Biblical counselor and Pure Life Ministries pastor Ed Buch contrasts the power of true repentance with powerless resolutions to change and gives a clear definition of what the process of repentance looks like.

Brooks: We want to talk about why repentance has the power to change someone who is struggling with sexual sin when just making a resolution doesn't. But can you start by explaining why repentance is so important biblically?

Pastor Ed: I'd love to try and answer that question, because repentance isn't important just in terms of overcoming sexual sin; it is critical in terms of our faith and in terms of whether or not we're actually saved. The Bible says that we either repent or we perish. One of the places that we can see that clearly is in 2 Peter 3:9, which says, "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." In other words, it's not God's desire that anyone should perish, but he warns us that anyone who does not repent will, in fact perish—meaning that person parishes with the unsaved souls and is doomed to eternal torment in hell. So I don't think it would even be possible to overemphasize the importance of repentance; it's the critical dividing line between the saved and the unsaved.

And you'll see that all throughout scripture, especially in the New Testament, where right at the beginning of his ministry John the Baptist preached, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And in a chapter later, in Matthew 4, Jesus opens his ministry with those exact same words, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And when the disciples were sent out two by two, Mark 6 records that they preached repentance. When the church was birthed on the Day of Pentecost and the crowd asked Peter, "What shall we do?" his first statement to them was, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." And Paul even testified before Agrippa later in his life about his early years of ministry and said, "I declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do works fitting for repentance." So there's simply no way around this biblical truth that repentance is an essential component of true salvation.

Brooks: As we seek to understand repentance, can you first talk about what repentance is not?

Pastor Ed: A little while back, I did a Google search on repentance, and what you see as the top result is that repentance is "sincere regret or remorse." But regret is really just self-oriented. It's feeling sorry for yourself and the consequences that you're experiencing. And remorse is focused on feeling bad—maybe about what I've done to other people, but it's really still a feeling that's being emphasized. So remorse might be a step in the right direction, but regret and remorse will both fall short of biblical repentance. In fact, we have to really guard against the common mistake of defining repentance in terms of feelings—feeling sorry, feeling regret, feeling remorse, or even feeling guilty about something that we've done.

Brooks: What is the basic difference between just making a resolution and truly experiencing repentance?

Pastor Ed: A resolution originates in a person's will. Maybe even sometimes it originates merely in our emotions, but most of the time there's a determination to carry out a change. But the person is just aiming to accomplish this resolution through sheer determination and self-effort. Repentance is a spiritual act; it comes out of our spirit. Overcoming sin—especially when that sin has held dominion over you for a period of time, like sexual sin often has—requires a power outside yourself. No one is going to be able to repent apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. So resolutions are the work of a person's natural man, while repentance is the work of a person's spiritual man.‍

Brooks: If repentance is a spiritual reality, then what can we observe outwardly in a person that would help us determine when they've repented?

Pastor Ed: Good question. Repentance can be hard to detect outwardly, but one of the things that the counseling staff at Pure Life Ministries would look for, first of all, would be indications of brokenness. They are consumed, at least at first, with who they are, the reality of what they've done, and taking responsibility. And it kind of leaves them broken, and it shows up in their countenance; their countenance softens. And their interactions with others take on a gentler approach; they now have a better sight of who they are. You see it in their face, quite often, when it's real. When it's not, that's when you can really tell, because there's a flatness, a deadness, and an emptiness. They say all the right words, perhaps, but there's no substance in what they're saying—no life coming across from that person.

Another thing you would see in someone who's coming into repentance is a willingness to admit they're wrong—not just about the thing that originally started them down this path of repentance. But they're starting to see other things in their life, and they're quicker—much quicker—to say, "I'm wrong," and to ask others to forgive them.

Brooks: Let's get right down to it. Can you give us a simple, working definition of repentance?

Pastor Ed: The King James Dictionary, for example, says, "To change one's mind and purpose; to have regret." In addition, scriptural repentance is always combined with the notion of turning—turning away from sin and turning toward God. So, if you really want to keep it simple, here's the simplest definition I know to give you: repentance is a gift from God...to change your heart...to turn from your sin...and to turn back to God.

Brooks: For those who are ready to repent, what are the initial steps in that process?

Pastor Ed: You start with prayer—coming before the Lord and acknowledging my sin without making any excuses for it. The prodigal son and David's prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 are great examples. In fact, whenever I'm counseling someone who seems to really need to get a handle on coming into repentance, I encourage them to just pray over Psalm 51—to make it their prayer to God. At other times, I encourage them to picture the cross and maybe even seen Jesus hanging on the cross, and then I encourage them to look at him face-to-face and confess what they've done and ask Jesus if he would take the penalty for their sin. There's a brokenness that comes over you in that situation.

But it can’t stop there; there's always fruit. That's why sometimes it's difficult to tell at first whether someone's repented, but in a fairly short period of time—and I'm talking weeks or months at the most—you will know, because there will be a change that is bearing godly fruit now in their life, and they no longer do that thing that had them bound before. So when I counsel people about repentance and the fruit of repentance, I try and keep it really simple and focused on 3 things.

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First, I encourage them to think about turning their eyes toward godly things and away from their sins and the "worthless things," as the psalmist puts it. Second, I'll talk to them about turning our feet, and by feet I'm really referring to our walk—the direction we're headed and where we're going. We can't let our feet carry us into unholy territory anymore; we need to learn God's ways and walk in those ways. Third, and even more important, our heart absolutely must be redirected toward the Lord. Our affections and the things that we take pleasure in have to be directed toward God and His kingdom. Most of the time we're in that battle because we're discovering just how much of our heart is set on self—the things that I want. But many of those things are in direct opposition to the Word of God and the things of God. So we have to turn our heart away from those things and turn it toward God.

Summing some of this up, you can see that repentance is much more than just a one-time response at an altar or a one-time thing that a person has done in their life. Repentance is really a lifestyle; we're constantly needing to pay attention to where our eyes are going, where our feet are going, and where our heart and affections are. And if we really understand the fact that we're in repentance for the rest of our lives, then we can see that no one has gone too far; no one is in such a bad position or condition that they can't repent. We can always repent as long as we're still alive on this earth. We have the option, the possibility of repenting. And that's what God wants for us; he wants us to turn away from sin and turn back to him, and he really does have the power and the ability to change our heart.

A panel of counselors offers insights to church leaders about how to give meaningful help to people experiencing the hopelessness that often plagues those in habitual sexual sin.

Nate: Can a couple of you counselors share some of your personal testimonies about coming out of hopelessness?

Ken Larkin: I'd like to start by just saying that hopelessness is not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a tremendous catalyst for change—to bring someone to the end of himself and turn them to the Lord, who is the only one that can really help them and deliver them from this issue of sexual sin. And I found that was true in my own life. When I finally ran out of my own resources—when I finally became hopeless and realized I wasn't going to change through my own efforts alone—that's when I was willing to reach out for help. And that ultimately led me to come to the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program.

Ed Buch: I feel like in some measure I must be an expert on hopelessness, having gone through that period of my life when I was living under such an incredibly dark cloud. It was really the guilt of my sin, but I did not make that connection at the time at all. So I just thought that I had some kind of chemical imbalance or something else going on inside me that predisposed me to a dark outlook. It was the pessimistic, "glass-is-always-half-empty" thing, but it was much, much worse than that. It was to the point where I wanted to kill myself; I attempted twice to do that.

But even beyond those suicidal thoughts, all day every day I went around with a chant in the back of my mind, "Kill me; kill me; just let me die." In my mind, I was praying it to the Lord, but in reality I was probably just chanting it internally to myself. I did it laying on my bed at night as I was trying to fall asleep. It became such a natural part of my life that I quit trying to get rid of it. But when I came to the Residential Program back in 2004 and had been here for several weeks, one morning I just I woke up, sat on the edge of my bed, and said to myself, "I don't do that anymore. I don't chant like that. Those thoughts aren't there anymore. They're gone." And I really believe the Lord brought me into this heavily consecrated atmosphere and that this demonic voice couldn't coexist any longer. And I was delivered from it. But I've certainly been through a lot of hopelessness.

Nate: What are some things that you would say to a hopeless counselee, and what are some things you'd avoid saying to someone who's hopeless?

Ken Larkin: One obvious thing is to understand that the reason why they're hopeless is that they're focusing upon themselves. And as spiritual leaders, we really need to get people to focus upon the Lord and get them into the Word of God for themselves. We need to get them into the promises of God and get them to focus on the cross, what God has done for them, and the power of God to change their lives. There's tremendous hope in Jesus Christ, and there's no hope in their flesh of changing.

