Recap of PLM Conference: Fix your eyes on Jesus

I just returned home from the Pure Life Ministries annual conference which was such an amazing experience and encounter with God.    Some 480 men and women gathered in Florence, KY to worship the God who has the power – and the desire – to set each of us free from the chains that ensnare us.    It’s an amazing thing to be in the presence of such testimonies and witnesses to God’s redeeming love.

I wanted to take a moment while it’s fresh on my mind to write down a few of the things I took away from the great speakers who shared over the last few days.   I hope this helps me to better apply what I’ve learned and to edify you.

Steve Gallagher referenced the proclivity within each of us to gravitate towards either law bending or law keeping.   He stressed that when both are right with the Lord and walking in the Spirit both are a blessing to the Church.   We need the law benders to upset our status-quo and breath fresh wind into our sails and we need the law keepers to remind us of God’s holiness and demands upon the Christian to obey him.

Steve then did a beautiful job referencing each of the seven churches in Revelation 2 &3, showing what happens when these natural tendencies of ours (law bending or law keeping) cease being surrendered to God.   One thing in particular that stood out to me was pointed towards law keepers, or those of us who can easily become satisfied with having a form of godliness but none of it’s power.    How easy it is to play church and appear to be doing all the right things while our heart is far from God.     I know all too well how easy it is to do this, and how easy it is to fall into a delusion that all is well in doing it.

Dave Leopold built upon this foundation laid by Steve (unbeknownst to either while preparing their messages).  He spoke of how we toil in our own way rather than God’s way.  Building a ministry isn’t always the same, he said, as building God’s kingdom.

Dave’s longing for himself, and his prayer for us, is that we may all prove that we have been with Jesus.  May our very lives – both inner and outer – be evidence that we have spent much time at Jesus’ feet.   Jesus does not desire us to be mere messengers of his message, but desires each of us to become the message.   When he has conquered us, he will send us out to conquer the world in Jesus’ name.

I loved the illustration he shared of the sun.   When we lay out in the sun, we are changed.  Our face let’s the world know that we have been out in the sun.   Likewise, as we spend intimate time with the Son of God, the world will know it.

Dustin Renz shared a powerful message on suffering.   I think he is exactly right that we do not teach or understand suffering within the church.   And yet, the life of Jesus himself as well as all of scripture is full of calls to suffer, even promises that we will.   Dustin shared the following points:

1. We need to learn to expect suffering.   Jesus promised that we would know trouble in this world.   In fact, the very call to follow Jesus is an invitation to lay down our lives and die.
2. Suffering shapes us and fits us for service.    James reminds us to consider it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds.   These are preparing us for service.
3. Learn to endure suffering.   Imagine if Paul had given up after being ship wrecked, stoned, beaten, imprisoned, starved, left to die?   The loss to Christianity would be extraordinary!    We must endure to the end.  Far too often we give up too easily and we have not even come close to experiencing the sort of suffering Paul and countless other Christians have endured.    How many potential testimonies, not to mention our own, are lost because we give up too soon and run back to our sin?

Glen Meldrum shared three snares of the soul which will trip us up time and time again if we are not mindful of them.

1. We don’t treat sin like sin.   Numbers 33:50-56, God insists that Moses and the people, when they get to the promised land, must drive out the wicked inhabitants and all their idols.    If they do not, they will be “barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides” and trouble you all the days you dwell you there.   Jesus was serious about sin, warning to cut out the eye of the hand that causes you to sin.    Whatever is keeping you from Jesus, get rid of it!   Even if it’s something “good.”
2. Not being very careful to love the Lord (Joshua 23:11-13).    We must be very careful to love God!   Make it your purposeful pursuit in life to spend time with God and nurture this relationship.  No one follows Jesus by accident.  None of us default towards loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.   Our sinful hearts are easily distracted and get caught up in so many other things that we lose sight of our walk with God.    Be careful!
3. Idolatry rises up in our hearts.   Things like bitterness, unforgiveness, anger, sexual sin, pleasure, and more become the gods we cling to to.  We become what we worship.   The destruction happening in marriages is from hell.   Satan hates God, and his work is to destroy the image of God in us by replacing it with his own image.  How does he do this?  By causing us to have other gods.

