Although my husband and I are satisfied sexually with each other, I am inclined more sexually. I have struggled with thoughts and have considered masturbation. I have been crying out to God and have tried not to look at erotic pictures but I need help. What can I do?

Does your husband know about your struggles? If not, I would open up to him. He is where you should be going to confess your struggles and get your needs met. If you bring it into the light it loses it power but as long as you struggle inside, alone, it will be a powerful temptation.

If looking at pornography on the Internet is a temptation then you should have some type of filter on your computer that would block out pornography—just in case you feel overwhelmed by temptation one day. I personally would also have your husband check the history. You really need a stronger covering over your life.

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Ultimately, as my husband shares in his book, At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry, your real issue is not that you are “highly sexed” or have a stronger “libido.” The real issue is your walk with God. Paul taught that if we are “walking in the Spirit,” there will be a power in our lives to resist the temptations that appeal to our carnal natures. It sounds to me like your devotional life is very weak or nonexistent. I would begin by limiting your television time (which drains a person of spiritual hunger) and establish a solid time every morning in the Word and prayer. I think you will find that your desire for sex will become far less important and your desire for God will grow.

When we are injured physically, our body automatically responds by beginning to heal itself. Similarly, when we are injured emotionally or spiritually, we begin to try to heal ourselves. But here's the problem. When it comes to emotional pain, our natural reactions often end up doing even more damage to us in the long run. We can’t simply heal ourselves – we need God to do His work in us and as we know, His ways are not like our ways. Join us as we explore the danger of trying to find healing through boosting our self-esteem in another follow up to our Refined as Silver series.

Resources

• Is My Husband's Addiction My Fault? (Video) by Kathy Gallagher

Earlier this year we released a series called Refined as Silver, and we are back this week and next with some follow up episodes based on conversations we had during that series. This week we discuss the necessity of standing against a worldly atmosphere in the home. When a home is full of worldliness, it creates a wide-open door for all sorts of lustful temptations and for sexual sin.

Resources

• The Spirit of the World Wants to Seduce You (Video) by Steve Gallagher

Rose, we want to continue a series that we call "Ask the Counselor" and today we want to answer a question that came in from a woman who is engaged to a man who is struggling with sexual sin. Let me read her question. "My fiancé struggles with sexual sin. He gives in a couple of times a year, but is always honest with me about it. I realize that it's probably unwise to marry him until this issue is resolved. What should I do?

Yeah, this is a common question. Usually, when we have someone call in and saying that their fiancé is admitting to any kind of sexual sin we will tell her that she needs to put the whole marriage on hold until he gets help for this area. Unfortunately, we've seen that sometimes a woman's not willing to do that, because she is under the assumption that if they get married this problem is going to be taken care of. But it doesn't usually take very long to find out that it doesn't get resolved by getting married. 

Just recently I got a very sad phone call from a woman. A couple of years ago, her fiancé had just finished going through our Residential Program and we counseled them to wait for two years before getting married. We wanted to make sure that there were real fruits of repentance in his life. Time will often tell whether or not a man has truly walked away from his sin. But they wanted to be married. Now, the whole situation is a mess. She's pregnant and the husband is full-blown back into his sin. 

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I share that story because we've had other stories like that--people who are not willing to wait or not willing to let spiritual leaders get involved and they just go forward with what they want. All too often it ends up in a heartbreaking story.

Isn't part of the problem, Rose, that the men and women in this kind of situation are looking at sexual sin as if it is the main issue, and that they are not seeing the much broader spiritual issue that it represents?

Yeah, there is that mindset, and part of it is because we read that in 1st Corinthians 7, where Paul says, essentially that if you can't control yourself, then it's better to marry then to burn with lust. What we've seen through the years of doing this ministry is that the lust issue is not the heart of the issue! And that's what I was sharing with the dear woman I mentioned before--that God is after his heart! God's after his heart! He hasn't surrendered his heart to God in the way that the Lord is calling him to surrender--his heart, his life, everything about him! And until that happens, he's just going to keep going around the same mountain.