Jeremiah Eakin: One thing to avoid saying is, "Everything's going to be all right," or "you'll make it through this," or "things are going to get better." You don't know that. Lots of times, when you are dealing with these issues, things get worse. And those aren't true statements—to say that everything's just going to be are right. You have to equip someone to face reality, not just give them words that will make them feel better. Because once they get back to reality, those words will just fall away. And so, just as Ken said, we have to give them the truth.

Ed Buch: Hand in hand with what these guys are saying, I would just say that one of the most helpful things you can do for someone is identify their problem as sin. Because the world system has kind of given them lots of other descriptions for it, and we don't often use biblical terminology. For example, we don't talk about adultery, we talk about "affairs," "mistresses," and different terms for it. But if we stick to the biblical words and we call it sin, then the Bible has an answer for sin, and that's what we're really wanting to help people see. There is tremendous hope: "Oh, I have a sin problem, and Jesus is my answer; the blood of Jesus is my answer; the Holy Spirit gives me power to overcome sin." And that's where their hope is going to come from.

Nate: Let's look at two types of people: someone who's so helpless that they believe, "I can't change," and someone who is clearly trapped in habitual sexual sin but isn't very desperate yet. How would you deal with those two extremes?

Ed Buch: Well, let's talk about the person who says, "I can't stop," which is probably more commonly the guy who's coming to the attention of his pastor. He's the guy who's got this problem, but he feels like he's just enslaved to it. And he truly is, but he's saying over and over in his head, "I can't stop; I can't do anything about this." But the truth is, he can. What we constantly find is that it's a motivation problem, really, at the heart of it. For example, I've dealt with counselees who've said, "I can't stop self-gratification; I can't help it." And I'll say, "Well, what if I would pay you a million dollars to go 30 days without self-gratification? Could you do that?" "Oh, yeah; I could do that," they'll say.So we have a motivation problem, not an ability problem. And that's really what you're almost invariably coming up against, and trying to get them to see the riches of heaven and the life in God as worth it is key to overcoming that attitude of "I can't help it."

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Ken Larkin: Also, to say, "I can't stop" is definitely not true, from a biblical standpoint. If Jesus Christ can't deliver someone from sin, we're all in trouble. He came to save us from our sins, and Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you but such as such is common to man." It's natural for you to to be tempted. But he also goes on to say, "But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it." So the Holy Spirit is at work in the believer's life; they have the promises of God; they have other believers; and they have different things to fall upon for support. But the bottom line is: there is power and there is deliverance from sin. And if they don't find they have that, then either they aren't availing themselves of what God has provided or maybe they have to realize they don't know the Lord and they don't have the Holy Spirit and they don't have the spiritual wherewithal to overcome their temptation—because they're not born again.

In contrast, someone else may come to you who has a legitimate issue of giving over habitually to sexual sin, but they may not see that it's a real big issue. So they're either not really willing to change or not hopeless or don't see it as a big deal. And definitely, as a pastor, it would be important to point out the seriousness of their sin. It's interesting: in many different places in scripture, especially in Paul's epistles, there's lists of categories of sin. And in three specific passages—one in Ephesians, one in Galatians, and one 1 Corinthians 6—Paul lists sexual sin in the forefront and says, "Don't be deceived; those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." So it is a really big deal from God standpoint. If you're going to call yourself a Christian, then "let those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity," Paul says. And if they're living in habitual sin and calling themselves a Christian, it's a lot bigger issue than they probably think it is.

Ed Buch: I'm thinking of the letters in the Book of Revelation—the seven letters to the churches. And at least three of them mention sexual immorality in some form. And the call to all those churches is to repent. And so if you look at those letters as kind of a window into end-times events, sexual sin is going to be rampant. And God has a large problem with it; he is adamant that it needs to be addressed and that it needs to be addressed with repentance.

Pastor Dave Leopold shares how Jesus redeemed him from the bondage of life-dominating sin and describes how he developed his own relationship with God.

Brooks: Pastor Dave, as we start to explore your story and what you've learned about Jesus, can you share a bit about your younger years and then how you met the Lord?

Pastor Dave: Three or four years before I met the Lord, I was very lost, even though I grew up in a Christian home. I did a lot of drugs—a lot of psychedelic drugs which messed up my mind very bad and made me very unstable, fearful, insecure, and full of anxiety. So when I came to Christ, I had a lot to deal with. It was the drugs and the evil that I had gotten involved that pushed me back to God, because I was faced with the stark reality of evil and demonic influence. It was so real that it the Lord used it to push me back to him. I lost control of my life and of my mind, and I was so full of fear that I couldn't even function. So I came running back to Jesus, and he supplied the right people and the right situation so that I could turn back to him.

Brooks: Overall, where has your life gone since that point?

Pastor Dave: Well, the main thing is that, in the scripture, it says that He's our rock and our fortress, and in another place it says He's a very present help in trouble. And one of the things I'm most thankful for is His help in my basic life in those areas. I found that the presence of Jesus very much stabilized me and took away a lot of my fears. It was definitely a process; I've had a lot of trouble, a lot of anxiety, and lots of insecurity that I have had to suffer through. And just a lot of selfishness from the life I lived. And the Lord led me very young into marriage—led me to a woman that I've been married to for 43 years. And that rock, Jesus, really helped me to be a good husband. I have a family, four children, and Jesus was a tremendous help to me to be a good father. I am eternally grateful for God's help in that way, because I was so unstable that I could have never been in a relationship or been a father without the help of God.

He also led me into ministry. I didn't try to get into the ministry, but it just happened as I sought to walk closely with Jesus and sought to familiarize myself with the Word of God and spent a lot of time there. It just happened that I ended up in ministry and have had the opportunity to share Jesus with others.

Brooks: You mentioned the "struggles" you've had as you've experienced growth and change from the time you were saved. Can you elaborate?

Pastor Dave: Well, it was just the presence of God in my life that helped me get through. I had severe fear and anxiety problems from the drugs I did and the occultish things that I was into. I had a hunger for the mind of Christ. In Philippians 2, the Bible says that we've been given the mind of Christ, and He tells us, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." That mind is a very humble and lowly mind. Scripture talks about how that mind "doesn't seek its own" and "doesn't seek vain glory" or "just its own things" but it seeks for others and isn't worried about its own reputation. The Lord gave me a real hunger for that lowly mind and that wonderful presence of Jesus that is that sweet lowliness of God and abiding there and living there with Him.

Scripture says, "Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them." It talks a lot about peace, and Jesus said he was "meek and lowly at heart" and if we would come to him that we would find "rest for our souls." And it's the personal presence of Jesus that has rescued me and stood by me and helped me throughout my life at different stages when some of the stuff from the past would come against me in spurts. I had another bad bout with it about 25 years ago when I had cancer and my children were little. And that brought on other problems and bouts and struggles inside at different times throughout my life. But it's the presence of Jesus, the mind of Christ, and the rest of God. It's a very, very real thing. It's a real substance. Jesus and His presence are very real. And it's calming and it's settling. And he's there—there in a very real way—when we need him most.

Brooks: Now, after all these years of walking with Jesus, would you say your experience is very different from how it was at the beginning?

Pastor Dave: Yes, it's vastly different. I was dysfunctional and had very severe anxiety when I was around people. I never knew when things were going to pop up. And there was just demonic oppression in my mind, and so on. And the Lord allowed at different times in my life for me to be tried and allowed it to crop back up here and there. But today, I'm a completely different person than I was in those early days. Though life isn't without trials—and sometimes severe ones—the Lord has made a vast difference inside of me and in my mind and in my ability to be comfortable with people and really love people and give to them. So I'm very, very grateful for the little things—the personal things: Jesus, and my family, and my wife, my children, my friends. But also I'm grateful that He's enabled me and allowed me to give back to others from what I've learned of the Word of God...and what I've experienced of the word of God.

Brooks: Do you have any word of encouragement or advice to someone who's not as far along as you are in their relationship with Jesus?

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Pastor Dave: I suppose the best advice I know that I could give would be to spend a lot of time in the presence of God. And spend a lot of time in His Word. Sometimes people look at a seeking life as kind of a life of work. They say that you don't have to work to be right with God. And I agree with that. But the seeking life isn't a life of works; it's a life of exposure. It's like exposing yourself to the sun. The sun does all the work, but you have to get out in it. And getting a suntan isn't anything you can brag about. Nobody says, "Oh, just look at how good I look after I laid out in the sun for nine hours and drank all that lemonade!" But you have to expose yourself to the Lord, and He changes us "from glory to glory," just like the scripture says. John said, "When we see Him, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." And we can see Him daily and change; we can be in His presence daily. And you know, I was taught when I came to the Lord at Teen Challenge by having godly people around me who were older than me. And I saw how they prayed and how they sought God and came into the presence of God. I got a great hunger to do that, and so I spent many hours with the Lord. And I didn't always feel a lot. Sometimes I did, but I came into God's presence a lot, and I spent a lot of time there.