All of these messages, though unplanned to be so, beautifully weaved together this overarching theme for me:  Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.  Pursue Jesus with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.   Submit to the love – and the rule – of God in my life.  And pray.   Pray like my life and the lives of others depends on it, because it does!

I’m so grateful for this time of refreshment and revival.   It has inspired me towards a deeper repentance and desire to be of service to God and others in ways that for quite some time I have felt unworthy to pursue because of my past failings.    God reminded me this weekend that he has not altered his feelings towards me nor his call.   I’m grateful that my wife was able to join me on this trip and for work he is doing in her life and ours as a couple.   We are both excited to see what God has in store for us in the weeks, months and years ahead.

 

This story about Peter changed my life, and could yours

I want you to remember a time you were publicly humiliated by someone.  Maybe somebody insulted you in front of others, or pointed out what you were doing wrong in a condescending manner.  Maybe they made fun of you for wearing something that didn’t match (all my fellow color-blind people, unite!), or maybe it was a teacher who embarrassed you in front of the class.

Got it?  Is your blood starting to boil as you picture that person?  Ok. Take a deep breath.  Lay that aside for a moment.  We will come back to it.

My biblical doppelganger is Peter, the perfectly flawed disciple of Jesus.   One of my favorite pastors, Mark Beebe, has been doing a teaching series on Peter during our Thursday night recovery services.  He reminds us that throughout the gospels, Peter’s shortcomings are not scrubbed out.  We see him have some great moments, such as when he answered rightly Jesus’ question, “Who do you think I am?” and we see him have some bloopers, such as 7 verses later where Jesus rebuked him, calling him Satan (Matthew 16).   We get to watch Peter full of faith walk on water and then moments later get overwhelmed and drop like a rock.  We read about him declaring he’d never leave his Master’s side only to disown Him not once, not twice, but three times that same night.

Peter is every one of us who vowed to go to Africa for the sake of the gospel during the 11am altar call only to remember an hour later how much we love Olive Garden.

I love Peter, and I suspect you do as well, because we can identify so easily with him.   But there’s a story about Peter that isn’t found in the gospels and is little known. It’s my favorite one.   I’d like to share it with you.

It begins in Galatians, a letter written by Paul, a Jewish religious leader turned Jesus freak who is credited with taking the message of Jesus to the Gentile (non-Jewish) world.   During this time period, Christians were still getting used to the radical idea that Jesus broke down all the barriers between people, setting aside the purity regulations faithful Jews had observed for centuries (like abstaining from unclean food or not eating with Gentiles).  Paul was fighting an uphill battle trying to convince Jews who had converted to Christianity that it was perfectly acceptable to eat with Gentiles.  Heck, they could even host a pork BBQ if they so desired.

Enter Peter.  In Galatians 2, Paul writes that he found Peter in Antioch.   Before Peter’s Jewish friends arrived on the scene, Peter was known to eat with Gentiles.  But when these guys from Jerusalem showed up, Peter drew back. He didn’t want to get in trouble with his Jewish friends.   Paul writes that he “opposed Peter in public because he was clearly wrong…the other Jewish believers also started acting like cowards along with Peter” (Gal. 2:11-14).

Paul publicly humiliated Peter, calling him a coward in front of all his friends.   I imagine Peter felt a lot like you and I feel when the same thing happens to us.  Galatians was written around 40 A.D., a decade after Jesus was crucified, resurrected and ascended to heaven.   Ten years later Peter still had moments where he wasn’t at the top of his game.   Once again, Peter is just like us.

But the story isn’t over.

