Blog

Why Self-Gratification is not good. Another View point (Adults only)

Posted on by RLAdmin

The only one who is to touch my body, to arouse it, should be my wife!

I had this idea while eating some Phu (Vietnamese oup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pho) with my wife the other day.  We were talking about our intimacy together (we do that often) and as the conversation went, She made a comment concerning that I would be the only one that would touch her, and that included herself!  At the moment I didn’t think much of it.  But later in that day, as I was reading the Chapter on Lust in “The Exemplary Husband” by Stuart Scott (A book I’ve read many times), something hit me in the face.
I read the quoted passage from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount about lusting after a women being adultery, and that’s when I had the Epiphany!  My wife should be on the only one to arouse my body!  And that includes me too!!!  Wow, isn’t that what self-gratification is, my self arousing myself!
Why is that so bad?
Love!
Love does not seek it’s own, at the expense of another.  And this is why it is wrong.  If I use my own hand to arouse myself then I will find that my wife’s hand will not suffice!  And man that speaks to me.  My wife is to have me, and the Apostle Paul spoke of this in 1st Corinthians chapter 7 saying, “Men, your bodies are not your own, but your wife’s.”  She is the one who has entered into a all exclusive covenant with me.  And that means that not even I am to replace her right over my body.  So there is a cost to self gratifying.  The cost is to my wife.  As I self gratify (or visa versa) I am  finding satisfaction in another, though it be me.
The consequences to this are horrible.  You don’t want to have sex with your wife anymore, because you can do it better!  In a sense, you become married to yourself!  Sex with your wife will not be about togetherness but simply about getting off.  This leads to making your wife (or visa versa) do things, “your way” as to reach that satisfaction you get with yourself.  I wrote in my book, Porn and A Pastor, that those of us into pornography would rather watch porn than be with our spouses anyway.  It’s one of the saddest sentences in the book for sure.  Countless actresses in the pornography industry can understand what I’m talking about.  How many have dated men that continue to self gratify though there dating a “porn star?”
Having my wife be the one who touches me means no more adultery with myself.  The Apostle of Christ, Paul, said, “Your body is not your own, you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body.”  Jesus is pictured as our husband who has paid the bridal price for us.  The Church is not to be aroused on it’s own, by itself, by it’s members, but we are to excited by our bride, we are His.  And Jesus does not touch himself but is aroused by the love of his bride for Him!   He hears the cry’s of his bride in a world that has rejected them.  Jesus sympathizes with His bride.  He cry’s with us and moves through us.  Simply put, Jesus is moved by us.  Before Paul was a Christian, we was a hater of the Church.  And during his conversion, Jesus said, “why do you persecute me?”  Was Paul really persecuting Jesus…well, in a sense no!  But in another sense, he was persecuting the Church, who is the bride of Jesus.  And Jesus is in His bride. He is one with his bride. He feels what his wife feels.  All this said, it makes the point that the relationship between husband and wife in covenant with one another means there are affections that each other are to exclusively have with themselves.  Nothing is to get in the way or take the place of the other.  I am not to commit adultery with another.  And that means committing adultery with me!
We are not to be dead ends of energy expelled, but to be a conduit which love is to flow through to one another!  Masturbation is the dead end with all my own energy focused on me.  Love is giving of my energy to my beloved.  Self-gratification is like the Dead sea, it has an input source but no outflow, where as love is receiving and giving.
Bottom line;  It’s time for me to stop touching myself!  That is something I can steel away from my wife.  This is one way we can usurp the authority of our wife having over our bodies.
She alone is the one who should touch my body in an affectionate way.  For some of us men it might mean that you need to stay away from other women, but for some others it means that we need to stay away from ourselves!
IMG_20140909_132340[1]
It is certainly time for us to stop hearing the rhetoric that masturbation will help you in your sex life because you will know how to tell your partner how you like to be pleased.  In getting something at CVS I saw 3 magazines with this idea in them.  But what happens if your “partner” can no longer please you the way you want to be pleased?  Then what?  Is the relationship over?  Is the answer to just go back to pleasing yourself?
These magazines are the Newspeak of Ingsoc in today’s world.  (See Orwell’s 1984, Newspeak is the institutionalization of falsehood on a systematic basis)
What a shallow view of love we have been taught.  I want a better way.  Do you?