OK, so you mentioned a couple things to this woman. Number 1, that they should wait to get married. But secondly, you made some recommendations for both of them. 

Yeah, she needs to make sure her leaders, her spiritual leaders, know what's going on. Sometimes the pastors don't know anything that's going on, and it's just between the two of them. So, it's good to get that third party involved so they can speak into their lives. And we would also recommend that if the spiritual leader does not know about Pure Life Ministries to tell him about us and to have him visit our website to see what we have to offer so that he would kind of push the fiancé in that direction to get help for his sin before they even think about getting married.

And that could be another important reason to go to someone who is in a place of spiritual authority as opposed to just a friend or family member, who may very well give you good counsel, but you need someone who has that spiritual authority in your life that can say "No, this is the direction you need to go." Because they you know you've got God's hand on it. 

Yeah, because I think about my pastor...I know God brought him into my life and he gave us counsel that, in the natural, I did not agree with. And I couldn't understand how what he told us to do was going to solve our problems, right? But what I saw that was God was after something in me during that time.

And that's another important aspect of the counsel that you gave the woman that asked this question. You recommended that they both seek counsel.

Yeah, it's very important for them to both go for help, not for one to go independently of the other.

And again, to wrap up your response, Rose, you did say that even if they are willing to wait and they both go through counseling, that it is wise to still wait at a minimum for a year, just to make sure that what God has wanted to get at in the heart, that progress has been made there and that it is genuine and will be long lasting. 

Yes, because especially this area of sexual sin and what it does to a marriage. It's just devastating for a wife. It destroys the marriage vows, really.

Right, and of course our prayer is that people will seek good counsel and that's part of why we're here. We provide help for them and will walk alongside them through whatever it is that God wants to accomplish in their hearts. 

Yes, exactly.

Three of our leaders joined Nate in the studio this week to reflect on Dave Leopold’s sermon series A Vision of Jesus. In their discussion, they reflect on the parts that stood out to them most, how the messages impacted them personally and also how it has affected our Residential Program students.

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James 4:10 says, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.” Jeff and Mike wrap up our series on humility this week, discussing how that plays out practically in our lives.

Mike: We want to finish up our series on humility today, talking about it from the perspective of humility and exaltation. And I want to begin by giving an example of one of the things we deal with here at Pure Life Ministries and that is the issue of pride. Of course, we all have to deal with pride, but it's a big issue particularly for men that are coming out of sexual sin. That’s because pride is at the root of sexual sin. God tells us in dealing with pride that we need to do two things. First, He wants us to humble ourselves. Then He wants us to trust Him to lift us up. So that brings us to the question, how do we humble ourselves?

Jeff: One thing I want to say is that we cannot make ourselves humble, yet God still commands us to be humble. What this means is that our part in the humbling process is to get before God and accept, with gratitude, everything that God allows to come our way. We must do it whether it’s from a friend, an enemy or by natural means. And we must submit to it willingly. In other words, I must not resist what comes my way and God will do the rest. He will produce what only He can in our lives.

Mike: We talked about that in an earlier discussion in this series, using Paul as an example. He learned to be content in whatever circumstance God brought him into, because he learned that God was using it to humble him and give him a greater sight of who He was. Talk a little bit about what happens when we come to the place where we agree with God that we need to humbled.

Jeff: I see it most in situations where I embrace that someone has wronged me. Maybe I heard that someone said something about me. What I immediately start seeing in my response internally is that I have a lot of pride. So, immediately God starts showing you how much pride is in your life when you start looking at a situation and see how you're reacting to it. You start to see what's coming out of you during that trial and that's part of the process. We have to see where we are not humble so that we can repent of it and allow God to start producing His qualities in us.

Mike: It's almost the principle that things have got to get worse before they get better, because that's what it feels like. But really things aren't getting worse, our eyes are just being opened to how bad we already are.

