When a husband repents, both he and his wife are hoping that he will never stumble again. So, what should he do if he does? And how should his wife respond to his failure? In Part 1 of a discussion with Steve & Kathy Gallagher, we show husbands and wives how to respond to failure in the right way so that they keep moving forward in their battle against sexual sin. (from Purity for Life Episode #511 - How to Handle Failure | Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom)

Nate: Pastor Steve and Kathy, this series is called Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom, and what we're really trying to do is give people who are in the early stages of repentance some real help for what they're going to face in the future, because it's just an uncertain time. It's a difficult process to go through and we don't want people to be discouraged. We want people to make the right choices at the right time. And so one thing that we've already talked about was the need to live by faith instead of feelings. We talked about the need to never quit and how we need to be in this for the long haul.
        What we want to talk about in this episode is learning to deal with failure. And so obviously, we've kind of given ourselves away even by having a title like this, but we’re just saying that even if someone has genuinely repented, it doesn't guarantee that they're going to be instantaneously delivered from all temptations and it doesn't mean that they'll never stumble or even fall. Could you give people a realistic sense of what their lives will look like if they've genuinely repented—in terms of victory over sexual sin?

Steve: That's a very good way to lead into that question. I'm glad you asked it like you did because their lives should look quite a bit different than before and I'm not just talking about in regard to sexual sin. I'm referring to the whole general flow of how they live their lives, because it's been my experience that 99% of the time, a person who is in bondage to sin has a home life that is usually not that great from the Lord's perspective. There's been a lot of compromise. Maybe in terms of worldliness and carnality. Or maybe in terms of selfishness and pride. Or maybe even on both sides of the aisle so to speak.

    So, what is needed is a whole new lifestyle that is pleasing to the Lord. Of course, this is especially true for the husband who has been in sin and really needs to change, but the wife as well is going to have areas in her life that she will need to change so that they can both be moving in a direction that is closer to what the Lord desires. As part of that, the man is going to be doing better and better in regard to sexual temptation. And if he's got a good devotional life established, he's going to find that those temptations just don't have the power they had.

Kathy: Yes. So, for a wife, it kind of is the same thing. Even if she hasn’t been in habitual sin, from my own experience, she has developed negative habits. There are things that get set in motion in a wife’s heart and life that God needs to deal with and she needs to cooperate with the Lord about dealing with those things. When I'm counseling a woman, one of the things I try to get her to do with her husband is pray. There's probably nothing more solid and stable that they can do together as a couple because you're being vulnerable and you're opening your heart up.

    Hopefully it won't turn into a big argument when you're praying, but that's a good starting place for a wife to get into the place of supporting him as he's journeying his way through this because you can't just stand outside of it and look in. You have to actually come into this trial with him and help him walk through this and get on his team. If there has been genuine repentance you will know it. You won't have to question, “Is he just pulling the wool over my eyes? Is he messing with my head?” Don't even go there. Just assume the best and get on his team and pray with him.

    But also, in your own life, as far as the lifestyle changes that have to take place, I'm just going to be pretty blunt here. If you've got carnality going on in your own life, you need to deal with it regardless of what your husband is doing. As a Christian, you need to deal with things in your own heart and life and you need to rid yourself of whatever worldly junk that's going on that is pulling you away from Jesus. Those things have to be dealt with, because you're not an island either and you have to come out of the world in certain ways as well to be in unity with your husband. This battle is both of yours. It's not just his.

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Nate: Yeah, I'm really grateful for how you guys handled that question, because it does broaden the vision—which we always need because we want to focus on the one thing. Let's just get this one area taken care of so that our lives can be better. The Lord is not thinking that way and we need to understand things from His perspective. My next question is, how hopeful should a person be about what their new life could look like? Should they hope and believe for a life where they are impervious to temptation and they will never fall again?

Steve: I think to say that they can be impervious to temptation would be an unrealistic and over the top expectation. We still live in a very fallen world and we have a fallen nature, and those two things are always looking to connect. So, I don't want to take it that far. What I would say is that it would be right, and the Lord would want and expect a man to be living a lifestyle where victory is the norm. Where winning those battles would take place on a regular basis. Maybe there would be an occasional fall or maybe not. A lot of guys when they make that turnaround, they go on and they just never really struggle again. I don't know exactly why some do and some don't, but that's the way it goes for a lot guys.