Strong Willed Women

Posted on by RLAdmin

2 Timothy 3:6 says, “…for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sin and led astray by various passions.

Image result for kendra wilkinson net worth
Recently, I read an article about Kendra Wilkinson (a former playboy bunny, ex-girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, and now wife and mother). She was facing insecurities about her pregnant body and rumors of her cheating husband. When she confessed fear over her husband falling out of love with her because of her fears of what her second pregnancy would do to her body, it made me pause. Didn’t he marry her because he loves her or was it out of lust? That made me think about myself as an overweight woman in our society. Would I be able to get a man to fall in love with me in a fall-in-lust society? 
What does God say about his love for me as his daughter and bride?

Looking at 2nd Timothy gave me an idea. Kendra and I are both weak women who are expecting to gain love when our bodies look a certain way: her gaining her pre-pregnancy body, and me getting down to a normal size. Do we need to have the perfect body so men will stay in lust with us? Hardly, because our bridegroom tells us differently. The Song of Solomon contains love poems between a husband and wife, but also is read as our interaction with Jesus as our bridegroom. 

In Song of Solomon 1:15 it reads:
“Behold you are beautiful, my love;
Behold, you are beautiful;
Your eyes are doves.”

In this verse, and throughout the rest of the chapter, we are shown Jesus’ love for us, not lust. He doesn’t expect us to be a size 2 with a flat stomach and revealing clothes. He’s in love with us, making us strong women in him rather than weak women led away by falling in lust.

Megan Grainger a RLM contributer

Be fruitful and multiply (An insight into a greater truth)

Posted on by RLAdmin

Be fruitful and multiply (An insight into a greater truth)

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Beau James

Genesis 1:28

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Here the Bible clearly is saying that Adam and Eve are to have sex and bear fruit (have children).

John 15:1-8

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;[a] and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will[b] ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
Here Jesus tells us to bear fruit (acting like Jesus).  We can, only because he abides in us.  He has entered us through the work of His Spirit, and therefore we can have spiritual offspring (Love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.)
Sex has always been a sign of a greater spiritual reality between the Son of God and His Bride, the Church.
How does this knowledge help us fight against lust?
Sex has been pornified in so many of our lives.  We think of it as a secular act instead of a sacred act.  When I think of sex in this common, secular way, selfish desires creep in to take over.  And why wouldn’t they if sex becomes all about my satisfaction.
For us who have struggled with this it is time to put sex back it’s its proper place.  This is just one step in helping us see things rightly in a Biblical way.
Sex was created by God.  Through it, there would be great physical offspring.  And sex would also help us understand something spiritually.
For those married:
Maybe our intimacy with Christ is not well because we don’t see sex in the correct way either.  It’s just a thought to ponder.  And again, this is just one way to start clearing up the blurry.  The glasses we need to maybe put on is one that helps us see sex as a God glorying creation, and not a function of biology to fulfill our primal instinct to spreed our seed.
There is too much sexual damage in the world.  Sex is violence for many.  We need a Better Way.  
Come, drink from the river of God’s pleasure!  Psalm 36:8

