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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)

Stumbling into Porn: A Personal Testimony

Posted on by RLAdmin
By an Anonymous Contributor
I’ve always been the good girl.  I’ve grown up going to church.  I dress modestly and have never gone past kissing a guy before.  There was a time where I never thought I’d struggle with sex because I vowed myself never to have it until I was married.  I’m still waiting to give up my virginity, but things changed when I was 20.
At 20 years old, I started to read sexually explicit fan fiction.  Fan fiction is the term for stories fans write about their favorite characters in a story, simply picking up where the series left off or creating a whole new story using the same characters. At first, I was just curious about sex.  My parents never talked to me about sex, and I was never comfortable talking about it to them.  I lied when my mom asked me if I knew what sex was.  So instead,  I learned about sex through fan fiction of my favorite characters.  I thought to myself, ‘Now I really know what is going on.’
But I didn’t stop there. Once I knew the basics I kept reading, spending a great deal of time alone in my room, not realizing how this was changing me.  I started to self-gratify more often. I loved reading the smutty parts.  Soon, I was reading about homosexual scenes or orgies among these characters. Naturally, I thought about these situations when I self-gratified.  I never thought I’d get into that, but again, it didn’t stop there. 
After that, it led to watching porn.  I wanted to see what a man really looked like.  I googled men, then that led to watching people having sex.  Once upon a time, I would’ve been mortified watching these videos, but reading about sex became not enough.
  
Through the years, I have gone through the cycle of stopping then starting back up again, always the same- reading about and watching sex.  When I would go to church, I always heard things geared toward men about porn, and thought, ‘But I struggle with this too…what about me?’
It was more obvious to me that watching people have sex is porn, but even in my heart I knew I was reading porn.  For a lot of women, their version of porn is often when we put ourselves into the story: there is a hunky hero who knows how to woo us, satisfy us in bed, and someone who would eventually give us marriage and a family.  That’s what the lure was for me. 
Back in March of this year, I had an opportunity to go to a woman’s group for women who struggle with porn.  I was excited to find out I wasn’t the only one with these issues!  God has broken my habit of reading those stories and watching videos; He is still leading me on the path of learning about holy sexuality in Him and living daily in purity, glorifying God with my sexuality. 
It’s funny to me that I’m so tainted by sex, even though I’ve never even been touched by a man, but God is healing me and leading me toward being pleased by Him, instead of the lies the world offers. 

God is Closer Than You Think!

Posted on by RLAdmin
(c) Katy Collins Photography


By Karen Adams

The other day as we were driving to visit our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren on the east side of town, I was shown by God the most beautiful visual of His love for us!
Our daughter and our other set of grandchildren (Dave and I are so blessed!) went with us.We were all looking forward to seeing family and also giving the little ones a chance to get together and play. As we were driving, Lacey was in her car seat and she started squirming. But the squirming wasn’t all she had in mind! Her squirming turned into a full-blown screaming and crying meltdown. She wanted out of that seat so badly. My daughter, who was sitting right next to her, comforted Lacey the best she could. However, there was just no way she was going to give in and take Lacey out of that car seat. My daughter held her little hand and tried to comfort her but she also knew that being in her car seat, no  matter how uncomfortable and unhappy Lacey was, was what was best for her! She knew by keeping her in that car seat she would reach her destination safely and as planned. I could see in my daughter’s eyes how much love and compassion she had for her little one , but she knew what was best. Lacey, of course, did not understand. When Lacey finally realized she was not going to get out of the car seat, she surrendered and cried herself to sleep.
Isn’t that just like us at times?