Nearly 2 decades after being embarrassed in Antioch, Peter would write his own letters to churches which would be added to our New Testament.  In his second letter, the aging disciple writes one sentence that convinces me the gospel is true, that the Holy Spirit is at work, and God isn’t done with any of us yet.   He writes,

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with wisdom that God gave him (2 Peter 3:15).

Isn’t that astounding?!  Do you see how Peter writes so affectionately about a man who called him a coward in front of all his friends?   Do you catch how he publicly praises the one who publicly humiliated him?    Over the years Peter made spiritual progress, and along his journey he chose humility over bitterness, reconciliation over retaliation.   Peter continued to grow, to change, to be conformed into the image of Jesus.

This insight into Peter’s life, a man who lived 2000 years ago and whom I only know through letters, is enough to convince me that a life pursuing Jesus is worth it, if for nothing else than to achieve the sort of serene disposition the aged Peter has for Paul when none of us, who are just like Peter, would fault him if he had held a grudge to the grave.

Now, recall the image of the person who made your blood boil a moment ago.   See them?  It’s one thing for us to take comfort in knowing someone like Peter, a disciple of Jesus, is just like us when he falls on his face.  But if he’s just like us in our low moments, can we believe together that we can be just like him in his best moments?   Can we believe for a moment that the gospel is true, that the Holy Spirit is at work in you and I, and that God isn’t done with any of us?  Then can we dare to imagine that one day – maybe not today, this month or even this year – but one day our hearts might be so changed that we would write affectionately about the person we can’t stomach today?

If the words of a dead man from two millennia ago can inspire us to imagine Jesus isn’t done with any of us yet, imagine what might happen if the world saw living examples of Peter today.   After all, he’s just like us.   Or even better, maybe we are just like him.

By God’s grace, may it be so.

 

 

God is not content with 99% of you

Luke 15 is one of my favorite chapters in the bible.  It’s what I preached from Sunday.  I spent most of the time in the story of the prodigal son but ended with the story of the lost sheep.   Here, Jesus asks an important question of his audience full of sinners and religious professionals:

Which of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country, and go find the one that is lost until he finds it?

 

The answer to this question is one that might surprise us:   NONE OF US!  We are quite content with the 99, aren’t we?  If one foolish sheep goes and gets itself lost we are not going to jeopardize losing 99% of our profits for one dumb sheep, right?  That would be bad business.  99% is not a bad return in our economy.    Besides, the one lost might count as a write-off.

But this story isn’t about us. It’s about our Heavenly Father.   Jesus is trying to show us that unlike us, this Hound of Heaven will not rest until He finds and brings home every one of His own.   When we wander off the path and get stuck in a thicket, we can count on our Good Shepherd hunting us down till found.

At least two applications come to mind, the first being more obvious than the second.

First, God is not content with just 99%.  He is a jealous God and wants all of His children, or sheep, home.   He is not interested in preserving the flock that is at the expense of the flock that should or could be.  This means He will move out from our little church pastures where we have grown comfortable with ourselves and the 99 we have in attendance to go hunting the dark corners of our communities in search of the one that is missing.   He will not rest till every lost soul is found.    And therefore neither should we.   We are to be like our Father in Heaven, discontent with the number we have and always seeking to find the one hung up in the bushes out back.

Second, yet every bit as important, I sensed the Lord saying to me that I am all-too-often content with giving Jesus 99% of my heart when he wants it all.   Far too often I think it’s a good return on my investment if I can give God most of myself while holding back parts here and there.   I assume that God is like me, content with the 99 and willing to write-off the part I’ve withheld.    But God is not like me.  He is a jealous God and wants, and deserves, everything I have.

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

Back when I was addicted to pornography I got good at minimizing this sin by focusing on all the other good things I was doing (pastoring a church, going to seminary, adopting children, etc).  I convinced myself that God would be satisfied with the good I was doing and overlook this “one little black spot” in my life.