And I also made it my goal to really become familiar with the whole Bible, and I memorized a lot of scripture. I started memorizing chapters and then the smaller books. And I just kept memorizing scripture and familiarizing myself with it. And by that exposure to the Lord—just getting into his presence and Word—it molded my mind and molded my heart, and I received revelation. Not anything special, but the revelation that will come to anyone who spends a lot of time in the Word of God and spends a lot of time in the presence of God. It just happens. So I think that my advice would be very simple: expose yourself to the presence of God every way you can: personally, corporately, being in church with God's people. And expose yourself every chance you have to God's Word. Make it your goal in life to become familiar with the whole Bible. That was my goal. I had no desire to be in ministry—especially the kind I'm in today! But I ended up there because I familiarized myself with the Bible and with the presence of God. The Lord can use you if you get to know him.

Scott and Erin Wilson share how they moved from the pain of two devastating trials in their family into an experience of God's amazing love and power.

Brooks: As a couple, you have been through some very difficult trials in the last couple years. But I know God has done some amazing things through it all. How did the difficulties start?

Scott: Erin and I got married in 2009, and I think on the surface people looked at our marriage as the perfect couple. Things were just going great. After about a year, we attempted to have children, and I think that was really the first moment our marriage had some difficulty, because we had some troubles conceiving. So we began to go to some specialists to see if we could get pregnant.

Erin: So after over two years of struggles, the day finally came. There was a positive test, and we were pregnant. It was one of the happiest moments in our marriage to date...and then quickly that evening it turned to one of the darkest days. Because later that evening I found out that my husband was having an adulterous relationship with another woman.

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Scott: In that season of our lives, whenever we would celebrate, we would just live it up. We went out, and I was drinking. It got to the point where I was drunk, and when we went home that night, I passed out on the couch. I'd been texting one of the women that I was having an adulterous relationship with. But Erin saw my phone buzzing, and that's when she discovered the inappropriate conversation that I was having with this woman. And that began a horrific season. We began to try to find things to help fix what was happening.

Erin: There was a third time that I caught him pursuing his sin, and I was just like, "I can't do this anymore. I can't help you." And it was the breaking point of saying, "Lord, you've got to do a work." And I just handed him over to the Lord. That's when we came across Pure Life Ministries.

Brooks: Erin, what kind of struggles did you go through while he was away from home at Pure Life Ministries getting help?

Erin: I really just struggled with trying to forgive Scott. I knew that I'm called to forgive, but he hurt me so much that I didn't feel like he deserved forgiveness. I couldn't make it happen; the Lord just had to do the work. A month into the program, we came to visit, and I knew that I needed to tell Scott that I forgive him. So I did, and the Lord just did the work to complete it. He showed me what Jesus did for me on the cross; he showed me I can forgive him because of Jesus.

Brooks: What did God do for you individually and as a couple through Scott going to the Residential Program?

Scott: I never dreamed that it was possible for me to be able to walk in freedom from my sexual sin the way that I do now. When I went to Pure Life, I honestly just went to be free from sexual sin. I had no intentions of going to be radically changed by the Lord. But what's amazing to me is that when I was at Pure Life, we spent so little time dealing with my sin issue. Instead, I was shown how selfish, how prideful that I had let my life become. The program showed me biblically about humbling myself and looking at how I could serve others, and in that process the desires that my heart once had became the complete opposite. All that old stuff was just disgusting to me. It was just getting in God's Word and finding out who Jesus was, and the Lord just does everything else in your heart.

Erin: After the program, it was different from before. I never thought our marriage could be better than what it was when we initially got married. I thought it was amazing then, but now, after the program, it's even better, and it just keeps getting better. Communication, how we parent, how we just pour out love and serve, intimacy—everything just keeps getting better.

Brooks: I know you've faced another difficult chapter in your journey more recently. Can you tell us about that?

Erin: So we were down the road...three kids later...with a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a 9-month-old. Life was great. But our oldest daughter, Vivian, who was four, was having leg pain, and she started having trouble walking. It just kept getting worse. Finally, she had an ultrasound, and it revealed that there was a tumor inside of her body. That was the first time we heard the word cancer.

Scott: It was so surreal. You have this normal life, and then all of the sudden doctors are saying that your daughter has stage 4 cancer. You're whisked into this treatment plan that's going to last a year and a half or two years—chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy. She's going through all this different stuff, and her body is getting hit hard. As a parent, you're supposed to protect your children, and you see your baby girl going through so much. And you just feel like it's completely out of your control.

Brooks: What have you seen God do for both of you as parents in this difficult time

Erin: With the news of cancer, all the fears, all the unknowns—it can just weight you down. The only way that we found freedom was just by going to the Lord in prayer and worship.

Scott: We had to come to the reality that that cancer could take our daughter's life. And we had to just mourn in that realization, and we just had to take that to the feet of Jesus. We said, "God, this is your daughter, and we're just going to completely surrender her to you. And we're just going to say that this is your battle—to fight, to cure, to win. And we're just going to sit at your feet and praise you and thank you. And we're going to wait for you to do whatever it is that you have planned in this journey." We saw we don't have to worry about this anymore; it is not our fight. All we have to do is just worship the Lord, and He will use us through this. And there was complete freedom after we did that.

Brooks: How has treatment progressed for Vivian?

Erin: For the first six months, the cancer was not responding; it was getting worse. We were saying, "Lord, we need you! Nothing is working here! Our trust is in you.” And just bowing down to the Lord and His goodness gave us peace. Finally, there was breakthrough in her numbers. It was just such a gift, and all we could do was just thank the Lord and praise Him.

Scott: That was January of this year, and we have not seen the cancer change since then. But yet there's still peace. We saw the Lord move, and we've just been able to rest in the Lord's timing.

Brooks: What would you say to someone else going through a really hard trial in their life?

Scott: My biggest piece of advice is that you have to just be patient on God's timing, because it's usually not a quick fix.

Erin: Yeah, and no matter how big or small it is, God cares. He just wants our eyes fixed on Jesus. Then, the rest will get taken care of. And for me, it was very helpful to stay current with my emotions—being real and giving them over to the Lord, and then letting him fill me with his peace and his love.

Brooks: How have you seen God use this whole situation for His glory?

Scott: Our response to dealing with Viv's cancer has definitely moved people. They've seen us respond by giving God praise. It's given us a platform that that we never saw coming.

Erin: People look at Vivian and say, "This girl does not look like she has cancer." The energy, the joy—she's full of life. They see her, and it doesn't make sense. It's all to God's glory.

Scott: One of the beautiful things is seeing Vivian mature in her walk with the Lord through this. She just praises the Lord, and she won't go to bed until we read the Bible to her. I'm not thankful she's sick, but I'm thankful she's building her faith so strongly at an early age.

Brooks: In the midst of all this, what are the things you are grateful for?

Erin: Iam so thankful for the trials—the hard times in our marriage, because it has only broken me and brought me closer to the Lord. I can't imagine going through this season of cancer without that foundation. I would be a mess.

Scott: We all want more faith. To build that faith, we have to go through tough stuff—trials. I'm thankful for God's mercy in walking beside us through these trials and giving us a chance to build our faith. We can confidently look at people and say, "Jesus can change your situation," and we would have never had that opportunity unless we went through all that we've gone through.

Pastor and evangelist Glenn Meldrum explains why confronting sexual sin overwhelms pastors and details how they can effectively address the issue.

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Glenn, you've spent your life in the ministry—first as a pastor of many years and now as an evangelist for over twenty years. Let’s talk about pastors who feel overwhelmed by the issue of sexual sin in their churches. In your experience, what makes this topic so overwhelming to pastors?

Well, I would really say that there's probably a lot of things that are contributing to it. Part of it is just pastors feeling overwhelmed, period. And so you have pastors that are just overwhelmed, and then you add to this the problem of sexual sins that are in the church. I've been in the church for a long time. I've been in ministry for going on forty years. And the decline in the church is directly following the decline in our culture. As our culture is growing more immoral, more wicked, it's getting into the church. And then you are having people that are more damaged coming into the church, and they are bringing the baggage of all the crazy sins that they have practiced. So pastoring itself is just getting harder. I'm not using that as an excuse; it's just getting harder.

