Pride comes as naturally to humans as breathing. It is the attitude that comes out of the self-life, and it strengthens and fortifies the self-life. Our self-life is at the root of all sin, so if we want true freedom from sin we must allow God to deal with our pride.

In this episode, we look at what allows pride to flourish and grow in a person’s heart, what will happen if it is left unchecked, and the value in fighting against it.

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Nearly every Christian can name half a dozen ministry leaders of evangelical churches who have fallen due to sexual sin. How does this happen to men of God who are leaders in the church? In this final installment in our series The Church Addicted, we'll look at the role of the leader, and ask what happens when a leader is compromised by sexual sin.

We brought Pastor Ed Buch into the studio a few years back to follow up on an article he wrote called “Battle to a Beautiful Mind.” He shows us from the commands of Scripture as well as his own personal experience, that it’s possible for us to have victory over impure thoughts as well the sinful acts that can result from them. His words brought hope that if we spend time with God in prayer and learn to take every though captive to obey Christ, we can have a mind, and thus a life, that is pleasing to God.

Mike: Ed Buch has joined me in the studio. Ed it's great to see you, thanks for coming in to talk with us today.

Ed: Hi Mike, it's good to be here.

Mike: Ed you have written an article that is posted on our website entitled, the battle to a beautiful mind. As I was reviewing your article this morning, the verse came to my mind, "bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). I remember the first time that I read that verse I thought to myself, “Great! How do I do that?” You started this article by kind of underscoring the reality that this is really something that God cares about. Talk about that.

Ed: Yes, God cares about it a great deal. Obviously, the fact that He would say something like that in scripture tells us that He cares a great deal about every thought. Not just our thoughts as a total package, but every individual thought is to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Mike: You mentioned in the beginning of the article that you have some experience in this area personally. Talk a little bit about that experience, dealing with taking your thoughts captive.

Ed: Sure. For me this has been a huge problem in my life, from the early attempts to walk out the Christian life. I walked around with the notion that if I attended church regularly and did some good, spiritual things that I could endure a few hits to my thought life. But that wasn’t the case. If you look at it like a boat, I had holes all over the place and this eventually caused me to sink.

Mike: I know that people who struggle with thoughts, which they know are not pleasing to the Lord, sometimes will try to endure it or white knuckle it. But man, the Lord seems to have so much more for us than just enduring these things. He really wants us to have victory over these things, doesn't He?

Ed: Yes, absolutely. My passion is to try and relate to people that you don't have to spend your life dwelling on impure thoughts. You can have victory over that.

Mike: You've said that you've learned that success doesn't come in the form of some secret formula.

Ed: Well, as the article goes on, I talk about several practical things that we can do to bring us into victory in our thought life. But the reality is that those things aren't in and of themselves going to be cure-alls. Even if I commit to that fully, it's not going to automatically result in victory.

Mike: Okay. Let's park there for a moment Ed, because I know what is really on your heart. It's to talk about what the foundation of victory needs to be laid on.

Ed: Anyone who wants to pursue victory over their thought life is going to have to have the help of God. It's not just knowing God or being able to talk about Him in a theological sense, it's having a personal, dynamic relationship, a one-on-one connection with God, where He's truly real to you. It's about having a relationship with God that isn't a means to an end, but is the end itself.

Mike: Yes, the goal here is a relationship with God. I want you to talk a little bit more about that, because so many people have been in church for so many years. Everybody thinks they have a relationship with God. But I want you to talk about what that relationship became to you, which gave you the incentive to be able to overcome the thoughts that you were struggling with.

Ed: For me, it was being able to see Him as my Father, and that He truly loved me. It was having a connection with Him every day that lasted throughout the day. So, it wasn't just a compartmentalized thing that I did in the morning or the evening, and checked off my list, but it was a relationship that I worked on throughout the day and realized that He was with me. That became so real to me when I came to Pure Life Ministries, where I began to wholeheartedly seek the Lord. He began to reveal Himself to me, and I began to experience His presence with me, and His thoughts slowly became my thoughts. It's just a very special relationship that you enter into with Him. I realized that He knows all my thoughts. You know we haven't really mentioned that, but none of them are hidden from Him.

