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.

“Do I really need to tell my wife? Why can’t I just repent to God? It will destroy her,” the counselee exclaims. “If you were truly worried about that, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place,” is my unswerving answer.

I am well aware that many pastors counsel men to confess their sin to another man or leader in the church, but that they don’t need to tell their wives. I believe this is bad counsel and not according to the precepts of God’s Word.

When a man and woman enter into marriage, they vow to be faithful to one another until death. They enter into a covenant before God and man. When one of them breaks that vow by committing a sin against his or her partner, a restoration of the relationship needs to take place.

The Scriptures tell us that, “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” (1 Corinthians 7:4)  When we take our body, which belongs to our spouse, and give it to someone else or use it for unlawful sexual desires, we sin against God and our spouse.

“He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13) The man who doesn’t come clean about his sin with his wife will ultimately derail what needs to happen not only in his marriage but also in his relationship with God.

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We have assurance in God’s Word that, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9), and that it is right to “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16)

Repentance, confession, and forgiveness are required before healing and restoration can occur. How can a husband and wife walk in unity when there is an unresolved sin issue between them? The repentance process requires that we make it right with the person against whom we have sinned. Why would this not apply to the most important of all earthly relationships, the one we share with our spouse?

How Much Should I Share With My Wife?

First let me address this from the wife’s perspective. On the one extreme, there are women who are not satisfied until they know every detail, including a thorough physical description of the other women and a vivid account of what was done. There are wives who demand to see the pornography that their husbands were viewing only to find themselves struggling later with the same images.

We have seen the enemy use these details countless times to wreak havoc in the wife’s mind and drive a deeper wedge between her and her husband. Many of these wives now regret having too much information and the mental torment with which they are now dealing.

On the other hand, the wife does need to know the scope of her husband’s actions and certain details. For instance, when a husband has been sexually involved with another person, especially a prostitute, she needs to know so she can get herself checked for possible STD’s. It would also be important for her to know if it was someone they both know, or a person at work, so that situation can be avoided in the future. She should know how long the relationship has been going on so she understands the degree of her husband’s problem.

If pornography has been a struggle, she should know what kind.  Has her husband been viewing child porn? If so, she has a responsibility to find out if he struggles with or has acted out with children in or outside of their family. If this turns out to be the case, she should confer immediately with the pastor or counselor at her church.

A husband must be determined to get his sin into the light. He must be willing to bear his wife’s questions while remaining cautious about bombarding her with too many details which would only cause more unnecessary pain. For example, if he has masturbated, she doesn’t need to know what he was thinking about.  If he has been chatting online, she doesn’t need to know the graphic sexual details of the conversation.

How Will My Wife React?

Many men struggle with how their spouse will react. First of all, let me say to you that the Lord is faithful to bring the sin of His children into the light, eventually, one way or the other. “For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.” (Luke 12:2). It would be far worse for the wife to find out from another source.

No one can predict how each spouse will react, but I do know from personal experience that unconfessed sin always brings with it guilt, and a need to lie and constantly cover up. The weight of unconfessed sin will continue to bear down on a man’s soul until it is properly brought into the light. By all means, the husband should seek godly counsel from a leader in the church, but, in the end, he has no choice but to trust the Lord for the outcome with his wife.

In my experience most men who resist coming totally clean with their wives have not been truly broken over their sin. Godly sorrow produces repentance and the fruits thereof. “For observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” (2 Cor 7:11)  True repentance leads to a willingness to do whatever it takes to make things right again with God and with others.

“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:6-7)  How can we expect to have fellowship with God and others, in this case our spouse, if we choose to walk in darkness?

In my own marriage it wasn’t until I became vulnerable, open and honest with the Lord and my wife about everything, that He was able to restore trust and unity back into my marriage.

And today, our marriage is better than if it had never happened.

In this segment, Steve Gallagher teaches how the fruit that someone is living in victory is shown in how they do not willfully sin and also how gratitude leads us to contentment and contentment leads us into a life that opposes lust. (from Podcast Episode #454 - |Victory| Persevering with a Pure Heart)

Nate: We're talking with Pastor Steve Gallagher about the fruits of living in victory. Pastor Steve, we believe that Victory isn't just about not looking at porn anymore, or visiting prostitutes, or not committing other forms of illicit sex. Victory is being filled with the love of God because it's the love of God that changes our hearts and gives us something completely new inside. It's the love of God that bears the fruits of righteousness.
I want to talk about the fruits of living in Victory today and obviously the first thing that people are looking for in terms of fruit is purity, sexual purity. I'd like for you to talk about purity of heart, because I wonder if some people are thinking, “Is it really even possible to live in purity in this immoral culture?”

Pastor Steve: Well regardless of the culture, having a pure heart is a mega challenge, especially when you've been in sexual sin. But we need to clarify something about this when we’re talking about purity, because we have a fallen nature and as I've said many times before, my fallen nature is just as rotten now as it was 40 years ago when I was totally giving over. It has not changed, it still desires the same horrible things. So, when you're talking about purity of heart, you've got this aspect of our nature that is horrible. It's just perverse and wants perversity. So that's one of the challenges I think a lot of guys struggle with thoughts like “man, I don't feel like I've gotten anywhere in this battle.”

Nate: And they’re saying “I still have these thoughts, I still have these desires.”

Pastor Steve: Exactly! Those things are still there. I talked about it recently, about being on autopilot. For instance, when you go into a lapse in thinking, when you're not intentionally thinking, you're almost daydreaming. And when you're in the right place with God and you're daydreaming or fantasizing about sex and then come to your senses and realize what you've been doing, there's this reaction inside that says “No, I don't want to think like that.” I still go through that. We've got a side to us that has almost a default thinking in perversity. Purity of heart, from my standpoint, , is that you are no longer intentionally lusting, or intentionally fantasizing.
       The Bible talks about intentional sins and unintentional sins, I would call that an unintentional sin. Wet dreams or that kind of thinking can occur when you're not really thinking. But there are intentional thoughts and that leads me to believe that I am basically living in purity of heart, because I do not intentionally lust, I do not intentionally fantasize and I do not intentionally look at women to think about sexual things. I believe that as you are progressing in this life of mercy, which is really just the Christ-life, then you will get to a place where you have that kind of freedom in your daily life.