Jeff: Yeah. And I can say it this way. It's all part of the refining process. The trials are like gold being refined in fire. And what happens when that fire comes? The impurities come to the surface. Most of the impurity which surfaces up in us is pride.

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Mike: As we go through this refining process and we develop the habit of going through the fire instead of running from it, what begins to happen in our lives?

Jeff: Habit. And habit is actually a wonderful thing. I just wrote an article about that. God designed us to be creatures of habit. The more you do something, it almost becomes natural to you. I don't have to think about how I'm going to put my socks on in the morning or how I am going to brush my teeth. It's just something I can do without a thought. And the reason I can do those things so naturally is because I have done them so many times.
It's the same way with humbling yourself. The more you learn how to humble yourself and accept situations in your life, it just becomes natural to respond that way. But in the beginning, it's not like that. It's almost like we create a rut in our lives where pride is always getting in our way and now God is saying to us internally, “No, you need to humble yourself.” We have to step out of that rut and it’s not easy. But the more you resist the flesh and go in the other direction, it gets a little easier each time to humble yourself.

Mike: I remember the early stages of my time going through the Residential Program. I almost had to go overboard in saying, “I’m wrong” and, “I don’t understand.” I had to just choose the lowliest position in every situation, because it was so unnatural to me to humble myself that I almost needed to jump start it in the beginning.

Jeff: Yea. Just like Paul tells us in 1 Timothy to train ourselves in righteousness. It literally is training yourself to understand how much pride you have and to see the need to humble yourself in different situations.

Mike: It doesn't always work out in the beginning. I remember when I learned to ride a bicycle and had training wheels, I was scared to death. I did not want my dad to take those training wheels off, because I knew what was going to happen. I was going to fall. And I did fall a few times. Then I'd stay up for a while, and then I'd fall a few more times. We are going to fail at this at first, but we have to get back up and just keep at it.
I only say that because I know how easily some of us are discouraged by our failures. And the enemy of course is right there saying, “Oh, look, see you didn't humble yourself. You can never do this. God's never going to have His way in you.” But it's not true. We just have to keep pressing in and trusting God to work it out in our hearts and our lives.

Jeff: And the reality of what it says in James 4:10 that if we humble ourselves, He will lift us up. That’s basically what you just shared. God sees us trying and He is there. And if we are willing to humble ourselves and we are cooperating with Him, He’s going to lift us up.

Mike: What does He mean that He's going to lift us up? Does He mean we're going to be in some high and exalted place where we're going to have to be humbled again. What's He really talking about there?

Jeff: In the natural when I think about the Scripture I just read in James, I picture myself being put on a pedestal and lifted up like a trophy. But really, it's the opposite of that. It's Jesus being lifted up in my life.  Jesus is exalted in our lives and we with Him in a sense are lifted with Him. It's a glorious thing.

Mike: Andrew Murray used an example of looking into a ray of light and seeing a speck of dust just floating in that light. And the positive way to see that is that we are that speck of dust. But look where we are. We have Christ living in and through us. What more wonderful place to become nothing and have Him become everything. For me, that was just a wonderful picture. I want to be a speck of dust in the glory of God.

Jeff: Here is one assurance we can have. It really is a wonderful thing that as we enter into that fellowship with Jesus and embrace our trials, while humbling ourselves through them, we can count on Him to do what He promises. There are two parts to that Scripture. If we humble ourselves, then He will lift us up. We need to hold on to that. Whether we're humbling ourselves before others, or God or whatever, we need to hold on to that promise. In the midst of that His power and His Spirit will rest on us and He will lift us up. That really is something we can be content in and rest in, knowing that God is going to be faithful to what He has promised us.

Mike: And in that He is glorified.

Jeff: Yes. Because God takes His rightful place inside of us and that is what I want. I want Christ ruling and reigning and His life to be lived fully through my life. That is the greatest desire of my heart.