Mike: Yes, that's true. And He loves us anyway!

Ed: Yes. I found that I don't need to hide them in shame like I attempted to do. When you really realize that He knows all of you and He loves you, there's a breaking that comes with that. I'm no longer worried about keeping a to do list. I'm wanting to honor Him, I'm wanting to please Him, I'm wanting to hear His voice, I'm wanting to spend time with Him. Then my though life just falls into place where it belongs.

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Mike: That kind of leads us, if I could, to some of the practical things that in and of themselves are not the answer. We've laid the foundation of the answer, I think. It's a relationship with the Lord. It's a loving, intimate relationship with Him. Our desire is not to keep all the rules. Our desire is to live a holy life that is pleasing to Him. But there are some practical things that we can do and need to do, in order to develop that relationship, which ultimately will help us to deal with these thoughts we are struggling with.

Ed: The first thing that I laid out in the article was about coming to that place where you realize your thoughts are going in a wrong direction. I call it breaking the trance. You can sit there, and it's almost like you are in a trance. Your mind is just going down that path, and unless you do something to break that trance, you're just likely going to keep going down it until it provokes some kind of outward sin.

Mike: It's just by default. In auto pilot we are walking in the flesh. That is just our natural position to walk in. We must grab hold of the controls and we must choose to walk in the Spirit.

Ed: Right. A very practical way that this works out is, when I'm sitting at the computer and it starts, and I get up. A lot of times it really doesn't take very much to break the trance. It's just a minute or so of some other diversionary activity.

Mike: You mentioned also, to pray.

Ed: Pray, yes. We really tend to neglect our weapon of prayer. It's probably the most essential weapon that we have because it goes back to building up the relationship with God. Prayer is absolutely essential. That's one of the key components of developing that relationship. Then you can bring that into the very practical realm of asking God for deliverance from impure thoughts. You can ask for His Spirit to work in you help you when you are dwelling on impure thoughts so that you can cut them off sooner.

Mike: Yes. Maybe this is particularly true to men, I don't know, but we somehow naturally slip into the thinking, “I need to do this.” Well, good luck buddy! I've discovered in my life that every time I try to do it, I fail. We desperately need God's help. Thirdly, you said that you really need to get serious about applying the admonition given by the Apostle Paul, "Do not be conformed to this world" (Romans 12:2). Talk about what that means.

Ed: When Paul wrote, "Do not be conformed to this world," the world was of course a lot different in many ways, but in some ways, it was very much the same. Believers in every generation have always had the tendency to conform to the world's standard in their lives. The activities they participate in, the activities they’re involved in and the things that they spend their time doing. There's worldliness that is involved in many of those things. When Paul said, "Do not be conformed to the world," he was telling us we need to separate. There needs to be a distinction between my life and the life of one who is caught up in the things of the world.

Mike: I would take it even a step further. It's not just the outward things we do, but even more importantly it's the attitudes of our heart.

Ed: That's right Mike. That's ultimately what God is really after in all of this. Even in our thought life. He wants us to have a pure thought life, but it's because He wants our hearts. And if I can go even further with that, God wants us to be like Him.

Mike: You know we have the wonderful promise, that one day we will see Him as He is and we will be like Him, (1 John 3:2). I want you to say something that will encourage the fellas and ladies out there that may have really battled with this and have failed, and they really haven't seen the victory. Just encourage them to keep fighting.

Ed: Well, that's kind of easy to do, really, because there's nothing worse in my mind than being like I was before. I was bound up in a darkness and an oppression, and suicidal thoughts. All of that was going on, and I was really to be able to come into the light out of that. I realized that I didn't have to stay there. At any point while I was in the darkness I could have turned to the Lord, and He could have brought me out of that. There's life and joy and a relationship with God that supersedes everything else, that makes it all worth it.

