You may find this hard to believe, but it is true nonetheless: God is making you into a trophy which He will showcase for all eternity. Now, if you’re anything like me, such a thought seems ludicrous—even laughable. When I consider my wretched past and the inferior lump of clay the Lord received with the Steve Gallagher package, the idea of me being something He would want to show off to others seems rather far-fetched. And yet, that is precisely the claim that Scripture makes.

“You were dead in your trespasses and sins…” Paul writes. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ… so that in the ages to come He might show (demonstrate, Amplified Bible) the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:1-7)

The New Living Translation interprets the final verse as, “And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus.”

Many of us who come from a past of horrid sin find it difficult to see anything redeemable about ourselves. But that is the very point Paul is making! We were dead. We were hopeless. There was nothing we could do to save ourselves. “But God, being rich in mercy…” stepped into our dark and lost condition and saved us—and He did it to make us His trophies!

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God Alone Is Receiving the Glory

Allow me to illustrate the truth of this with the stories of two teenaged boys—Tommy and Clarence. Tommy is a winsome boy who attends a suburban high school. He is also a very good basketball player and his coach utilizes his exceptional talent to lead their team to a winning season. “What a great kid!” exclaim all those who know him. The truth is that anyone could coach a kid who has been gifted with the personality and talent Tommy has.

Meanwhile, down in the inner city, lives a rebellious teenager named Clarence. He has been nothing but trouble to his mother since childhood. In fact, because he is so abrasive, unruly and difficult, people do their best to avoid him. However, one day the high school coach happened by as Clarence was playing some pick-up basketball with friends. He was amazed at his natural ability and immediately befriended him, inviting him to join the varsity team.

Over the next three years, the coach overlooked Clarence’s surly and cocky attitude and did his best to help the troubled teen. He was the kind of trainer who could see beyond a young person’s present condition to what he could become. He showed Clarence that he believed the best about him. This young man had never experienced such kindness and patience. He responded by blossoming into a phenomenon on the court, eventually being recruited by several big universities.

In Tommy’s case, his coach will not receive the accolades; Tommy alone will receive credit for being such “a great kid.” Clarence, on the other hand, became a star for one reason only: he had a great coach who poured himself into the young man’s life.

It is the inner-city coach who provides an apt picture of the Lord. God is not looking for great people; He is searching for great sinners who can join the Hall of Fame of grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast,” Paul went on to write. God alone will receive the glory for what becomes of our lives.

God’s Grace on Display

Paul tells us that “in the ages to come” God will demonstrate “the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” For the longest time I believed the point the apostle was making was that, throughout eternity, the Lord would continue to unveil His grace to us. There is certainly truth in that interpretation, but actually this great demonstration is not primarily for our personal benefit.

To fully understand the main reason God fashions trophies, one must go all the way back to the Garden of Eden. With just three words, “Has God said…?”,  Satan initiated a long-term and systematic campaign to assassinate God’s holy character. He went on to suggest that the Lord was withholding good from Eve, the underlying suggestion being that “God is not trustworthy; He’s in it for Himself.”

For 6,000 years, the Lord has allowed Satan to work his poisonous deception into the minds of mankind. He has maligned God’s character—not just to man—but also to “the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:10) God’s righteousness must and ultimately will be vindicated.

A dramatic picture of this is provided for us in Revelation 7:

“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.’” (Revelation 7:9-12)

This vast host of saints, standing in “white robes,” clearly understands one thing: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God…” There, in the light of eternity, when they can look back upon their earth life with undimmed eye, they will clearly grasp how much God did to save their souls. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote the following about this great day:

“This is to me the most overwhelming thought that we can ever lay hold of, that the almighty, everlasting, eternal God is vindicating Himself and His holy nature and being, by something that He does in us and with us and through us… He is going to put us on display, as it were; there is going to be a glorious exhibition. He is already doing it, but it is going to continue in the ages to come, and at the consummation God is going to open His last great exhibition and all these heavenly powers and principalities will be invited to attend. The curtain will be drawn back and God will say, Look at them! ‘To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.’” (1)

I have a feeling that when that day arrives, we will look in vain around us to find one single “Tommy” in that heavenly host. Instead, we will discover that we are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with many “Clarence’s”: trophies to the grace of God.

(1) Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way of Reconciliation.

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This is one of many hot-button questions in our day and age. Many years of well-intentioned Christian activism against homosexuality in our country has left the gay community with the impression that Christians are self-righteous and intolerant. Be that as it may, it is still a worthwhile issue to consider.

Before we get into that question, we will need to narrow down our categories a little to make sure we are measuring “like with like.” For instance, a man raping a woman is far worse than two men hooking up for casual sex. So simply putting homosexual activity up against heterosexual sin is too broad of a comparison. Perhaps a better way to ask the question would be, “Is homosexual promiscuity worse than heterosexual promiscuity?” Here we have two similar behaviors distinguished solely by gender orientation.

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We all know instinctively that some crimes in the penal code are worse than others. Obviously murder is more serious than larceny, and it is no different within the legal structure of God’s kingdom. In that light, yes, I believe homosexual promiscuity is “worse than" heterosexual promiscuity. I say this for a number of reasons.