Just like any other area of addiction, those who are trapped in sexual sin often hold out hope for a “miracle ­cure.” People enslaved to sin want someone to provide them with a quick-fix. They search for solutions like thirty-day programs or ten steps to freedom. What they are really seeking is the “easy-button” fix to their situation. Although there are many approaches to dealing with addiction in the psychological world, what Pure Life Ministries has discovered is that there is only one biblical response to sin in the life of a man or woman, and that is repentance.

In many modern church circles, the concept of repentance has all but disappeared from our preaching. Sometimes it is taught as the entrance into the Kingdom of God, but then it is ignored, as if repentance has no relevance in the life of a believer beyond salvation. This lack of biblical preaching on repentance leaves people who are ensnared in a lifestyle of sin looking elsewhere for answers. But true repentance is the key to life-transformation.  

When my own sin came out into the open over seven years ago, it sent our life into immediate turmoil. Suddenly, our career in missions abruptly ended and we had to change our living situation. That began the darkest eight months of my life. During that time, I sought the help of psychologists and psychiatrists, hoping they would be able to “fix” me. But regardless of the analysis, the counseling sessions and the medication, the hardness of my heart remained untouched. As a last resort, I went to Pure Life Ministries. During my time in the residential program, God dramatically broke through in my situation. As I look back, I can clearly see that before entering the program, I was willing to do anything that did not require true repentance. It was only after walking through the process of repentance with the Lord that I finally found the freedom I longed for.

Let us consider three important truths about biblical repentance.

1. Apologizing to God is Not the Same as Repentance

Repentance is not merely apologizing to the Lord, asking forgiveness and then continuing in sin. I once found myself trapped in this endless cycle. After giving into my sin, I would beg God to forgive me and always promised to do better. I always swore, “That was the last time I’ll ever give into that sin.” But the next time the temptation would present itself, I would commit the same sin all over again. I equated repentance with merely confessing to the Lord. While confession is one ingredient, there is much more to the repentance process than simply making an apology to God.

2. Feeling Sorrowful Does Not Necessarily Indicate True Repentance

The Apostle Paul gives us some insight about repentance in his second letter to the Corinthian church. In chapter seven, he describes two types of sorrow. In this passage, Paul is discussing a previous letter he had written to the church, in which he had rebuked them. But the apostle rejoices because their sorrow caused them to repent. He explains that godly sorrow produces repentance which leads to salvation. (2Cor. 7:9-10)

However, Paul also refers to another type of sorrow in this portion of Scripture. He called it worldly sorrow. This is the emotion most people feel when they get caught doing something wrong. Worldly sorrow can be sincere, but it is sincerely the wrong kind. It is extremely deceptive because it feels like legitimate remorse. But worldly sorrow will not cause any change in our lives. In fact, Paul tells us that it leads to death. (v. 10)

Just feeling sorrow over our sin is not a definite indicator that we are experiencing biblical repentance. Which leads us to the third point:

3. Repentance Looks like a Changed Life

In Luke 3:8, John the Baptist commands the people to, “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” True biblical repentance will have fruit as a result. If we are asked, “How do you know you’ve repented of sexual sin?” we should be able to show evidence of that repentance in our lifestyle. If you are wondering whether a trip you took to the altar was true repentance or merely lip-service, just look for the proof of it. True repentance should cause a desire to rid your life of sin. The sin should not be something you can run right back into without a second thought. Although temptation may still come, there should be a godly fear that prevents you from giving in, and a vehement desire to stay in good standing with the Lord.

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When I was in Bible College, I was bound in pornography. I went to a school that would invite people to the altar if they wanted to respond to the Lord in a tangible way during chapel services. My solution was to respond to every altar call that was given and cry out to the Lord. The problem is that I was not really prepared to do what was required to rid myself of the idol. I thought I was sincere, but the fact that I continued in that besetting sin proved that sincerity was not enough. There were plenty of practical steps that I could have taken to eliminate the sin, but I refused. My repentance was proven false by the fact that there was no fruit from it.