We may have circumstances in our lives that we are not happy about- situations that can be downright scary or perplexing .We just don’t understand it! It could be our health, our finances, our relationships, any number of hardships we may be going through. We cry out to God and we wonder why He is not there, why He is not listening and why He won’t get us out of the situation. Why Lord do we have to go through this and where are You??
Yet know this- God hasn’t left us! His compassion and love are far greater than we will ever know. He tells us over and over that He will take care of us and He will protect us. Our part is to be still and let Him work. We just need to remember who He is, trust Him, and have faith in our God who loves us so much. He sent His son to die for us instead of condemning us to a life separated from Him forever. He is always taking care of us, and doing it far better than we would ever be able to do ourselves.
Although we cannot see God beside us, He is the there. He is watching, listening, and comforting us. He knows exactly what we are going through. Many times it is to sanctify us. He wants us to learn to trust Him through the rough times. As we grow closer to Him, we become more like Him.We put our faith and trust in Him and surrender. We practice trusting and knowing He is there, believing that He will see us through our circumstances in order that we arrive according to His plan for us in our lives.
 He tells us over and over that He will take care of us and protect us. Our part is to believe, trust and have faith. Our majestic, glorious Father will do the rest. We need only obey.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”   Joshua 1:9

You are God, You alone

Posted on by RLAdmin

                                                      

By Katy Collins

“…that the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD, You alone.” (Isaiah 37:20)

Isaiah chapter 37 is a rich chapter full of honest prayers and real pressure. King Hezekiah is reigning over Jerusalem and the bad guy, Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, is ready to wipe out Jerusalem. Sennacherib sent his military commander to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Israel by taunting them with not only their previous successes at destroying every other city, but by attempting to tear down their trust in what YAH had promised.

Let me ask you this, can you think of anything God has promised you? Perhaps you can think of specific, or unique things, He has spoken to you, but what about even the promises of Scripture?

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:10)

How much do you think the Father loves Jesus? A whole stinkin’ lot, right? And in Messiah’s own words, we see that He promises that if we keep His commandments (even as He kept the Father’s) we will abide in His love. Imagine, what that means to “abide in [Jesus’] love”. Wouldn’t that be the most wonderful place to live our lives? Yes! And it is indeed the place that He has for us to live our lives.

The commander from the Assyrian army was trying to get King Hezekiah and the Israelites to forget God’s word and to worry, fear and doubt. He used tactics like pointing to the events of the world around them, and comparing God to others who had done nothing. Don’t we hear the same lies, or speak them ourselves?

I know I have been guilty of bringing God down to compare Him to the actions of someone I know and equating Him to that person (who may be full of flaws), instead of considering that God stands alone as Creator of all things and exists outside of time and as Isaiah 41 says, “He sits above the circle of the earth and regards the inhabitants as grasshoppers.” He is mighty! He is not like my high school boyfriend who hurt me. He is not like your earthly Dad who messed things up in your life. He is not like anyone else.

Or to look at the world and what’s going wrong and then apply that somehow to God’s lack of ability to come through- we see the enemy playing that same ol’ trick don’t we? Many are concerned about the happenings in America, and all over the world, to an extent that they choose to forget what the one, true God has promised. This is an age-old act of the great Liar, himself.

King Hezekiah gets a final threatening letter from the bad guys I love the verse right after. It reads,

“And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.” (Isaiah 37:14)

Hezekiah was disturbed by the letter, clearly upset by the words that had been spoken, the threats that had been made, and the accusations hurled against his God. So what did he do? He went the house of the LORD and put it before Him and prayed. What an example! When we, like Hezekiah, are honestly bogged down by the junk the enemy is throwing at us, let us run to the God and present our weakened hearts before Him. He sees already, but in this act of vulnerability we re-acknowledge His greatness in our lives and we seek His help instead of trying to figure it out on our own.

Hezekiah presents the letter before the LORD and then his prayer is just awesome. I encourage you to take time to read through it (Isaiah 37:15-20). He first acknolwedges God’s immensity and His greatness and he praises the name of the LORD. Then he pours out his own heart before God and seeks His counsel.

And the last phrase he prays is beautiful. It’s the quote this post started with. Hezekiah, broken down by the battering words of the enemy, fearful for his people, wondering if God will indeed save them, prays for the salvation of Jerusalem for one reason…God’s glory. Hezekiah prays,

“Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD, You alone.”