Nate: Okay, so one thing I know you've said in your book At The Altar of Sexual Idolatry is that freedom comes slowly for a reason. Maybe we could say that purity of heart comes slowly for a reason. You already kind of spoke about how the process of purity will grow in us over time, but why does it grow slowly?

Pastor Steve: For a number of reasons that I talked about in the book. But one of the most important things the Lord needs to do in us is humble us because pride is an enormous thing inside of an unbroken person. One of the most important things God wants to tackle is getting us to humble ourselves. If He just gave us freedom right away, we would use it for self-purposes, or we’d use it to exalt ourselves over other people. That alone is one huge reason why God doesn't give us instantaneous deliverance or instantaneous clear thinking.

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Nate: So the main point of that is just to teach us to never quit fighting?

Pastor Steve: Yeah, really, that is the Christian life. Absolutely.

Nate: Okay, so what you're saying is that we can really get to the place where we're not driven by lust anymore?

Pastor Steve: Yeah, I am saying that. I'm saying, first that we're no longer purposing intentionally to think that way. But even a step before that there is a drive inside of us for sexual gratification. I would say one of the real important aspects of getting to a place where we are not driven this way is when we learn how to live with a grateful spirit and a grateful heart. When you're going through life and the Lord's doing His work inside you and you're becoming increasingly more grateful about everything in your life, that is just breaking the hold of lust, because it's bringing you into a place of contentment. And when your content, you're not lusting for something you shouldn't have, it is the opposite.
       Lust is the opposite of contentment and contentment comes from gratitude. So, it really is part of a flow that the Lord is wanting to bring us into, to live with a grateful heart. Paul constantly spoke about being grateful or being thankful for everything. It's a very important part of Christian living that most people don't realize.

Nate: It's interesting that you talked about the connections that people make and how they don't really connect gratitude with purity and victory. Another thing like that is humility. We don't really understand the connection between humility and living in victory. Rex Andrews said something interesting, he said that humility is an inability to lust or to covet, because essentially humility is the knowledge of how to give all that you have and knowing that you don't have anything apart from God. Could you talk a little bit more about humility and victory and the fruit of that?

Pastor Steve: Let me just start with addressing a misunderstanding about what humility even is. It's typically thought of in the same way we would think of a modest person, someone who is quiet and reserved by nature, and always seen as such a humble man. From my experience, people like that are sometimes the most prideful people, because they may not show it outwardly, but inside they're full of themselves, only think about themselves, and that's all they care about. So, when we're talking about humility from a spiritual standpoint, we're not talking about human modesty. We are talking about the breaking down of the self-life, and as the self-life is broken down through the processes of sanctification and the Holy Spirit's work inside of us, that creates more of what you could picture to be a vacuum inside for the Holy Spirit to fill.
       The more broken we become in life through disciplines, through hardships, through sometimes humiliating experiences, all those kinds of things that thwart the self-life, the more we are breaking free from that selfish existence that lust thrives in. That's what Rex Andrews is referring to, being emptied of self. That is poverty of spirit, and that makes way for us to be filled with the Lord and with His way of thinking. And that way of thinking is of course the opposite of lustful thinking.

Nate: As you're talking what I hear is not what we’d first thin. We think so linearly. “If I do this, then I get this.” But it's more circular. The more you live in gratitude, the more you experience gratitude. Or the more pure in heart you are, the more purity you experience. It’s kind of  a circular thing.

Pastor Steve: And it's all interconnected too. We're not like robots that you just go in and fix one part of, it's all interchanged and interconnected.

Nate: Let's bring it back to purity of heart, because Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Can you just talk about the fruit of this mercy life, which is a deeper walk and knowledge of God?

Pastor Steve: Yeah, I would say that knowing God is what the Christian life is all about. It’s about relationship. That's what Jesus said. He said that knowing God is eternal life, and it's true. Also, Paul constantly spoke about knowing the Lord and in the Old Testament, especially in Psalms, you hear it said a little differently, it’s called “seeking the Lord.” These are all different ways of describing the same thing: having an earnest, sincere desire inside you to really know Him, and to know Him means relationship.
       It's not like reading a book about someone, it's a relational connection with God. That is the ultimate fruit of this process that God takes His people through. He is bringing them into Himself. He's folding them into Himself and that is eternal life. It's the life of God that he's bringing us into. And some of these things you just can't figure out with human logic. This is a deeply spiritual, deeply profound, mysterious concept of what it means to be in relationship with God and in the church. But we’ve turned it into this mechanical formula. You say the prayer, you go to church, and do all of these outward things. But there becomes no real reality of God involved in so much of what happens in the evangelical church. Many people who claim to know God really don't know him, but His heart is still to bring us into Himself.

Nate: Let's talk about one last thing that you mention from time to time, and that is that one of the fruits of victory is living in spiritual authority. And I'm not sure that people really know what you mean by spiritual authority. Can you talk about what that means and why that's a fruit of living in victory?

Pastor Steve: All spiritual authority comes from the throne of God; He is the sovereign God of the universe and of all mankind. To walk in spiritual authority can only mean that you are a delegated agent of the King. You're an agent of the King to the degree that you are in His Spirit, you are one with His will, you are one with His purposes, and in what He's wanting to do on Earth. For instance, the President of the United States has an ambassador to Russia. Well, that ambassador is living in a complete Russian culture, but he is there representing the President of the United States, and he is there to accomplish what the President wants, and what he wants him to communicate to the Russian authorities. That's a picture of what it means to have spiritual authority. It’s when you are one with Christ in a real way. And when you represent Him, you are doing it accurately, consistent with what His wishes are. That's spiritual authority, and it's absolutely something that we can and should come into at some level.

