How does biblical counseling differ from other counseling methods? Jeff Colon shows us that if we would effectively help people, we must understand the true nature of their problems. He also discusses what role past experiences play in the addictions many people struggle with.

Mike: Jeff, as men and women come to us, many of them have looked in a number of places for answers and have gotten a lot of different information. When we're looking at the method of our council, what is the foundation that we use for helping people with their problems?

Jeff: Well Mike, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 it tells us that,

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

As a Christian, we have to realize that God's Word has everything we need to help bring a person out of a horrible pit of sin, and into the will of God.

Mike: Jeff, I know that when many people look at the Word of God, they see that it is a Book that talks about who God is and about salvation. But I think sometimes, it's hard for people to grasp that it really does have something to say about the day-to-day problems that we deal with. So, is there more to the Word of God than just over-arching religious issues, as some may see it?

Jeff: Absolutely. If we would just get in the Scriptures, we would realize that the Word of God addresses every kind of situation that a person is going to encounter in life. The joy I find in Biblical Counseling is that I know that whatever someone is dealing with, that the Word of God is going to reveal what the problem is and is also going to reveal the way out. God never points out a problem in our lives without giving us the answer.

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Mike: Okay. Then based on that, as we look at our method of counseling those struggling with sexual addiction, in much of both Christian and secular counseling, people want to look at what's going on in our early years. Is there something about how addiction is formed that relates to how we've grown up, or the experiences that we go through as we're growing up?

Jeff: You know, we were created to worship God. We were created for God. But we were also created to have fellowship with God. When we turned from that relationship that we had with God, there was a void left there. And every child that's born on Earth is born with that need inside of them to be accepted and to be loved, which really, only God can provide. Now, I don't know of a perfect mother, or a perfect dad, or a perfect situation that someone grows up with. When so we grow up, there's things that happen to us. Children are even abused. And the problem is that they have that longing there and they are not getting it met, so they turn to other things to fill that void in their life. And the more they turn to that, the more they become addicted to what it's giving them. That could be sex, it could be anything that is gratifying that need inside of them, that longing inside of them that really only God can fill.

Mike: Then how much am I really responsible for the choices and decisions I make now as an adult?

Jeff: We don't want to totally rule out the experiences, and I don't want to discount that they have effects on a child. But we've got to remember that people choose to sin. And whether harm was inflicted on us by someone or something else, or if we inflict harm on ourselves by choices we make, God calls us to deal with what we're facing biblically.

Mike: Would you agree that a vast majority of the emotional problems that we see in adults today, are rooted in our sinful condition and our rebellion against God, or in our response to others around us who are in a sinful condition?

Jeff: Here's the problem, Mike. If we just deal with our problems on an emotional level, we're never really going to get to the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter is: we're born sinners, and the problems we face are the result of a sin issue. And unless we deal with the problem from where it originates, we will never experience freedom from whatever we're dealing with.

Mike: I think simply stated, we could say that most of the secular psychotherapy that people are exposed to only want to deal with the issue from an emotional level, and this is going to fall very short of what God wants to do in someone's life. What about the Christian psychologist, who will often deal with an issue on the emotional level, but also sees a need to bring in the spiritual component? Is that going far enough to really help a person?

Jeff: Well, a lot of times when a Christian counselor approaches it in that way, he's still keeping it an emotional problem. Unless we call it sin and unless there is true brokenness and repentance, unless there is a conforming of our lives to the Word of God, there will not be true freedom.

Mike: So, the problem that we're dealing with then is a sin issue and it's a matter of the heart. Talk to us a little bit about what the Bible has to say about the heart and the issue of sin.

Jeff: Jesus tells us that from within - from out of the heart of men - proceed evil thoughts: fornication, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these things proceed from within. And what that tells me, Mike, is that I'm not a product of my environment. The problem lies within, and the Word of God is clear on that. Jesus was clear on it.

Mike: So that makes me responsible.

Jeff: Absolutely

Mike: Okay then, you're a Christian counselor and you're talking to someone who has a condition of the heart manifesting itself in some way. What is the role of the Biblical Counselor in helping this individual?

Jeff: The goal of the Biblical Counselor is to help this person to see their problem the way God sees it. So, we have to bring them to the Scriptures, and we have to show them what the Bible says about what they're doing or what they're bound in. Then, we also show them the way out and actually come alongside of them and lead them, through the Word of God, into the way of freedom.

Mike: So, if I'm coming to a Biblical Counselor for help, I should expect that they are going to deal with sin very forthrightly and very frankly. And I'm going to be expected to respond to that, correct?

Jeff: Yes Mike. And I'd like to add, they're going to deal with it lovingly. Because we're not here to beat someone over the head with the Word of God. Jesus loved the woman at the well. He wasn't afraid to point out that she was in sin. But He didn't leave her there. He pointed her to the true source of the living waters, which was Himself.

Mike: Jeff, I know sometimes people look at counseling as if there's some great mystery to it that perhaps only the specially trained or only those who have the secrets can really understand. But when it comes to Biblical Counseling, there really isn't any mystery to what takes place, is there?