Now, you have the problem that the sexual sins are becoming so prevalent that pastors just really don't know what to do with it. And then you have the aspect of pastors that are now starting to not look at sin the same way as they used to. So you now have this humongous problem in the church of fornication—and fornication is premarital sex in any way, shape, or form. So it can be pornography; it can be the one-night stand; it can be a man and woman living together outside of matrimony. But because of the compromise that has come into the church, now pastors just kind of overlook it. And I even know pastors that have people in fornication on their worship teams and in places of leadership in the church. They don't see God as holy anymore, and because they don't see God as holy anymore, they don't see sin as exceedingly sinful, and it's just getting very overwhelming to them. So now, the next step is going to be with homosexuality. More and more churches are trying to somehow justify it. And it's getting worse step after step, like a snowball rolling down a hill.

What are some potential barriers that might come up and discourage a pastor from dealing with the sexual sin issue directly?

Well again, a large part of it is that pastors are just worn out. And I hate to say that. But I go across this country and meet all kinds of pastors, and one of the things that can wear pastors out more than anything is counseling issues. What wears them out is, not the counseling issues themselves, but counseling people that don't want help. That is exhausting—absolutely exhausting. And then you have the problem of pastors that have contentious people in their church that don't want to really "walk the walk." And so you start adding these things up, and a pastor gets really tired. And when they are really getting exhausted, they just don't want to take on another thing. And they become so exhausted that I would even say they aren't willing to go deeper into study. They're not trying to learn what biblical counseling is, compared to secular psychology. They're just trying to keep their head above water, and if you're feeling like that, then you don't want to take on anything else that would weigh you down and put you under. And so, I feel for pastors! Pastoring is hard. But we still need to be pressing in as pastors to learn how to do what we've been called to do better.

You mentioned that one difficulty pastors face is counseling people who don't want to change. What is your advice to them in this situation?

The issue is this—and I say this a lot to pastors: we have to feed the hungry. Those who aren't hungry? There's nothing you can do about them. People in the church that don't want to change? There's nothing you can do; you can only deal with those who have a hunger. When you look at Jesus, you find he did ministry in a way that it's so often not done. He dealt one way with the multitude—the mass of people that weren't saved. They were the ones that were following him only out of excitement. But to those who left the multitude and became his disciples, he started ministering to them as those that were followers and that had a knowledge of God. But then, out of the disciples, He had the twelve, and he poured more into the twelve than what he did into the disciples. And then, out of the twelve, you have the three, and that's where Jesus poured most of his time. And I say that because, as a pastor, we have to be willing to counsel those that want help and to walk away from those that don't. Instead, we commit them into God's hands and say, "God, when they're ready, bring him back, and help me to minister to them then.” That's a very hard thing.

What tools does a pastor already have to help him deal with the issue of sexual sin that he shouldn't overlook?

There is more healing in repentance than people understand. There's tremendous healing in it! Because the root of our pain is the sin that we've committed or that has been committed against us. God's not asking us to go back and dredge up the past and do all the things that secular psychologists so often want to do. We are to deal with the reality of our sin, and so yes, we repent of the sin of the past. But in Christ we are a new creature, and we have a new beginning. So we are supposed to begin putting off the works of the flesh and putting on the new life in Christ. That is one of the really big things pastors have to do: they have to speak of repentance, of putting off the old nature and putting on the new nature. And in that process, the truth will come out about whether people really want the answer or not. If people just want to assign blame, there's nothing you can do for them.

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I remember times that I've had a couple sit before me with marital problems, and when they just want to play the blame game and point fingers at each other, it's a waste of my time. I can't do anything for them. But I've also seen couples come and sit before me that were willing to take the path of repentance, and when they took that path, there was healing. And so the answer is right there; it's more readily available than we understand. I think that maybe we've complicated it so much by looking at sin as all these various issues rather than just understanding that it's sin. There's one remedy to sin: repentance and the blood of Christ.

What can pastors expect to see happen long-term if they decide to address this issue in their church?

Well, I think that one dimension of the church should always be that it's an emergency ward. It should be a place that is there all the time for those in crisis to come and find healing and the power that's there. But if we do it right, what will happen is that as people come into the emergency ward, they will be dealt with and find healing, and then they'll find stability. When there are people in a church that are walking faithfully with the Lord, these individuals are going to be bearers of the presence of God and are going to bring more of the presence of God into the church. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit. That's what Paul told us; he told us, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God." And so, that's the reality.

If you start dealing with sin and seeing people walking in this loving obedience and this holiness that's a joy to the heart of God, then you'll start seeing God come more among his people and you'll start seeing marriages slowly get healthy. Because it's not just about the healing of those who are in these sins, but it's about keeping people from the sins—teaching people to walk in purity and not to do damage to themselves by being in sexual sin before marriage. And then, power is there for the church to become an even better emergency ward. There's power to bring in more people that are hurting and to see greater deliverance. So the testimony of the church becomes greater, because you're seeing greater results of people being changed. The gospel is about transformation, and sometimes that process can be slow. But it's better to do it right than to try to build a façade—a church with thousands of people that's built on a crumbling foundation rather than upon Christ and His Word. He wants us to do it his way, because his way works!

Pastor Ed Buch unpacks strategies for fighting the tactics of the "self-life" before it sabotages the battle against sexual sin.

Brooks: Pastor Ed, we often hear at Pure Life Ministries that you shouldn't overlook the "self-life" when you try to fight sexual sin. But many people might not even know what the word "self-life" means. Would you say that the self-life is the same thing as being selfish?

Pastor Ed: I would define the "self-life" as really just what the terms "self" and "life" suggest: it's living for self, pursuing what I want, living by my feelings, living for my pleasures, a "me first" attitude. It's me at the center of everything. And I would say that that means it's something more than mere selfishness. Living for self isn't just some character flaw or weakness, like someone who has a tendency to act in a selfish manner toward others. It's a pervasive mindset–a lifestyle that we've come into and adopted. And what really defines it, honestly, is that "inward flow," where everything is geared to benefit me and fulfill my desires or expectations. And that inward flow is the exact opposite of the "outward flow" that Jesus taught us.

Brooks: Is the self-life the same thing as pride?

Pastor Ed: Not exactly. Pride is essentially thinking highly of myself or taking pleasure in who I perceive myself to be. So pride sustains the self-life, if you can picture that. Pride feeds my self-life by keeping my own focus on me, and it also protects my self-life. It's very much like a watchdog that guards the self-life. So if anyone gets between me and my self-image or my carnal desires, they're almost certainly going to be attacked by my pride. I guess I would say it like this: pride and selfishness are indicators that I have a strong self-life, whereas humility and being others-oriented would be indicators that someone has really learned to deny self and to nail self to the cross where it really belongs.

Brooks: Since sexual sin and this self-life problem are going to have real effects on someone, can you give us a picture of the typical sexual addict's day-to-day life?

Pastor Ed: Sure. Let's talk about the typical sexual addict's job. Most are probably employed, but the job is just a means to an end. They're there for the paycheck; they're really not very invested. And they probably are doing a lot of personal things on company time–maybe even looking at pornography while they're supposed to be working.

A lot of sex addicts are also in a double lifestyle. So they may well attend church, but it's probably the bare minimum, and there's no personal devotion life behind any of that. It's just a duty, an obligation that gets performed occasionally–once a week or thereabouts. And on the family side, the problem probably shows up there more than anywhere, because those are the people they're supposed to be closest to. But in reality, a sexual addict has become disconnected from his family and holds them at arm's length with a measure of anger–maybe even unpredictable anger that keeps them from interrupting him or intervening in his pursuit of his self-life. And he's probably full of excuses about why he can't fulfill his responsibilities to his wife or his children or maybe financially.

In general, I would say it like this: he's probably maximizing his time alone, so he can literally give himself over to his selfish desires. It's not a pretty picture, but I want to say that there is hope for this person! He can truly turn around he really takes heed to this issue and begins to dismantle his self-life.

Brooks: Why is dealing with this self life so important if we want victory over sexual sin?

Pastor Ed: Well, the simple answer is that the self-life is the root system that has produced the fruit of sexual sin in a person's life. So if you want to get rid of that bad fruit, you really do have to deal with the root system. I think it's true that for anyone who's been addicted to any form of sexual sin – including masturbation, by the way – that dealing with the self-life is essential for lasting victory.

Lust is part of that inward flow that I mentioned earlier. So lust is taking; it's gaining something for self. And if I'm going to overcome lust, I need to develop that outward flow. I must learn to be a giver instead of a taker. And as that transformation takes place, I am literally having my self-life dismantled. The way to victory over sexual sin isn't to deal with the sexual sin itself, like so many might presume. It's to deal with the root system: the self-life.

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Brooks: What are some of the basic steps in the process of dismantling the self-life?