This king, who was a man just like us, who had doubts and fears and was persuaded to wonder about the promises of God when the voice of the enemy was so prominent and loud, went to his God. He knew that going into the presence of the Lord was where his peace and wisdom would come from. Hezekiah didn’t hesitate, but instead went straight into the house of LORD and spread out his issue before Him.  And in that humble posture of prayer and vulnerability, he cried out that God would accomplish His will, for His glory- that the world would know that God, alone, is God.

Friend, God has promised you things, clearly in Scripture. Are you doubting because of things the enemy is trying to deceive you with? Run into the house of the LORD and pray; spend time sitting before Him and considering who He really is. He will be faithful. He is the one who is called Faithful and True. Let not the Liar win when he comes against those promises. Believe in the LORD.

Thoughts On Josh McDowell’s Recent Comments on Porn

Posted on by RLAdmin
imgJosh McDowell4
By Beau Ouellette

 I enjoy Josh McDowell’s work and passion for Christ.  This is no way is a critique of the ministry that the Lord has given to Josh.  I instead hope to inject a different perspective into the quotes from a talk that he gave at a recent conference.  At Running Light, we work with many different people on this topic, so it is of interest to us.

Beau
Christian Apologist Josh McDowell: 3 Cultural Changes That Create the ‘Perfect Storm’ Against the Church
In reading Josh McDowells comments in the above article my head was spinning, thinking, “I’ve blogged on these issues before,” but I find in blogging you have to re-tell your opinions over and over in the hopes that you make head way. When the American Christian Church river get’s running it is hard to go upstream.
I will copy some of what is quoted in the article that I wish to comment on then immediately respond. Here we go!
  • During his message, he also told pastors they cannot pastor the same way they have been for the last 20 years while telling parents they cannot raise their children the same way they were raised because the Internet has changed “everything.”
  • “Twenty years ago, the phrase was, ‘if you don’t reach a young person by 18, you probably won’t reach them. Now, atheists and agnostics have the same access to your kids as you do, it’s just one click away. The internet has leveled the playing field and now if you don’t reach a child by their 12th birthday, you won’t reach them.”
This is not necessarily a bad thing.  I have raised and continue to raise my two kids.  The internet has been in there life the entire time.  Having Atheist and agnostics in there ear through the internet means that as a Father I get to be more engaged in the debates as they are!  How cool is it when you kid comes out of there room to have a huge talk with you about metaphysics or the reliability of the Bible etc…!!!  Even as a student Pastor, you have students that are challenged all the time for their faith at younger ages!  This bombardment of information makes the student Pastor have to make sure he is growing in his knowledge of issues as well.  Game time in student ministry won’t cut it!  I think I am on Joshes page in that light.
But back to the internet; It’s not the internet’s fault here, it’s the parents.  From Jesus view point, everyone in the world living during his time was of corrupt mind and action.  Sin’s influence was everywhere.  Is that any different than today with our technology?  I think today as then people are exposed everyday to sinful behavior or idea’s that vary.  What the internet is doing is moving the parents who have not studied at all to realize their kids are challenging them and making sense!   Two things you can do at that point.  Start studying and talking with them in open dialog, or get mad at the internet because it’s influencing your kids away from your blind belief.   Too many parents do the second.   This brings the kid or teen to a place of realizing the way a Christian parent deals with ideas that are against the faith is through avoidance of them.  The problem with this is you can’t avoid forever!  At some point our kids will think for themselves and realize we don’t know what we believe or why we believe it.  We’ll lose them at that point.
2 Timothy 2:15
King James Version (KJV)
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
He also advised parents to not shelter their children from “what’s out there” but rather prepare them for the first time they will inevitably encounter information overload on the Internet and porn.
Josh is speaking of porn now.  Sex education is something that starts with us.  This is not a new problem because of the internet.  Watch movies from years ago (say the 30’s) and you get the idea that people still wanted sex and allot of it.  Even in Biblical times sex was happening all the time and in all ways!  David didn’t teach his kids about sex well, and so they too had lust issues.  Again porn on the internet means that parents need to be engaged in their kids’ lives!  Bummer or good?  It seems to me the internet is making people have to be a bit more of a parent and less self-fish.  Get a filter on your home system or gaming console!  Talk to your kids about the purpose of sex and what happens if we abuse sexual conduct.  And by the way this is where it gets really dicey.  How many Christian marriages have joy in their sexuality?  How many see sex as a beautiful act?  How difficult it is to educate our kids if we ourselves do not view sex within our marriages as a glorious act representing Christ and His bride!