    All I would say though, is that the wonderful thing about the Lord is that it's not all resting on us. We have our side to it, but this is where grace kicks in. When a man is sincerely trying, the Lord is going to be sincerely working with him. And I can just tell you from my own experience over the past 37 years that the Lord has covered me many times, especially during the earlier years when I was still pretty raw and I had only recently come out of sexual sin. There were times that situations would arise and the Lord would arrange circumstances where it was easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing. And I knew it was the Lord and I went along with the Lord, and I didn't have a problem. So, I would say that we can count on His grace to be there to help us win those battles when we are sincerely trying.

Kathy: I want to just throw out kind of a different perspective on the question of people wanting to know, “Will I ever fall again? “Or “Is it all over, because I blew it again?” The point here is not human perfection. The goal is that we are continually becoming more Christlike. Of course, we all want to be done with sin. We don't want to keep falling and the Lord doesn't want us to either, but those failures, as hard as they can be, are part of the transformation process. We have to journey out of sin. The Lord is using the struggle and He's using the battle. And that is so much a part of the transformation process.

    I remember when Steve would fall and it felt like the bottom was dropping out, but actually what was happening was we were getting closer and closer to the end of the matter. We were coming out of the thing. It was like he was having to get freed of or purged from that old life. It was still clinging to him in some ways, but he was fighting and I was fighting. We weren't fighting each other, though, we were fighting together to get through this thing. So, we were throwing off all that weight and all the sins that were so easily entangling us because we were going in a direction. So, I wouldn't be overly discouraged when someone has failed. I'm not saying get excited about it either, but I'm just saying that it's not the end of the road just because someone blows it.

Nate: Yeah. And that's good because that's one of the things I did want to talk about was how to handle failure—because it is very hard. There's the discouragement and the overwhelming fear for the wife that nothing's changed and this is going to go on forever. She may think that she can never trust him again. Then there are also the feelings that can occur in the man. When he falls it can stir up all those old desires and it brings about a darkness and a feeling of being disconnected from the Lord. So, I'm sure that there's a wrong way to handle failure. I want to talk about the right way. What are some right ways to handle failure and how does a couple move forward during those times?

Steve: Well, the first thing I would say is, what kind of failure are we talking about?  Are we talking about a lapse into pornography or are we talking about hooking up with another person? Because those are two hugely different things. So, let's just say that it's a lapse into pornography. I tell guys all the time, if you have a fall, you pick yourself back up again, repent and get right back on track doing the things you've been doing. The important thing is to keep going forward and don't just stop and die on the spot. You have to keep doing the things that you've been doing because if are headed in the right direction that’s where you want to keep going. A failure is a setback, but what's the alternative? To stop? To not fight anymore? No. That's not an option.

    So, what I always say is that failure is not a fall, failure is quitting. And that is the one thing we do not want to do, cannot do, and must not do is quit. So, you pick yourself up again and you get going again. When you do that, the devil is going to try to take you in one of two extremes. The one would be what I just said, to quit. To just get so despondent and discouraged that you just give up inside. Telling yourself things like, “What's the use? I'm never going to change. I'm not changing. I still want this stuff like I always did.” Which if you've been going in the right direction, that is not true, but it feels that way at that moment.

    So that's one way the enemy can get someone. But there are certain types of personalities that can easily go into a Pollyanna delusional state where they're not really dealing with things. They're not really having a deep repentance over what they just did. They are just sloughing it off—too much so. They're sloughing it off like it didn't even phase them. And so, we don't want that either because that means there's nothing of any depth happening inside of them through this process. So, the right thing to do is to repent to the Lord. There should be some sincere grief about it. You should feel badly and repent to the Lord sincerely and genuinely. And then you just got to get back on track and keep going. You can't just drag baggage of previous sins behind you.