Pastor Ed: It really always has to begin with a relationship with the Lord. The self-life has to be crucified, ultimately. But that will never happen until I first develop a genuine relationship with the Lord. And by that, I mean a relationship that's continually growing through a vibrant devotional life–through prayer, Bible study, and just having communion with the Lord and seeking Him in all the spiritual disciplines that are laid out for us in scripture. And another key part of that process would be having people in our lives that we've given permission to speak into our lives and to call us out on our un-Christlike behaviors. And beyond that, we need to look at what the Bible clearly teaches. Jesus said that we are to "deny self," then "take up our cross and follow" Him. So self-denial and self-control are the biblical mandates that we're given to deal with our self-lives.

What that means in practical terms is that you're literally engaging in a "putting off" and a "putting on" process. It's a process where you're tackling the behaviors that are springing up and flowing out of your self-life. You're literally "putting off" or divorcing yourself from those behaviors–eliminating them all, ultimately. Romans 8:13 comes to mind, where the Bible uses the phrase "mortify (or put to death) the deeds of the flesh." And also, that verse makes it very clear that the Holy Spirit is the one who plays the key role in helping us do that. This isn't something we're able to do in our own strength. And so, in that "putting off" process, the other side of it is a "putting on" process, where we're learning and adopting the behaviors that are Christlike and need to take the place of our former deeds. And let me hasten to add: that's a lifelong process. I don't want to mislead people about that.

Brooks: You've seen that this process of change plays out over the course of months and years in a counselee's life, right?

Pastor Ed: I would hope that the sexual sin itself would fall off early on in the process. But after that, the process of putting on Christlike behavior is a tremendous undertaking. After fourteen years of victory over sexual sin, I'm still pursuing the putting-on process–and, in some measure, the putting-off process. I have not arrived, but I know where I'm headed. And the Lord is able to get us to the place where our victories are more the pattern of our life than our failures.

Brooks: Besides gaining victory over sexual sins, what other changes happen when someone deals with their self-life?

Pastor Ed: The bottom line is that the person is becoming more Christlike. So the works of the flesh are being overcome and are disappearing from his life. The fruit of the Spirit–love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control–are all becoming increasingly evident. And as a result of that transformation taking place, there is a peace with God that's unlike anything you've ever experienced before. There is actually a true oneness with the Lord developing between you and him.

Brooks: What has this process of dealing with the self-life produced in your own life?

Pastor Ed: Well, for me, that oneness with God that I just mentioned shows up in my relationship with the Lord–in my quiet times, my devotional time with Him. Those times are so much more alive! I'm connected with Him, and I know that I'm connected. So there's something really meaningful happening that draws me in and makes me look forward to my time with God. So I'm not engaging in some duty or obligation, just some dry time with the Lord. Now, don't get me wrong; I'm not saying it's always like peaches and cream. There certainly are times when it's a little more like oatmeal. But by and large, there's something happening between me and the Lord–a connection that is drawing me closer to Him and making it easier to engage with Him.

And along with all of these things, there's that indescribable joy that I've got now, which comes from being in a place where my inside world and my outside world are actually the same. I'm not having to exert all my energy trying to pretend to be someone I'm not. I'm literally at rest inside. I am at peace. I'm no longer driven by those carnal desires that once drove me. And the end result of everything I've just mentioned is an incredible feeling of freedom–a freedom that I can't even begin to put into words for you. But it's real, it's lasting, and it's wonderful.

Counselor Jim Lewis addresses the spiritual doubts of people in sexual sin by giving the essential biblical steps to getting right with God.

Brooks: Jim, do the men that come to you for counsel about sexual sin tend to assume that they’re already right with God?

Jim: Yes, I think you're right. I've seen this as a counselor—that men who come to Pure Life believe the very act of their coming to our ministry to get help means that they're getting right with God. I've even had counselees say to me, "Well, I'm here, aren't I?" As if just being at Pure Life means I'm doing something to get right with God! And in a sense they are, but there is something that has to happen on a much deeper level than just showing up here.

Brooks: 79% of Christian men 30 years old and younger now view porn on a monthly basis. The same is true for 55% of Christian men who are married. So it seems like a majority of Christian men are comfortable going to church and continuing in sinful habits. What's wrong in our thinking that can lead us to this false sense of security?

Jim: 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And that verse is true. It is one hundred percent true. We do need to confess our sins, and God is faithful and just, and he does forgive. But unfortunately for so many men—myself included—we get into what I refer to as the "sin-confess-sin-confess-sin-confess cycle," and it can go on for years! We sin. And we feel guilty...because we are guilty. So we go to God and say, "God, I did it again. Would you please forgive me?" And then, no sooner have we accepted the grace and the forgiveness of God than we're right back sinning again. And the missing component is that we've never repented of the sin.

Brooks: Can you explain in more detail why it's dangerous for people to assume that they're right with God?

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Jim: The danger is that people believe a lie. They believe that they are right with God when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. As I said, the essential element that's missing is repentance. And it seems that you just never hear repentance preached in the church anymore. I know that when I came to Christ, basically it was offered to me almost like a sales pitch: "Do you want to go to heaven? Do you want God's plan for your life? Do you want to miss hell?" And of course the answer for any thinking person would be, "Yes!" "Well," the answer goes, "then you need to recognize the fact that you have a sin problem and that Jesus has already taken care of that problem, and then you need to pray and ask Him to forgive you and to accept Him as your Savior." Well, I prayed the prayer. I accepted Jesus as my Savior. I believed with all my heart that I was a Christian now. And no one ever told me that I needed to repent of my sin!

And so we have a lot of Christians who have prayed the prayer, walked the aisle, been dipped in the water, signed on the dotted line, and purchased their afterlife fire insurance policy...and they've never repented of their sins.

Brooks: So it sounds like you’re urging people to reconsider this question of whether they’re really right with God.

Jim: Absolutely. I can tell you that if you are struggling with habitual sin, you are not right with God. The truth that the Bible teaches us is that "fornicators will not receive the kingdom of heaven." If you are struggling with sexual sin that you just will not surrender, then you are not right with God.

Brooks: I know that this topic of repentance, which you've highlighted as a neglected subject, is something that you've studied and taught about at length. Can you outline what the process of repentance looks like?

Jim: Sure. I was preaching on Psalm 51 a while ago. That is David's song of repentance, which he wrote after he was uncovered in his sexual sin with Bathsheba. As a teaching tool, I examined this Psalm and came up with seven steps of getting right with God:

1. Appeal to God's mercy
2. Take full responsibility
3. Confess everything
4. Demonstrate true godly sorrow
5. Sincerely repent (and that's the key element)
6. Give thanks to God for His forgiveness
7. Repair the damage that you've done

Brooks: I know you believe that salvation is a free gift, not something you earn. So if that's true, then why do we need to talk about "steps" of repentance or getting right with God?

Jim: Well I want to affirm that the salvation we receive from God is a gift of God. It is "by grace that we've been saved...not of works, that anyone should boast." But all of the great preachers of the New Testament—John the Baptist, Jesus Himself, the apostles Peter and Paul—they all at least had a two-step process: we are to "repent and believe;" we are to turn from our sin as well as to believe and accept by faith the salvation that is being offered in Christ. And John would go on to say that we are to "bear fruit that befits repentance"—we are to show by our behavior that we actually have changed in our heart. And so salvation is a process; it is an event followed by a process. We accept Christ as our Savior, we surrender to His lordship, and that's when the process of sanctification begins—working out the sin nature and working in the nature of Christ.

Brooks: If someone realizes that they aren’t where they thought they were in their relationship with God, how would you encourage that person?

Jim: The very fact that we are dealing with sin should give us abundant hope. Because we know what the solution to sin is. If I had some sort of emotional malady or some kind of psychological problem, I don't know who could offer me any help or any hope. But my problem was—and always is—sin, and we know the answer to sin. The answer to sin is the blood of Jesus which covers our sin; the answer to sin is the cross of Christ, which breaks the power of sin in our lives. Grace is not just God's way of covering our sin after we've done it; grace is the power to keep from sinning in the first place. So there is abundant hope for a man in sin—hope that he can come to the end of it, that God will forgive him, and that God will empower him to keep from sinning in his life.

Brooks: You've described salvation as a "process." And I know that the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program is a 9-month process that helps men through this process of repentance. Can you give us an idea of what this journey looks like for the men that you help?