1. First, an argument could be made that Scripture treats homosexuality more seriously. In the Old Testament, this lifestyle, represented by the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, faced stern judgment by God. That divine displeasure was carried into the New Testament when the apostle Paul designated homosexuality as particularly vile behavior in Romans 1.
   
2. Second, while it is sinful for a guy and a girl to engage in extramarital sexual intercourse, their behavior fits within the parameters of “normal” sex—something that cannot be said of sodomy and the like. In fact, Paul uses such terms as “degrading,” “unnatural” and “indecent” when he discusses it in Romans 1.
   
3. Third, homosexual behavior affects a person’s perception of himself, causing him to identify himself more closely with an immoral lifestyle than the godly behavior expected of a believer. The homosexual movement has spawned an entire community and culture within our nation—complete with its own Christian denominations.
   
4. The final reason I believe that homosexual sin is worse is more of a sense than something easily articulated. In my years of ministering in the realm of sexual addiction, it has been clear to me that homosexual activity brings about emotional suffering and a spiritual corruption that runs very deeply. It doesn’t take much to see how deeply gays have been scarred as a result of the course their lives have taken.

So in light of all of that, I repeat: homosexual promiscuity is “worse than" heterosexual promiscuity.

However, there is an issue Jesus raised that I believe trumps this entire question. In Luke 18, He offered a parable that was a similar comparison of sinful behaviors.

The first example was a hard-hearted, arrogant and self-righteous Pharisee. His disdain of others must have seemed particularly nauseating to Jesus. The second man—a “tax collector”—wasn’t much better. For years he had used his official position to rip people off—poor folks, widows or whoever else he could take advantage of. The interesting thing is that Jesus didn’t claim that the sin of the Pharisee was worse than that of the tax collector or vice-versa. He declared the tax collector “justified” before God for one reason only: he had humbled himself before the Lord in deep repentance over his behavior—something the Pharisee was unwilling to do.

So, maybe the question we should be asking has nothing to do with which behavior is worse. Maybe we should be asking, “Is an unrepentant sinner in more trouble with God than a repentant sinner?” The answer to that question would be a resounding, “Yes!”

In this interview with Nathan Boer, we learn how repentance from sin is not only a commandment, but it is also a gift to help lead us out of Satan's control and into a life full of God's Holy Spirit. (from Podcast Episode #373 - Repentance Must Become an Integral Part of a New Lifestyle)

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Jim: Nathan, we are talking today about the subject of repentance and eventually we want to get to the point of how a person repents. But to get us started, talk to me about where we see repentance taught in the New Testament, who taught repentance and what did they say?

Nathan: Men like John the Baptist, Jesus, and the disciples such as Peter. It's hard to get very far in the New Testament without coming across repentance. What really surprises me is how John the Baptist preaches a sermon of repentance prior to preaching repentance to pave the way for Jesus.

Jim: Yeah. Now most people who know John the Baptist, probably remember him as a preacher of repentance. John the Baptist came in the wilderness preaching and saying repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand. We don't remember Jesus that way, but Jesus taught repentance too, right?

Nathan: That’s correct. In Matthew 4:17, Jesus said, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” He also instructed the disciples, and he summoned the 12 and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority over unclean spirits, and they went out and preached to men that they should repent.

Jim: Wow. What about the two great apostles of the New Testament, Peter and Paul.

Nathan: Well, at Pentecost Peter told those listening to repent, that they would be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So, in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, they had to repent first. They were also instructed to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. It's an interesting step by step process there. If you had to summarize Paul’s preaching, everywhere that he went, he taught repentance.

Jim: If we look at John the Baptist, Jesus, the disciples, Peter, and Paul, I think we can call repentance a consistent New Testament theme. There's an interesting dynamic when it comes to repentance, and that dynamic is that repentance is a gift from God, but it is also a command from God. I will get into this a little bit more, but first show us where in the New Testament we are told that repentance is a gift from God.

Nathan: In Acts 11:17-18 it says, “Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could stand in God's way. When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God saying, ‘Well then God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.’”

Jim: Where else do we find that repentance is a gift from God?

Nathan: While writing to Timothy about dealing with men to whom he speaks in his congregations, or in the community who opposed his message, Paul says, “The Lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, and with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. If perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.” (2 Timothy 2:24, 26)

Jim: I love that passage of scripture, because it tells the man of God how to deal with someone who doesn't want to hear what he has to say. But you're right, it says that God will give to them repentance, and the Jews and the Gentiles received the gift of repentance. Paul is telling Timothy that perhaps somebody who opposes the gospel will be given repentance. God gives repentance as a gift. We are only able to repent because God allows it and enables us to do it. Yet repentance often appears in the New Testament as a command given to men by Godly preachers. We are commanded to repent. Isn't that so?

Nathan: That is correct. It's kind of phenomenal that God commands us to do it and then he gives us the grace to do it. It's as if he tells us “This is what you're going to do, and I know you can't do it. So, I'm going to help you do it, but you have to initiate it.”

Jim: Okay, I think we got it. Repentance is a command, but it's also a gift from God. He demands it, but then he supplies what is needed to fulfill that demand.

Nathan: That's correct. God is intimately equated with all our ways. If we want to repent, He's right there leading us to do it. It's far more likely that if we want to repent, it's because the Holy Spirit has been working on us to bring conviction. He gives us the gift of repentance, which then gives us the grace to do it. God is involved in every aspect of our salvation, enabling us to be obedient in our parts which are repentance and faith. We are commanded to believe, but God gives us the gift of faith. We couldn't do anything without his will and cooperation.