The reality is that if you really mean business with God, you will do whatever it takes. People who have wet eyes on Sunday—but no change on Monday—need to examine the sincerity of their repentance.

Charles Finney once said it this way:

Many suppose that remorse or a sense of guilt is repentance. Then hell is full of repentance because it is full of unutterable and eternal remorse. Others feel regret that they have sinned, and they call that repenting. But they only regret their sin because of the consequences, not because they abhor sin. This is not repentance… Repentance is a change of mind toward God and sin. It is not only a change of views, but a change of the ultimate preference or choice of the soul and of action.

Repentance is more than confessing to the Lord with an apology. And it entails more than just a feeling of sorrow for what we have done. True biblical repentance involves a turning away from our sin and toward God. And our lives will reflect the fruit of our repentance. This does not mean that we will never be tempted in this area. Far from it. It does not necessarily mean that we will never slip into the sin to some degree in a moment of weakness. But the overall picture of our life will show that we truly have repented before the Lord and therefore have become changed people.

Anyone who takes a deep look at Jesus will realize that He was not an ordinary man. He was full of a love that was pure and otherworldly, and it inspired Him to do things that can be very hard for us to understand. But we must continue to look at Him until we see the motivations of His heart rightly. In this sermon, Reverend Dave Leopold unpacks the miracle at the Wedding in Cana and Jesus’ driving out the money changers in the temple. He shows us how both stories reveal the passionate and zealous love which God has for us.

When ensnared in sexual sin, people invariably lie. The obvious reason, of course, is that they don’t want to be caught. If we dig deeper, though, we find that lies are not simply a personal problem, they are an interpersonal problem. The liar is essentially saying, “I am willing to betray the implicit trust you have in me in order to avoid the consequences of my behavior.” Lies are for me and against you. These are motives that can be easily discerned.

Lies also reveal what country we are temporarily calling home. They are the native tongue of the Devil, and they are the natural language of his dark kingdom. In other words, when we lie, we are exposing our spiritual allegiances. We are telling the world who we want as our spiritual father.

Another spiritual fact is that when we tell lies, we also believe lies. Yes, as strange as that can sound, we can believe our own lies. However, there is a deception that is even worse: we actually believe lies about God. A reliable assumption about life is that it is God-ward at all times, whether we are consciously thinking about Him or not. Dig down far enough and you will find that the real root of our behavior revolves around our relationship to and beliefs about God.

One category of lies believed by those in sexual idolatry is that God is like a human being—turbo-charged maybe, like a kind of superman. Look at actual idols (of Far Eastern religions for example) and you will find a few extra hands, suggesting that God can multi-task better than us, or an extra eye or two, suggesting that he sees a little more and is a little smarter than the average human. In order to indulge in sexual sin, we must humanize God. In particular, we have to believe that he can’t see everywhere, everything, at all times.

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Think about it. If you searched the internet for pornography, would you do it if you knew that your spouse, pastor, mother and children were looking right over your shoulder? No one would do such a thing. Sin thrives only in the dark. It is amazing the self-control a person suddenly acquires when he is in public. What does that indicate about the reality of God in the life of the sexual idolater?

All authentic heart change depends on knowing God truly. Those stuck in sin must hear the question resounding in their spiritual ears, “‘To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One.” (Isaiah 40:25) In times past their answer to the question was a lie. He could be compared to someone big, someone with highly acute senses, or someone smart—but not Supreme. Change takes root when they say the truth, “There is no one like you. You alone see all your creation.” Then as they put their trust in the Holy One, in that act of faith they are entering, or re-entering, the kingdom of truth and light.

The book of James tells us to count it all joy when we face trials of many kinds. And the more that we come to understand that the humbling experiences we go through are all for God's glory, the more we can learn to rejoice in our times of struggle and weakness.