To many times over the 24 years of my time in the Christian Church I have heard couples talk about sex as duty and not joy.  It is no wonder that today’s students look at the supposed happy people of the world having sex and find pleasure in it.
In the same manner, McDowell emphasized that young people are increasingly becoming addicted to pornography, adding that it is the greatest threat to the body of Christ in 2,000 years.
Pornography has been around thousands of years.  Read Ezk 23 (or the entire book).  The world is distorted  from a Biblical worldview and does not know the purpose for sex.  So sex is pornified.  Follow me here.  The greatest threat to the body of Christ is that we don’t know see the joy of confession, repentance, amputation, accountability.   Let me ask a question about the conference; Did any speaker get up and share their sin of lust and show the people how to joyfully move away?    It’s a great threat to the body when I as a Pastor share the Word but do not practice it before my brothers and sisters.  Let’s be genuine.  We all stumble in many ways the Word tells us.  All sin is common to mankind it also says.   The Church does not know how to impact their congregations to move out of a pornified view of sex, not because of porn, but because there is not many leaders willing to lead in this area of joyfully confession.  The Christian Church can easily fall into desires to be Strong, yet Jesus wants us weak and in need of Him.  This is tough to do when amongst our peers, but necessary.  It has always been necessary, from the book of Acts to today, in the Church.
This point is what I feel is not being understood by many of my fellow ministers.  I need to show people what a Christian walk looks like.  If I say to the congregation, “I used to lust back in the day,” that is not much of a help to the person out there in the seat who feels like God will never come to his rescue (like he did with that Pastor).  But when the Pastor admits that today there is a struggle with lust, but yet today, by grace, he has learned how to use the Word in His fight, Confession for the diminishing the enemies army, Accountability as a strength against him, Amputation of sin as a offensive tool there is an empowering to his congregation of how to have victory!
He added that 50 percent of fundamental, evangelical pastors watch porn while 80 percent of youth pastors have a problem with porn as well. McDowell pointed out that porn provides only a momentary satisfaction and porn addicts often seek other opportunities to satisfy their sexual desires.
If Jesus is not most satisfying to us, and we snuggle up to lust.  This has always been a fact.  Check out the hall of fame of faith in Hebrews 11!  Those guys and gals are saved by grace!  Creating an environment in your Church where a person on staff can’t talk to the senior Pastor because they are afraid of getting fired for watching porn will not suffice, but will create a bunch of staff that do watch porn and are afraid to face it head on.  Grace man!  Grace!  Staff Leadership, show your own struggle and confess that to your staff so they understand that we are to joyfully confess to one another.  That is our better pleasure and God’s glorification.
Is it any surprise that Pastors would be affected by what is on the internet?  Let me give you a stat.  100% of Pastors sin!  And here’s another, 100% of Pastors struggle with pride, lust, reputation, jealousy, envy, boasting and much more.  Pointing out a Pastors struggle with sex and not your own struggle with pride, lust, reputation etc… is a hypocritical judgment.  As a leader and Pastor I understand sin.  I understand that there is a battle in me, and in all my fellow Elders, Deacons and Leaders in the Church.  They are no different than me in this regard.  Creating an environment where we can confess our sins to one another, and so be healed is so needed.  Not just for them and I, but for students as well.  Confession in leadership is not just a dumping of what I did, but it is the first step of showing others how to come out of the darkness of hidden sinful behavior.   If this is true confession in grace, then we will not only do this, but then show how to move away from behavior as well.   This should be ongoing in the Christina life!  Over and over and over again this should be happening in the Church.  But people are deadly afraid to confess.  And why would they when I am sharing from my pulpit about how bad sin is (especially sexual sin) and those that practice such things.  How can God love these people?  Yet, the really sad truth of the matter is that we Pastors and Leaders are one with them!  We too need grace.