Jim: Well Nathan, Pastor Steve has taught us elsewhere that repentance is total life change. It's a change of mind. It's a change of will. It's a change of emotions. But what I want you to tell our listeners is what to do when you feel the need to repent hands on real time. What does repentance look like? I come to you as my counselor and I say “Nathan, show me how to repent.”

Nathan: First of all Jim, you’ve got to give God all the glory and honor and praise that He led you to desiring repentance at all, because that doesn't come naturally. And then the next thing that I would have anyone do is to pray. I would encourage whomever to renounce the sin that they are convicted of as well as confess that sin, and then thank the Lord for his forgiveness and ask for the gift of repentance. I then might open to Colossians chapter 3, where it talks about how to put off the old man and put on the new man. It's not just the stopping of a bad behavior after I've renounced it, and confessed it, and asked God for repentance. It's also what goes on in the place of what I'm repenting of.
Colossians 3:1-4 says “Therefore if you have been raised with Christ to a new life sharing in His resurrection from the dead, keep seeking the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above. The Heavenly things, not the things that are on Earth which have only temporal value. For you died to this world and your new real life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” I could keep going on, but you get the idea. The focus must come off of what we were convicted of and onto God's replacement for it. If I am convicted of lust, I'm looking to God to replace it with His love, which is a characteristic that comes only from Him.

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Jim: You're describing a repentance that isn't a onetime thing. You're describing a repentance that happens all the time for Christians, isn't that right?

Nathan: That's correct. Once you start repenting, you may be tempted to think that it's just a one and done deal. But as you continue to walk out the word of God in your life, you will find that it is a way of life, it is the process of sanctification. It is a constant turning from self and to God so that you can model His character through your life, further glorifying Him in everything that you do and say.

Jim: Being convicted of sin, confessing sin, and renouncing sin, but more importantly putting it off. That's the total change and the putting on is a characteristic or fruit of the Holy Spirit. So really, repentance leads right into sanctification.

Nathan: Yes, repentance is just one step in the direction of sanctified living.

Jim: Thank you very much, you've brought us some really great insight from the Word of God today.

Nathan: Praise the Lord, thank you so much for having me.

As we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ this Christmas, we look at how He is our Emmanuel. In our sorrow, in our suffering, in our joy, and even in our daily lives, He is there; God with us. Join us as we sit down with Steve and Kathy Gallagher and other staff members from our program to discuss what it meant for God to be with them in different aspects of their lives. God is there for all of us, and we hope that through hearing these testimonies you can look back at your own life and see how He has always been and will always be your Emmanuel.

As we continue our series on becoming a biblical husband, we want to cover another critical aspect of rebuilding a marriage—honesty, transparency and vulnerability. These virtues are essential in marriage, especially for men overcoming sexual sin, because many of them are well versed in hiding their sin and lying. Dustin Renz’s own secret life built up for years. And while he felt that he was protecting those around him through his lies, he now looks back seeing how his deception only prolonged his path into freedom. His wife Brittany shares with us as well the devastating effects his hidden sin had on her, a young mother on the mission field. Together they share with us what it took for them to work through the aftermath of all this in a biblical way.

In this segment, Dustin Renz teaches us how someone can go from a life polluted with selfishness to one that is full of mercy and compassion for others. We find that this miraculous heart change is possible for those in whom God has begun to establish a life of humility. (from Podcast Episode #430 - Exposing the Path of the True Christian Life)

Nate: Dustin, one of the characteristics of a person who is truly humble is that they have a constant awareness of the importance of other people. I want to spend some time on this because I think it can be really eye opening. But before we go there, let's talk about the converse of that. If a person is proud, we could then say that they don't live in a constant awareness of how important other people are doing. As someone who’s been a Pastor for several years, how would you say that prideful people view others?

Dustin: I think when a proud person looks at someone else it's always about what they can get out of them. Depending on the manifestation of pride, it will look different. For the vain person, it might be trying to get attention from others. For the person who loves to talk and thinks they know it all, it might be just getting someone else's time or a compliment. There are a lot of different ways that it can play out.  
A spiritually proud person might look at those he perceives as less spiritual than them to prop themselves up in their own mind. For this kind of person, people always become an opportunity to extract value for personal gain. So, it becomes not about how he can be a blessing to others, but instead what he can get from them. I think that's really at the heart of a proud person.

Nate: The way that you just explained that shows how subtle self-centeredness and selfishness can be. I know for myself oftentimes; it really takes the piercing precise illumination of the Holy Spirit to expose what's really going on inside my heart regarding the way that I relate to other people. Can you share some other ways that we could see the subtleties of selfishness and self-centeredness in people?