Submission – For men who desire to lead

Posted on by RLAdmin
218878_196382473730136_185016864866697_429981_1899899_o
Genesis 32:24-31 (ESV) 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
This is such a cool story as we see Jacob in a battle of strength against this man who we find out later is the angel of The Lord, a theophany of the preincarnate Christ (V 30), and in this battle Jacob was actually winning. His resistance against the angel was so powerful that the angel “could not prevail against Jacob”. The angel was actually losing the fight so the angel touches Jacobs hip socket and dislocates Jacob’s leg in mid battle in verse 25. I had to ask as I re-read this familiar story how was it that Jacob was winning this battle against the angel? Was he more powerful? Was this an “off day” for the angel? Well God allowed Jacob or rather allowed the angel to hold back strength so that Jacob thought he was prevailing.
God had to make Jacob weak and lame so that he would stop wrestling against God. Interestingly Jacob actually gained power when he lost it or we could say he conquered, when he failed. Now Jacob had to rely on God completely!
What about you this week? Have you been wrestling with God and won? Remember we win – when we lose the battle with God. So we can say The Lord wrestles with us so that we can lose and in that losing we learn to rely totally on Him. As long as we have any strength left our tendency is to keep on fighting. I can remember my older brother Roy and I used to wrestle all the time and he would be pinning me down on the floor until I would say “OK I give” but as long as I could still muster up any strength I would fight with all I had. Roy was older than me and bigger and stronger and sometimes he would let me fight and he would hold off until I thought I finally had him beat and then with a force pin me to the floor exhausted and humiliated realizing that the fight lasted as long as it did only because he allowed it to go on to tire me out.
When our self confidence and all of our resources and strength are sapped we call out “OK God I give!” and that is when we win. Our spiritual journey becomes one of victory as we learn to submit more and more and when we submit we are always led to the cross. In this story with Jacob we see a changed man from the man who had tricked his brother out of a bowl of soup. As Jacob learns to submit here God gives him a new name – Israel, and he is changed from “supplanter” to “he who strives with God”.
Paul would say “my power is perfected in weakness” and “I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:9-10)
Jesus, who was and is always our perfect example shoed us when He could have used His strength, or called a legion of angels He submitted to The Father instead and became obedient to death on the cross.
Remember that He will have His own way in our lives. He may allow you to win the fight for a time but ultimately He will do whatever it takes to put you in a place of submission.
Question 1: Is there anything that you are currently fighting with God over?
Submission is the beginning of our strength in our walk with God. (excerpt from Setting Captives Free)
This is a lost art for men I’m afraid. I too am a man, and also married. So many of us men have heard Ephesians 5:22 quoted, that we fail to read Ephesians 5:21!
Let’s look at the section for a second.
15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another in the fear of God.[c]
Marriage—Christ and the Church
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
The Apostle and rabbi Paul, tells us the days are evil, and because of that, we need to be wise stewards of our time here on the planet. His admonishment to us is to not waste our time on lame things, like drinking, instead to be filled with the Spirit of God which manifest itself in specific ways in our life, to show those around us Jesus, to make Him real to them. One of those areas is found in vs. 21, “Submitting to one another in the fear of God.”
So in order to not waste my time here, and in proof of walking in the Holy Spirit, I am to submit to one another.
I included vs. 22 for you to see that it begins another section of the chapter. So vs. 21 comes before he mentions wives in vs.22. There’s no getting around it, vs. 21 is for all of us men.
As a will of God, that you submit to one another, let me ask the question; Do you? In the context of Church body life, do you submit to someone? Is submission a joy to you? It should be, it’s the will of the Lord! And how can doing a will of God not be joyful in our Spirit?
You might ask who do you submit too? The passage simply says to one another. It reads as if the early Christian thinkers saw Jesus submission and servant hood as an example to them of how to live amongst one another. They must have taken Jesus word in John 13:16 that says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things blessed are you if you do them.” Jesus just got done washing the disciples feet. What a radical act of making himself less than his motley crue of disciples.
There is great humility is submitting to another. Pride is the enemy here and will do all it can to prevent such actions. Men can talk a great game of wanting to follow Christ, yet I find in my own heart that this submission is the barometer of the heart. It is the physicians tool to open me up and really see what is ailing me! Oh, that yucky prideful mind that wants to be the leader! Or does it? The following passage helps us see the link of submissiveness, humility and pride.
1st Peter 5:5 Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
Another question to men; Do you see your submission as a opportunity to show your wife, kids, Church and future generation of leaders the humility of Christ? Are you a leader? “Yes, you say!” We’ll then, it would be best that you start leading in this area too! How will they know the submission of Christ to the will of the Father, or to his fellow brothers, if you do not yourself practice it yourself as his disciple? Oh, don’t pass up on this beautiful work of glorifying the Savior!
Other ways to show submission within the Church is to follow the admonishments that we find in the following scriptures.
Hebrews 13:17New King James Version (NKJV)
17 Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.
1st Thessalonians 5:12-13
12 And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves.
God’s value is seen when sinful pride comes against us, to prevent us from showing Christ actions to the world, and we fight against it through this act of love to one another. Submission becomes the joyful battle field to kill my pride.
It’s no doubt God’s will that you have this weapon
To fight sinful desires of pride
By joyful humility to one another
Showing value of our Saviors love and life
To those whom need to see the Christ
Let’s pray and ask the Father to help us not fail in this crucial area of leadership.
A faithful leader is a submissive leader.

Husbands and Wives!