Nate: I'm just thinking about how we can understand it by looking at the converse, because we know what it means to be at the whim and the wish of the devil. We live that way. If he wants us to lust, we lust. If he wants us to be in pride, anger, or bitterness, then we're just driven by those things. What a wonderful thought that we could be driven and compelled by a much sweeter Spirit. The only sweet Spirit.

Pastor Steve: Absolutely. It's kind of funny to me to think back to 40 years ago when I was deep in my pride and in my ignorance. Back then I really thought that I was walking in spiritual authority. When I first was getting free, I was so full of myself. I didn't know the first thing about it, hardly anything. But I do remember how easily I could be led astray or lead into sinful thinking. It’s exactly what you're describing. For many years the Lord put me and Kathy through a lot of discipline and I've had to go through very painful experiences myself. I thank him for all of it now. It wasn't so much fun at the time, but it is through those kinds of disciplines that the Lord takes us through. Those seasons are bringing us into a life in God that's real, into a relationship with Him that is vibrant and into spiritual authority like we’re discussing. It is through these experiences that we are talking about that God accomplishes that in His people.

When a man begins to deal with his sexual sin, he is going to find that there are deeper issues beneath the surface. The Lord will deal with these as he walks out his repentance. However, it’s going to take some time. Some sinful heart attitudes may not be apparent for years. But even if we don’t see them, they can still have negative effects on those around us. So, for husbands who want to love and serve their wives well, it is vital to cultivate a life of self-examination before God. In this episode, Steve Gallagher shares about one such area that took a long time for God to help him deal with: selfishness.

Resources

• From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colon

Many Christian men who deal with strong sexual temptation are likely familiar with techniques such as ‘bouncing the eyes when a pretty women comes into view’ or ‘snapping a rubber band on their wrist when their mind wanders into lustful thinking’. These methods are examples of “behavior modification” - the process by which someone forms new and harmless reactions to sexual stimuli in order to replace unwanted reactions. They are derivations of the original theory of behavior modification by psychologists Edward Thorndike and B.F. Skinner, but are now common-place for Christians trying to deal with sexual addiction.

The men familiar with these techniques are also likely familiar with the inadequacy of them. For many, it doesn’t seem to matter how many times they look away or snap themselves with a rubber band, the sexual desire is still there and eventually they do act on it.

I am approaching this topic for those who have from the perspective of someone who has truly been born again by the Spirit of God. Being acceptable in God's sight is not merely a matter of modifying certain behaviors. If salvation could be achieved by doing right and avoiding wrong, then it would be according to works, and not by grace through faith. In other words, just because a person successfully rids his life of sexual addiction does not mean that he is righteous in God's eyes.

So, in light of the gospel, behavior modification cannot be the best strategy for the born-again believer who is struggling to overcome sexual addiction in his life.

Here are 3 reasons why.

1. Behavior Modification Makes it Seem Like Sexual Sin is THE ISSUE

Over the decades that we have ministered to men in sexual addiction, we have come to know that there is a mindset that is common to them. It comes out something like this: "I only have one small problem." Often, when asked to describe themselves, they see themselves as being godly, kind, generous, loving, etc. When they do acknowledge that they fall short, it's usually in the area of self-control. In other words, "I am a very godly person, I just need to learn how to overcome in this one area of my life."

But if we can look at sexual addiction objectively, then we have to acknowledge that sexual addiction is not a weakness in one isolated area of a man's life, but a total spiritual breakdown. I say this from personal experience.

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This can be difficult to swallow, but the hard truth is this: a man in sexual addiction has proved, by the general tone of his life, that he is almost completely devoted to himself. He habitually transgresses the biblical commands to “abstain from sexual immorality...[and] know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3b-5 NASB) When his duties as a husband or father or son conflict with his desire to satisfy himself, he neglects the good of others in order to satiate his lusts. If he is aware at all that his actions are inconsiderate of others and may cause them great pain, he chooses to please himself at their expense.

Beyond the acts of sin themselves, the sexual addict reaps a harvest of other sinful attitudes and behaviors as well. (Galatians 6:8a) He becomes increasingly more selfish, more self-centered. He may become protective of his time and money, intending to use it for sexual indulgences. If his lifestyle is questioned, he often deceives others to protect himself. The conviction of living contrary to God's will often becomes overwhelming, and he lashes in anger out at anyone who makes him feel badly.

Behavior modification may help us control a certain area of our lives, but if our consciences are never sensitized beyond fighting against one certain category of sins, we will allow ourselves to remain selfish and self-centered. True, a man may learn how to stop picking up prostitutes, watching porn and staring at women, but what about his pattern of putting himself before others? The habit of deceiving? The lifestyle of self-protection?

These are areas which must be dealt with, but behavior modification is not effective at any level deeper than our sexual behaviors.

2. Behavior Modification Prioritizes Modifying the Behavior

OK, duh. That's obvious. But there is a problem with it. It approaches the problem from the wrong direction.

When the Pharisees accused Jesus of allowing his disciples to defile themselves by eating without the ritual washing of hands, Jesus countered with a profound argument about the nature of sin.

“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” (Mark 7:21-23 NASB)

Notice where Jesus puts the blame. Not the fruit…but the root. Not on the outward behaviors, but right at the core of who the man is. Jesus' teaching shows us that the source of addiction is not the pattern of behavior itself. Rather, the source is the man's sinful nature that loves sin.

3. Behavior Modification Offers Shallow Change

The person who realizes that the sinful nature must be dealt with is seeing a measure of truth. However, if that person deals with it by focusing mainly on the actions, he is still dealing with the effects of his sinful nature, rather than the cause of the behaviors. If he does succeed in modifying his behaviors, it does not necessarily indicate that he is experiencing the depth of change that the gospel offers.

