to find others who will see you as you are in Christ. God makes himself real through his people. When someone treats you like he really believes God loves you, you begin to start thinking “maybe God does really love me.” And that’s powerful!

What do you see when you look at other Christians? Do you see sin in their lives? That’s easy to see. But do you also see God’s grace working in them? Now, that takes faith. But it’s there, even in their struggles and failures. That’s true for you, too. That’s part of our identity in Christ. We are people whom God has started a good work in and will continue to the end (Phil. 1:6).

I know it’s hard to believe you are a new creature in Christ if you keep on sinning, but let me let you in on a little secret. Every single Christian out there does keep on sinning! I know it’s hard to go to church and feel like you are the only sinner in the room but believe me, that is just not true. One reason I love working at Harvest USA is because no one walks through the doors here thinking they have it all together. I wish going to church was that way.

 What helps you hold on to your identity in Christ when you are in the midst of sexual temptations and sin?

The Best Sex is Blessed Sex!

Bob Heywood

I’m often asked, “What is God’s view of sex?” Since God sees everything, does he see us having sex? My answer is, frankly, yes, God sees what we are doing. He sees a husband and wife making love after the kids have gone to bed; he sees a young couple in the back seat of a car overcome with passion and lust; he sees it all.

What’s more, he sees beyond the behavior; he sees right into our heart’s motivation for sexual behavior. Why we do what we do is as important as what we do. Why else does Scripture tell us about a king who was looking from his roof top at a woman taking a bath, except that God saw it all first? The scriptures put it bluntly; “For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all his paths.” (Prov. 5:21)

Believe it or not, this reality, that God’s sees all we do, isn’t a bad thing. As a matter of fact, it’s really a good thing. I worship a God who encourages sexual activity. That’s right! What else does “be fruitful and multiply” mean but “go have sex and plenty of it?”

But the one who gave us this incredible gift also knows the best way it should be used. And that is this: God encourages sex in a certain context, and that context is marriage.
That’s why I love weddings so much. All I see is Jesus standing there with open arms saying, “This is what I’m talking about!” Everybody in the church knows those two are going to have sex that night and it’s OK with Jesus! He knows there is going to be some “delighting” (Song of Songs) going on. What he asks is that the activity that brings such joy and pleasure (and sometimes babies into the world) take place in a committed relationship that in some small way reflects his relationship to us, his people. I’m not saying that waiting for your honeymoon night will be the answer to all your dreams. I’ve heard of some real horror stories concerning honeymoons.
God’s will for your life is to experience sex without shame. It’s better to not have sex at all than to have sex that brings guilt and shame. Sex is supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to feel good, not just when it is happening, but even more importantly, when it is over. It is supposed to end in thanksgiving to God for this wonderful gift.

I’ve been married for 38 years. After 38 years, let me tell you this: My sex life is better than ever! Why? Because both my wife and I thank God for where He has taken us in the journey of our relationship, experiencing the freedom and closeness that can only come from 38 years of marriage to someone you are committed to blessing. Our sex life is better today because it’s more blessed today. Frequency and technique have nothing to do with it. Knowing God’s smile, encouragement and will for our lives blesses us and confirms His promises toward us. We walk away from sexual activity confident and assured that God loves us and that he is glad when we make love. It’s true!

What I am saying is that God wants to bless you in your most intimate moments. Do you believe that?

Where are the Snakes in your Life?

In Numbers 21 in the Bible, we’re told that many of God’s people, as they were on their wilderness journey, were bitten by snakes and died. As they cried out to God, Moses heard, and fashioned a bronze snake on a long pole.  He instructed that anyone who had been bitten should look at the bronze snake—and they would be healed.  They were not to focus on their impairment or wound, although it really was a life threatening situation.

Interesting, Moses didn’t say, “Oh, it’s all your imagination.  Don’t worry about it. It will go away.” No, he knew people were literally dying.  Those who focused on their wounds died—but those who focused on the bronze snake, high and lifted up, were healed and lived.

Like the Israelites in the desert, we must set our gaze directly on Christ. Admittedly, when troubled by persistent struggles with sexual temptation and sin, we can be continuously de-railed. We can too easily lose hope and give up. This is where the evil one wants us.

