Guest Bloggers

God’s Unconditional Love: Why Can’t We Accept It?

by Jeff Fisher on December 29, 2011

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By Guest Author:  Rick Langdon

Ephesians 3:18-19 … [that you] may have power … to grasp how wide and long and
high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge …

Why is it that we have so much trouble really understanding God’s love?

Intellectually, we can understand the biblical description of it, but I mean really grasp it profoundly in the depths of our souls … in a way that significantly affects the way we feel and the way we live? Partly because it “surpasses knowledge”.  How’s that?  J

DOES HUMAN LOVE = GOD’S LOVE?
Another reason we have trouble is that we are working from reasoning based on human love as we understand it.  At least in this realm we have some personal experience:  how we attempt to love others, why we tend to love certain others and how we ourselves have been loved or, too often, rejected.  So our experience says that people don’t love us unless we meet or exceed their expectations or they find something about us that is attractive.  Certainly it also tells us that this love is fragile … that we are always in jeopardy of losing it if we are found to be unworthy.

I DON’T SEE MYSELF AS LOVEABLE
This view is further reinforced by what we know about ourselves … we don’t see a whole lot in us to love.  So we put on masks and hide our true selves believing no one could possibly love us; not as we really are.  So we attempt to present or remake our self as someone deserving love, or at least admiration.

We project our human reasoning and experiences with love (or lack thereof) onto God and while we may say “God loves me”, we don’t really know this deep in our souls; we still live as if He may be like the last human being that tried to love us.

GOD IS DIFFERENT
But good news!  The Bible tells us God is different! (surprise!). He already knows everything about us, the bad and the ugly (notice I left out the good; “no not one” as it is written … J)  Yet, in spite of this He loves us, chose to redeem us, die for us on the cross, to forgive and reconcile us to Himself.  This is so hard to grasp because this love goes against our human experience in relationships.  We certainly didn’t live up to any great expectations here and we surely deserve something way different.

We all yearn for this unconditional love … someone who knows us perfectly and yet loves us anyway; without question or reservation.  Who could do this?  God alone.  But how?  Why?  Perplexing isn’t it.  It “surpasses knowledge”.

So how do we understand a love that “surpasses knowledge”?  Because it is beyond our human understanding, this must be a work of the Spirit. As Paul explains many times in his letters, these things come not from our own natural abilities, intellect or power, but only through the Spirit.  But why is this understanding so important?

DON’T BELIEVE THE LIES OF THE ENEMY
In order to live an abundant life we must begin to reject the things that the enemy tells us, the things our own hearts tell us (deceitful above all things as they are) and start embracing that which God says is true of Himself, of us and of how He sees us in Christ (where there is no condemnation; none!).  As we begin to do this, not only will our lives be changed but we will glorify God in ways we never imagined.

The world longs to see God’s love in the real world, working itself out in real people (no masks).  But in order for His love to overflow to others, it has to begin with an overwhelming and deep abiding sense of His love within us.  A love that “surpasses knowledge”.

—

RECOMMENDED READING
Truefaced by Thrall/McNicol & Lynch
The Search for Significance by McGee)

For Husbands and Wives: Redeemed Accountability

by Jeff Fisher on September 18, 2011

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Jesus teaches accountability in Scripture, not to bring punishment, shame, or guilt, but to uplift grace and bring glory to the Father.

God’s grace is about honor and freedom, not bondage. Grace is unmerited and inspiring. It’s compassionate and merciful, not condemning. How can accountability be anything less than that? Too often we allow Satan to distort our view of accountability with God and others. In reality, it is the fertile soil in which God grows our character. It’s not something that we should be afraid of. It shouldn’t motivate us to hide or bury our sin, but rather come boldly to the Christ and confess what we’ve done with what He’s given us.

How have we used our mind to think? Our tongue to speak? Our hands to act?  Our feet to go? Our gifts to minister? What have we done with His grace?

We must be accountable to the Lord; and the Bible takes it one step further, telling us to be accountable to other believers. We are to confess our sins to each other, encouraging and forgiving one another.  Accountability should motivate us to faithfulness, inspire us to depend upon God’s Word, give us purpose and direction, and remind us of the rewards we receive from the Master…“Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Christians have such a warped perception of accountability with God that they cringe at the thought of confessing to each other. Especially between husband and wife.