Posted on by RLAdmin

A note to Husbands and Wives; Fighting for your marriage after sexual addiction has been confessed and forsaken is the way to go!

There is a entire mind change that needs to take place with a husband and wife when working on this sexual stuff. As I shared before most spouses would rather live in a relationship without any confession than to deal with confessions. Confessions of sin, mean pain, and the need to forgive offences. But the sad truth is a marriage without sin, confession and forgiveness is a marriage without mercy and grace. Because mercy grace can only be shown when there is a person who is un-deserving and messy. Our own self preservation makes us hide in disillusionment.   Many spouses walk in this way with there spouses who have struggled in sexual sin.


Why would you rather walk in this fairy tale kind of life? How did we get this way?

So many of us have not seen examples of marriages that have cultivated a confession culture. This is probably the root of most of our problems in confessing our sin with another (James 5:16). Think about it a minute; Do you have good examples in your life of Pastors or Parents confessing there sin to you? Most of us have not. And this lack of confession and hence forgiveness, has shown itself in our lives as a lack of mercy and grace. We simply might not know how to be merciful and gracious in light of confessions of sin. Some of us have learned through our study of the Bible the amazing grace of Christ, which in turn has taught us to forgive others and through consistent practice, we have gotten good at granting forgiveness! Praise God for that!

Couples tend to measure success based on the positive and not the negative. I have not heard many couples raving about how awesome it was the other night, when my ‘long time’ boyfriend confessed sin. That goes into the negative vault, to be expressed in a parent or best friend conversation. Confession of sin, is seen over time as a bummer, and not a positive. Most engaged couples I have talked with over 20yrs of ministry would rather not talk about the ‘negatives.’ They find it challenging and potentially a bubble buster- a downer. This negative view progresses into marriage. But think about this! What is a marriage without sin, confession and forgiveness? You might say a perfect marriage, but is that possible? From the Biblical record we have countless events of relationships where perfection was not attained. Repeatedly there is revealed sinful acts which must be dealt with, yet we think we are different? Like there is such a thing as a marriage that does not have sinful behavior? I recon, that today what we call a good marriage, can be a bad marriage. This is because we call a good marriage one that does not have this sin, confession, forgiveness pattern in it! What the Bible calls healthy (Confession of sin), we tend to see as negative. That is a problem. I must get to a place where I see this sin, confession, forgiveness pattern a betterment or I will avoid it at all cost only to find my relationship in jeopardy of failing.

There is beauty of seeing this pattern as a positive and not to be avoided. We live in a real world, with real people, who have hearts and minds that really struggle with all kinds of things. Lust being one of them. But there is much more to right? Greed, jealousy, hate, pride, covetousness etc…What do you see in your heart? Or do you have a perfect heart? If we all have these ‘issues’ in us, then wouldn’t it seem to recon that sharing them with our loved one is a good thing? A needed thing to do? A beautiful thing? I find it beautiful that a person who loves me can show there heart to me in this way. They see there problem, it bothers them, and they desire to have me of all people help them out. Can you see the Christ pattern here? Haven’t we as Christians come to the cross of Christ, with our sin in hand, needing to be healed? And what started this beautiful relationship with the Christ? Was it not confession of sin? Isn’t that where we began? And what was the response of the Savior to us? Was it not grace and mercy lifting us out of the pit we were in? Is it not the precious response of our Jesus that has given us hope that we will be changed as we continue to fight against desires that go astray? I would say yes it has! “He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it!” (Phil 1:6). His work of grace and mercy found us in that pit and it’s power lifts us out and places us on our feet, over and over until the day of Christ Jesus.

We can glorify our God by being like Him in our marriages. What will encourage and lift up our spouses who have confessed there sin to us? Is it not forgiveness seen in grace and mercy? Is glorifying God the better pleasure for you? Do you love to glorify God? Or could it be that our refusal to show forgiveness through grace and mercy is a sign of our own self centered Christianity?

There are two things that I have seen in my life that are a bummer; Continued sin, and continued un-forgiveness. Since we cannot change that we will continue to stumble in this world, we have better change our ideas on forgiving one another when confession happens. You might say I cannot forgive him/her for that, but then it is us who needs forgiveness as well isn’t it? We need forgiveness for our sin of un-forgiveness! Yikes, our hearts need change. Yet how to?