Ashes to Beauty Episode 7: When a husband truly repents of sexual sin, most couples are ready to put all of that behind them and to enjoy a new life. But they soon find that there are other huge areas of their marriage that still need God's powerful touch. In today’s show, we'll talk about two of the biggest: healthy communication and intimacy in the marriage bed.

Resources

• From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colón

What happens when a church culture loses a love for God Himself and replaces it with a focus on other things? Find out in this conversation between Nate Danser and Steve Gallagher. (from Purity for Life Episode #501 - Babylon: An Apathetic Church Culture)

Nate: Okay. So, Pastor Steve, you have said that a culture of apathy in the church creates an environment where the standard of Christian living becomes very different from what is laid out in Scripture. So, people feel like as long as they do some basic, outward good things, they are good to go. But I wanted to talk to you in this segment about what you experienced back in the 1970’s, because that was a time of revival when the church was very strong, healthy and passionate.
    You've mentioned at different times that the atmosphere in the church today is very different than it was then. I want to talk a little bit about some of the differences and how you've seen that affect people's lives. One of the things you've said is that people were very passionate about the things of God. What was it like to have a church culture where the general atmosphere was filled with a passion for God.

Steve: Well, I don't want to overstate it. The part of the church that I was involved in, which was the Pentecostal side of things, generally speaking, had a high level of passion. I don't know that it was true of the rest of the church because that's where my involvement was. And the Jesus movement came up out of Chuck Smith, David Wilkerson and Leonard Ravenhill. Those kinds of men are the ones the Lord used to really usher in the Jesus movement that I got saved into in 1970. So, there was such a difference in that movement as opposed to how things are now in the church.

 of course, a lot of it was that many of us were young and excited about the things of God. Especially those of us who were ex-drug addicts and came out of a lot of darkness. But I guess if I could just get it narrowed down to one thing that I can use as a comparison, back in those days I used to love Sunday night services because after the service was over, we would gather around the altar of the church and we would literally spend hours seeking the Lord. That was the norm. We would often have all night prayer times on Friday nights. We would pray for a couple hours and then go out witnessing to people. That was the kind of passion we had.

Fast forward all these years later and there's hardly any churches that even have Sunday night services. People are so uninterested. They are locked into things of the culture like television and the internet. They go to church on Sunday morning, but for the typical American Christian, there is not much passion for the things of God in their lives. There are people out there that still are really passionate for the Lord, but not at the level that there were in 1970.

Nate: Ok. So, you definitely have firsthand experience with the church then and the church now. And you have been watching decade after decade this passion declining. When you think about what contributed to that decline, are there things that really stand out to you as the big contributors?

Steve: What happened was when the Jesus movement swept through the church in the late sixties, early seventies, it brought a lot of youth who were excited about the things of God and that just created an overall enthusiasm. And out of that enthusiastic movement, Christianity became more popular in America. There was a real change. It went from being something that old people did to in the eighties when it became something that young people were involved in. So in the eighties, we saw a real change come over the evangelical movement. Mega churches started to proliferate across the country. Christian radio just really took off. There were shows that began then that are still going today and have held that level of success all these years.
    So, what happened was success came into the church and it really became the thing to look acceptable to the culture. So, the aspects of success, the size and the focus became shifted from godliness to talent. And as that change happened, there was a great diminishment in the passion, because over time the culture of the world began to mix in with the church. And it's really gone downhill since then. So, in my opinion, that is why that fire went out from the 1970’s.

Nate: Yeah. So, it's like the fire was there because people were pressing into God Himself. But then when the focus shifts to something else, you start kind of moving away and you just lose the passion.

Steve: Yeah, it's just success. I mean, that's what happened. The church became successful, and the culture started noticing the church. And it wasn't all negative attention like what it's mostly become now. Now there is vitriol aimed at the church. Back then it wasn't that way.