Jim: Pastor Steve Gallagher, our founder and president, has devoted an entire chapter in his flagship book At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry to the subject "Freedom Comes Slowly for a Reason." What we see on a regular basis in our nine-month program is that it really takes about the first three months for a man to see himself as he really is—to come out of the delusion of sin and to actually see himself as a fallen, depraved sinner who is absolutely helpless to save himself. Most people come to us thinking, "I'm really kind of a good person, and I just have this little problem that I need help with." But the truth is that we are totally lost and helpless sinners, and that's why we need a savior. So it takes about three months to clear the wreckage—to bring a man to a place where he comes into brokenness and experiences real repentance. And then there's about a three-month process of what we call "putting off" and "putting on"—putting off the sin nature and putting on new disciplines to help them walk out the Christian life. Then, it takes a few more months to "reverse the flow"—to get someone to stop being a taker and start being a giver. In other words, they start letting the flow of mercy come out of them and actually begin to think of more than just themselves...and actually live the Christian life.

If you are struggling with sexual sin and you want more answers about this topic, we encourage you to check out the following blog articles:

• Are Christians in Sexual Sin Really Saved?
• Freedom Can Only Be Found at the Cross
• How Can I be Saved and Still be in Sexual Sin?

Nate Danser makes the case for why regular Bible study can powerfully change your life — even if you’re involved in sexual sin.

Brooks: Nate, what specifically do you have in mind when you think of Bible study, as opposed to just Bible reading?

Nate: Well, before I get into answering that question, I want to say a couple of things about Bible study that I think will help people. I know that many people coming out of sexual sin are looking for some kind of a silver bullet. They want something where you just “put in a coin” and freedom comes out from the cosmic vending machine.

Bible study is not a silver bullet. And let me also say that the Bible should not be seen as a self-help manual for helping us overcome problems in our lives. The Lord obviously deeply wants to help us, but we should learn to approach it in a much deeper way than that.

We should see the Bible as being a very, very deep and rich source of truth, wisdom, and life. A surface reading of the Bible is not going to really allow us to get deep enough into the truth that the Bible has. No one becomes an expert in a subject by just reading a manual or an article for ten minutes a day. You barely scratch the surface if you do that.

Brooks: I would like for you to talk about whether or not our attitude in approaching the Bible is important. Does it matter, or will the Bible just automatically benefit us as long as we clock in a certain amount of time?

Nate: I think it's extremely important. But on the other hand, we all have incorrect attitudes and those need to be changed. In many ways, we are who we are. Meaning, it’s important that we come to the Lord as we are and we allow Him to reveal things to us about ourselves that need to change. I would guess that that is the one attitude that definitely has to be there. That I'm willing to have the Lord show me things that need to be changed by Him. If we come to him in that way, then He can work.

We should be hungry for God, but we’re not always. We should be contrite over our sins, but we aren’t always. But if we have to be a certain way before we can come to the Lord, then we're all in trouble. But if we are willing to come to Him as we are and have Him start to take the lead for us in things, then He can teach us and mold us and shape us.

I especially believe this because what I've heard from people who have been in the faith a lot longer than I have is that this process never ends. That we never get to a place where "OK I'm good to go and now I possess everything I need to possess for the Christian life." It's always an issue of "I am falling short and I need Jesus."

Brooks: OK, now as far as attitude, while we're still on that subject, where does repentance fit into all of this?

Nate: That's a good question because without repentance the Word of God will not have the intended effect. This is brought out to us very plainly in scripture. Now like I said, we have to come to God as we are, but we have to be willing for a process to take place in our lives where our hearts are dug up before our eyes; where we mourn for our sins; where we cry out to God for a new heart and a clean spirit and where we allow Him to lead us in His ways. If that doesn't happen, we can hear the word, we can read the word, we can have others tell us the word and it's not going to have the intended effect.

If you study the parable of the seed and the sower, the problem with the first three soils was a lack of repentance. That was the issue. Only those in the category of “good soil” had actually repented. But I do want to say that repentance happens in a relationship with Jesus. So please, don't stay away from the Bible until you have that experience of repentance. Go to the Bible and ask the Lord to reveal things to you. Begin to cry out to God. Ask Him for revelation and a contrite heart and a broken spirit, and God will lead you into that process of repentance.

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Brooks: So how will Bible study help someone who says "I'm ready for that. I'm ready to repent and ready to change," but they are just still overwhelmed because they're still addicted to sexual sin?

Nate: This one is tricky because when someone is dealing with sexual sin, it's often all they can focus on. That one issue dominates the way they look at everything, and they’re always trying to figure out "How do I get rid of this problem?

What I can say to someone who is just totally addicted to sexual sin is that if we will approach the Bible, not in terms of what the Bible can do for me; not in terms of what tips and techniques can the Bible give me, but come to it from God's standpoint where we are allowing God to change our minds, then we will begin to see that God brings freedom.

I can't give in depth some of the benefits that studying the Bible brings, but let me give just a few.

Number one, the Bible shows us how deeply we need the Lord. And, poverty of spirit is an essential element for finding freedom from sexual sin. When you approach the Bible with an open heart and open mind the Spirit will show you that you can do nothing, and that the life God has for you is one that you are incapable of producing for yourself. This will definitely help produce in you a deep need for him.

Number two, it gives you a window into reality. This is so needed because this world is just permeated with deception. The Bible is the only thing that tells us the truth--the pure truth. Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." So, it leads us to truth.

It also gives us something to live for that's greater than ourselves. That is KEY to overcoming sexual sin and the Bible will help to expand your horizons. It will show you that there are things that are vastly more consequential than, if I could say it this way, our little lives.

Those are just a few ways the Bible helps us.

Brooks: It seems like everything around us, the culture and even just the normal way we operate in the church these days hinders people from taking time in the Bible. So what at the outset might be a hindrance to studying the Bible this way?

Nate: Let me say first of all that, I'm not trying to give people an out, but I live at Pure Life. So, I know that every morning from 6:30 to 8:30 is dedicated to Bible study and prayer. It's just how we live life. Now, I am aware that this is not the reality for a lot of people. So, again, I'm not trying to give people an out, but I am trying to say that I'm not going to look down my nose at people because they say, "Man, I'm so busy." But they are going to have to make some tough decisions, they are going to have to figure out how to cut some things out of their life.

But if they'll see the need and the importance of it...and I think if they would just do it for a month or two, just do it, just carve out thirty minutes every morning to begin to study the Bible, they will begin to get a taste of the goodness of the Lord and that will give them a hunger for more. So I think the two things are, number one, just make time. Make time to study the Bible for thirty minutes. Every morning. And the second thing is, well, I know for me anyway, when I started studying the Bible I was almost immediately overwhelmed. Because, I started to realize how little I knew. It was like, "Where do I start?? But that is all part of the process. You just start off little by little. And the way I've thought about it is, let's say that I spend an hour a day studying the Bible. If I study the Bible for the next fifty years, then I think at the end of fifty years I will have a decently good grasp of what the Bible says and what it teaches and what it means and who God is and what his perspectives are on life.

We have to be in it for the long haul. If after a month of being in the Bible for 30 minutes a day we haven’t experienced some life-altering reality, we shouldn’t think, “Well, I guess it didn’t work.” Don’t think like that. Think about it like a long haul. Think like this: "I want to know the Bible well at the end of my life. That's where I'm going. That's where I'm headed." Having that long-term perspective will keep us from being discouraged at the outset. So I would say those are the two things. Make sure it’s a priority and don’t get discouraged.

Brooks: OK, here are a few rapid-fire question and answers. What would you say to watch out for in Bible study?

Nate: OK, I already mentioned discouragement. Don't be discouraged because you don't know everything or because you have a lot of questions. But I would also caution people to keep from personalizing everything in the Bible, because I don't believe that the Bible was mainly written for me. It is written for me, and it's a blessing to me, but it's got more way more in mind then me and my life. It's got the entire scope of God's redemptive work and the revelation of God to man. The Bible is mostly about God and secondarily about us. Now obviously in our relationship with Him, who we are in our conduct and the way we think is extremely important to God, but I think our generation has put man way out in the forefront when it comes to the Bible when in reality, it's much more about the Lord.

And I would also just caution against dead, lifeless study where it's all about information or an academic mindset where I am compiling all this information so I can regurgitate it to all my friends so that they really see how much I know about the Bible. That’s not the point.

Brooks: OK, and the last thing was, in a nutshell, how has this impacted your life? How have you seen your own life transformed by this?

Nate: When I came to the Lord back in 2008, my life was just a train wreck and the main thing I experienced was a lot of mental struggles. I dealt with a lot of darkness and a lot of spiritual oppression. It was very difficult for me to think straight and what I found was that in in the Word of God He began to put me back together again. He gave me, like I said before, he gave me something to live for that was greater than myself. He brought His own life into my soul and was renewing my mind and changing my heart. He was teaching me to live, not by what I see in the physical realm or leaning on my own understanding, but to put my faith in what He says. And these are lessons that I am still learning now.