Seek the glory of God. Pray for it, ask the Lord to grant you that heart to desires His Name and His Fame, and that your pleasure would come from that. Christ is the cup that never runs out! When our joy is linked directly to reflecting Him in our life then we will see the pattern of sin, confession and forgiveness as a beautiful dance to shine the Savior, to a world that desperately needs to know the forgiveness of God in Christ. You and I are a part of this play, let’s continue to learn our lines, our staging as to reflect the writers desire in communicating his heart to the viewers!

He is IN me!

Posted on by RLAdmin
“Don’t you know that Christ is in you!” 2nd Cor 13:5
He who is in youIsn’t that just a kick!  Jesus is in Me.  When I was first reading the Bible, with my teenage perverted mind bombarded by So Cal’s culture, I read this passage in Genesis that spoke of sex as knowing your wife, or going into her.
There is an interesting passage that drives this interesting relationship between Jesus and his bride, the Church, found in 1st John 3:9 that says Jesus seed is in us!  This term seed reminds me of Paul’s statement in Galatians that tells us that we who are in Christ are of Abraham’s seed (those of faith as opposed to works.)  But the word seed is obviously a term used of Abraham’s biology if you get my drift.  I have kids.  They are from my seed.  My wife was impregnated and 9 mo. or so later my children were born.
I find it so fascinating that these sex terms in the Old Testament are used in the New Testament of Christ and His bride with no shame!  Sex is and always has been to point people to the deeper (spiritual reality) relationship between Christ and His bride!
It helps me to know that God has made meaning in everything.  Sex is not random in purpose, but is a acted out play of a greater truth.  We are  “known by God!” 1st Cor 8:3
Paul saw this truth as so special that he says in Galatians again, “But now that you know God–or rather are known by God–how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?”  Gal 4:9
Sex is crazy incredible.  I tend to think that heaven itself will reflect two things that happen on our beds.  Sex (intimacy like no other), and beautiful rest!  Don’t misunderstand me;  I do not believe in heaven there is sex.  But instead I think it not strange that the Creator would create us in His image and likeness to participate in a sexual relationship that works in a way where a man can go into a woman and leave a seed, so that we understand things unseen more clearly.  No, sex will not be in heaven.  It is a sign pointing us to a greater understanding.
Further in this vain, Paul seems to elude that the Old Testament covenants & Laws were just a shadow of the things to come.  In Jesus we don’t see the shadow, but we now see the origin, the reality, what everything was pointing to (See Colossians 2:17)!
Is sex a shadow as well?
This kind of New testament language about Jesus and his bride gets to me!  Could God desire a more intimate relationship with me that I am comfortable with?  I would think that if God is personal, then why not!  Drawing close to the one you love is the best and does not grow old does it?
I thank God that in my experience love’s roots keep on growing!  I hope for you too!
Beau J Ouellette