This is where secrecy creeps in.  William Barclay said, “Secrecy kills the disciple or the disciple kills secrecy.” In any realm of sinful behavior, burying and hiding our sin is a death sentence. And, in our opinion, none more so than with sexual sin.  Sexual sin carries a certain stigma, a certain shameful label that we try to avoid at all costs. Instead of seeking the help we desperately need, so often we entomb ourselves in our depravity hoping to somehow overcome it on our own because the shame of admitting our weaknesses seem too much to bear.  But confession must be a staple in the healing process.

In this battle for sexual purity, not only do we need the mercy, grace, and power of Jesus Christ, but we also need the accountability, prayer, and encouragement of Christian brothers and sisters who have “been there.” There’s nothing more powerful in overcoming sexual sin than admitting the problem and facing it, as well as confessing the struggles that come with recovery. Secrecy only keeps us in bondage and prolongs our misunderstanding of God’s grace. It is only when we humble ourselves to bring our darkness into the light that we have the opportunity to heal.

Isn’t it time we redeemed accountability?

TODAY’S GUEST BLOGGERS

Gavin and Kristina Croft
www.isaiah53ministry.org

Listen to Jeff and Marsha’s interview with the Crofts on the Porn to Purity Podcast:  INTERVIEW

Feeling Powerless – Key Steps to Surrender (for spouses)

by Jeff Fisher on May 16, 2011

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Guest Blogger: Stacy R. Farris of Miller Counseling Services, Raleigh, NC

Who’s in Control Here?

Powerlessness is a state of recognition that no matter how much we intervene in the recovery of our partner, we have no control over the outcome. Their behaviors, motivation and sobriety are out of our hands.

Surrender of our idea of control and acceptance of our powerlessness is a difficult endeavor and often counterintuitive to self comfort when in relationship with someone struggling with sexual integrity.

Tips for Surrender:

1. Make your desires known to your spouse and step aside.
Share your heart with your spouse and allow God to do his work.  God’s timing may not be comfortable but will always be powerful and impactful than our efforts.  The apostle Paul shares with us in Acts 1:7-8 that it is not for us to know God’s timing, but to receive power through the Holy Spirit. Also remember that true healing is in heart change and that is done by God’s hand in his time.

2. Slow down consumption of knowledge on sexual addiction.
Sir Francis Bacon coined the phrase “knowledge is power” and we often believe this to be truth.  But in 2 Corinthians 12:9

Paul rejects this with truth that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness.  Awareness is great but be mindful to avoid overload in effort to feel empowered.

3. Raise your white flag.
Stop focusing on your partner’s recovery and begin your own journey of healing.  Turn your focus upward and inward to find peace, hope, and genuine faith in this trial.

—-

Check out www.MillerCounselingServices.com or call 919-848-2100 for information on spouses healing groups in Raleigh, NC.

Stacy R. Farris, MS, LPCA, NCC is a therapist in Raleigh, NC with Miller Counseling Services, PC.  Her passion is to serve spouses of sexual betrayal by walking with them through the process of grieving a wounded heart.

 

ADDITIONAL POST BY STACY
“Spouses in Crisis:  3 Things You Can’t Do and 5 Things You Should Do”

Wives: Remember Who the Real Enemy Is!

by Jeff Fisher on March 25, 2011

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For the wife of a sexual addict, it’s so easy to get caught up with the things of this world and of the “flesh” and completely forget that there is a “spiritual” side to everything.

Our husband’s sexual addiction hits us hard and is so painful.  We can very easily see the “person” (our spouse) as “the enemy” and the cause of all of our pain, difficulty and heartache.  A natural instinct is to against him and start blaming, accusing, criticizing, correcting, fixing, judging and rejecting… you know all those things we do to protect ourselves from more hurt, pain and betrayal.  All those feelings are real and valid but we need to ask ourselves a very important question:

“What are we accomplishing by doing and saying all those things?”

Are we fighting the battle correctly?  Are our tactics working or making it worse?  As Dr. Phil likes to say, “How is that working for you?”

For me, it didn’t work at all!  And after over 20 years of trying, I discovered that this defense mechanism actually made things worse It seemed to plunge me and my husband into an even deeper into pit than we were already in.

A SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE
God helped me one day with a new perspective (one of many in my journey of healing and recovery) and a vision that I had not seen before.  He helped me to rise above the temporal to see the situation from my husband’s perspective and from the spiritual dimension, and it caused my attitude to do a complete 180.  I began seeing that my husband was not the enemy… He was a victim just as much as I was!