Perhaps porn is not your “one thing” but something else.   Maybe gossip is your thing, and you know it’s wrong and you shouldn’t do it, but believe 99% of your heart is good, what’s the big deal about this one thing?    Maybe it’s an addiction to any number of things or people.  Maybe it’s anger, or fear, or envy, or lustful thoughts, or bitterness, or lying,  or crude speech (Eph. 4:25-32).  It is so easy to comfort ourselves in the pasture made up of the 99%, where we go to church, attend Sunday school, pay our tithes, and give a dollar now and then to the beggar on the street and think God doesn’t care about the one dark corner of our heart hung up in the brambles.

The good news is that God does care.   I know that may not sound like good news at the moment.   It may sound like judgment.   And it is.  God’s word judges our hearts and minds, but never for the purpose of condemning us but to free us.   He is a holy God who “yearns jealously over the Spirit which he has made to dwell within us” (James 4:5).   If there is part of you which is lost, which is inconsistent with the will of the Holy Spirit, God wants to correct it, heal it, and free it.   He wants us enslaved by nothing in this world (1 Cor. 6:12).

So God is not like us.  He wants ALL of our heart, ALL of our SOUL, ALL of our STRENGTH , and ALL of our MIND (Luke 10:27).   If God wants this, then He will impart to us the grace by which we can accomplish living fully unto him rather than partly, or even mostly.    We can trust all of our heart and mind to Jesus because he is a GOOD shepherd and knows exactly and completely what is best for us (John 10).

What is your 1%?    Pray with me…

Dear Jesus, I thank you that you care enough about me to want everything.   Forgive me for being content with giving  you what I thought was most of me when you want all of me.   I give you permission to seek out and find and bring home the parts of my life that are lost and in darkness.   Expose them for what they are and help me to see my sin in the way you see it.  I don’t want to be enslaved by anything, and ask you to take complete control of my heart, my thoughts, my desires, my words, my body, my will.   Thank you, Jesus, for loving me enough to save every bit of me.   Thank you for forgiving me.   Amen.

The story of the lost sheep ends this way:

I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven  over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (Luke 15:7).

Heaven is rejoicing over you!

 

 

Brokenness and Forgiveness: Our Testimony

Last Sunday Amy and I were at Scioto Ridge UMC in Hilliard, OH, sharing how God has healed the brokenness in our lives and restored our marriage.   It is our prayer that if you found our blog today God will use our story to give you hope, and to lift your eyes to the One who has made all the difference in the world:  Jesus Christ.

“Brokenness and Forgiveness” from Scioto Ridge UMC on Vimeo.

So You’ve Cheated? Know Your Rights.

One of most common questions I get asked by men (I’m writing this as a man to other men, but the following advice applies to women caught in the same) who have been unfaithful in their marriage (whether through pornography use or a physical affair) is this:

How can I win back her trust?

The answer to that question will vary from couple to couple, but the foundation is always the same.  That foundation gets laid when the offender acknowledges what his rights are, which are these:

Did you catch them?   They are very important, so take a moment to write them down.    To say it another way, in case you missed it the first time, the rights that are yours as the unfaithful one in a marriage are these:

Speaking from personal experience, the longer it took me to realize this foundational truth – that I had no rights – the longer I delayed healing and the rebuilding of trust in my marriage.   The moment I stepped out of my marriage in unfaithfulness was the moment I forfeited whatever rights I had.

What sort of rights am I talking about?   Well, at the risk of sounding simplistic, ALL of them.   There are things about a broken marriage which will look different from a healthy one until trust is restored, and the sooner you recognize that the better.   Your marriage is no longer one of equal footing (if it ever was).   So what does this mean in real life?