Revealing My Real Husband

Posted on by RLAdmin
by Katy Collins
This post is so awesome to write.
In January of last year (2013) my husband began his walk toward freedom from pornography. He confessed he had an addiction and we sought the honest help of our church body. Just yesterday we were talking about what it would have been like if he had confessed while we were in another church. We cringed at the likelihood of the leadership just saying something mildly supportive like, “Well, good for you, everyone has their struggle. I know many men probably struggle with that.” And so on.
Instead, we got to my friend’s house (who had just been through a similar confession the year prior) and there was our pastor standing in their home. We walked to the end of their hallway and Ben, head hanging down at the pain I was experiencing, said, “I’m addicted to porn.” Our pastor, Beau, got this big ol’ smile across his face, threw his arms open and embraced Ben wholly, “That’s awesome, man!” His exclamation was obviously not in support of the sin but rather out of the great joy Beau had at Ben’s vulnerable confession and contrite heart.
I laughed and cried at the scene. Then together with our Church family beside us, Ben and I began our open journey toward healing.
That night when I came home from an afternoon of…well…pain, I went to my bookshelf where I have several versions of the bible. I was too emotionally exhausted to find my own. With barely any faith I reached for one of them. I took it off the shelf and my spirit weakly muttered, “If You have anything to say……” My soul was depleted and my faith was wrung dry.
I flipped to a passage and read it-
“I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten…You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wonderfully with you; and My people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: I am the LORD your God and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame.” Joel 2:25-27
The word glanced my heart with all the force of a tiny droplet of water splashing into the ocean, but I received it with what strength I could and went to bed. That verse would become a banner verse of sorts throughout the next year.
There is far too much for me to write and adequately describe what each of us went through in the following year. But I will say that amidst the heartache and pain there was such sweet healing. I had to learn that it was okay for my husband to see my pain; that it was not right for me to attempt to ‘protect’ him from feeling more hurt by hiding my own. In those moments when I let down my guard and was vulnerable before him, he rose up in comfort and protection and the Spirit aided him in guiding my heart and guarding it from the lies and attacks of the enemy.
Then of course there were the times when I would sin right back. In my experience (of my personal story and of observing many friends in the Church who have walked similar paths) when a spouse confesses to sexual sin an interesting phenomena happens (for example purposes we’ll say the hubby confesses and the wifey is the ‘victim’ but the roles can and are reversed often enough): the husband confesses- or is caught and then confesses- and he ends up throwing off this hideous weight he has been carrying around finding beautiful freedom, by the grace of God. But wifey is left in the carnage of her wounded heart and then has to fight her own sin to deny bitterness, selfishness, pride, comparison, etc. It’s like hubby is freed and wifey is bound all in one moment of confession.
So, needless to say, there were times when I would cut Ben down with my words, or bring up the past as if it had any value in the present. God is good and helped my hubby to be patient with me as I healed and helped me to see the error in my ways. God truly has been restoring the years the locusts ate. This post, however, is ultimately about bragging on what God has done recently- He has been giving me eyes to see.
For years I knew something was up with Ben, but it didn’t come into the light and I was left wondering if I was way off base. Those doubts led to criticism and I developed a mightily ugly critical heart of my husband. Downright nasty. (I have confessed to him and sought forgiveness from God on this, because first and foremost my husband is a child of God. Ben belongs to Jesus and for me to criticize his heart, his faith, etc. is an affront to the One who created and delights in him.)
The awesome, awesome thing (yes it’s worthy of a repeated word) is that lately I am seeing Ben in a whole new way. And yes, it has been a process. I do remember though one day in particular that I went for a jog. I wanted to listen to a sermon by a certain teacher- internet wouldn’t load. How about a sermon I have saved in my podcasts? Wouldn’t load. And when a final attempt to just listen to music previously downloaded to my phone was unsuccessful I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Listen to Me.”
With a shrug, I chose childlike faith and believed He really was inviting me to run with Him and off we went. The details of our run together are magnificent, but like any awesome relationship they are for Him and I alone. However, I will share with you the end of the jog. I had slowed to a walk and was on my cool down only a few minutes from home and I was thanking Him for showing me His heart of love for me. He had spoken to me as my Beloved for an hour and I was floating around in that truth.
From that place of revelation I came across a spot in my heart of contriteness for the countless times I had been critical of Ben. I began to repent, not for a single moment I was recalling, but for a marriage of wayward thinking toward my God’s beloved- Ben.
He belongs to You, God. He is Your beloved. I’m sorry I have been critical of him. He is Your delight… Your beloved.
In response, I heard the Spirit speak to my spirit- “It’s your job to tell him that. Daily remind him of who he is to Me.” With a smile on my face and in my heart I came home and began to attempt to do that. Now hear me, I fail. I am no super wifey. I do, however, long to show my love for Jesus in my obedience to His truth. And He honors and rewards those who diligently seek Him, so He’s been helping me to do just that- be obedient to His call.
Since that jog and that revelation the Spirit has been at work mightily in our marriage showing me just how awesome my hubby is!
I got to hang out with Ben at one of his military BBQs and meet his guys and it was such a blessing! I saw my husband in action loving on those guys, sharing his life with them, and as the Lord led sharing his heart for Christ with them. So stinkin’ cool! I’ve seen Ben share his financial wisdom with the Church and with friends and seen the anointing God has put on his life in that area. I have seen him open his heart to me and it is just…so. very. beautiful. every time.
This process of restoration has been arduous at times, and I know it is not over. But I am seeing the fruit of the work of God in our marriage and it’s magnificent. 
The list goes on and on at how incredible this restoration has been. Thank you for letting me share this bit of our life. Benny, I love you and am so proud of you.
To my readers: Wifey, if you’re facing this- trust the Lord, fight your flesh and He will give you a new marriage and a new husband. Hubby, trust the Lord, and lean into the truth that you are a new creation in Christ, pursue His love for you and He will give you a new marriage and a new wife!
“I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.”
Isaiah 40: 18
“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water….Whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
John 4:10,14

Lasting Marital Intimacy into Your 40’s and Beyond!