Mike: Amen. Well thanks for coming in and talking to us about the battle to a beautiful mind.

This week we examine why so many in the church are plagued by addiction by looking at Scripture's command for the believer in Jesus to forsake the world. The Apostle John wrote that “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Yet this truth is often ignored, disobeyed and even sometimes renounced by the Evangelical Church as out of step with reality. So in this replay from our series, The Church Addicted, we look at how to obey Scripture's command to be "in the world, but not of it."

At the root of all sin is the self-life. Out of the self-life flows our attitudes, desires, thoughts, ambitions and actions. The Bible calls it "the flesh." It is the fallen part of us that Jesus died to give us victory over. The self-life is constantly striving to control us and to keep us under its dominion.

Some of its manifestations are obviously sinful such as adultery, murder and rebellion. But others are not so obvious such as self-effort, self-determination, self-pity, and even self-love. In this video Pastor Steve Gallagher helps us understand that to gain real freedom from sin, we must uproot the self-life.

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Most of us can fall victim to sinful fears. It can manifest itself through fear of man, fear of being exposed, fear of intimacy or rejection from people. In this interview, Pastor Ed Buch helps shed light on how exactly fear can imprison us, and how there is hope available to conquer these fears in Jesus. (From Podcast Episode #434 - Leaving the Past Behind)

Mike: Ed Buch has joined me in the studio. Ed is the administrative manager here at Pure Life Ministries. Ed, great to see you. Thanks for coming in.

Ed: Hi Mike, I'm glad to be here.

Mike: Ed you wrote an article recently for our Ezine entitled Paralyzed by Fear. I suspect that anyone listening can think of many times in their life where fear has been an issue. We can all relate to the idea of fear. You started this article out with an interesting paragraph, juxtaposing two things about fear. Talk about that.

Ed: Maybe I should say at the outset that I've certainly had a lot of experience with fear over the years. As a child I was a very fearful individual. Especially of the dark, as many children are.

Mike: Me too! I still don't look under the bed.

Ed: Right. I still don't walk up to windows at night. So, a couple of things that stood out to me as I looked at the scriptures and my own experience side by side. When it comes to fear, one thing is that, as a human being, fear paralyzes me. I get stuck. I think that's true of all people: we are paralyzed by fear. But on the other hand, Satan our adversary is animated by fear. It is an atmosphere that he thrives in. I think he works very hard to incite and to keep immersing us in an atmosphere of fear, because that's where he can do his work to corrupt and destroy people’s lives so effectively.  

Mike: No doubt about that. Hopefully as we go through this article it will be able to help, to encourage and to give hope to people that they can get free of fear, which the enemy is so often trying to keep us in. One classic example you used of fear in the Bible, I think, was Peter.

Ed: One of the probably most well-known stories of fear in the Bible is where Peter walked on the water, (Matthew 14:22-36). While a number of the disciples were in the boat and headed across the lake, Jesus came walking across the water toward them. Their reaction was fear, so He said some reassuring things to them. Then Peter said, “Well Lord, if it's really you, invite me to come to walk on the water to you.” Jesus does that and says "Come." So, Peter gets out of the boat, I’m sure many of us have heard this story, and he loses his focus and makes a decisive error here, taking his eyes off of Jesus. As a result, he begins to see the boisterous waves and the storm around him, and he starts to sink in the water. Of course, he calls on Jesus, and Jesus reaches out His hand to him and says, "Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Mike: This is good. Ed, you brought out that Jesus’ question there revealed a serious problem that most of us face.