Nate: One of the things that you just touched on was that when you make something other than the pursuit of God the focus, then there is going to be some kind of negative consequence. There's going to be some kind of diminishment in your spiritual life. And one thing that Patrick and I were talking about in preparation for this interview is how easy it is to pursue a cause because there are so many good ones out there. Like abortion, or justice, or the need to have godly schooling and training for your kids. In a really wicked age, there are a lot of good causes to promote and to fight for. But then there's just the dangers that can come with it when you make that the thing that you're going to focus your whole life on. What do you see as being one of the main negative consequences of doing that?

Steve: Well, some of the causes you mentioned were not really going on in the eighties. The main causes back then with Christian activists were against abortion, against pornography and against the homosexual agenda. And because I was in the midst of starting a ministry to men in sexual sin, those issues became big for me as well. And it wasn't until later that I really could look back and see things in hindsight. You see, what was happening was there was a shift in church culture. In the seventies there was a lot of repentance going on. There were people really seeing their need to repent of their sins and to walk circumspectly with God. Meaning they were being very aware of their own tendencies to veer off or to get carnal or worldly.

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 By the time of the eighties, the shift that I could see happening was that Christian activists like Don Wildman and Jerry Falwell were creating a movement within the church, and it was taking the church with it. They were focused on these causes and basically what it amounted to was seeing the faults in the culture and focusing on the faults out there rather than people looking at their own hearts. I think that was one of the main reasons why the American church left its passion for God and was kind of displaced in part by those kind of things.

Nate: Ok, briefly, could you talk about what the connection is between why starting to always look outward reduces the passion for God?

Steve: Let me answer that question by referring to the Sermon on the Mount. How did Jesus open it?
    Blessed are the poor in spirit.
    Blessed are those who mourn.
    Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Those were the foundational pieces that should be in place as people come into the kingdom. But those same components are vital for someone to maintain their life in the kingdom. That requires you to have a tremendous awareness of your own need before God.
     That is what it means to walk in repentance. And that was at some level very real in the seventies and into the eighties. But it started to change. And part of that change came from people looking at outward issues instead of looking inwardly at their own hearts. And I don't mean there should be morbid introspection and a total fixation on what's wrong with oneself. There is a healthy balance between having our eyes on God and on being aware of our own lack and our own need.

Nate: Ok. I have a thought pertaining to what you were talking about. You were saying that sometimes God sees something different in our inner life as we're fighting for these causes. We may be looking out and seeing all the problems in the world around us and God might see something going on in our hearts. That's basically what Jesus’s message to the church in Ephesus was all about in the Book of Revelation, because he saw their works and He said there was a lot of good there.

  For instance, they were not bearing with those who are evil. They were exposing false apostles. They were patiently enduring. They were bearing up for the sake of His name and not growing weary. But he also said to them that they had abandoned the love that they had at first. He even went as far as to say, “If you don't go back to where you were, I'm going to take your lamp stand away.” Why is maintaining our first love so important to Jesus?

Steve: Well, the whole point of Christianity is to enter that relationship with God to where we love Him and have a love relationship with Him. Which is different from religion. The Christian religion says, “Okay. I have all these do’s and don'ts” or “I'm supposed to go to church. I'm supposed to not do these things or go to these places.” That's religion. But Christianity is a spiritual life.

  It isn't just going to church. It is my spirit interacting with God's Spirit, and the connection between that interaction is love. It's my love for God that makes me want to interact with Him and makes me want to worship Him. And it's His love for me that wants to care for me and watch over my life and so on. That interaction between God and us is what it is all about. I know, for me personally, I started off with a passion for God, but it diminished over time and then it came back. I think that is pretty typical for someone on the right trajectory. They start off in that first love and then over time it kind of dissipates. But then it starts building up into a mature love.

  And that's what I can say, 40 to 50 years later for myself is that my love for God is so much stronger than it was 20 to 30 years ago, even though I felt more passionate than I do today. But it has matured into something that's real and it controls how I think and act. My love for the Lord is why I don't allow myself to lust and do the things I used to do. I don't have to beat myself into not doing the wrong thing because I don't want to do something that displeases the Lord. There's just a change that has gone on inside me. I'm just using myself as an example, but that I think is part of what has been missing in the Church. A real sincere love for the Lord.