I remember when I was first coming to grips with the sinfulness of looking lustfully at women. I had spent the last 10 years of my life looking at every woman I could. The addiction had become so entrenched in my life that I wondered if I could ever be different.

But what did it mean to be different? As I reflected on what I believed God desired to do in my life, I knew that He wasn't offering simply to help me stop looking at women. I knew He wanted to something much deeper than that.

He wanted me to see them for who they were. He wanted me to see a soul that He loved and died for, not just a physical shell that I needed to avoid lusting over. He wanted me to care about who they were as persons, even if I didn't know them. If I saw a woman who was dressed immodestly, He didn't want me simply jerk my eyes away, but to grieve because of where that path would take her in life. In other words, He wanted me to overcome lust by loving and respecting women, not just by physically controlling my eyes.

A man may successfully apply behavioral modification techniques and change some unwanted behaviors, but until the nature of Christ dominates his life, there is still so much that will be left undone. That's why I believe that it cannot be the best strategy for a Christian man who is seeking to break the bondage of sexual addiction in his life.

Now, having said all that, I should offer some clarification. I am not saying that we don't have to cut things out of our lives that we know are causing us to stumble. We do. Television, internet, smartphones, social media, vacation spots, etc., MUST GO if we have a pattern of using these things in ways that dishonor God. We cannot expect God to purify our hearts if we do not take His words seriously, and cut off whatever is causing us to sin.

But let's not fall into any of the traps that behavior modification may lead us. Let's look to the Lord for godly sorrow leading to true repentance. This is what will bring the purity and power of Christ's life into our own.

In this segment, Pastor Ed Buch teaches about Solomon's fall from his relationship with the Lord, and how the pursuit of pleasure leads to a life void of godliness. (from Podcast Episode #454 - |Victory| Persevering with a Pure Heart)

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Nate: Jesus tells us in Revelation 3 that He's coming soon, and that we should hold onto the things that we have, so that our crown won't be taken away from us. For those of us who persevere in the Mercy Life, there will be a crown of victory for us. But remember, living in victory implies that life is a battle: there are spiritual wars to be fought, and there are enemies to overcome. Pastor Ed Buch is with me in the studio now and Pastor Ed, I assume that most of our podcast listeners are people who are struggling with sexual sin. But we've been trying to gear these last few episodes to those people who have really taken this series seriously and have already made significant steps toward victory. What we want to do today is help people understand what it's going to take to finish well, and we're going to do that by looking at King Solomon's failures. When you look at King Solomon's life, what is one of the notable failures that we should be watching for in our own lives?

Pastor Ed: Well Nate, I think it's worth pointing out first of all that Solomon really did start well, I mean he started really well. It says right there in 1 Kings 3 that Solomon loved the Lord, and we sometimes forget that he loved the Lord. And then the Lord appeared to him and asked him what he wanted to receive. Solomon very humbly told the Lord that he was just like a little child who didn't know how to come out or go in and he wasn't up to the task of being king over so many people. So Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom, and it says the Lord was very pleased with Solomon's request and promised to make him the wisest man who had ever lived.
It’s apparent he started really well, but somewhere along the way things started to go awry for Solomon. By late in his life, he was worshiping pagan gods and had become extremely cynical and just miserably concluded that everything was vanity, just a grasping for the wind. One of the major reasons that I believe Solomon fell away from the Lord, was his pursuit of wealth. He had built the temple in the first seven and a half years of his reign, but then he spent the next thirteen years building his own palace. This palace complex was just the first of many of those kinds of building projects that were completed at Solomon's direction.
Solomon oversaw a vast commercial empire that would have made him like the Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett of his day. In fact, he would have had no peer, he would be like Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and all those guys rolled into one. He had this big import business going on with horses and chariots from Egypt. He had fine jewelry, linens, rare spices, and exotic animals from all over the world. He decorated his palace with 500 gold shields, he ate from golden plates, drank from golden cup, and sat on a golden throne. Scripture literally says that Solomon made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stones. In fact silver, it says later was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon.

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None of us are likely to amass the kind of wealth that Solomon was able to accumulate, but our heart can be just as corrupt as Solomon's was in pursuing wealth. Many of us struggle with materialism and we have our focus on obtaining comforts and luxuries. We probably just think of it as like, I like nice things. But alongside that, many of us have this emphasis on vacations, and travel, or accumulating money towards our retirement. Those kinds of pursuits are able to have the same spiritual impact on us that Solomon's wealth had on him. They end up distracting us from our relationship with the Lord.

Nate: As you're talking about that, I'm thinking about some of the biblical warnings about that kind of thing. Jesus and the apostles are really direct with us—they told us that those things have the actual ability to draw our heart away from the Lord, and if we don't listen, we're going to fall. What do you think is another one of Solomon’s failures we should be wary of?

Pastor Ed: Without a doubt I think his biggest problem was giving himself over to the pursuit of pleasure. In Ecclesiastes 2 there is a description in Solomon's own words, where he's talking about his pursuit of pleasure. He describes planting vineyards, gardens, and orchards. Acquiring male and female servants, and great numbers of herds and flocks. And for entertainment, acquiring male and female singers, and musical instruments.  
It just goes on and on talking about all this stuff, and at the end he literally confesses “whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure.” As if that weren't bad enough on top of all that, it appears that sexual pleasure really dominated Solomon's life, leading him to accumulate 700 wives and 300 concubines. This pursuit of pleasure didn't just distract Solomon like his pursuit of wealth did, Solomon's pursuit of pleasure led him completely astray. That is one of the things that the pursuit of pleasure will do for any of us, even today.