Ed: Exactly. What we see here in this passage with Peter, is that fear is literally drowning faith. That is true in so many our lives. We can get stuck in unbelief. I personally have felt that at times when I was in my sexual sin. I was feeling powerless to stop the behaviors that I knew were sinful, as well as powerless to put into practice the steps I could see and read in scripture, or from other biblical materials that Jesus was inviting me to take toward that freedom. But I was paralyzed, it seemed, by the role that fear was playing in my life. That's because we're dealing with a lot of fears. I think this is very true of sexual addicts, or those dealing with sexual sin. Fear has played a huge role in our lives. Probably many are dealing with something like a fear of intimacy, a fear of emotional pain or rejection, a fear of inadequacy, just feeling insignificant and unable. Those are all things that kind of even feed and propel us into those sexual addictions.

Mike: Sure, I had a check box next to each one of those as I look back on some of the things that drew me to sexual sin. On the other side of that though you also say fear is very often the thing that hinders us from getting out of sexual sin, which fear had led us into!

Ed: Exactly. That's what I mean by fear animating Satan. So now he's got us in this trap of fear, and we say "I was propelled there by fear," and "I can't get out because now I'm afraid of getting caught or exposed, of losing my reputation, and I'm afraid of the consequences that I will have to deal with when my sin is exposed of like that." It's really a horrible trap, a pit, and many people I believe out there today might be stuck in that pit. It is my hope that they will understand that they don't have to stay there.

Mike: Well let's talk about that. You talked about how there is only one way to escape this fear-based prison, as you called it.

Ed: Yes, Mike. The only way to get out of this prison is to face our fears. Proverbs says very clearly that "the fear of the wicked will come upon him," (Proverbs 10:24). That's exactly what happens in many cases, unfortunately, as we let it go too long and the things we fear happen. In my case, my sexual sin got exposed. I was caught, and all those things that I feared came upon me. I think many people experience that. However, we can at any point make the choice to face those fears head on and overcome them. The Lord would have us do that much sooner than many of us opt to do.

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Mike: You said that coming to grips with our fears is not complicated. It may not be complicated, but if you're in the grip of fear, it very often seems elusive. How do I do that, if I find myself driven by fear, controlled by fear? What do I do with that?

Ed: In my mind Mike there's a two-pronged approach. We need to replace that fear with faith. The faith will need to come from the Word of God. There's no way around that. You need to be immersed in the Word of God. You need to be letting the Word of God take a higher place in your thinking and in your heart than the fears, and the emotions behind those fears. But at the same time, you know you mentioned that it's not complicated, it's not easy either. I don't want to minimize that, because I'm not even sure a person can do that alone. In my experience, and I think the experience of most people I'm familiar with, is it takes a group of believers who can help come alongside and help pray through on that regard, before you can really overcome fear in your life.

Mike: You closed this article about talking about the woman with the issue of blood. I think this really spoke well to the love of Jesus amid our fear. Talk about that.

Ed: Yes Mike, I think everyone's probably familiar with that account in scripture, (Luke 8:40-46). This woman had a twelve-year issue of blood, she was bound in her fear and in her uncleanness very much, just like someone bound in sexual sin. She gets just enough sight of Jesus in her desperation to reach out and touch the hem of His garment to get the healing she needs. But the reality of that story is that when she touches Him, Jesus immediately stops everything. He's on His way to heal somebody else, but He stops.

Mike: He's got quite a crowd around Him too.

Ed: Exactly. That’s what Peter said. When Jesus asked, "Who touched me?" Peter's response was: "Master, you're surrounded by this large group of people, it could have been any of us! Why do you even care?" was pretty much behind Peter's statement. When we think about that, I think the reason Jesus really did care is because He loved that woman perfectly. In that love, He understood that while she had been healed of her uncleanness, her fear remained. We see that when He finally calls her before Him, it says specifically, "She came in fear and trembled before Him." Then she confessed in that moment everything to Him, and His response in that moment was "daughter, your faith has made you well." She overcame all her fear by that faith that He drew out of her, and really imparted to her even in that very same moment.