He was bringing me out of the old nature and was helping me to learn to put on the new nature. He was removing the veil from my spiritual eyes and giving me a revelation of Himself. He was helping me to see other people as being more important than myself. And these are just things that would not have happened without me being in the secret place with Him. And I'm not saying these things happened just because I studied the Bible, but because the Bible drew me to Jesus. And because I came near to Jesus, these things happened and they would not have happened otherwise.

Interviewer: Today we want to talk about developing convictions about lust and masturbation. Steve Gallagher wrote on this subject in his book, At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry. I want to start off by reading a brief paragraph from his book. He writes:

“A man will never have a pure heart as long as he equivocates about the sinfulness of lust and/or masturbation. He must decide once and for all that both are wrong in God’s eyes. If he is indecisive on this point he will never have the courage to win the battle that lies before him. His constant waffling will weaken any resolve to do the hard thing."

As we go into this discussion, talk to us about the two types of believers regarding this topic and what the responses might be to hearing a quote like this.

PLM speaker: The two types that you have are: the person who is definitely convicted about their struggle with lust or masturbation, but they choose to take the path of least resistance; and you have the other person who has more of a tender conscience and responds to the guilt feelings differently, by crying out to God "Lord, I want to be free of this! I know how you feel about this bondage, and darkness that I'm in. God, please set me free."

Interviewer: I do want to say, because we deal primarily with men in our Residential Program, that we tend to say guys, but this is an issue that women deal with as well.

PLM speaker: Yeah, and we don't want to leave them out because it's a huge issue for women that are struggling with sexual sin; and it's so easy for men or women to justify, you know. A lot of people get weary - battle weary. You get tired of just the constant bombardment of sexual images, and in our culture you can hardly get away from it. But some people just give up and they use “grace” to justify their behavior. I've talked to a lot of women, and those that have that attitude never really have what I call freedom - not just freedom from sin, but freedom inside as a person. It's prison-like. You don't realize how much it binds your relationships and your life. Everything that you do in life is so affected by it.

Also, we live in a culture - both in the church and outside of the church - where leaders are saying it's ok, “Masturbation is ok. If it's just you and your self, it's ok. Hopefully once you get married it’s something you grow out of.” But that's so deceiving to people. To a person who may initially be trying to resist, it’s saying "Stop fighting. It's ok. You can still be a Christian and give over to this from time to time.” This really gives a person no hope. When any believer that is sincere about the Lord gives over to masturbation and lust there has to be a sense of conviction that tells them this is not right, regardless of what they're hearing.

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Interviewer: Let's look at this issue in two different ways. Steve, in his book, talks about masturbation in the practical aspect that we know how the body works. We know all of that. But he also makes the point that I think is so important -  that is we're not just talking about the physical behavior; we're talking about a behavior that begins in the heart. What do we mean when we talk about the heart?

PLM speaker: It should be clear that Christianity begins and ends in the heart. As we look in the New Testament and even in the Old Testament, God has always been targeting men and women's hearts. That's where God wants to deal with. The heart is basically a person's emotions, feelings, affections, motives, attitudes - it's the seat of influence for a person's life.

Interviewer: I know the mistake so many guys make is that they try to ‘white-knuckle’ it. They say "Ok, I'm just going to stop doing this.” But inevitably that is probably going to lead to failure because the heart issue has to be dealt with.

PLM speaker: Definitely. One of the major things in counseling is to get a counselee to see that something is wrong with your heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" Jesus is an expert of the heart and that's what he targeted when he addressed people. So a man struggling with lust or with masturbation is a clear sign that something is not right in his heart. His affections are drawn to the wrong place. There is an idol (or idols) there, that is blocking his view of God and separating him from the Lord at the heart level.

Interviewer: And we can really say that about any sexual sin, or all sin really - that there's something in the heart that is a problem. Well what is it in the heart of a man or a woman? What is really the core issue that they need to deal with when dealing with masturbation?

PLM speaker: Well the biblical issue is lust. Some temptation is presented - whether it's something they see in the culture, or maybe they stumble upon pornography on the internet. Whatever the case may be, it's lust that's in the heart. They're tempted and drawn away because of their own lust, as it says in James 1. And Once they're enticed, sin is conceived, they give over and they're drawn away.

Interviewer: There tends to be a reactive kind of lust, and a kind of lust where I'm actually making it happen. When a person is dealing with lust, do they need to differentiate between those two?

PLM speaker: I think it's helpful. A guy goes to Wal-Mart. He's going there to go shopping. He's not going there to lust or whatever. He's in the line and a woman walks by who is scantily dressed. There is a natural response to seeing an attractive woman that occurs. But if that man is a Christian, and he turns away, looks the other way, or maybe prays for this woman that she'll come to know the Lord or learn not to be a stumbling block to other men, then he's made a right choice; and he's not given over to lust. But then you take another guy who sees a woman dressed that way and he stares her down - that's something totally different than just ‘reactive lust’.

Interviewer: I notice that the Enemy will perpetrate the lie that if it's natural lust - if I'm having a natural reaction or whatever - then he will condemn me for that.

PLM speaker: Right. Well it's important for men and women to know that temptation is not lust. It's what you do when you're tempted. If you're tempted and then you stare and you gaze and you fantasize, then you're crossing a line into sin. But if you're tempted and you're grieved or you turn away from it, that doesn't mean that you've sinned.

Interviewer: OK, we have a better understanding now of what lust is. How do I deal with this? It seems at first glance that giving up masturbation, since that's what we're talking about, is not a hard thing to do. Just stop doing it. But how do I stop my heart from going in the direction of lust. How do I change my heart? What do I do with that?

PLM speaker: I don't believe we're capable of changing our own hearts. I believe we have available to us a great High Priest that we can run to daily to look for mercy and grace to help us when we're tempted. Jesus was tempted at all points as we are tempted, but he never sinned. So he's an expert at helping us deal with temptations and things that come our way. The way I see it, and it's been my experience, is that the person has to be honest with themselves. They have to be honest with God; and confess; and there has to be a cry "Lord I want to be free"; and to know that freedom is available. It's not just something you say and then spend the rest of your life struggling with no results at all.

Interviewer: How important is contentment when dealing with lust?

PLM speaker: Contentment is very important because it actually puts out the flame of lust. Since I've been here are Pure Life Ministries, I’ve learned the importance of a grateful heart. Look at Romans 1. People go down that spiral of degradation because they refuse to glorify God with their bodies and because they weren't thankful.

Interviewer: So when we're talking about masturbation, what we're saying then is that the fundamental issue is an issue of the heart - that it is rooted in lust and covetousness; and that it is wrong because it is a completely selfish act.

PLM speaker: Exactly. And I would like to say to anyone who is struggling with masturbation: they need to ask themselves if this is something that brings glory to God. Is this something that pleases God? I've had people tell me "you know there are a lot of things that we do that are selfish"; but just consider masturbation. When I brush my teeth, I don't feel condemned. I feel like I'm doing the right thing.

Interviewer: And it's not selfish either. We're glad you brushed your teeth today.

PLM speaker: Years back, when I struggled with masturbation, there was always the sense that I failed the Lord and that I wasn't right with Him. I think that if you're honest with yourself and with God, you've got to say that masturbation and lust are wrong. They don’t please the Lord. They don’t draw me closer to God. They actually push me further away from him.

Interviewer: You counsel many men that come into the program. You've heard many stories from men of how they got into sin. How often have you seen that masturbation is the thing that opens the door to much greater depravity?

PLM speaker: You see it a lot. Most of the men that come started out looking at pornography, then masturbation came in. The porn, the masturbation, and the fantasy increased, increased, and increased until eventually many of the men that come to us have acted out their fantasies with someone. And it's taken them further than they ever imagined going.

Interviewer: I know lust and masturbation are topics that are uncomfortable for many, but they are subjects that we need to be honest and open about in the body of Christ because they are tremendous roadblocks to what God wants to do in the lives of many men and women.

Kathy Gallagher draws on personal experience and discusses common issues that hurting wives face when they are seeking help for their husbands' sexual sin.

Nate: Kathy, you've had a 30-year ministry of helping wives whose husbands have been dealing with sexual sin. But for those who don't know, how did it all begin? What led you and Steve to start Pure Life Ministries?

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Kathy: We started Pure Life Ministries because our lives had fallen apart because of sexual sin. Steve was out of control—terribly addicted to pornography and illicit sex with other people. And I finally got to the place where I just couldn't handle it anymore, and I filed for divorce. Through a series of events, I realized that that was not the path God had called me to. I was to stay and work through it. And Steve went through tremendous repentance...and eventually I did, too. And God just started working in both of us as a couple and individually. Steve felt like he needed to start a support group, and it started in our living room and expanded from there with Steve's writing and preaching.