I think there are at least three things we really have to be aware of when it comes to pursuing pleasure. When it boils down to it, pleasure is a feeling, and when I make the pursuit of a feeling is one of the chief aims in my life, I've automatically elevated feelings into a dominant role in my life. Another thing pursuing pleasure does is keep the inward flow of our life focused on getting instead of giving. This is the very opposite of the way Jesus taught us to live. The third thing is that pleasure keeps our affection set on the things of this world. We're very focused on what we are possessing, accumulating, and experiencing here in this world. We simply cannot resist the pull of the world when pleasure and experiencing pleasure is so important to us.

When we look at Solomon’s life, we see a man who started his reign by consecrating the Temple of the Lord. But in the end he becomes a shameless idolater, because he didn't restrain his pursuit of pleasure. That kind of disobedience is inevitable for someone who lives like this. If we exalt pleasure more than godliness like Solomon, all of us will soon be willing to disobey even the clearest commands of the Lord in exchange for pleasure.

Nate: Man, what you’re saying is so good. I think for somebody who's listening to our podcast and has really repented of sexual sin, that's going to resonate. They're going to be able to say, “Yes, that's what my old life was like,” and now they're wanting to totally turn away from that kind of life. But what you’re also saying to them is that they still need to be on guard, because it's possible even now to go back to that kind of life. What is it that we need on the inside that will keep us from going back where we would just blatantly disobey even God's clearest commandments?

Pastor Ed: We definitely need a couple of things on the inside, and one of those things is lowliness. It's our pride that says things like, “Well I won't be like Solomon, you know, I would listen to those warnings from the Lord.” It's our pride that thinks we're somewhere we really aren't spiritually. It's our pride that thinks we know and even convinces us many times that we know better than God what's best for us. Our pride needs to be overcome and the lowliness of Christ needs to take its place.

So that's one thing and clearly another thing is the Holy Spirit. He is the one who's going to prick our conscience or poke us with a little conviction when we're getting off track. He's also the one who brings the fruit of the spirit such as meekness, and the self-control that we need at work in our lives. We must keep our ears attuned to the Holy Spirit's voice inside of us, because He will guide us in the paths of righteousness if we let Him.
A final thing I’ll mention here Nate is that we need to learn to walk in repentance in our times of failure. There are going to be some failures. Hopefully we don’t go wild off the rails or something, but there are going to be some failures. And we need to quickly recognize those shortcomings, go to the cross, and repent of them there, and then immediately get back on track. Repentance needs to become a lifestyle for us, because unrepentant sin dulls our hearing quicker than anything else can. It makes it impossible after a while for us to even hear God's warnings, let alone receive them as God's loving warnings for us.

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Nate: One thing I'm thinking about as you're talking about this, is the fallacy that says “As I mature in the Christian life, I should be able to handle more. The more mature I get, the more I should be able to do and indulge myself in and enjoy life.” But actually, when I hear mature believers talk, I hear them saying that they only deny themselves more as they grow spiritually, not less. And I heard you say recently in a meeting that a lot of people think that the Christian life should get easier as it goes along, but you said it will actually get harder and we should expect it to get harder. What did you mean by that?

Pastor Ed: What I meant by that was what you were just alluding to, I think, that as we advance in our Christian walk, our personal conviction should grow. So, things get a little tighter around us. I often use the example of music just to try and help people see what that looks like, because when I first came to the Lord, I was blatantly into secular music. And early on somewhere along the line I understood that was just not right anymore and I needed to get rid of that, so I hauled a bunch of it out to the dumpster and got rid of it. And there have been at least two other times over the years that I've carried music out to the dumpster and tossed it in, because over time I’ve just realized the things that seemed acceptable at first aren’t really feeding my spirit in the end. They were feeding my flesh. And for me, I just needed to get rid of them.
That sort of thing should be happening in our lives in lots of areas. The movies we watch, the books we read, the stuff we allow into our house, even catalogs and those sort of things. We need to constantly evaluate and tighten up boundaries as we become more and more consecrated to the Lord. The things that don't clearly have a positive impact on my spiritual life end up just needing to be cut off.
I think you also asked me what I meant by things getting harder, and there is another side to it that I'll just mention. In Galatians 6:9 for example, it says “Do not grow weary in doing good.” In other words, don't get tired, don't get discouraged, don't give up, but the reason we have this admonition in Scripture is because that's exactly what we're prone to do, just get tired and quit. We get tired of fighting our sin nature, tired of fighting our corrupt desires, and even tired of denying self. Especially when we look around and it seems like everybody else gets away with catering to their self-life.
So for those who have battled their way out of sexual addiction at some level, we’ve spent a lot of energy fighting to get to that place of victory. And once we feel we've achieved it, we're kind of prone to wanting to relax and rest on our laurels. But in order to maintain that victory, we actually have to keep on fighting and stay in that mode. The things that worked in the beginning will continue to work and carry us through to solidify that victory. We're all still vulnerable, but it's just like when the enemy tempted Jesus in the wilderness in Luke's Gospel. It says “He left him at the end of it for a more opportune time.” And for many of us, that opportune time is when we're tired and the enemy just wants to show up and really come at us in that season.

Nate: What would you say to someone who is not necessarily battling sexual sin, but they're just discouraged in general and are wanting to know how to endure?