Dustin: Yeah, I think that it's important that we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us our hearts because a lot of these things we're talking about happen internally, and if we're not conscious of what's happening inside, then will totally miss the manifestations of pride that take place. I think we see it in everyday life. When you go out to eat and your waitress doesn’t bring your food to you the way that you wanted it, or it's taken too long, are you treating that person like someone who's created in the image of God, or are they just an inconvenience? Is your schedule so important that you totally forget that they're going through things in their lives that you don't even know about? Or you're walking around and meet a homeless person, and instead of showing them love in some way, even if it's just to greet them or pray for them, you just move on, because you see them as an inconvenience.
I think of myself rushing through the grocery store and trying to get in line in front of people thinking my agenda is more important than everyone else's and somehow what I've got going on trump's everyone else around me. You see it also in how you spend your time. How much time you are spending on yourself versus pouring into other people can show the priority in your life in that area, or even how you spend your money. Are all the resources God has given you used for self, or are you allocating them to help be a blessing to other people?
I think there are a lot of ways we all have this struggle in our lives. We can see it if we really pay attention to it. I think the ultimate thing is that when you're at the center of everything in your mind there's definitely some pride that will rise up. When you become the all-important thing, your agenda, your money and your priorities become way more important than anyone else's.

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Nate: Let’s talk now about a humble person, someone who is constantly living with the awareness of the importance of other people. How do we see that playing out in that person's life?

Dustin: It’s the exact opposite of what we talked about with the proud person. Rather than becoming so conscious of self, they become conscious of other people. When they are interacting with someone, it's not always about what they can get from them, it's also about what they can give to them. “How can I pour into you?” becomes the focus. As opposed to trying to grab listening ears for self, they's going to be that listening ear for someone else. Instead of expecting everyone to compliment them about how great they are, they're going to be the one to encourage and be a compliment to others. All the things that a proud person would do for self, instead they're willing to give them away instead of trying to take them for themselves. A humble person just wants to love others and to be a blessing and encouragement to people.

Nate: It's incredible that there are so many different fruits of humility. For the vain person, as they begin to be humbled, it's going to look one way. For the spiritually proud person, it's going to look another way, and for the self-centered person it will look completely different. But in the end all of the fruit comes from humility. Could you share a little of your own testimony? When God began to humble you, how did you begin to see the importance of others?

Dustin: I really began to notice it when I was in the Pure Life Residential Program. I remember when I first came into the program, I was so full of myself. I was dominating conversations. Everything was always about me and what I could get out of other people. But I started to notice the Lord was really reversing my heart when I had brothers in the program that I could reach out to and ask, “Hey how are you doing?” They would share their burden and what they were going through in their life, and I noticed that I actually cared. It became something that I was concerned about, and I'd follow up with that brother to pray with them and try to do whatever I could to help them.
       I noticed that people's needs and what they had going on in their life became a priority for me. It got to the point where I’d wake up and wonder “How is so and so doing?  I need to go find out.” I began to try and find ways to show mercy to multiple people, and it was totally different than previously, where I was always trying to get for self. I think when you begin to see that change and humility begins to set in, you'll notice internally that you will care more. The vain person will begin to care more about the image of other people more than their own image, and the spiritually proud person will instead of looking down on others, begin to see God working in their lives and have a merciful heart toward them. When they begin to give away whatever that thing is they were trying to obtain for themselves and see the value in other people, that's when they really begin to see how God can change their heart. It will blossom into a lifestyle where that becomes simple in their everyday life, and they don't have to think about it anymore to live that way. Their whole life becomes focused on other people, and they don't have a whole lot of time to focus on themselves.

Nate: Anytime you're allowing God to deeply change some aspect of your life, you realize that it's a journey. You don't just arrive there overnight. There are temptations, there are difficulties, there are setbacks, and there are failures. We've been talking about how important it is to begin to put the needs of others above our own, but sin is so deceptive. Even at times where we find ourselves trying to put the needs of others first and we are serving, it can still become a really subtle way for us to serve ourselves again. As a full-time Pastor, do you find that temptation to be true?

Dustin: Yes, I think ministry is a great example. As a minister myself, I see that the chief end of ministry is to serve other people. Ministers are essentially supposed to be giving their lives for others, but I've seen this as a struggle in my own life especially, when I think about Bible School. I was in a class of students that would be future pastors, worship leaders, and teachers. People who had a real desire to give their lives to the Lord in service and yet there was still a mixture of self in there.
I was thinking out of all the people I met in Bible School and went to school with, and all of us had great aspirations. We wanted to be the Pastors of the next mega churches or recorded worship artists; everybody had this desire to have some kind of fame. Of course, as you know, the American church culture really plays a big part in that. But I can't remember anybody who said, “I just want to have a small church out in the country with 20 people in it and just faithfully serve Jesus with those people.” The faithfulness to the call to serve other people was downplayed and the focus became how they could be seen by other people.
I fell into the same trap myself early on when I decided to do music ministry. I began to perform in concerts and be in front of people and while the label of Jesus was on it, and I sincerely desired in some ways to serve the Lord with it, at some point it began to become about me and how other people saw me. That balance kind of got out of whack, where it ended up being very self-serving without me even really realizing it. So, I think there's always a danger, whether you are a minister or even if you serve people in other ways in your regular Christian life. We must take care of our hearts so that we're not doing things for other people just to check it off the list and say, “Oh I was humble today.” Then it really becomes about what I did. It really comes down to having a heart that desires to help other people and if we don’t have that, we need to ask the Lord to give us a real concern for the importance and priorities of other people's lives.

Nate: With that in mind, could you give some practical exhortations to somebody who's saying yes, I want my service to the Lord to be pure and not mixed with selfish desire?