Mike: Yes, Jesus really laid the foundation for hope in her that she did not have before. Even as you were talking about that I think of the man who was healed by the pool of the sheep gate. When he was asked "Who healed you," he didn't know who healed him. I've always loved the fact that Jesus arranged a second meeting, so that He could know who healed Him. He wanted to heal His heart. He wanted to give that man a hope, which He didn't have merely by his healing, as wonderful as that was.

Ed: That's right, yes. I think many of us today would settle for just physical healing, but God is always after something much deeper.

Mike: Yes, and much more wonderful. ‍

Ed: Yes.

Mike: Amen. Well, we appreciate you writing this article and sharing it with us today. Hopefully for those who may be experiencing fear in different ways in their life it will provide some hope to them. Jesus is not only aware of their fears, but He wants to set them free from those fears and the consequences of them.

Ed: That's right.

Mike: Ed Buch, thanks so much.

Ed: Thank you Mike, it's been a pleasure.

Do not be afraid. We find this command over one hundred times in God’s word to us for a reason. Life can easily become full of fear. For wives, there can be the overwhelming opportunity to live in fear when a husband has been in sexual sin. She fears that he’ll betray her again, re-opening the wound and bringing deeper pain to her and her family. In this episode, both Kathy Gallagher and Pastor Ed Buch will share about the topic of fear, so that we understand how to face it head on, as well as come out of life’s trials with a deeper faith and a greater love for Jesus.

Many wives of men in sexual sin have said to us, “He told me he would stop, why won’t he just stop?” These women are exasperated and confused as to how their husbands could commit sexual sin, knowing that his actions would hurt them. Pure Life co-founder, Kathy Gallagher, joins us in this episode to offer her insight into this subject. And for couples beginning the process of reconciliation, we’ll also take time to offer some thoughts as to how a husband can begin to take his rightful place as a spiritual leader in the home once he has truly repented.

Jesus Christ is coming soon. For those of us who profess to follow Him, the question remains: are we ready for Him to return? Many of us are caught up in the distractions of living in a prosperous nation. Whether it’s our family, career, entertainment or possessions, we tend to give our affections to these and they can become dangerous idols. But if we abide in Jesus, seeking Him passionately through His word and in prayer, He can change our hearts. Just as a bride is excited for her husband to return to her, so we can learn to not be in dread of, but to love and even to hunger for His appearing.

When God made Adam and Eve in His image, He gave them different character qualities and assigned them various responsibilities in the marriage. But sexual sin brings disorder and chaos to the God-given order of things: husbands ignore their role, leaving wives with the feeling that if she doesn’t lead, no one will. So what happens when a husband repents and wants to begin to lead his family spiritually? We brought in pastor Jeff and Rose colon to help address some of the challenges in this situation. (From Podcast Episode #2117 - Why Won't He Just Stop?)

Mike: Jeff and Rose Colon have joined us in the studio for our Focus on Couples segment today. We're going to be talking about role reversal. Jeff, what do see in a couple that's dealing with this issue?

Jeff: Well Mike, what we see a lot of times in couples that are coming out of sexual sin struggles is that the husband hasn’t been the priest of the home as God ordained him to be. A lot of the time the wife has had to take that role, because the husband has been in his sin and has not been where he needed to be at spiritually. But God has ordained the husband to be the head over his wife. It's clear in Scripture, and the husband really must take it seriously.

Mike: Now what does that mean, because I know there's a lot of confusion around that topic. There's probably a lot of bad counsel going on out there about what it means for the husband to be in authority in the relationship. What is the biblical position on his role?

Jeff: What I like to point out to men is that we're to be the head of our wife just as Christ is the head of His Church. That's the pattern we're given. Christ, as of the Church, literally gave Himself for her. So it really becomes an issue of giving. It becomes an issue of laying my life down for her. It's not the role of a dictator who’s just lording over someone. Jesus led us by washing our feet. He became a servant even though He is Lord. And a husband needs to approach it in the same way. He's to serve his wife spiritually. He's to care for her, he's to be her covering.

