One of the reasons you are reading this email or listening to this podcast is you want to stop falling into sexual sin. 180 Ministries is first and foremost a biblical recovery program. Therefore, what we want everyone to experience is for the Spirit of God to be changing us into more godly people. This can and should be being done by the Spirit TRANSFORMING our minds, hearts, and desires.
This is what God truly wants to do for you and for me. Everybody wants God to just do it all. We want deliverance from this sin that so easily entangles us. We want the quick fix with God simply removing us from sexual temptation and enabling us to not be drawn by the strong pull of sexual sin.
So, how is that working for you? I imagine it has not or you would not be reading or listening to this message. You are still in a battle almost every day of your life and you are sick and tired of your failures, still living in shame, and still falling back into sexual sin. It might also seem like the very action you are taking against this sin has only increased the amount of temptation you are under. It seems like you are under attack … and it seems that way because you are!
Some people seem to be able to stop falling into sexual sin. Many can stop for a while but every few days, every few weeks or even every few months still go back to it. Temptations have not gone away and sometimes seem to be intensified. If that is your reality, I want you to know that is completely normal.
Recovery is a Process … not Perfection
We can grow stronger by allowing God to do what God wants to do. He wants to heal us. He wants us to walk in purity and avoid sexual sin because it damages so many things in our life.
Abstinence is good but what is GREAT and truly God’s plan is;
Abstinence through Transformation
So, that begs the question … “How does Transformation happen in my life?” Which brings us to this passage of Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3:18;
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
I don’t know about you but what this verse is teaching us I really want to be happening in all of our lives. To be literally being transformed into the image of Christ with ever-increasing glory literally means I am progressively becoming a Christ-like man. And the more Christ-like I am being transformed into the less I will give in to my sexual desires and actions of sexual sin.
This is true and actual change. This is transformation or metamorphosis and that means I can be being changed from the inside out. And as my desires are changed from wanting sexual sin to wanting to walk in purity the power to make that decision is being strengthened in me by the Holy Spirit.
So, the $600,000 question is;
What do I need to do to be
being transformed by the Holy Spirit?
We have already talked about these things but let me quickly review;
- We need to be feeding our minds with daily Scripture reading and meditation.
- We need to daily offer our bodies to God as living sacrifices.
- We need to be being filled with the Holy Spirit.
- We need to be walking in the Spirit so that we are not walking in the flesh.
- We need to stay focused on Jesus and the Spirit’s direction as we live each day.
- We need to put on the full armor of God every day.
- We need to be doing these things consistently … like every day.
Or as we saw in 2 Corinthians 3:18 – we are to be contemplating the Lord’s glory as we go through our day. How does anyone do that? It can all be boiled down to this verse in 1 Corinthians 10:31;
“So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,
do it all for the glory of God.”
How do I do that? I try and maintain an ongoing conversation with the Lord as I am going through my day. I communicate with the Spirit when I have decisions to me and especially when I am tempted. I stay focused on the true reality that He is with me and He will guide me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
This is walking in the Spirit and this, if you begin to actually do this daily, is what will lead you out of your bondage to sexual sin and into the freedom we can experience in Christ.
I agree that the goal of recovery is not just stopping the behavior (acting out), but the transformation of the person to be more and more conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). That said, my 30 year experience as a sex addict has taught me by making many mistakes and one was that I needed to do the bullet points in your article.
I’m 71 and before getting into recovery did all of these religiously!!
We need to be feeding our minds with daily Scripture reading and meditation.
We need to daily offer our bodies to God as living sacrifices.
We need to be being filled with the Holy Spirit.
We need to be walking in the Spirit so that we are not walking in the flesh.
We need to stay focused on Jesus and the Spirit’s direction as we live each day.
We need to put on the full armor of God every day.
We need to be doing these things consistently … like every day.
The result was failure. None of these are wrong, but they are just not enough. My recovery experience only began to work within the framework of community. I had to join a sex recovery group, get a sponsor, make daily phone calls and earnestly work the 12-Steps. The absolutes of recovery are God’s grace and power, my faith in Him doing it without my help and finding a safe community where I could retell my story openly and honestly. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The 12-steps came out of a Bible study. They worked then (1930’s) and they work today.
Brian, I couldn’t agree with you more. The bullet points are what we as believers need to do every day to be growing in our relationship with Christ. Those things in and of themselves are not enough because we are told that we need to live the Christian life in community which is something we stress all the time. Each person is to text the OST they are in daily and have regular calls with other men in their group.
The reason I do not use the 12 Steps, which I think are all good and know the founders were Christian men, is they made the decision to remove God from the equation and put in the higher power. They are no longer Christ-centered. I understand the reason for this was because they wanted to not have this just for Christians … which I understand. My father was in AA and it gave him another 15 years of life.
Then we have the issue of the 3 groups for sex addicts – SA, SAA, and SLAA. I can only endorse SA because the others allow one to set their own bottom line behaviors. The feedback I have gotten from men who have tried SA is that they are not open to talk about their Christianity and most of the people in the group are not believers. So, why attend a group that is not Christ-centered when walking in sexual purity is a direct result of one’s relationship with Christ being worked out in a community of other believers.
180 Ministries comes out of the Bible and has been working for 2000 years.