It’s not that my husband wasn’t responsible for his own actions and behaviors, because he most certainly was, but he was deceived and got caught in a trap that was far more dangerous and costly than he imagined and he couldn’t get out of it on his own.  The enemy, knowing his weaknesses, baited and trapped him using the sexuality that God created him with, and set out to systematically destroy him, his marriage and his family.

The Lord showed me the constant battle my husband faces each day in the world we live in.  The constant sexual images in the streets, in magazines, movies, sports ads and programs, TV shows… and the office he worked in, the restaurants, grocery stores and places he goes are all filled with provocatively dressed women… everywhere he goes he is surrounded by the bombardment of sexual enticement!  He is constantly at war with the very thing God gifted him with; his sexuality and visual stimulation, on a conscious and subconscious level.

Wow!  That was an eye opener for me!

The world and media are dominated by Satan’s influence – he is “the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Ephesians 2:2).   Much media t is targeted at our husbands and children… we are at war for our very marriages and families and our spouse is not the enemy.

AM I MAKING MY HOME A “WARZONE”?
What I realized was that, in my “incorrect” way of dealing with this situation. I was making his battle more difficulty by beating him up verbally and emotionally over the things I thought he was doing wrong.  I made it my job to correct him.  I made home a “war zone” instead of a place of peace and refuge from the storm!

I had to ask myself, “would ‘I’ want to come home to ‘me’ each day?” Am I making his home a place where there is peace and safety, comfort, love, respect and security?  My answer was a clear and resounding “NO”.

The Lord reminded me of the way we were supposed to be fighting –  back to back, side by side.  Fighting the real enemy together.  We were most certainly defeated when we were separated, fighting against each other.  But together, we have a chance to succeed with God’s help!

II Corinthians 10:3-5 it says “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

So now, whenever I get those negative thoughts about my husband, and/or have the urge to “help him out” with negative correction or accusing comments I keep my mouth shut (most of the time anyway) and I pray for him!  I lift him up for protection, strength and courage to make the right decision everyday.  I pray for wisdom and for protection for his mind from the constant visual images he deals with each day.  I pray that he will make the right and Godly choices that he truly wants to make in all situations. And, I leave the “changing” of my husband to God!  Then I pray for myself that I would be the wife he needs me to be, supporting him and praying for him, and that I would always remember who the real enemy is so that I can “fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 6:12), fighting for and with him in the spiritual realm and not fighting against him in the physical realm.

Lord, help us all have a revelation of who the real enemy is!

——

Linda Daniels lives in Apex, NC (near Raleigh).  She works regularly with wives whose husbands struggle with sexual addiction.  She and her husband Tom have been working with individuals and couples for 10 years.  Marsha of Porn to Purity.com is a part of her ladies group.

Spouses in Crisis: 3 Things You Can’t Do and 5 Things You Should Do

by Jeff Fisher on February 11, 2011

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My body fell limp as I hit the floor and my heart dropped into my stomach with a feeling of immense weight.  Could this really be happening?  Oh, God, this hurts so much!

When you find out that your spouse has been unfaithful to you and there is a relationship with pornography that far exceeds your comprehension, your life is instantly turned upside down.  All of a sudden you are flooded with emotions and your mind begins to race back to situations, searching for clues that you had overlooked.  How could I have missed this?

And then it hits again.  What is wrong with me?!  This question resonates in your mind.

If this story sounds familiar, know that you are not alone.

So now what?

THREE DON’TS WHEN YOU’RE IN CRISIS
Here are some things you should not do when you are in the crisis mode after finding out about your spouse’s pornography activities.

Don’t make any rash decisions. Decisions made during times of emotional turmoil are often not well thought through and can have a huge impact on the next stages of your healing.

Don’t turn to alcohol, drugs, other chemicals, or other men to help you deal with the pain. If you start, it will be difficult to refrain from using something to mask the pain while you walk forward in the process of healing.

Don’t tell everyone you know to smear your husband’s name and make yourself feel justified in your anger from betrayal.

Now that you have a few safety cones in place, here are some things that can help you on your path to healing and freedom from the pain of betrayal.