We know that a marriage cannot survive when selfishness dominates the couple’s hearts and their home. But do we really believe that the opposite is also true–that a marriage will overflow with blessing when each spouse is giving their lives away for others? In episode 6 of Ashes to Beauty, Scott and Erin Wilson talk about why living "the mercy life" radically changed their marriage and became one of their greatest goals.

Resources

• From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colón

Proverbs 28:26  in the NKJV says, "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered." In this interview, Nate sits down with Ed Buch to unpack this verse and how applying it to our lives can save us from having to learn the hard way from our mistakes. (from Purity for Life Episode #498 - Babylon: An Empire Aimed at Conquest)

Nate: OK. So, Pastor Ed. This is the second segment in a show where we are looking at how the enemy has infiltrated this world and how he is working to create a global mindset where he is fully in control of people's hearts and minds. And the thing I wanted to key in on in this interview was part of how he does that. Pastor Steve has said that many people spend their whole lives pursuing what brings them the most pleasure, and that they think they are in full control of their lives. But they don’t realize that they are being led by the hand to their destruction by the spirit of Babylon. And the reason that I wanted to key in on that is because if there is anything that defines American culture, it is the pursuit of pleasure. And so, what Pastor Steve is saying is that we can think that we're in full control because we're pursuing what pleases us. But in reality, we are being controlled by the spirit of the world and we're being led to destruction. What I’d like you to do for us is give some Scriptural support for that idea?

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Ed: Unfortunately, Nate, I think most of us find out the truth of what Pastor Steve is saying the hard way. One of the things we always must keep in mind about lust is that it is never satisfied. All of us have something that we're allured by and attracted to in the pleasure realm that's different for each person. We all have our little individual preferences and tastes, but there's something that we're pulled toward and most of us eventually find a way to experience it. Those things are not all necessarily even sinful, but many of them can really delve into sin very quickly for us.

  But the thing is that over time, the pleasure we're getting out of that experience fades. What once brought us a real thrill of pleasure now leaves us dissatisfied and craving for more and at a place where we internally feel like we have a need for this thing. And sometimes at that point, we'll go after a more powerful version of the thing that we've been pursuing or we'll seek out another form of pleasure altogether that is more powerful to us. But regardless, we're following our desire for pleasure and that self-centered pursuit of pleasure is leading us down a path. In 1 John 5:19 it says that the whole world lies under the sway of the evil one. Or as the NIV puts it, under the control of the evil one. So, when we're naively pursuing that worldly pleasure, we're actually immersing ourselves in that domain where evil prevails and in that domain our control is nothing more than an illusion.

  This is exactly what Paul was talking about in Romans 6 where he says that we are slaves to the one we present ourselves to. Whether that's sin leading to death or obedience leading to righteousness. We're all enslaved. We have a choice to make, but we'll be a slave to one or the other. So, whether we realize it or not, our pursuit of pleasure is increasingly enslaving us to sin and handing control over to the evil one in our life. And many of us end up enslaved to various forms of pleasure, sexual pleasure of course being predominant in our culture and in our ministry here. But here's the sad part of this Nate, even after whatever we’re chasing no longer gives us the pleasure we are seeking from it, we will continue to be driven by a desire for it. That is the place of misery and destruction that the evil one had in mind from the beginning.

Nate: Yeah. The thing that you said, or inferred I think is that as humans we're really never in control. The only control we have is who to give control to. Do we give it to Satan, or do we give it to God? Do we give it to righteousness or do we give it to sin? And that's the only choice we have. We don't have the choice of remaining in control of our own destination. We don't have the option of remaining in control of how our lives will turn out. So, it's very clear to me where we can be very self-deceived. We may think that we can make a decision and control the outcome, but that's not an option.

Ed: Not really. Once you make the choice of which path you’re taking, then the destination is settled for you.

Nate: Yeah. And let's bring in a Scripture here. The first part of Proverbs 28:26 says, “Whoever trusts his own heart is a fool.” How do you see a Scripture like that playing into this conversation?