Nate: When a couple considers whether the husband should get help for his addiction through a program like the 9-month Pure Life Ministries Residential Program, there have to be a lot of fears and questions that the wife would face during that decision, right?

Kathy: Yeah, there's there are a lot of issues. By the time they've sat down to have this discussion, things are pretty bad. A lot of times for both the wife and the husband, they feel like this is the end of the road. So that's scary. And the way things are at home are unbearable...but at least you're together. It seems like doing a 9-month program might be the thing that pushes it over the edge. I know that's a fear for a lot of women. They're afraid that it's not going to work. He's going to go away for nine months...and then he’s going to come back and he may not have changed. That's huge, and it's a real concern, because we don't send graduates out with guarantees. Nobody can do that, obviously. It really does depend on the heart of the man.

And generally speaking, the wife knows her husband has been a deceiver; he's lied, and he's snuck around in many cases. So she won't know when he comes back if he's just the same old guy with a different cloak on...or if he's the real deal. So there are so many questions. Even if a couple is close and still in love, there's still the other fears about the money situation and handling the kids while he's gone...as well as her loneliness. And some wives can't wait for him to be gone, so they can get a nine month reprieve from dealing with his sin. They're just hoping against hope that something will happen for him and they can get restored.

Nate: You mentioned two kinds of approaches wives typically have to a husband coming to Pure Life Ministries to get help—some being closer to their husbands and others being ready for him to be gone for a while. Regardless of where a wife finds herself emotionally, what would you say is a basic need wives have during a time of separation like that?

Kathy: What both kinds of wives desperately need is a lot more faith and a lot more trust in the Lord. And having your husband away at Pure Life Ministries helps out a lot, because you don't have anybody else. You have to depend on the Lord. As painful as it is, that's one of the beautiful things that comes out of him leaving. And you're not looking over your shoulder wondering where he's at. He's here, and you're there. Some women take about a month to adjust, but if your heart is in the right place, what's going to happen is that your faith is going to grow. You're going to learn to trust the Lord, and you're going to learn to cry out to the Lord—in faith, not in despair. So it's a rough thing to deal with, but it's a blessed thing. God will give you the grace to go through anything. It's almost like the wife is going through her own "program" while he's away. God is going to work on her life. He's going to cause her to come closer to Christ than she’s ever been before. It's powerful.

I am so grateful for what I went through with Steve. I remember the feelings I had...and all that stuff. It's not far from me….it's not like it's in the distant past. I have a great marriage, and I have a great husband...but I have not forgotten what it was like. But I'll tell you, I don't have any regrets! Because what God did for me going through that fiery, fiery trial was what brought me to Christ in a very real way—and I wouldn't trade it for anything. And I would go through it all again to have what I have now.

Nate: Do you have some final words of advice to a wife who's very overwhelmed as she struggles through her situation?

Kathy: There are a few things. The first thing is: this did not take the Lord by surprise at all. He knew exactly who you were marrying and what would end up happening. He knew all about it. So, he is sovereign, and he is in control. You have to wrap your arms around that and really embrace that. The other thing is: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths." Trusting the Lord is such a huge thing. And a lot of the reason that so many wives are confused, despairing, and just losing it mentally is that they've gotten so far away from the Lord, in a sense. I know this is what I was doing, when I was young and I was going through this. I was losing my mind. Because all I could think about was, "What is he doing? Who is he with? Where is he going?" It just consumed me, and I was backslidden, because I was so so obsessed and focused on Steve that I couldn't see the Lord anymore—even though I was calling him "Lord." And what God did for me very, very sweetly was to help me get my eyes off of Steve Gallagher and get my eyes on Jesus.

What I want to say to you ladies is: that is where you need to have your focus. That is the power that you need to go through what you're going through. And there is victory in it! My testimony is that it was in the throes of sexual sin—when Steve was just out of control—that God came to me. And I came to God, and I finally surrendered myself to him. And I'm telling you, I finally threw up the white flag, took my hand off the control panel, and said, "Lord, this is yours! I can't do this! I don't want to do this! I give up! I just want Jesus!" And when I did that, I had peace like I have never had it before. I had such sweetness with the Lord. Steve and I were still together, and he was still doing what he was doing. But I wasn't worried about it. I wasn't looking at it. I wasn't concerned about it. It was upsetting, because I knew what was going on. But there was just such a strength inside of me not to look at it. I was looking at Jesus. And that's what I want to encourage you ladies to do: just keep pushing back on the fear. Keep pushing back on the temptation to look at those things and to go figure out what he's doing. You just have to take your hands off of everything and trust the Lord to get you through this. He will give you the power and the grace to follow Jesus and to trust in Him...and not to live in this constant fear and obsession with what he's doing.

I was addicted to sexual sin for many years. Now I am being plagued with thoughts from the past and my mind has been wandering. What I can do to be free of this?

First of all, if you haven’t opened up to someone else about your current wandering thoughts, you need to do that right away. Find another woman in your church to talk to and open up to your husband if you're married. In many cases, getting it out in the open is half the battle.

The process of overcoming sinful thought patterns requires effort and patience on our part. The Word of God is powerful and able to change the currents through which our natural mind wants to flow.  Here are some practical things that are essential:

1. It’s important to spend time in the Bible every day. It’s much better to work through a good Bible Study such as The Walk of Repentance. This will help you stay focused and give structure to your Bible time. Just reading the Bible tends to make the mind wander.
   
2. Work on memorizing God’s Word, in order to get it into those places where the world is trying to re-establish itself. Psalm 119:9 says “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to God’s Word.”

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It takes time to erase the past. Repent often, and turn to the Lord. Don’t let the strength of those old thoughts discourage you. There is a war raging; there are two kingdoms vying for position. It’s worth fighting the war for your pure mind. Don’t sit around waiting for God to just “take it all away.” He wants you to rise up and take this territory by the power of His Word. Matthew 11:12 says, “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”

Last, realize that wrong thoughts are only sinful when we cultivate and act on them. If a thought comes into your mind that is wrong, turn to the Lord in the midst of it. Get your brain to think on things that are lovely, pure, and of good report (Philippians 4:8). Then, confess your weakness to the Lord and move on. You have no obligation to fulfill the sinful things your mind is thinking (Romans 8:12). The only power your thoughts have over you is the power you give them. “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Colossians 3:2)

Hope this helps.

Before coming to the Lord, if my life could be summed up into one word, it would be “chaotic.” And yet, I was blinded to my true condition, believing that everything was fine. After all, the “grace of God” covered all my sins. But sin has consequences, and eventually, the weight of shame began to crush me, leading me to a place where suicide began to look better than living.

But the Lord started to open my eyes and I began to see the effect my sin had on God, others and myself. I confessed everything to my family and they led me to the Pure Life Ministries website. After watching one of the testimonies, the Lord gave me hope and I knew I needed to apply for the Residential Program.

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Two weeks later, in August 2016, I arrived at Pure Life Ministries. God started working quickly and revealed to me just how desperate my situation was. My “trust” in God’s grace was nothing more than an excuse for me to sin. But even while He was convicting me of my fearful condition, He simultaneously showed His love and truth to me. He spoke to me and told me that He loved me, died for me and that He wasn’t distant or unconcerned, but beckoning me into a relationship with Him. I repented to the Lord and put my faith fully in Jesus.

The next morning, the atmosphere of my heart was one of gratitude and praise to God, not the usual thoughts of lust and sexual fantasy. God saved me that night and my life has never been the same. However, there was still much more work that needed to be done.

One night, after opening a letter from home, I began to weep. Suddenly I could see how selfish I had been. My family continued showing me a lot of love while I was away, and I started to see how badly I had treated them. I ran out to the cross and fell on my face, repenting before God and asking Him to change me.

The deep and powerful work that the Lord was doing in my life continued and I could sense that He wanted me to apply for the Pure Life Ministries internship. This was a real miracle. To get a Texas boy to want to live in Kentucky!

During the internship, I worked in the maintenance department despite having little to no prior experience. God used this time to show me how needy I was for Him, but also so I could see that each obstacle could be overcome in His strength. I’ve never handled difficulty well in my life, but God has put a resilience in me that I never thought was possible. My devotional life has been firmly established and God has given me a tremendous love for Him.

Looking back over this past year, I can only see the faithfulness of God. He did so much more for me than I could have imagined or expected Him to do. I wanted my life and this one little problem fixed, but God gave me a brand-new life. Praise the Lord!