*Know the path will be long and difficult, but that with these approaches, you will be refined.*

KEY STEPS TO NAVIGATING YOUR CRISIS

1.       Turn to God. Often when we are in pain, we unconsciously blame God for allowing bad things to happen to us and we turn from him.  The things we want to do to ease our pain would not be in his will and knowing that, we don’t include him.  THIS IS KEY!  Don’t forget that your Heavenly Father is hurting with you and is the ultimate source of healing.

2.       Educate yourself. I am not specifically speaking about finding out about all the details of your spouse’s addiction, but about addiction itself.  There will be a time and place for total disclosure to work toward healing, but to best help yourself and your marriage, you need to know what you are dealing with.

3.       Find counseling. If I can’t help you, find someone who will.  Don’t get stuck in the trap of thinking this is “his problem.”  Don’t let shame and pride keep you from seeking the counsel, safe community, refuge, encouragement, and direction toward helping you recover from this shocking setback in your life.

4.       Don’t take the reins in your partner’s process of recovery. Encouraging your spouse is wonderful, but do not be the person who monitors and directs his recovery.  True recovery will not be achieved with your coaching.  You have to trust God and his work in your spouse’s healing.

5.       Check your patience meter. You have entered into a long healing journey.  Do not expect that either you or your spouse’s healing with be quick and neat.  Try and keep this in mind to be able to show grace to yourself and the person you vowed to spend the rest of your life through ups and downs.

RESOURCES FOR SPOUSES
You may be interested in some of the following resources available to you:

1.       Books

  • Shattered Vows by Debra Laaser for beginning to understand the process of addiction and that you are not alone and
  • Total Forgiveness by R.T. Kendall to begin the daily effort of forgiveness.

2.       Suggested websites and counseling resources

  • Miller Counseling Services,PC  offers support groups and individual counseling for spouses.  We also have options for care via Skype.  www.millercounselingservices.com.
  • Faithful and True located in Atlanta, GA offers a spouses group.  www.faithfulandtrue.com
  • Woman’s Healing Journey offers many resources including a list of spouse groups and a great devotional journal to assist you in the daily processing of your “journey toward wholeness.” www.awomanshealingjourney.com.

May God’s peace and understanding surround you as you walk with him in your process of grieving.

—————–

Stacy R. Farris, MS, LPCA, NCC is a therapist in Raleigh, NC with Miller Counseling Services, PC.  Her passion is to serve spouses of sexual betrayal by walking with them through the process of grieving a wounded heart.

Warfare Praying For Your Sexual Addiction

September 30, 2010

You need to get to know Russ Shaw - (www.asi247.org).  He pioneered the “Attitudes of Sexual Integrity Podcast” or ASI Podcast.  He’s very real in his podcast and comes at it like it is.  Russ lives in the Seattle area and has several years of recovery under his belt.  I’ve learned a lot by listening to [...]

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How Sex Can Be Like a Torn Up Paycheck

August 26, 2010

  My friend Tom Daniels included this great illustration with his blogs.  I wanted to pass it along to you:    Sex without intimacy diminishes and eventually destroys our capacity for intimacy. Sex was designed to bond a husband and wife together, but when we engage in sex outside of the marriage bed we bond with [...]

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Are You Detached From Your Mistress?

August 24, 2010

Guest blogger Tom Daniels has over a decade of experience leading groups and working with guys struggling with sexual sin.  Tom returns to share another blog with us.  Check out his previous blog from last week called “Compartmentalizing, Getting Caught and Consequences”   Just as we need to connect the devastating consequences to our acting out, [...]

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What’s It Going to Take Before You Get Some Help?

August 20, 2010

Guest blogger Benno Bauer is a new friend to Porn to Purity.  He is a Pastor / Counselor at Second Baptist Church of Houston, Texas.  He part of The Barnabas Center For Biblical Counseling and directs the Battle Lines program, designed to help men win the battle over sexual sin.      Q:  What does it [...]

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Your Fantasy World Needs a Reality Check

August 19, 2010

  “There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.” —Douglas H. Everett Pornography, gambling, and drugs are examples of activities that are carried out in a fantasy world.  Each promises one more adrenaline rush.  Each [...]

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Using Our Imaginations For Purity Instead of Porn

August 17, 2010

Today’s guest blogger is a recovery friend of mine.  Ben lost his job because he was looking at porn at work.  His recovery has been a good process for him.  He found freedom through support group, counseling, honesty, and refocusing on his relationship with the Lord.      Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because [...]

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