• When she hurts your feelings you don’t tell her that she has hurt your feelings.   Most likely she was trying to.   Suck it up.
• When she calls you all sorts of names and her anger is bearing down on you with both barrels, you bear it.   Don’t assert your “right” to have your argument heard, and don’t try to tell her she is sinning against you with her words or actions.*
• When she wants to stay up until 3am talking about her fears you listen.  Don’t assert your “right” to get some sleep because you have to work in the morning.
• When she wants to cancel a family vacation or alter other routine events, comply.  If friends and family object, defend her.
• When she wants to convert your office space into a scrap-booking room, help her do it.
• When she wants to look through your cell phone every hour, or have access to your laptop, or wishes to know every move you make every minute of the day, be grateful she wants to be involved in your life so intimately, and thank her for it.

There came a point where I was so broken over the sin I had done and the pain my actions had brought upon my wife that I no longer had the will to rise up and assert myself.    The sooner I stopped asserting myself, the sooner healing began and trust was restored.   The more I fought that, the more miserable we both were. Here is a handy chart to demonstrate that:

A person who has experienced true brokenness over their sin, who understands godly sorrow over worldly sorrow (2 Cor. 7:10), will willingly lay down their rights.    This is not something any of us can do on our own.  We must have the Spirit of God at work within us, constantly remaking us into the image of Christ, who “though in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men…he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8).

We must become like Christ towards our hurting wives, and bear them and their pain the way Christ has borne ours.  You, like Jesus, have no rights.  

How long, you ask?  How long until I can eat where I want to eat?    Well, here is a helpful chart I made that depicts the length of time your rights are withheld:

This is not a hard and fast rule, but the longer you have been sinning against God and your wife the longer it will take to establish a good foundation.    Of course, the ideal you are shooting for is where both partners surrender their rights to each other, “submitting to one another in the fear of Christ” (Eph. 5:21).     And no, you do not have the right to tell your wife she is to submit to you out of the fear of Christ.   You lost that right, too.    With God’s help, she will willingly give that back to you when you have done the hard work of following the above advice.

Guys, believe me, it’s worth it!

* While the offended party may indeed be sinning against God and you with their anger and bitterness, it’s crucial you understand 2 things:  First, you caused this.   Second, it’s not for you to point this out to her.    Your primary duty is to pray for her and to intercede on her behalf to God, bearing her sins in the way Christ bore your own.    The longer your wife sees her daggers falling on a humble, prayerful, loving target the sooner those daggers will lessen, become duller, and soon cease altogether.

I was dead…But God!

Sunday nights has been a time of Bible study at my church and we have been walking through the book of Ephesians.    Last night we came upon my favorite stretch of 10 verses in all of Scripture:  Eph. 2:1-10.

This passage is so meaningful to me because it so accurately captures the truth about me, and I suspect you, too.   In this post I want to address a few high points from last night’s discussion and close by giving you a way to personalize this scripture in a way that I hope blesses and encourages you.

Paul begins by saying you were dead in your sins and trespasses.    Dead.  He does not mean physical death here but spiritual.   There was a time before coming to know Christ (he is writing to the saints of Ephesus) where our spiritual capacity was flat-lined.  Nothing within us could say yes to God.   Nothing within us could please God or be of use to Him.   We were dead.

Dead in our sins and trespasses, Paul says.   The word translated as “sins” here is hamartia, a Greek word which literally means to “miss the mark.”  Far too often we relegate “sins” to the very egregious acts of wickedness we see on the evening news, but Paul has more than that in mind when he writes we were “dead” in hamartia.    To “miss the mark” means we fail to be who we ought to be or could be.   It is to say that despite our best intentions when we wake up in the morning we so often fall short of the glory of God by breakfast time.   William Barclay, a prolific commentator of the Bible, while describing hamartia asks these pointed questions:

Is a man as good a husband as he might be? Does he try to make life easier for his wife? Does he inflict his moods on his family? Is a woman as good a wife as she might be? Does she really take an interest in her husband’s work and try to understand his problems and his worries? Are we as good parents as we might be? Do we discipline and train our children as we ought, or do we often shirk the issue? As our children grow older, do we come nearer to them, or do they drift away until conversation is often difficult and we and they are practically strangers? Are we as good sons and daughters as we might be? Do we ever even try to say thank you for what has been done for us? Do we ever see the hurt look in our parents’ eyes and know that we put it there? Are we as good workmen as we could be? Is every working hour filled with our most conscientious work and is every task done as well as we could possibly do it?