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Mike: Rose what does this look like from the wife's perspective?

Rose: What we've seen with the wives is that she's been holding the reins while the husband's been in his sin. So, she's been kind of the priest of the home. But once he's gone through our program and the Lord is helping the husband to walk out his repentance, he's learning how to now take that position. And for her, she's got to know how to let go of the reins and trust God to lead her husband. A lot of times the wife will say: "Well, my husband wasn't responsible before, so how do I know he's going to be the priest of the home that God's calling him to be?" It becomes an area of trust for them, as far as them praying for the husband and trusting that the Lord's going to give the husband what he needs to lead that family.

Mike: What is the wife's role? How does she best help the husband to take his leadership responsibility?

Rose: Prayer. Always starting with prayer. Praying for her husband. Trusting that, especially if her husband is seeking the Lord, that the Lord is really going to lead and direct Him. Now let's say she's doing that, and he comes back, and he shares what he feels God is wanting them to do. She might feel in heart, "Well I don't really believe this is God's will." Well, she has to learn how to let him go with it and just continue to pray. And if it wasn't the Lord's will, trust that the Lord's going to use it for both of them. He’ll use it to show them something about themselves, or maybe something about their relationship with the Lord.  

Mike: Jeff, I know that you and Rose have dealt with this issue in your own marriage situation. Can you tell us a little bit about how you worked through this?

Jeff: Sure Mike. I remember when I began to take my role in the house. I couldn't just jump in the wagon, rip the reins out of her hands and say, "Okay, I'm in charge now." I had to be sensitive to what I had created in my wife through my sin and through the years of lying and deception. I had to do it gently and with understanding. I needed to love her as Christ loves us. Jesus understands what we can handle. And He takes us along at pace that we can handle. He doesn't just throw everything on us all at once. We need to keep that in mind when we are taking that role once again in our home. As the wife starts seeing your life and you seeking the Lord, and you wanting to do the right thing, she's going to want to submit to you. It's not going to be something that's forced on her.

Mike: How do you deal with the mindset in many women, I think, that as she's submissive to her husband she's nothing but a doormat?

Jeff: I would just say to her that being submissive doesn't make you a doormat. It doesn't make you less important or insignificant in the marriage. Really to the contrary, a submissive wife is a value and an asset to her husband. I mean, I value my wife's opinions. And I allow her to fulfill her role as my helpmate. God created her to be my helpmate. And so, I don't see her as less significant than myself because God doesn't see us in that way.

Mike: How important is this in the scope of things to be dealt with?

Jeff: God is very clear about this issue in Scripture. If a husband isn't obeying the words of God and taking his proper role, and a wife isn't obeying and taking her proper role, they're in rebellion towards God. That's very serious.

Mike: So not only is there going to be a problem in the marriage, but there's going to be a problem for both of them individually in their personal relationships with God.‍

Jeff: Absolutely, and God's not going to be able to bring about what He needs to bring about in the marriage if they're not fulfilling their roles in the way that God designed it.

Since the year 2000, Pure Life Ministries has been holding an annual conference in northern Kentucky. Hundreds of people join us every year to hear powerful messages, to share in wonderful times of corporate worship and fellowship, and to seek hard after God. In this episode, we’ll talk about the origins of the conference, we’ll give a little background about our conference theme this year and let you know what you can expect if you join us on April 23rd and 24th in northern Kentucky.

Brawling and the use of slanderous words often spring up in the proud heart. We brought James Buckley, one of our staff members, to help paint a picture for how our self-life can manifest in wicked acts of brawling and slander and how he was set free from this struggle during his time in the Residential Program. (From Episode #426 - Exposing the Pride that Projects a Spiritual Image)

Host: When James was ten, his mother was saved, and for the next few years he gained a small foundation in the Lord. But when he moved in with his father, he soon forsook the spiritual grounding he had received. For the next decade and a half he lived for the pleasures of the world, becoming addicted and arrogantly proud. By God's grace, he moved in with a family in his thirties and they saw his need, and tried to help him get back on track. But living for self all those years took what little faith he had and turned it into a mountain of spiritual pride. Along with it came some daughters of pride: brawling and slander.