Pastor Ed: I guess the short answer I have is that you just need a bigger God. Certainly, God is big enough to sustain you and He is big enough to bring all of us through to complete victory. We need to see Him that way, and we need to have our eyes fixed on Him instead of our circumstances, our difficulties, and our struggles. And if I think in particular about the audience you mentioned for today's episode, these guys who have fought through and in some degree, are experiencing victory, they just need to persevere.
I would like to share two things with this group, two areas where they need to endure. These areas are under severe attack and it is critical that we hold the line here. One of them is adhering to God's word as truth. In Colossians 2 we’re warned not to let anyone cheat us through vain, deceitful philosophies, the things that are rooted in the traditions of men, and the basic principles of this world. There are so many of those philosophies out there that have infiltrated the church, and when it comes to dealing with people's behavior or personal problems, we have this humanistic psychology that has literally supplanted the word of God as the truth. We have to remember it's the truth that sets us free, God's word is that truth, and the truth is going to win out. So, I want to tell them to do whatever they need to do to cling to God's word as their truth.
The second thing is they need to stay plugged into and connected to a vibrant body of believers. It's gotten very common and popular today to just attend church services online or other things of that nature. Hebrews 10:25 tells us straight out, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, and this should stand out all the more as we see the day of Christ’s return approaching. It seems to me that we're just not heeding this instruction.
We have people settling for church online, and even those who are attending church, they are not necessarily developing meaningful relationships or heart to heart connections with a body of believers. As things accelerate toward evil in these last days, we're going to need one another more and more. We're not going to make it on our own. There aren't going to be some ‘lone ranger Christians’ who survive. We need to press in with the Lord, continue to cling to his word as our truth, stay plugged into a healthy church, and trust the Lord to bring us through into victory.

In this segment, biblical counselor Austin Kropf challenges us to pray and not think. He also shares his own story of how this effectual truth came to him while he was in our residential program. (From Podcast #452 - |Victory| A  Life Overflowing with Mercy)

Nate: So Austin, one of the things that we realize when we decide to live the life of mercy is that our thinking has to change, because if our mind is full of the world and full of lust, then there's no room for the love of God to be there. And so what we want to do in this interview is help people who have had a past life of worldly thinking, lusting, pride, and criticism to begin to pray instead of think. So, let's start off with this. How have you seen the blessing of praying instead of thinking?

Austin: I’ve found that when I'm praying, the faculties that are required for prayer are the very same ones that I'm engaging in when I'm either lusting or criticizing.

Nate: Okay, explain that.

Austin: It involves my thoughts, my will, and my emotions. Those are the things involved in prayer. My will is being engaged. When I’m deciding to judge a person, or in other words decide to think about this person in some way, there are emotions that come along with that, and thoughts spawn out of those emotions. I’ve found in my personal life, this is the same way prayer works. When I choose to pray and seek the Lord's will for a person, it replaces all the thinking. When I'm choosing to pray, I am engaging my thoughts which eventually results in being really involved emotionally towards people.

Nate: Yeah, that's good. It makes me think of the verse where Paul says, “Don't give your members to unrighteousness, but yield them to God” (Romans 6:13). So, it's basically exactly what you're talking about. You're yielding your will, your mind, your thinking, and your emotions to God for the purpose of righteousness instead of the purpose of sin.

Austin: Yes. Early in my program, my counselor was telling me that I should pray for other people. He was teaching me how to replace thoughts of lust with prayer. And I remember one evening I was on the student center porch doing my homework, just going about my evening, when suddenly I realized there's this pornographic music video playing through my mind. It was very vivid, and as it began to play through my mind, I recalled what my counselor had told me. So I decided I was going to try it. And as I began to pray for this person, something happened that I had never experienced before. There was a dark robe that covered this person in my mind, that took away their lustful appeal. As a result, I began to see her face for the first time. And I saw in her what Jesus saw.

Nate: So that hadn't happened in the video, but in your mind, you saw something cover her body. Wow. And then you saw her face.

Austin: I saw her eyes, and I saw that she was empty. She was crying out for something that she would never find. So, the Lord gave me a sight of what He saw. That emptiness, that comes from seeking after something that would never fill or satisfy her. That touched me in a deep way, and within about two or three minutes I was completely different. I went from being full of lust, to being broken and crying for the need of this soul. That was the most dramatic experience I've had. I've never experienced anything that dramatic since then. But it proved to me that when I yield myself to be obedient to God's will instead of lusting and choose to love, the power of the Holy Spirit is present to really change my heart and give me God's love.

Nate: I love that story. That's an amazing testimony of what God can do when we decide to obey Him. I also am glad that you mentioned that it was the first and last time something like that has happened to you in prayer, because prayer is not always full of drama. Sometimes it's just full of the battle of obedience, where we do what we're called to do, even when we don't feel like it. The battle can be pretty intense, because you are telling yourself, no. How would you say that praying for others and doing mercy in our hearts really puts the nail in the coffin of sinful behaviors and attitudes?

Austin: In my case, it really requires me to make a decisive turn. It requires me to make a commitment and a turn. It’s not just, meeting with a counselor or listening to a powerful sermon, getting hyped about it, then never follow through with it. Here, we are getting down into the dirt of spiritual warfare, where things actually happen inside of me. When I actually choose to pray, I'm saying and committing to the Lord that I’ll change, I'm going to turn to Him, and commit myself to this. And it's not by my power that I can pray, it's in yielding myself to the Lord. It causes me and requires me to make a decisive turn to the Lord, and to yield myself over to His will.

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Nate: Yeah, that's good, because in one sense, we want to think maybe our temptation is anger and we’ll say, well, as long as I don't murder anybody, then I'm okay. But man, when you decide, I'm not just going to cut things off at the level of my actions, I'm going to cut things off at the level of my feelings and my thoughts, you realize you have to deny yourself, and it's a hard battle.

       So we started this episode talking about how our whole view of people needs to change. I talked with Pastor Ed in an earlier interview about how our burden and our goal in life is no longer to take from people, but to give to people. But sometimes I think we feel that prayer is really impractical, that we should instead get out there and do something! How is prayer from your perspective really a powerful tool for doing mercy?

Austin: Well within the immediate sphere of your influence, whether that's your family, or your friends, I think this principle of praying for people in your heart is the most practical. I think what ends up happening for me is it changes me. It makes me a blessing instead of a curse towards my family and my friends. It changes who you are. When you're in a conversation, or when you're faced with a difficult situation, where before you would have just flown off the handle or whatever, you're actually able to reach out to that person with the love of Christ and the patience of Jesus. And that's going to be a testimony to them. That’s going to encourage them or maybe even convict them if they're not saved.  Either way, it's going to change you as a person. In counseling I have seen this over and over again. I'm just at the end of trying to get a guy to see his need, or to bring some sense of poverty, or to try and get him to come to a place where he recognizes his need for the Lord and I'm just at the end with him. I've reasoned with him, I've given him Scriptures, I've given him homework assignments to go over Scripture and nothing's happening. But often I’ve found that it actually will take place after I've prayed. After I've been in the place of prayer for that person.