Mark 7:  “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
“The average person starts with heterosexual sex then after a while, that no longer satisfies, then there’s anal, from anal there’s oral, from oral to homo, from homo to bestiality then to children,” said McDowell.
He continued, “The sad thing is, after child pornography doesn’t satisfy, where do you go? Pornography is why sex-trafficking, sex abuse and rape are major issues, they (addicts) end up living it out, it becomes a reality.”
I’m not sure what Josh means by “average.”  Millions upon millions of people have had a non-biblical view of sex weather in this modern porn era or past times as well.  Today’s porn certainly influences people, but before it was today’s porn culture it was yesterday’s porn culture!  Again from a Biblical world view no culture has had a good view of sex.  We are all in the sex distorted boat.  And check this out, even two Christian couples who engage in sex don’t necessarily have things right!  What makes sex right is not that you are having face to face intercourse with your Christian spouse, but it is that you seek to glorify God in your enjoyment of God in the joy of your bride.  Another way to put it is that agape love is present in the marital bed.  So just because you’re a Christian couple and your having sex means nothing if our hearts are set to honor God in representing Jesus love for His Church in the act.  And how many Christian married couples engage in sex that way? Also when Josh says the average porn viewer goes from this to that to harder core stuff until he is at oral, anal etc…  My question is this: has this been his situation?  Is this a confession?   I can only talk about me here and those that I have been personally involved with for years now.  Some people do progress in more hard core porn, others do not.  Some people will self gratify to Victoria Secret adds in the mail, others to the back of a newspaper.   Still others like to smell a person walking by and that is there vise.  If Josh was right and the “average” person was progressing like he says, then the “average” person would get to child porn.  But so many do not!  Though some do.   I do not have all the answers but what I do know is that porn is not the problem.  Lust is.  You can throw away all the porn the world has and we would still be in the same problem.   We would still have to teach our kids how to honor God in sex and its purpose from a Biblical Worldview.  Just because porn is eliminated does not get the parent off the hook.  I have no doubt that as young people view porn they will want to see porn that is for their own age at some point.  That makes sense to me and is troubling to ponder in our society.  So I can see how young people will search for younger and younger porn.  I have read articles where young people have criminal records for downloading under 18 porn!   No doubt lust has found its target for so many and that’s pornography.  I have lead many porn recovery groups for the past 7 years.  There is no rhyme or reason as to why some go so far or get into what they get into.
The quote from Josh also makes me think he has not been into porn or on the websites much at all.  Those of us who have fallen into sexual sin have visited many websites.  And the interesting thing about porn sites is that there are many categories of porn to choose from.  So much of it is disgusting to me.  I find it repulsive and sad as well.  But there is always something there on the site that causes me to fall.  What I want to help you understand is that when a person goes to a porn site, they are lusting.   They are looking for something that will fulfill that desire, but not everything on the porn site is going to do it.  For some it is homosexual porn, for others it is orgies and the like, and for others it is simply one man and one woman having intimacy.
It is a misunderstanding to think that people get on these sites and just click, click and click anything and everything.  Sure it can and does happen, but I tend to think the categories on the sites are there to reveal what is already in the heart.  And it seems to be a gross exaggeration to think that the average person will move from one to another.  I think I’m average and I have never wanted to watch homosexual sex.  I grew up with homosexual babysitters in the San Fernando Valley.  I have been around bi-sexuality and homosexuals my entire life.  I have never watched men with other men porn.  I don’t like it.  Go figure?
Josh also seems to get something mixed up.  Heterosexual sex can include anal and oral sex (Not that I subscribe to one or the other).  Or am I missing something here?  Maybe it was mis-quoted in the article.
I feel the  Christian church all too quickly eats up the strong voice that declares how porn has ruined everything, yet this Church, to which I am a part, fails to see other reasons why there is failure (Josh does do a great job of pointing out some of these issues in his books). There’s more to the story. Grace is to bear with one another and to live lives of open confession, vulnerability, repentance and accountability.  Are our eyes open to this?