Dustin: I would tell that person that they need to look at Jesus as their example for true humility. He created the entire universe, yet when He came to the earth, He came to serve other people, not to be served. He said that himself. We see Him washing the feet of His own creation, His disciples. We also see Him ministering to the outcasts of society. The example that He led us to follow is being obedient and obeying God, even in the little things that no one else notices. In Matthew 25, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, He says to the sheep “When I was hungry and thirsty, you gave me something to eat and drink. When I was sick and in prison you came to visit me. When I didn't have clothes on, you clothed me.” They say, “Well, when did we do that?” And His response is, “You did that when you did it to the least of these.”
So you and I, as we're walking through our daily lives, our whole goal shouldn't be to try to achieve some certain level of expectation. Whether it’s being concerned about what people think of us or elevating ourselves in some way, it should be to simply obey God in our everyday lives. It should be about ministering to people in small ways that maybe no one else will ever see. It could just be in your prayer life as you walk through the grocery store or as you're out at work praying for people internally.
You don't get rewards on earth for that or a claim for that, but God sees it and He promises to reward us on the other side. I think it's important for us to realize that we should never seek to be elevated. God is the one who chooses to elevate people. We should choose to humble ourselves. What that looks like in everyday life is looking for opportunities to be a blessing to other people and to pray for others. We need to make other people's concerns more important than our own. As we do that, we'll find ourselves walking in humility. If God chooses to lift us up in some way, that's up to Him, but our desire should be “Jesus, I just want to serve you in the smallest things, and if no one else sees it but you, I'll be okay with that.”

It was a hot summer day in Eastern Europe. My wife and I were working with the leadership of a youth movement as missionaries and were helping host their annual summer camp. Teens from around the country had gathered to spend a few days in worship services, fellowship and a schedule of activities aimed at bringing excitement and camaraderie to these young Christians. The atmosphere was charged with enthusiasm as each day passed.

Although no one would have suspected it, but much of my free time was given to pursuing the pornography, drug and alcohol addictions that ravaged my life. I was the last conference speaker, and as the final day drew closer, I felt apprehensive. Ministry had become drudgery and carrying on the religious façade was becoming increasingly wearisome. Yet, even in this condition, pride was welling up in my heart. “I’ll show the other speakers how this is done.”

As I approached the pulpit, I breathed the usual “Help me, Lord” prayer that had become the extent of my prayer life. My sermon was about the Holy Spirit, and I knew that if He did not touch the teenagers like I told them He would, I would look like a fool. Yet I had little reason to doubt that He would, based on the track record of our ministry. As I began to share the Word of God with these young people, speaking about the reality of the Holy Spirit, He showed up. Many began to weep as I preached, and when I gave the altar call, there was a beautiful time of seeking the Lord.

While I should have been on my face repenting before the Lord in that atmosphere, a very opposite reaction occurred. As so often before, I walked away feeling good about my relationship with God. “Surely everything must be fine if He would anoint me like that!” I thought to myself. I had learned to cling to “the anointing on my life” as the last shred of evidence that I was still right with God. It had been a long time since my character and lifestyle provided any hope that I was walking with Jesus. Was His anointing not proof that everything was okay? He would not use someone in ministry if they were not in right relationship with Him, would He?

Ministry had become a covering for my secret life of sin. As long as I was under the umbrella of serving Jesus, I was convinced that somehow it made bondage to sexual sin excusable.

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A year later, I found myself sitting in the chapel at Pure Life Ministries. I cannot remember which staff member was speaking, or the context of the meeting, but I will never forget the truth that the Lord revealed to me that day. The reading was from Matthew 7:21-23, which says:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

I had read these verses many times before, but had never allowed the truth to penetrate my heart. Years of rationalizing my sin had enabled me to read through the Bible with a film over my spiritual eyes. I had become a master at distorting Scriptural truths to comfort myself in my rebellion.

But, in a moment my eyes were opened that day to the meaning of Jesus’ words that day. What shocked me most was the fact that the people in these verses who were coming to Jesus were not your average “Sunday Christians.” Their argument for being allowed to enter the kingdom of heaven was that they had prophesied, cast out demons and performed miracles. Certainly, they had to have a good deal of spiritual understanding to accomplish these feats.  Jesus did not disagree that they performed these works. He simply drew the line at the fact that He did not know them.

The implications of this passage were startling. I realized that if someone can perform miracles and not know Jesus, certainly I could preach an anointed sermon and have some fruit in my ministry without knowing Him as well. And in my case, I was banking on the fact that, not only would my ministry be evidence of a true walk with God, but also that the blatant sin I was involved in would somehow be overlooked. How many times throughout my life had I leaned on the fact that the Lord seemed to be using my ministry as evidence that I knew Him? Yet this Scripture clearly shows that being used of God does not make up for a life of lawlessness.

So why would the Lord use someone in sin? Why would He pour through a vessel whose heart is not truly His? In processing these questions, I have come to two conclusions.

1. God honors His Word. The Word of God is the truth, regardless of the messenger who delivers it. The fact that the Lord will touch people’s lives at the preaching of the Gospel is simply proof that the words being spoken are true. It does not necessarily mean the Lord has put His stamp of approval on the minister.
2. The Lord loves the people who are being ministered to. The teenagers in that summer camp were deeply loved by God. He gave the life of His Son for each one of them. His presence touching their lives was not evidence of a godly preacher, but proof of His mighty love for those in the audience.