       I recently experienced this, where I had been completely at the end of myself. One morning, I remember I had a difficult and heavy time praying for a person. I just felt so weak. I felt so unable to even voice or formulate the words to pray for this person. But I was giving it the best shot I could, praying and crying out to the Lord for this person. In the next day or so in counseling, I realized, oh wow, he has completely changed! This guy has really gotten the breakthrough that I have been trying to give him, and I think it was through that prayer.

Nate: That's awesome. I love what you said on both those accounts, because on the one hand, you're trusting God to work in the secret place of that person's heart. But on the other hand, your prayer is changing you so that when you go to be in those situations with people, it's not just you in the flesh, it's you in the spirit and that's really good stuff. I hope people are paying attention, because this is so critical. It's been a real blessing for me to be here at Pure Life, because prayer is so central to our ministry. When any of us are struggling we can grab a brother and ask for prayer, or when there's a need people will get together and pray, and we meet as a staff twice a week to pray for ministry needs. It definitely sets the tone for our culture here. What benefit do you see it having for staff or for students having a culture of prayer?

Austin: The first thing that comes to my mind is the Kingdom principle that Jesus gives us somewhere in Matthew, “Seek first the kingdom of God.” I see that as such a need for us as people, as human beings, because we automatically gravitate towards the world. Towards pleasing the flesh, and towards living a very weak spiritual kind of life. There's really nothing there that keeps us anchored unless we understand this fact: I'm not at home; I'm in a passing phase, and I'm going somewhere. And the mentality that prayer has established here at Pure Life is that we’re here to fight a battle, not to be comfortable. We’re here to seek the kingdom and to make disciples.

       I think this atmosphere keeps me engaged as well, because prayer is also the way that you enjoy the Lord and delight yourself in him. Even though a lot of times, prayer for me hasn't been this great emotional high, there are times, specific times when the Lord breaks through. And I know for a fact that if I wasn’t seeking the Lord, and if we weren’t being intentional by spending time in prayer together, these things would never happen. And the satisfaction inside of me, delighting myself in the Lord helps me to find that delight in him rather than having to go seek it in the world or worldly things. It keeps me centered on the Lord for my satisfaction and pleasure.

Nate: I'm telling you this is just – I'm really being blessed listening to this. You know, whatever we're telling people to forsake that’s so natural to them, whether it’s worldly pleasure, lust, or criticism, all those things are just cheap, easy pleasures. And we're telling people to go out into the wilderness to seek after God. It is true that every so often you'll find an oasis where you will really experience Him, and then that drives you further out into trying to find Him. But if you want to find Him without that hunger, you never will. You’ll just keep drinking out of the same broken cisterns over and over again. I believe you've really given people some inspiration to actually go do this and not just hear about it. Thank you so much for coming in.

Austin: You're welcome.

Jeff and Rose Colon discuss with biblical counselor Brooks Popwell how couples should focus on seeking spiritual blessings in their marriage. They discuss how choosing the difficult path can also be the right path, because it will bear eternal fruit in their lives and in their marriages.

Jeff and Rose, we want to think now about how to choose the way of blessing in a marriage. I want to start by asking you what kinds of blessings do you have in mind that a couple should want for their marriage?

Jeff: A lot of times, especially in our American church culture, we equate blessings with money, a large house, nobody getting sick, and everything going our way. But that's not what I'm talking about and that's not really what God meant when He talked about blessings. In God's realm it's more of a spiritual blessing where God prospers us spiritually. God is eternally minded, and He's always looking towards our eternal benefits. It's not that He doesn't want to, and even that He doesn't promise to, take care of us here on earth. But that shouldn't be our focus because we're all going to come into hard times. We're all going to come into difficulties and God wants to bless us spiritually in those times. So, when we're talking about God's blessings, we're talking more about God spiritually prospering us, no matter what's going on in our lives.

Rose, what Jeff was saying makes me think of how often men coming out of sexual sin have worked so hard to try and bless their family and bless their wives with a nice house, financial support from a good job or whatever. In your experience is that really what most wives are looking for?

Rose: No. What they want is a husband that just loves Jesus and a husband that's willing to do His will. I've seen that with most of the wives I counsel. All they want from their husband is that he just falls in love with Jesus and follow Him.

Well Jeff how do you begin to choose the way of God's blessing in a marriage?

Jeff: I could just mention our own testimony and what God did in our lives. For many years I was bringing a curse upon my marriage and both of our lives. You know when my sexual sin had devastated the marriage we were in desperate need of God's blessing and God showed us the way to that blessing. But it wasn't what most people might think it was. It was actually coming face to face with the Cross and realizing that if I was going to experience spiritual blessing, I had to go down the pathway that Jesus told us we all need to go down. It's called the Narrow Way, and both Rose and I had to learn what it meant to start embracing the Cross and everything that meant in our lives so that we could experience the resurrection life. Jesus made a way of blessing for us, but it began with His suffering. Our blessing begins with suffering and embracing what Jesus went through, and anybody that wants to experience real spiritual growth and blessings in their life is going to have to understand what it means to embrace the Cross in the midst of hard times just as Jesus did.

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And Rose, what does embracing the Cross mean for a wife as she seeks God's blessing on her marriage?