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Mike: The reality is when we hear the word, ‘humility,’ especially in our current culture, it has a very negative connotation. But the title of our segment today, Humility and Happiness, specifically comes against that idea. I have to admit, happiness is not the first feeling that comes to mind when I think about humility.

Jeff: It's so true. A lot of times we equate humility with a humiliating experience and it's true that it does not always feel like a positive thing. But Paul actually rejoiced in his weaknesses and over the things that grew the spirit of humility in him because through them he learned the secret that humility is the entrance to true happiness. That is where we find the Lord and that is where we come to understand He is everything in our lives. Instead of being afraid of things that will bring about humility in our lives, we really need to learn how to endure as Paul did. And we need to learn how to embrace humbling situations that God allows into our lives to help us get a sight of our weakness and our need for Him.

Mike: God does allow difficult circumstances and we may look at Paul’s life and think to ourselves, “Man, Paul was God's chosen man and look what the Lord took him through.” We look at that and we look at our own difficult experiences and I guess it kind of begs the question, what can we do that will help us to embrace those trials rather than to push ourselves away from them?

Jeff: Well, what sticks out to me is 2nd Corinthians 12. That’s where Paul says that he rejoiced in weakness so that the power of Christ may work through him. But really, I want to say it this way: we get a revelation of who Jesus is in the weak moments where we don't have what it takes and we have to turn to the Lord. We see more of the Lord. We experience more of His power and more of His grace in our lives.
And as you taste that in trials, it helps you embrace those moments of weakness because you begin to understand that's where you are going to find the Lord. That's where you are going to get a greater revelation of who He is. It will lead you to experience a revelation of His grace in your life, and will help you gain a sight of His power and mercy in your life. So, it really does pull you along and help you to embrace those trials.

Mike: I found it kind of works both ways. In receiving a sight of Jesus we begin to embrace humility and in embracing humility we also will gain a greater sight of Jesus.

Jeff: That is absolutely right. If we want to grow in our relationship with the Lord, we have to invite Him into our lives and give Him permission to bring things into our lives that will help us get to know Him in the way that Paul describes in 2nd Corinthians. We need to ask Him to let His fire come into our lives so that He can refine us and bring us to the place of knowing Him so that His power can be perfected in our weakness. We understand through the Scriptures that that is the only way it happens.

Mike: And that's a hard thing to ask. We say that we ought to do that. But in all honesty, that's hard to even get out of my mouth. By asking Him to bring the fire we are basically asking Him to crucify us.

Jeff: Yeah. But we need to remember His promise to us. That is really what we need to hold on to. He said if we count our trials as joy then He is going to produce something in us. And we have to believe that and hold on to it.

Mike: And it has to be rooted in our trust in Him, that He is good and that He has good in His heart for us. If we have a wrong perspective of God, thinking He is just up there to beat us up and make us as miserable as possible, and if we fail to see His promises, then it becomes almost impossible to ask God to do His work in us.

Jeff: It really does rest in our knowledge of His good and merciful character.

Mike: Amen. Well, Paul said that he learned to boast in his weaknesses. How do we know when we look at our own lives that we've learned that lesson?

Jeff: The next time someone criticizes you. Whether it's fair or not, how do you view it? Do you see it as an opportunity to be like Jesus or to draw near to Him? Or do you reject His character in that moment and rise up inside? Really, the way you can gauge if you have learned to boast in your weakness is how you welcome the situations into your life that bring about humility.

Mike: I believe some people who read this will have that very thing happen today or tomorrow to test them. It’s not our natural inclination to respond with joy in those circumstances. I think sometimes when we experience the natural response of the flesh, we think, “Okay, there is no hope for me to grow in this area, I should just give up.” But if we recognize our flesh and stop for a moment to say, “Okay, that's my flesh. But I'm going to choose to listen to the Holy Spirit and I'm going to respond to this by the grace of God the way He is calling me to respond.” That's when God can begin to mature us and help us deal with those situations in the right way.