If you felt the stabs as I did when reading those questions, you understand how true it is that “all have sinned (missed the mark) and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Paul goes on to describe what being dead in sin looks like.   It is to follow blindly the “course of this world” and the “prince of the power of the air” which is the spirit at work in sons and daughters of disobedience.  It is to be a slave to desire, desire being defined as that which is forbidden.   There is something inside all of us that wants what we ought not want.  Something in our very nature makes us desire not God but our own passions.   Our will, or what I call our “wanter,” is dead, able only to please the self (even our good deeds are over-shadowed by a desire to please selfish interests rather than bring glory and honor to God, which is why God calls all our good deeds “filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6)).

I remember what it was like to have a dead wanter.  I didn’t wake up and decide one day to ruin my life, but a series of bad choices to indulge my own desires led me down a road that deadened whatever spiritual life I once had.   My will was completely enslaved to my own desires, and I could not say no to temptation.   When I woke up in the morning I knew that when the opportunity presented itself, I was going to cave.    Self-control, a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), was elusive to me.

Enter into this mess, this mess of being dead to sin, enslaved by a will that wants to please only oneself, dragged along by the course of this world and the passions of it, enter the most beautiful two words in all of Scripture as far as I’m concerned:   BUT GOD!  (Eph. 2:4).

BUT GOD, who is RICH IN MERCY, because of his GREAT LOVE, even when we were DEAD in our sin, made us alive with Christ!   It is a supernatural work of the same God who breathed stars into existence who took this dead heart and made it alive and sensitive to the things which please God.   Over time, this God took a dead “wanter” and made it new!   God will take a will that is bent on pleasing self and free it to do His will and His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).  Rather than being under the spell of this world which makes us sons and daughters of disobedience, and therefore subject to God’s righteous wrath, we become obedient children of God whom Jesus calls “friends” (John 15:14).    How awesome it is to know that God wants you and I to be his partners in ministry in His world, that He has work for you and I to do and has made us alive in Him so that we can be about His work, bringing Him glory in all we say and do! (Eph. 2:10).

We closed our study last night by handing out the following re-write of Ephesians 2:1-10, and reading it while listening to the song Redeemed by Big Daddy Weave.   It’s a good practice to make the scriptures personal, to read it as a letter addressed personally to you.  I’ve adapted it for you here, and invite you to read this incredible passage as you listen to the song (included below the text).    Feel free to print it off and read it often, every day if you have to, until they become a reality in your life.   You were dead….But God!  

Ephesians 2:1-10

I was dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which I once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3 I once lived among them in the passions of my flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and I was by nature a child of wrath, like everyone else. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved ME 5 even when I was dead through MY trespasses, made ME alive together with Christ—by grace I have been saved— 6 and raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward ME in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace I have been saved through faith, and this is not MY own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of MY works, so that I may not boast. 10 For I am what he has made me, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be MY way of life.

From Ashes to Beauty

In my last post (Marriage Isn’t for You (Or your spouse)), I shared some resources for marriage which Amy and I have found helpful.   But there were two I left out which would be of great benefit to you if you are 1) a couple seeking to rebuild a marriage after infidelity or 2) you are a pastor or counselor seeking resources to help you help others.

The first is a book by Jeff Colon, President of Pure Life Ministries, called From Ashes to Beauty.  Jeff knows first-hand the wreckage sexual sin will bring to a home and he and his wife have been powerful examples of what a life surrendered to God looks like.  God used Jeff’s sermons and presence at Pure Life while I was there to help turn me around and his wife, Rose, was Amy’s counselor-by-phone.    The book, From Ashes to Beauty, offers sound spiritual truth and practical advice essential for rebuilding and revitalizing a marriage, particularly if it is one affected by sexual sin.  I can’t recommend this book enough!