Rose: For a wife, I'd like to use an example of someone I know personally. She is really going through a very hard time with her husband. But she has chosen to pray for him and to fast for him and to hold to faith and believe God to give her husband a breakthrough. What I've seen over the years while she's waiting on the Lord to break through to her husband's heart is spiritual fruit in her life. I've seen spiritual maturity and spiritual growth in her. It's been a blessing to sit back and to see that she's chosen the hard way - the Narrow Way. She could have bailed out of her marriage a long time ago, but she's still standing in her marriage and she's still believing in God and standing in the gap for her husband and God is blessing her spiritually.

Jeff: And I'd like to add to that. It really is a wonderful picture of the blessing I described earlier. That woman had a choice. She could have gone the easy route, which would have been to just get out of her marriage and seek relief in another way. But she embraced the Cross and has prayed for her husband and what we have seen is blessings of intimacy with God. And the anger and bitterness she once had, has been replaced with joy. So, what I see are spiritual fruits that have been developed in her life through it, which to me are the greatest blessings God wants. That's what I'm talking about when I say spiritual blessings and spiritual prosperity. She has prospered spiritually because she chose the hard way - the Narrow Way. She chose to embrace the Cross and it really is a beautiful picture of how God turns our curses into blessings when we do that.

You know, what you've both described makes me think of two types of couples and how they'd face this set of circumstances. In one household, you might have a couple that's full of despair, hopelessness, and backbiting. But then, you could see another couple going through the exact same thing and because their attitude is one of faith in God they're saying, "Yeah, we're going through all of this and it's not pleasant, but God has something for us in all of this." It just makes me think what a difference that attitude and that spirit is going to make in that home.

Jeff: Absolutely. Absolutely, the whole atmosphere is different. I look at our marriage and it's worth what we went through because of the blessings we've been able to receive. Not just for ourselves, but the hope we've been able to give out to others. The same comfort we've been given, we've been able to give. To me, there's no greater blessing and I would never ever regret embracing the trials and the suffering we had to go through to get that.

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In this  segment, Patrick Hudson shares an experience of how the contemporary wisdom of our world  can allure us into a life of sin, while by maintaining a relationship with God’s Word we can find sustenance, truth and victory. (from Podcast Episode  #450 - |Victory| Saturating Your Mind with God's Word)

The other morning, as I was getting ready for work, I stumbled upon a podcast where a therapist was giving advice to atheist parents. She was saying that even if they don't believe in God personally, they should still take their kids to church. She was explaining that studies have shown that taking kids to a religious service, no matter what the religion is, at least once a week, can alleviate depression and anxiety. She said that it will help develop healthy moral behavior such as gratitude and being nice to others. She made sure to say it doesn't matter if atheist parents actually believe or not, because she said that often we only tell our kids half-truths anyway. She compared believing in God and going to church as having an imaginary friend that can help you cope with the things in life that are too hard to understand.

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As I was getting ready and reflecting on her words, I thought to myself, it sounds like this woman is describing kids who would grow up and end up coming to the Pure Life Residential Program. So many guys that come to us grew up in church, they learned all about the good morals of Christianity and they enjoyed the comfort of believing in a loving God. I was one of them. Yet all that it did for us was teach us to follow good outward rules, but it didn't stop us from hurting others, from squandering our money, from cheating on our spouses and destroying our families. But even after saying all that, I knew that as I was listening to her that there was something else going on inside me. As I thought about it, to put it bluntly, that kind of worldly wisdom she was giving was putting off a seductive feeling that was almost as alluring to me as sexual lust. There was something about the calm, sophisticated and intellectual presentation she was giving, with all the research and cultural observation she had.

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Her words appealed to my sinful flesh. So, I thought about why I don't believe her, and I have to say that it's because of my relationship with the Word of God. Since coming to Pure Life, I've been saturated in God's word. I’ve listened to sermons and teachings; I'm reading Christian books and I’m going to Bible studies. But as great as that is, even all of that is like a dessert at the end of a meal. And to me the great meal is my quiet time. It’s my time in the Word every morning. That time in the Word every morning, more than anything else, is helping to prepare me for the daily onslaught of temptation, of lust, worry and worldly wisdom. In fact, when I was reflecting on her talk, I remembered what I had been studying that morning in Romans chapter eight. “For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:5-6).

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As part of my time in God’s Word, I was reading a commentary by Martin Lloyd Jones. He was explaining how the world’s good and moral people are no less in the flesh than people who are falling into drunkenness. They have no more of the Spirit than an outright sinner. That got me thinking about what Jesus said in Matthew 23, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (Verse 25). When I read that chapter, I saw that he kept saying things like that: You appear outwardly beautiful, but within you're filled with dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Outwardly, you appear righteous to others, but within you’re full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Verse 27-28). As all of this was coming to mind, it was like the Spirit was challenging me through God's word, saying, “Who are you going to believe Patrick, my word, or your own thinking?”

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If you look at it in one sense, this woman's argument isn't entirely wrong. The kids might be better off growing up attending church. But the Word is telling me that in God's eyes, that outward goodness of a person doesn't mean anything compared to the truth of the inner life. So, I'm left with making the decision, what am I going to do? I can go with what seems right to my feelings, my thinking and my flesh, or I can trust the Word of God. 1 Corinthians 1:25 comes to mind. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” The context of the verse is talking about man seeing Christ’s crucifixion as foolishness, and I feel like that's the same challenge for me in that moment. Am I going to crucify my own thinking and trust the wisdom of God, even though it feels foolish to my flesh? Then Romans 1:21 and 22 came to mind. “For although they knew God, they didn't honor Him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” Trusting in my own thinking is going to lead me to do whatever is right in my own eyes.

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That's exactly what brought me to the Pure Life Residential Program, and Satan knows this. He knows that if he can get me to go back to trusting in my own thinking, then he can bring me to the end of the path that Romans 1 is talking about, where I'm filled with all unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice and so on. And even knowing all these consequences, I know that without God's Word as my defense in times like these, my mind is going to fall victim to the Enemy's lies. But with God's light for my path, with His sword at my side, I have sure victory, and I can see God strengthening my faith through every trial and temptation.