Jeff: Yeah, that's right Mike. I know one thing that helps me is looking to what the Word of God says. Like, “Count it all joy.” When I'm in a trial, a lot of times the Holy Spirit will bring that Scripture up. He’ll remind me that He wants to produce something in me through it. So, I need to count it all joy. I need to be thankful. I need to understand He’s in that situation and that He wants to bring good out of it. We need to grasp that truth instead of relying on our own thinking and perception of our trials. Trials can be good for us to go through if we let God use them the way He wants to in our lives.

Mike: Well, we used the word train earlier and that's what God is doing. He’s training us. I guess what I am saying is to not get discouraged if tomorrow something happens and you don't automatically respond in joy. As we learn this and as we attempt to walk this out in faith, we gain a greater understanding that that's what's happening. Part of what's going on here and part of what happened in Paul’s life in learning to boast in his weaknesses is that he learned something that we call contentment. What's the secret of contentment?

Jeff: Well, I'm going to share a little testimony regarding this, because I just recently was going through some trials. Each time I go through a trial, I'm learning something about contentment. The bottom line is understanding that it's all for God's glory. It's all for God's good in my life, but more than that, it’s to glorify Him through my life. And when I come to understand that, I really am learning how to be content.
To have a relationship with Jesus with that kind of attitude is true contentment because contentment is knowing I am in His will and that He loves me. His purpose is being fulfilled in my life and I am glorifying Him with my life. So if I could conclude this whole talk on finding happiness in humility I would just say this: learn to be happy in your weaknesses. Learn to be happy in everything that can humble you and keep you low, because then the power of Christ will rest on you.

We’ve all had experiences where someone did something or said something that initially hurt us that turned out in the end to be the best thing for us. We call that tough love, and it is love, even if it doesn’t feel like it. In this episode of our series A Vision of Jesus, Dave Leopold looks at two instances where Jesus treated someone in a way that initially seemed cruel but ultimately worked out for their good. Jesus will do whatever He knows is best for us, because He is full of grace and truth.

Resources

• Responding to Despair and Discouragement (Article) by Steve Gallagher

Thirty years ago, I made a weak-kneed commitment to spend twenty minutes in prayer every morning. At the time, I was carnally-minded, weak in my faith and immature in the Christian life. I had very little resolve in me to fight for a prayer life.

Twenty minutes. It seemed paltry in comparison to the sixteen waking hours I had at my disposal each day and yet every tick of the clock served as a painful reminder of how tedious it felt. I somehow stuck with it, and by the end of that first week, it had become noticeably easier. Little did I realize that within a couple of months it would be such an integral part of my daily existence that I couldn’t imagine life without it.

Within three months of that fledgling commitment, I walked away from a fifteen-year addiction to sexual sin. Within fifteen months, I began the world’s first ministry to sexual addicts. Within two years, I was spending at least an hour in prayer and an hour in the Word of God every morning.

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When I scan the past thirty years of my life, I can only marvel at all the enormous blessings God has lavished upon me because of this small sacrifice I make for Him every morning.

David said, “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4) What could be a greater way to “delight yourself in the Lord” than to spend time with Him? The fact of the matter is that our heavenly Father greatly enjoys doing things for His obedient children that will make them happy. What father doesn’t take enormous pleasure in doing something kind for his children? (Of course, he wouldn’t be a good parent if he spoiled his child with unwarranted gifts.)

I know exactly what David meant when he said the Lord “satisfies your years with good things.” (Psalm 103:5) It is true that I have fought countless battles, faced many painful disappointments and experienced my share of suffering. Yet, when I review the last three decades, the Lord’s kindnesses to me dwarf those hardships.

It should go without saying that believers spend time in prayer; it is after all part of being a responsible Christian. However, in this post I want to encourage your commitment to prayer by sharing some of the many benefits I have enjoyed over the years because of my walk with the Lord. I will confine my expressions of gratitude to two basic areas of life.