Ed: Well, from a Biblical perspective, the heart that it's talking about is the seat of our desires. And of course, I think most of us would understand that we're born with a sin nature, which means all of those innate desires have been corrupted in some measure. So, I find myself literally cringing when I hear people say things like, “just follow your heart.” That is literally the exact opposite of what the Proverb says. You have a lot of movies, even Christian movies, that seem to really push this notion of following our hearts. But when it comes to what the Scriptures have to say about the heart, it's a scary reality in a sense. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. If you really consider what it's saying, would you follow your heart? Would you willingly follow something that is deceitful above all things? Everything else is less deceitful than your own heart. Is that the path you are going to choose? And Jesus Himself said in Mark 7 that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride and foolishness.

  That whole list of stuff comes out of someone's heart. So, I think that it's very clear in Scripture that the heart is the seat of our corruption. It's full of corrupt desires and it's easily swayed by untrustworthy emotions as well. So, Scripture really has a dual thing that it teaches us against following our hearts. And I think you could even say that every sin a person ever commits started in their heart. So, if we follow our hearts, we're just literally playing right into Satan's hands. We're doing exactly what he wants us to do. And we're a fool like that Proverb said because we have been warned over and over in Scripture not to do that.

Nate: Yeah. And I think that if anybody would just take an honest look and survey their past, they will see that we all naturally trust our hearts. We don't have to be told to trust our hearts. We don't have to be encouraged to do it. We just do it.

Ed: We want to be deceived I think is part of what's going on there because we really just want what we want. Deceiving ourselves in order to go after what we want is something that us as fallen human beings are willing to do.

Nate: Yea. So, then the other half of Proverbs 28:26 says, “He who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” We obviously really need this because like you said, in so many situations in our lives the only thing that really seems to get through to us is the pain of our horrible decisions. Who really wants to spend the rest of their lives only learning from complete disaster and failure. So the solution to avoiding that is to grow in wisdom. What is wisdom?

Ed: Well, I saw you were going to ask me that question today, so I took the liberty of looking it up on the dictionary app on my phone. And one of the definitions that it gave me was “Scholarly knowledge or learning.” That's what we might call human wisdom and the Bible does use the word wisdom that way a couple of times. For example, in Acts 7:22 it says Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deed. That kind of human wisdom is occasionally being referenced, but it's usually pretty clear by the context that it's not the same as godly wisdom. I think of it as wisdom with a small “w”. Now contrast that with the godly attribute of Wisdom that you might think of as Wisdom with a capital “W”.

  So, one of the other definitions really gets more at the godly attribute of Wisdom. It says that Wisdom is the knowledge of what is true or right coupled with the just judgment as to action. Now that's a mouthful. But in simple terms, it's knowing what's true and right, and then acting according to that. And I think that's a lot closer to what the Bible has in mind when it speaks of Wisdom. I'll throw another definition in here as well. Years ago, I ran across another definition of wisdom from a ministry website and I jotted it down. It said that Wisdom is seeing and responding to life's situations from God's frame of reference. I think that is a very practical and helpful definition of Wisdom.

Nate: Yeah, that is definitely what we need because like you said, Wisdom is the knowledge of what is right and true coupled with just judgment about the action. And sometimes we don't see the situation at all for what it really is. Sometimes we do see the situation for what it is, but we don't act in a way that is going to get us through. It's like the verse that says, “The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.” (Proverbs 22:3, ESV) We do that a lot. Our desires are really deceptive and they're really powerful. Another verse that I thought about that shows us our total need of the Lord even in this whole realm of learning to walk in Wisdom is that Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. Why is that?

Ed: Well, first of all, I think most Christians can probably quote that part of the verse by heart from Proverbs. But I find that most people don't have much of an understanding of what the fear of the Lord really is or even a sense of their true need for fearing the Lord. The way I see it, a healthy fear of the Lord is rooted in His role as judge. The Bible of course teaches us that everyone is going to be judged one day. It's right there in 2 Corinthians 5:10. It says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Cor 5:10, NKJV) We're all going to appear before that judgment seat and Jesus told us that we shouldn't fear those who can only kill the body but can't do anything to our soul. He says, “rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.” Of course, the latter is referring to God. We should fear the Lord.