The second is for husbands.  It’s called The Complete Husband by Lou Priolo.   What I liked about this book is how it challenged me on every page to take responsibility for my marriage and give me practical, biblical tools with which to do so.   Every chapter contains an exercise of some sort geared towards making you think through and act upon your role as a Christian husband.

Check out these resources.   You’ll be glad you did.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

They were both very passionate about their position, this fact made obvious by the increasing volume with which they both argued their point and the speed with which they cut the other off in order to insert a new point.   I sat on the couch nearby, forbidden to enter the fray, and for perhaps the first time ever, felt grateful for being so restricted.    The discussion was over the rapture – when it might happen, who would be around before and after, and how world events were playing into the hands of biblical prophecy.  Behind closed eye-lids I rolled my eyes and to this day, 2 years later, can remember but one piercing thought:

Despite such passionate convictions on secondary issues like this and many others, all of us here have one thing in common: We are here, in “rehab” for sexual addiction, and therefore all of our theological posturing sounds stupid.    You may be right about the rapture, but if you are addicted to pornography or serial adultery (or any other habitual sin), those arguments aren’t doing you any favors now, nor will they in the future.

When I arrived at Pure Life, the director of counseling discerned exactly how I needed to be handled and issued a gag order on me with regards to talking theology.   I wasn’t allowed to enter into any theological discussions while a student there in large part because he discerned such discussions fed my pride.   He was right.  He was also right about the other part:  such discussions concealed a wicked heart, making me feel I was “good” simply because I talked about God a lot.

What I really needed was a return to the simplicity of the gospel.  I needed to get back to the basics.   I needed to return to the cross.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

It is so easy to be distracted by issues and soap boxes and theologies.    It is so easy to get mesmerized by the dust kicked up around us by our words and blogs and comments and arguments and before we know it we believe being a Christian is about proving ourselves and our beliefs as “right” over and against others.

All of this stinks of pride, and it’s repugnant to God (Prov. 16:5).

I am grateful for men like Billy Graham, who turned 95 yesterday, and for decades of ministry stuck to the simple, clear, clarion call of the gospel: Repent and believe in Jesus and be saved from your sins.    The cross is where the blood of Jesus was made available to destroy the works of sin and death in us, and without that sacrifice and our trust in Jesus we will remain lost.

Every time I find myself wanting to argue about this or that, or chase some rabbit trail about secondary matters, or let someone on social media know what I think, I am doing well when I bite my tongue and remember to keep it simple, stupid.   Anything pulling me away from the cross is nothing but a distraction from what really matters, and what will truly transform my life and the lives of others.

Lord, keep me simple and focused.   Amen.

Tell Her Everything, Then Tell Her Nothing

This post is a follow-up to the last one which asked “Are you REALLY “struggling” against Habitual Sin?”    Recent events have convinced me that it’s time to be real about the sins that are killing us and hurting others, and my wife and I pray these posts will encourage you, challenge you, and give you hope for a future in Christ, and therefore in freedom.   

When you are ready to confess your sins to your spouse there are two things you need to know and do.

1.  Tell her everything 

Before we get to the specifics let me address a common question asked:   Do I have to tell her?   Yes.   You have been using your body in ways that suggest it is your own, and it is not.   If you are a Christian, your body belongs to God (1 Cor. 6:19-20) and if you are married, it additionally belongs to your spouse (1 Cor. 7:4).   When you are involved in sexual sin, whether online or otherwise, you are both desecrating the temple in which God dwells (your body) and depriving your spouse of a right that belongs solely to him or her.    So yes, you must tell your spouse, and you must tell her everything.

Everything inside of you will want to minimize.   Don’t do this.   You will be tempted to scale back what you have actually done.   And you will do this under the delusion that you are being noble and kind, sparing your fragile wife from pain she can not handle.  

Don’t do that.  It’s not for you to decide what your wife can handle.  You forfeited that right when you started looking at things you shouldn’t be looking at, and touching things you shouldn’t be touching.