Prayer Leads to Outward Blessings

The Lord knows “the desires of your heart.” We are all different and He alone knows what would truly be enjoyable and meaningful to each of us. One way, of many, the Lord has blessed me has been to allow me to experience the adventure of overseas travel. Prior to my life with God, the only foray I had made out of the country as an adult was a miserable trip down into Mexico where everything went wrong. That “vacation” is a picture of life for disobedient and prayerless Christians who attempt to bless themselves.

However, once I began to pray the Lord instituted a systematic program in my life of proving His kindness to me. Consider some of the ways He has used overseas travel as a source of blessing to me since I began praying. I have spent ten weeks in Israel, toured Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps and visited the ruins of New Testament cities throughout Greece and Turkey. I have trekked in the Peruvian Andes, slogged through a Bolivian rainforest, swum in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of El Salvador and caught a marlin off the coast of Mexico. I have slept in a Bedouin tent in the Negev, hiked in David’s old haunts in the Judean wilderness and explored the caves of Cappadocia. I have strolled through Amsterdam, climbed the Acropolis of Athens, traversed Jerusalem, seen the sights of London, experienced the Coliseum and catacombs of Rome, dined in Munich and spent New Year’s Eve in Zurich. I have ministered in Bahrain, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, El Salvador, England, Germany, Guatemala, Holland, Jordan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Romania, and Uruguay. I have preached in a host of prisons including San Quentin, Soledad and Huntsville.

I can honestly say that I didn’t make any of those trips happen—the Lord orchestrated every one of them. If it seems as though I am boasting, I am! But my boast is entirely in the Lord, for this is a small but demonstrable picture of how He blesses those who delight in Him!

Prayer Leads to Inward Blessings

Outward pleasures such as traveling are a colorful way to illustrate how the Lord extends kindness to those who delight in Him, but far more important and meaningful are the inward blessings He bestows. For instance, how much would I have enjoyed those trips if I were miserable inside? Or take it beyond the travel example. How much would it mean to Kathy and me to live in a nice home in the woods if it were filled with strife? How gratifying would it be for me to minister if I was still carnally-minded and full of lust? What would my life have to show for itself if I hadn’t been praying for souls all these years?

The inward joy I experience is admittedly nebulous. I don’t walk around grinning all the time because I am so exuberant inside—although there are certainly times that I am! But on my worst day I have more inward joy than the best day of an unbeliever. I say that because their happy experiences are empty and short-lived. Actually, one of the best places to find cheerful people is in a bar where you will find them engaged in the kind of boisterous activity that often produces uproarious laughter. Yet, the following day finds these same people miserable and empty.

Prayerless Christians may not face the same consequences as partiers do, but they do miss out on the greatest blessings the Christian life has to offer. Only a praying believer can know what it feels like to experience God’s smile. Only a couple who prays together can really experience deep fellowship and a meaningful relationship. There is simply no way to describe the inward fullness that comes with a life of prayer.

After all, it is in one’s prayer closet that a person will often experience the life-giving presence of God. It is there that the Lord instructs His child and leads him in the way to go. It is there that the Word of God opens up to the hungry believer. It is there that the Christian learns the joy of gratitude and true worship. And, of course, it is there that one’s supplications are answered.

I admit that developing a prayer life requires determination. Leonard Ravenhill stated it correctly when he wrote, “Prayer is taxing. Prayer is exacting. Prayer means enduring. Prayer means denying self, a daily dying by choice.” C.S. Lewis added, “Prayer is irksome. An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome. We are reluctant to begin. We are delighted to finish.” Yet for all their forthright admissions regarding the cost involved, both of those men remained faithful in their devotional times throughout their long lives.

Yes, staying faithful in prayer requires dedication and sacrifice, but when you think about it, what is the alternative? A prayerless and fruitless life? No sincere believer would consider that as an option.