Posted on by RLAdmin
by Beau Ouellette
I have heard or read somewhere that married couples who are in
their 40’s and 50’s enjoy sex most!
The cool thing is that I am 41 now and have been married 20 +
years to the girl of my dreams!  I always heard that as we got older we
would no longer kiss long, embrace passionately or that when we did have sex
together, it would be so infrequent, like the dripping of a faucet. It was as
if they were telling us that we’d still be doing it but it would be more
annoying than anything!
I’d like to tell you how far that is from the truth of my life
and it can be with yours too!  
In my study in the Song of Solomon, I find in Chapter 5 a bit of
a fight between the husband and wife and then in chapter 6 they makeup. We see
there is wonderful affirmation of their love for one another and that
affirmation travels on into chapter 7.  I see a pattern here that I have
seen in my own marriage.  There are certainly times of arguing in a
marriage, yet there can also be wonderful times of making up. (They goal is
never to makeup with our spouse for sex, yet sex is a wonderful benefit of
making up!)
How does sex stay awesome for 20+ years?  
First there are practical things that both my wife and I have
done as we have aged.  Eating well is one of them.  Working out is
another.  We both understand that our bodies are not our own.  First
they are the Lord’s (1st Cor 6:19-29) and our job is to glorify God with them.  When
I was a kid I used to take care of people’s houses at times when they were out
of town.  I had to feed their dog, sweep, and mow the lawns for them.
 It was their house, yet I was stewarding over it for a bit.  My body
is God’s, I am to steward over it knowing the owner will one day be home. That
day is coming soon and He will come to take full ownership of it.  I would
hate to have the owner come back and see the results of ice cream every night!
 Yikes!  So both of us believe strongly that our bodies are the
Lord’s and in order to glorify God we use temperance in what we eat and drink.
 
The second truth that we hold on to is found in 1st Cor 7:4,
“The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does” and
vice versa.  So we believe our bodies are each other’s. If my wife is the
commander of my body sexually then I want to make sure my tools are in good
working order for her to utilize.  When I put these passages together I
see that when my heart is for God and in turn for my wife, I will begin the
process of disciplining my life to honor God with my body and be ready to be
used by my spouse.
There are things that get in the way of having my heart on these
things.  Selfish things.  Self-gratifying things.  Porn &
food are two of them.  But there are many ‘things’ out there that cause
distraction from the two vital areas that need to be in my scope.
Lust finds its way into our lives through various avenues.
 For some it is food, and in turn they ‘let themselves go.’  At my
age I start seeing this more and more. For others it’s pornography that they
get into.   But what I have come to see is that lust is the enemy of a
long and lasting sex life.  Lust by its fleshly nature is not satisfied.
 So even lusting your wife or husband will not give you a long shelf life.
 Lust must be replaced by love.
“Love does not seek it’s own!”  (1st Cor 13:5)
When partaking of the self-gratification of indulging in porn or
food I am not stewarding my body to glorify it’s owner, God, nor am I focused
on presenting a well-oiled machine to my spouse, the authoritarian over it.
 And what happens is I find my pleasure, now, in my own self. A life that
is consistently given over to the self way will get to the place where nothing
else will satisfy you but yourself.  Instead of wanting sex from your wife,
you will want to satisfy yourself.  She will no longer be able to satisfy
you because you haven’t set aside your tools for her.
Sex is a blast, and at 40 there is something even more fun about
being intimate than at 20.  I find that my body at times does not
cooperate as well as it once did, yet I also find other ways of appreciating my
wife in the sexual context.  I am overjoyed that my beloved desires to
give me a body (hers) that is beautiful!  Her heart is on me, and that
alone is so passionate.  I know that in time her body will fall apart, and
mine too, yet I think what I can grasp at this point in life is that within the
sexual context of marriage there is so much more that is stimulating than just
the physical stimulation, like when we were 20!
For those of you that are my age you know what it was like when
you were in your 20′s being married!  There was no 1st base, 2nd base, 3rd
base; it was just home run after home run!  But more and more now I see
how wonderful 1st base is, and 2nd base etc… There is so much to enjoy rounding
those bases I realize now.
Walking in the mall together never meant so much to me as it
does today.  I find myself checking her out all the time!  I love
hugging her and smelling her, looking at her teeth, lips, hair, and beautiful eyes.
 Today those looks move me and seem to collect in a jar until the time we
are alone in our marriage bed to then be opened with it’s fragrance widely
overcoming my brain.  I love this girl!  She’s the best, and she is
mine and I am hers.
Physical sex will pass at some point (when the body gives out),
but passion…never.  Sex has become not just physical, but intellectual and
spiritual to me. Good, lasting sex starts with seeing things rightly.  You
are God’s.  Your wife has authority over your body.  Try moving away
from the lust paradigm into love. Seek your pleasure in the pleasure of your
spouse.   And when you are a vessel of agape love, passion is there.
 God’s passion for us never stops.  ”Your thoughts toward us cannot
be recounted to You in order…They are more than can be numbered.” (Psalm 40:5)

