God Will Start Right Where You Are ~

Have you ever noticed that our preconceived ideas are often incorrect? It is important to know this regardless if you are a glass half empty or half full type of person. The half-empty person tends towards pessimism and focuses on how much the glass is empty which they see as a bad thing. The other person tends toward optimism and sees the glass is half full which they see as a good thing.

I am an optimist and believe I am quite good at it…which only proves my optimism. My wife is a pessimist and she thinks she is not good at it…which is to be expected. I mean a pessimist should be pessimistic about being a pessimist which is kind of like a double or triple-negative …right?  But I digress…

I believe and have seen it to be true whether you are a pessimist or an optimist, it will impact your recovery from sexual brokenness. If one looks at their past and sees a multitude of failures to stop looking at porn, then the evidence would suggest that you can never stop this addiction. Or…you have just not found the secret spiritual silver bullet or sauce that will make it happen.

The bad news is there is no silver bullet or secret sauce.  The reality we all need to face is what we are experiencing right now is the result of decisions we have been making for years and the journey those decisions have created for us. There has been a consistent series of choices we have made that have taken us to where we are now.

For example, you cannot have been heading west for 5-40 years, going a little further every day, and then decide you want to jump all the way back and start over again. That is impossible. We have developed habits or addictions as ways of coping with our stress and problems. They have been effective in giving us temporary relief with false intimacy. We have created neurological pathways in our brain to the extent that when we think, see, or experience anything sensual we are flying down the road to another orgasm.

Many people reach the point of giving up and believing the lie that they can never be free from sexual sin. Once one reaches that point the road becomes steeper, their descent into darker sexual sin comes faster and the destruction of many of the cherished things in your life is going to happen.

However, I believe that God has better things for you, and here is how I know that. First, you are reading this email, or listening to this podcast and that is proof you have not given up. You still believe there is hope for you. You may be optimistically looking for the secret sauce that doesn’t exist…but you still believe God will deliver you. And you are correct because God will deliver all of us once we die and go to heaven. No longer have a sin nature. No longer live in a fallen world where there is no porn and no demonic influence.

There is a way you actually can stop heading west and begin to head east. You can stop going further from God and instead begin returning to God. You only have to do one thing. Do you know what that one thing is??? We all must do a 180!!! We need to make an about-face and every day…every stinking day make sure we are heading east instead of west. Moving back to God instead of straying further from Him.  And how does that happen?  Well, I am glad you asked.

Instead of fixing our eyes on all of our failures and bemoaning the fact that we cannot seem to be able to stop sexual sin on our own…what if we actually begin to give up our own feeble efforts that have gotten us nowhere and begin to try it God’s way.

Have you proven it to yourself yet that you cannot win this battle on your own? If not…come back when you have proven it to yourself.  If you have proven it to yourself…are you ready to fully commit to doing what God tells all of us, we need to be doing in order to actually be living the Christian life?

Ok…here comes the real secret sauce. Here is what I have learned in my 15+ years of actually WORKING on my own recovery. And it begins with something so simple yet also so profound. Here it comes…pay attention so that you do not miss it. Stay focused. Ignore that email ding or text notification satan has just sent you.

It is not a huge thing that you cannot do. It is actually a simple thing that everyone one of us can do and we will need to do it whether we want to or not. It needs to become automatic, a no-brainer, the first step every day before you do anything else at all…unless your house is on fire. Drum roll, please…

Every Day God wants to Start with You

Right Where You Are!

The only question is do you want to start every day with God?  Here is what we are commanded to do every day in Romans 12:1-2;

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

That simple command of surrendering to God your actual body and all of its parts to God is taking the first step in heading back toward God…instead of inching yourself away from Him one millimeter at a time.

In reality, the life you have was given to you by God. He knitted you together in your mother’s womb. He planned ahead, before the creation of the world that you would be one of His children. However, He also gave you free will. If you want the life sexual sin will give you then that is your choice…keep heading west.

Or, like me and others in the 180 Recovery Program, we begin our day surrendering ourselves to our Father, our Lord, and the Spirit. And this simple act of devotion, if we truly mean it…will allow the Spirit to fill and guide us so that we can begin to make the daily decision that will lead to our healing.

OH…one last thing…if you link arms with a small group of other men also wanting to return to God you will find the strength you lack in yourself to stay on the road to recovery.

And if you would like to hear the details of my own train wreck brought on by my years of sexual addiction and how God has done a lot of healing in my life then join me tomorrow night at 9:00 pm Eastern Standard Time and I will share it with you.  Here is the Zoom link;

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/916009822

 

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