  So, Wisdom is simply living in the reality that my eternity is much more important than my present. I'm going to be judged and there's going to be an eternity that follows that judgment that is either going to be very good or very bad for me. When I live with that kind of perspective ever in front of me, then I'm living by Wisdom. So, that includes denying myself worldly pleasures right now and taking every thought captive. That means storing up my treasure in heaven instead of on the earth and focusing on my spiritual growth. That means developing the mind of Christ and prioritizing my relationship with my Heavenly Father. Those are all the things that result when someone's living according to Wisdom in their life. And if I live today with the intent of being in the right place spiritually, when I get to that place of judgment before Christ then I've allowed my healthy fear of the Lord to steer me down the right path of Wisdom. I won't be living in sin with the fear of being punished, but rather I'll be living in obedience with the expectation of receiving the reward that comes for that.

If a couple who were in real trouble asked you what it would take to restore their lives and their marriage, what would you tell them? Would you tell them they both really need a desperate desire for righteousness? In episode five of our series Ashes to Beauty, Shawn and Susan Smith talk about why becoming hungry for righteousness made such a huge difference in their own lives and marriage.

Resources

• From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colón

Have you ever sought counsel for something and the person giving you counsel starts touching on something that you think is totally unrelated to your problem? For example, you want help with your addiction to sexual sin and they start talking to you about your relationship with God, your ingratitude, fear, worry, or even your perfectionism. In this episode we discuss some of the spiritual issues that a person must deal with if he or she is looking to find freedom from sexual sin.

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Want to learn how to overcome temptation? Then check out this episode. We'll look at James 1:12-15, where the apostle left us priceless wisdom on the nature of temptation, so that we can learn how to handle temptation in a way that brings life.

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In the fourth episode of Ashes to Beauty: Scott and Erin Wilson’s world blew apart in one day when Erin found texts from another woman on Scott's phone. For the next couple of years, they tried to fix their marriage--in their own way and their own strength. Eventually, they both came to the place where they were willing to do the will of God. That’s when their marriage began to be restored.

Resources

• From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colón

In the newest episode of Ashes to Beauty: When our hearts are torn open, we frantically reach for anything that will take away the pain. But what if God showed up in our suffering and told us that our pain was actually opening the door to tremendous blessing? Even though that makes no sense to our natural minds, that's exactly what He means when He says, "Blessed are those who mourn."

Resources

• From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colón
• A Biblical Perspective on Brokenness (Article) by Jim Lewis

This week's blog post features part of a discussion between Nate and biblical counselor Ken Larkin on 1 John 2:15-17. We would encourage you to take a moment if you can to read and meditate on this passage before reading this interview. (from Purity for Life Episode #497 - Babylon: The Global Mindset of Kosmos)

Nate: OK so for anyone who's listening, basically, what I asked my guest, Ken, to do was to spend some time studying 1 John 2:15-17 and I would do the same. Then we would just come in and talk about it. So, I'm not sure how this is going to go. You have notes and I have notes, and this will be completely free flowing. So, let me just read the passage and then I'll open it up to you and you can just give some initial thoughts. This is from the ESV.

      “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

So, I'll just open it up to you for something that jumped out to you that you want to share.

Ken: Yeah. One of the first things that really jumped out to me is the fact that a lot of times when I'm thinking of worldliness in general, I'm thinking of outward things and what I'm doing outwardly. But one’s behavior is just fruit of where their heart is anyway. So, John is actually talking about a heart posture here. Love not the world. And then he goes on to say what the things of the world are. Those are actually heart issues and your outward lifestyle is going to be indicative of where your heart is.

Nate: Ok. So, sometimes when we think about worldliness, we're trying to figure out, what things can I do and what things can I not do. But you're saying that when you read this passage, it's not so much about the external things, it's the internal things. When I studied this passage, what was interesting to me was when he says, “Do not love the world,” it gets you in the mindset of asking, “what is the world?” But he uses the phrase later in verse 16, “For all that is in the world.” And then he talks about lust and pride and that's just very interesting to me. He's not talking about systems. He's not talking about activities. He's saying everything in the world. Lust and pride. This is what you can't devote your life to. When it says do not love the world, that's the Greek word agape, which in this context is meaning the ruling passion of your life.