In short, professing Christians who believe that somehow the lawlessness of sexual addiction will somehow be overlooked because God is using them in some way, need to examine Matthew 7:21-23 carefully. There is still time now to repent of habitual sin and allow the Lord to bring them into a true relationship with Him. Waiting for the Judgment to find out if their works are ample evidence that they should be allowed into the kingdom of heaven would be absolutely foolish. Rather than hearing the Savior say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” the last words they will hear Him speak are, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

Married men who come to our residential program often tell us that they love their wives. But these words contradict their actions, which have been permeated with viewing pornography, committing adultery, and engaging in  other forms of illicit sex. Once a man begins to see this and to repent, putting the words “I love you” into action will be one of his greatest undertakings. When the father loved us, it meant that he gave us his son; when Christ loved us it involved laying down his life. This is the standard for all of us, and especially for husbands: love that gives all and holds nothing back.

Resources

From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colon

In this segment, Pastor Ed Buch teaches how we can learn to freely pour out love to others with a heart of mercy. He helps us see the beauty and joy of living a life free from selfish motives. (from Podcast Episode #452  - |Victory| A Life Overflowing with Mercy)

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Nate: Pastor Ed, what we want do in this interview is give people some really practical instruction about becoming a vessel of mercy. When you think about it, a heart of mercy toward other people is the opposite of being in lust toward them. Lust is all about taking; mercy is all about giving. It's selfless. So really a person who's repenting of a life of lust is saying, “I'm going to start seeing people differently and I'm going to start treating them differently.” I want start off identifying some of the sinful ways that we can view others, and then some of the godly ways. What are some of the ways that our sinful flesh causes us to see people?

Pastor Ed: Well Nate, unless the Lord has really helped us change the way we naturally view or categorize other people, it boils down to two extremes: we either see people as leeches or donors. Of course, we would never allow ourselves to use those words for it, but that's what we are saying in our hearts. We see this leech, this person who is trying to feed off us in some way. We may think they're taking advantage of our resources or abilities in some way that ends up giving them a greater benefit than we receive from them. There are some worst-case examples where a leech type person will just drain us completely of our energy, our time, or our finances. They somehow just end up sucking the life out of us. On the other side, there's the donors that we see as people who are going to make a contribution of some sort into our life.
These ways of viewing others can take different forms, and some of them get into sin like you mentioned. The sinful ways manifest themselves because we're looking to others to satisfy our desires. In our culture, sexual lust is unquestionably one of the most prevalent desires that we're looking for others to satisfy. Even if it's not a physical relationship, we're feeding our mental fantasy life, but it could even be a lot more subtle than that. We use other people and expect them to help satisfy our desires for attention, acceptance, security, or emotional wants. We would like other people to take care of us emotionally usually, but it could also be financially or spiritually, and all these thoughts can just drift us into a sinful way of thinking and acting.
We also can want people around us that we can use as scapegoats, somebody to blame our problems and difficulties on. We might even see people as part of our calling somehow, as if we feel this need to be invested in people's lives, to counsel them or fix their problems. And in a strange way, we then see them as a key to our fulfillment or satisfaction. The bottom line is that the net result of our relationship is a gain for ourselves personally. That’s what I mean by these people being donors. The simple way to say it is, there are givers and takers in our lives and we're always trying to manipulate our takers into becoming givers to us. Nate I think the real problem is that when we look at other people, we have ourselves at the center and everybody else revolving in orbit around us. Unless the Lord steps in and changes our perspective, we're always going to tend to see people in terms of how they either benefit us or fail to benefit us.

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Nate: Wow. Okay, well the knife goes in a little deep when you talk about things like that. As you're talking, I think the thing that was striking me is how subtle these things are, because I'm not sure that any of us ever plan on being that way. It’s just that we've got this impulse that says “I need”, and then we subconsciously look for somebody that we think can meet that need. And  then when someone begins to act in a way where we think they’re taking from us, we panic. We're just reacting and acting out of impulse, rather than consciously thinking along those lines.

Pastor Ed: That's exactly right Nate. This is what comes naturally to us. This is our default. It's what we we're born into. Unless God steps in and changes that, it will continue. But can I tell you that God sees people very differently than that? He's not looking for leeches and donors in people. He's not afraid to have us take from Him. Scripture says it straight out: it's His good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. He's not worried about us taking something from Him. He isn't trying to extract contributions from us either. He doesn't have any needs that you and I could possibly fulfill for Him.
The Bible says that you and I are the apple of God's eye. He inscribes our name on the palm of His hands, He broods over us with a jealous yearning love. He delights to give good gifts to His Children. When the Lord thinks of people, He yearns for communion, a heart-to-heart fellowship with us. And even that is for our sake, not His sake. God's focus is always on supplying our needs. He wants what's best for us. So when He looks at us, that's what He sees. He sees our needs and sees them much more clearly and accurately than we could ever see them ourselves, and then He looks to meet those needs for us.
He truly delights in going above and beyond in meeting our needs. He gives us a super abundant, overflowing supply of mercy, or a flood of mercy as we like to say here at Pure Life. And the thing that really delights His heart most is when we join Him and start looking at others the same way He does, and when we start looking for ways that we can be that vessel of His mercy to meet someone else's need.
We have a guy that we sometimes quote, his name is Rex Andrews. He’s a man who really studied what the Bible teaches about mercy, and he came up with this definition of Biblical mercy and it's a little lengthy, but man every time I read it, it just grips me with insight. He said:

Mercy is God's supply system for every need, everywhere.
Mercy is that kindness, that compassion and tenderness, which is a passion to suffer with or enter into another's ill’s or evil’s, in order to relieve, heal, and restore.
Mercy accepts another freely and gladly as he is, and supplies the needed good of life, to build up and bring to peace, and keep in peace.
Mercy is to take another into one's heart just as he is and cherish and nurture him there.
Mercy takes another’s sins, evils, and faults as its own, and frees the other by bearing them to God.
This is the glow of love.

That is the mercy God sent Jesus to reveal to us, and that's how God sees people.

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Nate: Wow, what a contrast between the two things you talked about: how we are in our natural state and how God is in His natural state. There's no effort on His part to be like that, which is amazing and just highlights how much we need Him. We're not going to be like that without Him.

Pastor Ed: Yeah, we'll never conjure that up within ourselves, it must come through him.

Nate: One of the things that we touched on in our Living in Victory series was how when a person's repenting of sexual sin, they can bring that self-centeredness into the repentance process. When they do that, their purity, progress, and spiritual need become the center focus of everything and they’re forgetting about other people still. It’s really just a new hidden motive, and I think that it's easy to get imbalanced in that way. I'd like you to talk a little bit more about that so that people can avoid that trap.

Pastor Ed: Sure, and you're absolutely right. That is a danger we all have to guard against, and I think the problem is that we're trying to eliminate sin and develop a pure heart, but we're doing it while we're still at the center. So, we have to get ourselves out of the center. Jesus is preeminent, He must become the one who's at the center. Then with Him there, I can prefer him and others ahead of myself. I think we would do well to remember what Jesus said about the two greatest commandments. The greatest is to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, in other words, with all of our being. The second is to love our neighbor as ourselves.
I was taught somewhere along the line, I think as a student going through the Residential Program at Pure Life, that love in its simplest terms, is giving of oneself. If we think about that in prioritizing our loving God and loving others, then I'm prioritizing giving myself away to meet other’s needs. It becomes the fulfillment of what Paul even wrote about in Romans 13:8-10 where he basically says that if we are pouring ourselves out to love others, we’re fulfilling the whole law and keeping all the commandments.

Nate: What about the person who says, “But when I try to give, I just see how selfish I still am”?

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Pastor Ed: We're not going to nail this the first time out of the gate, right? I can remember my own situation and feeling that way, almost like there's this gushing out of my heart and it's mostly still polluted water coming out. But it was like the Lord was showing me there was a silver thread of Him in there that was coming out, or a thread of purity that was actually Him, and in time that became the predominant flow. The other is still there because we're human and we struggle, but the Lord is winning.

Nate: Amen, that's awesome. Just so that people are encouraged, I want to say don't quit. One passage that is really helpful is Isaiah 58. We see God's saying, if you would set other people free, if you would work to free them from wickedness, if you would work to see the oppressed loose from their bondage, if you would share your bread with the hungry, then your light is going to break forth. Your righteousness is going to come forth speedily. It's just interesting, it's like God is saying if you'll take care of others, I will take care of you. I've heard you talk a lot about this, and I just want you to encourage our listeners with some of the things that God has made real to you about this.

Pastor Ed: Yeah, I'm sure there are probably even other places in Scripture that go hand in hand with the passage you mentioned in Isaiah 58 that kind of reveals that God will take care of us as we're taking care of others. We don't really need to make that a place of our focus personally, but for me it really happened simply and in a straightforward manner. I was going through the Beatitudes there in Matthew 5. The fifth Beatitude says, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” The Lord just opened that up to me and showed me that I really didn't need to be focused on my needs. If I made it a point and a commitment to meeting the needs of others, to being merciful, then I could trust God to meet my needs. That's what would be the natural, inevitable outcome of me meeting the needs of others, that God would take care of mine.

Nate: That’s one of those things that I think you just have to experience to understand it completely. So, really you just have to practice, and then you'll find that it’s true, rather than just having it as a concept that you read about.

Pastor Ed: That's right, just focus on meeting the needs of others, look for needs in other people's lives. And let me just add there, maybe people feel like, they know what others’ needs are. Well, you can always pray for them. Everybody needs someone to undertake for them in prayer for the Lord to make them to know Jesus more, for God to meet their spiritual needs. You can pray all sorts of things, but that's just a starting point.

Nate: I want to keep talking about this, because our culture is constantly feeding us the lie that the way to real happiness is to accumulate stuff for yourself. But I don't really want to spend a lot of time focusing on the lies, because we're trusting that the people who are listening today are really repenting, and they want to leave that life of selfishness behind. Can you just give them some more encouragement?