This means instead of telling her you simply look at porn “every now and then” you tell her the truth, which is more like, “I look at it every chance I get, and when I’m not, I am thinking about when I can.”   Instead of telling her that you have been with one woman but only briefly and it meant nothing, you tell her the truth, which is more like, “I’ve been with 9, and I had feelings for one.”

My wife puts it this way:

When you first reveal your sin, it’s like cutting her heart with a knife.  It’s incredibly painful.   During this time you (the betrayed spouse) wonder if you can ever trust again.   When later, it is discovered that there is more involved, that you only got part of the story, it’s like taking that wound and pouring salt into it, and the question of whether or not I can ever trust again is magnified 100 fold.

And be sure of this, the whole truth will come out.   Jesus promised this…

Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.  Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops (Luke 12:2-3)

I have proven this to be true countless times!  So tell your spouse everything.  To stop short here only defrauds the entire process, making a sham of repentance and thus closing off the power of God to restore what your sin has broken.

2. Tell her nothing

After you have confessed everything, offer no excuse.   Do not attempt to rationalize what you have done, minimize it, or justify it.   You have basically three responses from now on:

I’m so very sorry, and, You’re right, and, I love you.

Whether or not you are truly broken over your sin will be evident by how willing you are to bear the pain, the shock, the hurt-filled and angry words that your spouse is about to unload on you, not just after the initial confession but for days, weeks, months and perhaps years to come.   Yes, it gets better, but how better it gets and how quickly it gets there is determined in large part by whether you are experiencing godly sorrow over your sin or just worldly sorrow (see 2 Cor. 7:10).  Godly sorrow reckons with the fact that your sin has been against both your wife AND God, and you are desperate to make amends because you desire nothing more than to be in fellowship with Christ.   As such, you will look like Christ who bore your sins without uttering a word, without defending himself, but became a meek and lowly lamb.    This is the posture of the truly repentant.   If you are merely worldly sorrowful, then you are really only sorry that you have been found out and that which you truly love (your sin) cannot be indulged in any longer (at least not for now). You can be assured that you will be back in the pig sty before long.

How do you know if you have godly sorrow vs. worldly sorrow?   It’s easy:  You won’t care what becomes of your life from here on out, so long as you have Jesus.   You won’t care if the entire world crumbles around you, that you have to give up your plans for the future, or that you have to even die for your sins, so long as you can be made righteous.  You will want so badly to bear your wife’s pain and suffering that you will take any abuse that might come your way, no matter how she might respond (yes, even if she responds in kind in order to “get even”), because you own the fact that your sins have brought this upon your house, and now you must make restitution.

So you tell her nothing, apart from I’m sorry, I love you, you are right, and so on.

Do these 2 things.  And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

Stay tuned for how to win back his/her trust.

What Freedom Looks Like

This is a recent Facebook status my wife wrote:

I know there are some pastor’s spouses who lament not having a real “pastor”. But, I am grateful and blessed to have my husband as my pastor! He ministers to me and I know his heart. I get the privilege of watching him walk out his faith everyday, so when he speaks truth to me it helps me that much more. What a gift this man is to my life and my soul!

I don’t share this to boast apart from boasting about the mighty work God has done in our lives – as individuals and as a couple.     It’s hard to believe that just 2 years ago at this time we were sitting in divorce court, far removed from one another…

And far removed from God.

The above quote from my lovely wife is a testament to the miraculous, reconciling work God has done in each of our hearts to restore our faith in Him and in each other.   This is what freedom looks like for me.   And it’s glorious!

This same woman who once told me that if God existed He must be a monster for creating a monster like me will be the one doing the preaching this week as she speaks at our church on the sacred role of being a faithful wife.    Neither of us would have dreamed such a thing could happen 2 years ago.   But that’s what God does – greater things than we could think or imagine (Eph. 3:20).

That’s what freedom looks like for us.