James: I suppose after I came to Kentucky, when I was about thirty-one, a family took me in which became a place I could grow in the Lord with them. That's when I was back in Church and wanting to live for the Lord. After a couple years of that, this brawling and slander just manifested, and I unleashed on the husband. I verbally assaulted him with such hateful words, attacking first his role as a father, then as a husband and even as a business owner. But worst of all, as he was pastoring at that time, I even attacked his role as a pastor. His wife was there standing next to him, so I turned to her and unleashed the same hateful, slanderous, words of accusation upon her. It was even to the point where I laid hands on her and pushed her to the ground, as I continued to slander her with a verbal assault. So those are the two instances that I most remember as far as slander and brawling.

And, during the time that I was with this family, for the two years prior to this outburst of brawling and slander, I was regularly involved in ministry. And the more people asked me to be involved with other things, the more I had a sense that I was a very spiritual person. But there was no true repentance that had happened, no inward change had happened, so it was a real example of the hypocrisy that I was in. I was living outwardly what people saw as a good Christian individual. But inwardly there was constantly a desire for the sin of the world, as well as a brewing hatred in my heart, a contempt for others around me. But more specifically for this family because I lived with them, and I suppose I saw their faults. Yet instead of praying mercy for them and loving them the way that they had loved me, I just criticized. Contempt grew, and one day it just all came out.

Host: James talked about how there was no real change in his heart. That hypocrisy fueled the spiritual pride, brawling and slander that surrounded him. But these were just the fruit at the surface. As we've been discussing in this series, James can now testify that there was a much more insidious root behind all of this.  ‍

James: It certainly can be summed up as a love of self. I just wanted to have my own way. I wanted everything to go my way, and so when it didn't it just fostered more hatred, bitterness, and resentment. I had a critical heart. I was full of criticism, judgements and accusations. It was not necessarily voiced to people around me because that would affect my image as a good Christian man. But it was all inside my heart. I think I just thought that I was something more than I was.

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Host: James did come to Pure Life and the Lord did show him the reality of his spiritual condition. But God also did a wonderful work in his heart. James looked to Jesus and truly repented, and this began to play out in his willingness to obey the commands of Jesus.

James: I had thought that the Lord had given me moments of setting me free from it, over the eighteen years that I was with this family. I was active in church for most of that. But it’s when I came to the residential program that I really saw how much spiritual pride that I had. The Lord began to set me free in ways that I didn't know were possible. But in doing them [that is, obeying Jesus’ commands], really there's freedom. What is the primary thing that I found? Simply by praying mercy for others, which is hard to do when you're such a self-absorbed person. But I had done it and I had learned to practice it to some degree. As a result, there was real victory that the Lord gave me, simply by praying mercy for others. It's what we were taught in the residential program. The conscious, deliberate act of asking God to bless another person. Specifically, the person that offended me, or crossed my will. It’s the act of asking God to bless them and provide for their needs, to pour His Spirit out them. This kind of praying for another person really has the capacity to set a person free.

One specific instance of this from when I was in the program came from working alongside one young man in particular. He was maybe twenty-five years my junior, maybe twenty-two years old, and he just grated on me. He was hardheaded himself, like I was, and he wouldn't listen. I really began to frankly hate this young man. It showed in our work. I could feel the hatred growing in me, and dislike of him. I knew and felt the Lord drawing me to pray mercy for Him and even confront him with my sinful heart and ask him for forgiveness. I did that and he received it, and in turn he asked me to forgive him for his own rebellious ways. We had a real reconciling, that the Lord certainly did. So from that day on, we really became close and it was a joy to work with one another.