Do You Boil with Passion?

Posted on by RLAdmin

What do you struggle with? We all struggle, if we say we don’t we’re liars and then we could say we struggle with lying! Seriously, we’re all human and that means we struggle with stuff. I struggle with lots of things, but my top struggles are: food, pride, criticism and lust. Depending on the day I can deal with just one of these or all of them and then some. I am weak. But Jesus is strong. And that’s my hope. I mean, if it were just me trying to be good and not deal with these issues, I’d fail over and over and over again. I already do! But my joy remains because I know that while “I am dark” I am also lovely (Song 1:5). 
You see, I know my own yucky heart (sometimes I’m deceived into thinking it’s not so bad, but then other days I’m keenly aware of my weaknesses). But I also know (and am growing in knowing) that God loves me. I pray that in this writing the Spirit awakens something in us so that we don’t just glance over those words- God loves me. They are overdone, I know. But there is true, radical, life-changing power in the truth behind those words. 
This truth means that even though I misstep, sin, miss the mark of God’s perfect holiness, am a sinner, have an awful heart sometimes, and am a general mess some days… He is madly in love with me. If you’re like me then you read that and have a hard time digesting it into your own soul for YOU. If you call yourself a Christian then it’s probably easier for you to say “God loves the world” or even to look at a friend who is hurting and comfort him or her with the love God has for humanity. But… what if you stop and think about you and God. 
Looking at the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon we see that God is madly in love with His bride and that it is an intimate, personal, passionate love. Even when you look at Exodus 34 when the LORD called Moses back up to Mount Sinai to meet with Him, He said, “and no man shall come up with you…” (Ex 34:3). God wanted to be alone with His beloved, Moses. God wants to be alone with you. 
God’s love for us is unique to each of us and is intimate, so incredibly intimate. We learned in our study in the youth room that there are three Hebrew words for ‘love’ used in the Song of Solomon and one of them means ‘to boil.’ That definition when considered in light of the Jesus-and-His-bride read, is overwhelming! Christ Jesus boils in passionate love for His bride… you. 
He does not look at you and out of duty say, “I love her.” Nor does He grudgingly turn toward you when you’ve sinned and say, “Well, I said that I will love him, so I had better follow through.” No! He looks at you and says, “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride!” And to you, He says, “Behold, you are fair my love!” His love is more intimate than we know! Oh, that we would pursue this passionate love with Him. 
Our struggles are real- whether it’s lust for a new job, lust for a position in ministry, lust for a guy or gal, depression, anger, complacency or fear- they draw us away from this boiling love relationship with Jesus. That’s the enemy’s ploy, to draw us away from Love, Himself. He distracts us so easily, at least he distracts me quite easily. But Church, my prayer is that the Spirit of the living God who dwells in us and is for us and Who is in love with Jesus would fall upon us afresh, alighting upon our hearts the truth of this passionate, intimate, unique love that God has for us.  We can never be done learning of and experiencing the joys, delights, and pleasures of His love. 
May this be our prayer-

“[Jesus] draw me away!”

“We will run after You.”

“The King has brought me into His chambers.” 

(Song 1:4)