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Ken: Yeah. And he's telling us that because the world caters to those things. Everything around us is moving in that direction and if we're not separate, then we're going to be in that same flow.

Nate: Can you describe that flow? What are you talking about when you say that?

Ken: It is the flow of living to satisfy self. To fulfill the desires of the flesh. I looked “fulfilling the desires of the flesh” up in the original language and it was talking about animalistic appetites. And this same usage is used in referring to the lust for physical pleasure or even overindulging in gluttony or getting drunk. Then moving on from those physical lusts, there is the lust of the eyes. Even this sort of lust can still lend itself to sexual lust, but it could also just be a coveting spirit. That could be even just materialism and wanting things. And then there is the pride of life where your heart posture is basically exalting yourself. Whether it's a position or your possessions and it's always in comparison to other people and it comes down to a worldly mentality of wanting to be on top. So, if your life is being devoted to those things, no matter how much you go to church and no matter how much you look to be a godly or a moral individual, you're actually worldly.

Nate: Yeah, I think that can be a challenge to really come to grips with. That if what I'm doing is coming from a selfish motive, then that's what God sees. It’s not as if God is looking to see if we did more good than we did bad. He is not looking and saying, “I see that you're doing, A, B, and C, which is not good, but look at all the good stuff you're doing. You are going to church. You’re an elder. You’re a worship leader.” Doing those good things doesn’t mean that God just overlooks the bad stuff. That’s not the truth of the matter. And it can take some courage to come to grips with the fact that what the Lord is looking at is the heart and even the best things we do can be flowing from a selfish and self-centered motive.

       It should give all of us a pause to say, “Wow. Why do I do what I do?” Because if the world is all about the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life, we could be doing a bunch of good things and it could be coming from those desires. Because if the desire of the eyes is really about seeing something and wanting it, that could be anything. That could be a position at the church I see open that I want and I'm going after it. That could be I see people's approval and I want that and I'm going after it. That could be, I'm a small group leader and people look up to me and now I'm boasting about it. That's the pride of life. I mean, these things just dig way deep into our lives and that's what John is saying. We can't be devoted to things that lend themselves to the love of the world. The Word of God really does cut like a two-edged sword right into the heart to find out what's really going on. What else did you see?

Ken: One of the things I would say is Jesus said, “where your treasure is there will your heart be also.” And I thought about the direction of one’s life. What are they really seeking after? What's most important to them? So, even though it is a heart issue, what they’re doing on a daily basis will show them where their heart is. If someone is just glutting themselves with entertainment, then obviously that's a sign that they're not seeking first the Kingdom of God.

       I thought about a more blatant example of this. Think of someone who doesn't claim to know the Lord or maybe they are a nominal Christian and they're not even living a godly life, but they're doing all these humanitarian things. That doesn't mean they are godly just because they’re doing something right. The general tenor of their life is flowing away from God and toward the world. There is an obvious danger in loving the world and its immorality. Why would he command us not to love the world if there wasn't a danger that even Christians could fall into that.

       And it is a commandment. It isn’t just a suggestion. He says blatantly, “love not the world.” And then I thought it was interesting that he even ended this epistle with, “Little children, keep yourself from idols.” So, just the whole idea of what's fueling the direction of your life is where your treasure is. Is there an idol in your life? Is there something worldly? Even if it's just simply a position. It doesn't have to be all the trappings of the world like a new car or a new house. It could just be desiring to promote yourself to be the best at something and to elevate yourself above others. To have power or prestige or just like you said, to look good or to be pleasing to people, but it's still promoting yourself.

Sexual sin is like a hurricane of evil, and the overwhelming devastation can make it seem like there's no hope for the marriage. But in God's powerful hands, the sense of our total neediness actually becomes the first step on the road to redemption. That's what we'll talk about in episode two of our series Ashes to Beauty.

Resources

• From Ashes to Beauty (Book) by Jeff Colón