Pastor Ed: It is amazing really that we all still fall for the lie that the world presents to us, because to some degree, we have surely all experienced the emptiness of living for ourselves. We end up frustrated or empty, and the more we gain, the less we're satisfied. We never feel like we have enough. Our happiness is always fleeting, because it's just a shallow feeling that's derived from favorable circumstances that turn out to be temporary. But the mercy life that God brings us into is the antidote for all of that malaise, all of that discontentment, depression and anxiety that is rooted in living for self.
Jesus taught us very simply that it is more blessed to give than to receive. That's of course the opposite of what the world's been teaching us, but for those who enter into the mercy life, and for those who are willing to lay down their lives, to set aside their personal wants, desires, or priorities and pour out their lives to meet the needs of others, there is a union with God. There is a sense of being joined with Him and we are entered into the flow of God's heart toward other people. It is beyond words to describe how satisfying and fulfilling that is. There is an abiding joy that comes with that kind of life that nothing in this world can disrupt or take it away. You become truly alive inside for a change, and able to endure hardships or self-denial because we're now doing what God designed and created us to do and that trumps everything.

Twice a day for forty days, the Philistine champion, Goliath, taunted God’s people that they did not possess a champion capable of fighting him. Within this atmosphere of Israel’s seeming defeat, a young shepherd boy named David boldly stepped forward trusting that his God was able no matter how large the enemy appeared.

Goliath defied David as he approached, “Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”

“This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you,” proclaimed David in response.

The God of Israel provided a mighty victory for his people that day. David struck the giant with a single shot from his sling in the only place he was vulnerable, and used Goliath’s own sword to behead him.

Similarly, I found myself face-to-face with a giant -- enormous and more powerful than anything I had ever come against -- addiction to lust, masturbation, pornography, and sex. For years, I had been feeding this very enemy that I was warring against. I was powerless to overcome or escape him. Every half-hearted attempt I made seemed to make me weaker and him mightier. Like Goliath to the Israeli army, the giant continued to deride and taunt me, “Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? Why fight, you can’t win; you’ll never change; surrender and be done with it.”

Like most men who enter the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program, I did not come here because I saw lasting victory as possible but rather because I, had nothing else to offer against the giant.

It was here that I cried out for the first time, “Lord, help me!” And it was here that the Lord met me. He called me to fight and promised me victory through His Word.

The battle went on for some time. Then suddenly one day, I noticed that my mind, which had become a cesspool of impure thoughts and plottings of sin, was suddenly clean. I am not sure how it happened…there was no slingshot or sword or bloodshed I could see…but the giant was gone, slain by the Lord of hosts. It was quiet. The taunting was over. The victory was given.

Over and over again, our counselors witness the Lord granting miraculous victories over the giants of sexual addiction. As each of our graduates departs the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program, they testify to this victory. They are overflowing with gratitude and amazement at God’s mercy for them. Most importantly, they are filled with a new faith in the power of God to do the impossible.

Though Goliath was dead, the fighting continued for the Jews. The Philistines remained determined enemies of God’s people. Many battles ahead.

In like manner, many of the men who come through our Residential Program find themselves fighting again within a short time of experiencing initial victory. There are still battles to face. And it can be tempting to doubt the God who delivered the victory.

The truth is, an enduring commitment to the fight is part of the process of gaining final, lasting victory.

When the Lord brings an initial, great victory over sexual sin, he does slay the giant. However, the once-addicted man still faces a formidable and determined enemy. The Lord expects us to fight the battles ahead in the manner Paul described to Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (I Timothy 6:12)

How does a man fight? What does that look like? In the book of Ephesians, Paul admonishes us to fight against our spiritual enemies with weapons of warfare: “Therefore take up the whole armor of God…having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace…taking the shield of faith …the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always ….” (Ephesians 6:11-18)

Is lasting victory over sexual sin possible for the man who was once enslaved to sexual sin? The answer is a resounding yes; but lasting victory requires much of that man. Like all of God’s miracles, the initial victory is intended to build the faith of the stricken soul and bring the Lord into His proper position in the man’s heart. The process requires him to be armed and ready for battle every day. It requires a total reliance on the spiritual weapons given and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

David experienced the freedom wrought by the Lord’s victory over Goliath. And he continued in battles against the Philistines for years thereafter, suffering many wounds. But ultimately, David and his mighty men were victorious each time against the Philistines because he understood that it was the Lord’s power that brought victory.

Those who can claim ultimate victory over sexual addiction do so because they develop a heart like David’s, always willing to fight for righteousness in the power and promises of the Lord.

Lord, grant us the heart and will of David, “a mighty man of valor, a man of war,” that we might “fight the good fight of faith,” that we might experience a lasting and final victory through the power of the cross.  “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37) Amen.

Join us as we continue our series for husbands with Dustin and Brittany Renz. They share the importance of honesty, transparency, and vulnerability in rebuilding a marriage. This is something many men in sexual sin need to hear, because many are well versed in the art of lying. Dustin shares how his own secret life built up for years, and what it looked like when it all finally came out. Brittany shares the devastating affects this had on her, a young mother on the mission field. And they help us see what it takes to work through the aftermath of all this in a way that anchors a marriage in the Lord.

Resources

From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colon

Selfishness is engrained deep within the heart of any man who's given himself over to a life of sexual sin. This sinful mindset will be a huge challenge in learning to be a good husband, even after the Lord has begun a real work. In this interview, Steve Gallagher shares how selfishness caused division in his marriage for years and discusses the process the Lord used to transform his heart and make him into a more loving and caring husband.