But, we must believe that Jesus doesn’t sit idly by in heaven, but is continually present in us.  He is the conqueror of sin and death— even in the battles for holiness that rage in our own hearts.  When your conscience plagues you the most, or when you are in the most dire distress, you must grasp Christ in faith. It is in that moment that faith sees Jesus, the one who obeyed, suffered, died and rose again—and he did all that for our sakes!  Heb. 12:1-2  is one of the most astonishing verses in all of Scripture: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

What was the joy that Jesus looked forward to, so much so that he endured unbelievable suffering?  It was you; it was his people whom he lived and died for, men and women being renewed by his grace and who one day will be fully restored, perfect in every way. 

No matter what the distress and pain you are suffering through at this moment, that is something to look toward! 

Where are the snakes in your life right now… those things that seem to threaten to rob you of life, of hope, of joy?  What are the situations, circumstances, and struggles that keep you defeated?   How are you dealing with them?

Where are your eyes turned to in those moments?

Masturbation: What’s going on?

Why didn’t God bring up masturbation in the bible?  I came to Christ in 1971.  I came to Christ as a teen as I was struggling with a constant habit of masturbating.  Nobody knew that, because nobody would talk about it in those days, so I kept it to myself.  But as a young Christian I was told there was such a thing as a “concordance” and you could look up all the words that were in the Bible!  I got all excited and when no one was around I looked under the letter “M.”  I thought, as I found not a single reference to the act:  “Looks like God’s not going to talk about it, either!”

That experience left a big question mark in my heart.  Is masturbation right or wrong?  All I knew was that I couldn’t stop.  I tell people that before I came to Christ I thought a man ought to be able to go to bed and go to sleep without having to masturbate first.  The first time I acted out after I became a Christian I thought, “It’s back!  It didn’t go away like you were hoping.”  That reality was devastating.  But God’s silence on the subject made it more of an inward battle than it really had to be.  Even if all it was is a habit I can’t stop doing, I need to be able to talk to people about it.  Can we talk?

Around fifteen years ago I went to a “Promise Keepers” meeting and the theme was worship.  God spoke to my heart that weekend and said “Bob, you are not worshiping me and you know it.”  Worship had become a mere formality in my life.  I had a check list in my mind and as long as we read the Scriptures, prayed, sang good old hymns and had a theologically sound sermon I assumed worship happened.  But that was just going through the motions.  It was far from what God had in mind about worshipping him.

A few months after the conference, I started dealing seriously with my sexual struggle.  It was then that God reminded me about what true worship really was.  Worship is about giving all of you, all of your heart, to something.  Worship has to do with what you are living for. It was then that I realized that even though I was not truly worshipping God, I was worshipping something.  I learned that my continual movement toward masturbation and pornography was an act of idolatry (false worship).

This discovery helped crystallize what repentance should be about.  Now I knew what I had to turn from—and where I had to turn to.  I had to be honest with what was going on in my heart.  When life becomes confusing or boring or scary or whatever, masturbation and pornography was a place of escape, adventure, pleasure and in a word, life for me.  I needed it, like an addict needs his addiction. I had to be honest with my fantasies and my preference for them rather than waiting on God.

It hit me.  I didn’t have to know whether masturbation was right or wrong.  All I had to know is that what I was doing was wrong because the nature of what I was doing had to do with actively shutting God out of my thoughts and inviting in thoughts that, for the moment, seemed to calm me down and give me a break in life that I desperately needed.

God didn’t bring up masturbation in the Scriptures, but He did say we were supposed to bring every thought captive to Christ Jesus.  And bringing my thoughts captive to the idea that my heart truly is an idol factory helps me be honest with the thoughts that go through my head.  It seems there is still a desperation in my heart to try and make things work out my way and I do need to repent from that.

Where are your inner thoughts leading you?  Do you find that in times of stress, confusion, boredom, loneliness or fear that you turn to find relief in pornography and masturbation?  If so, see your behavior as flowing from your heart, a heart that is living for and consumed by a need for comfort and relief and not a life that is growing in dependence upon God and the things He delights in.  Repentance is very practical and relevant when we see it from that angle.