Jeff: No Mike, there isn't. Really, what a true Biblical Counselor does is, they roll their sleeves up and get in the mess with the person. That's what Jesus did for us. Then, through the truths of Scripture, they lead that person out of the quagmire that they have been stuck in. As that person learns to apply the Word of God to their situation, the Word of God does what it's supposed to do. It sets that person free. They start realizing that, as they are obedient to God, He will bring about in their life what they thought was impossible. And really, the Biblical Counselor is there to encourage them and admonish them, to come alongside of them and pray with them - to just help them out through the process.

Mike: So really, the biblical counselor is a facilitator of what God wants to do as the person responds to his authority and his direction in the Word of God.

Jeff: Yes.

Mike: Amen. Jeff, thanks for talking to us about the method of our counsel.

Shawn grew up in a decent Christian home. But his teenage life was marked by rebellion, pride, and sexual sin. In college, he had dropped the Christian façade completely—unless it got him something he wanted. So when he met Susan, he used that Christian mask to win her heart.

They got married, and things went alright for a while, until his double life was exposed. But God was faithful. Through Pure Life, God worked in their hearts during the most difficult period of their lives. Today they not only have a joyful marriage, but a passionate love for Jesus.

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What is the foundation of biblical counseling? Jeff Colon gives us a clear look by showing how the Word of God plays a critical role in helping people overcome problems in their lives. He also discusses what is needed in the life of the counselor if he or she is to be effective in helping lead others in the truth.

Mike: Jeff, as we talk today about the foundation of our counsel, I want to start off by asking, what does it really take to be a counselor in this area?

Jeff: Well Mike, we have the answer in the Scriptures. Paul tells us in Galatians 6: 1-2. I'm going to read it out of the amplified, because it really does give a better description of what Paul is saying. Here he says,

"Brethren, if any person is overtaken in misconduct or sin of any sort, you who are spiritual [who are responsive to and controlled by the Spirit] should set him right and restore and reinstate him, without any sense of superiority and with all gentleness, keeping an attentive eye on yourself, lest you should be tempted also. Bear (endure, carry) one another’s burdens and troublesome moral faults, and in this way fulfill and observe perfectly the law of Christ (the Messiah) and complete what is lacking [in your obedience to it]."

I tell my counselors that you can't take a man where you haven't been yourself spiritually. We believe in training. We all get our degrees in Biblical Counseling. There's a place for training, but simply going to a Bible School and getting an education in learning how to counsel does not qualify you to sit across from a man who's bound in sexual sin and bring him to the Cross and into a new life in Christ. You have to have trodden down that path yourself. You have to know what it's like to be humbled by God and to be broken by God over your own sins. You have to know, in your own life, what it means to submit your will to God and to live your life according to the Word and what God tells us to do in His Word.

Mike: You talk about being spiritual. Can you outline a little more, the specific aspects of what it means to be spiritual and how you carry that into counseling?

Jeff: Sure. Paul talks in Galatians about walking in the Spirit. It's not walking with your head in the clouds - you know, walking in lala land. But, it's a practical, daily walk with God, where you have learned to deny your flesh. You have learned to be obedient to the Word of God and to choose the things of the Spirit such as kindness and gentleness. You are choosing to be long-suffering with people instead of impatient. It's a daily choice of choosing to live out the love of God towards other people and living for God and loving God with our whole heart.

Mike: So, the fruit of the Spirit would be something evident in someone who's qualified to counsel biblically?

Jeff: Absolutely.

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Mike: What is it that makes the counseling here at Pure Life Ministries unique, aside from the fact that the counselors are walking in the Spirit, that they are evidencing spiritual maturity in their lives? What's the other difference?

Jeff: Well the big difference, Mike, is that we adhere wholeheartedly to the Scriptures and we believe that the Scriptures are sufficient for every situation and every problem that a person that comes to us is facing. It says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

I believe that statement. I believe the scriptures have everything a man needs to be complete in God.

Mike: So, what is it about, I guess we could term it "secular therapies," that are out there? What is it that they're using? They're not using the Word of God, obviously. Is there any help that they're offering people to really deal with their problems?

Jeff: Typically Mike, they might be able to help people understand why they're doing what they're doing. But there's never a concrete way out. There's really no hope. And really, a lot of times they're left with a stigma hanging over their life that they have a disorder or that they're going to be this way the rest of their life and they just have to learn how to cope with it. That's really the best that man can do.

Mike: I guess what we're really talking about here is a process of restoration. Jeff, if you could, talk to us a little bit about that process of restoration and what that looks like.

Jeff: Well the goal in Biblical Counseling is always Christ-likeness. What I mean by that is thinking and acting biblically. And the Scripture I read to you earlier really does lay out what you want to help a man to do in the restoration process. First of all, doctrine will help the man see things from God's perspective. We have to base our problems and what we're dealing with on the Word of God, because the Word of God gives us a way out. God never identifies a problem without giving us a way out. Doctrine helps us to understand who God is and how He sees us. It reveals our relationship with Him, our purpose in life, how the kingdom of God works. And we all need an understanding because without the Word of God, we really don't have an understanding of the things of God. So, it's very important to help a man to start seeing things from God's perspective through His Word. Then you want to reprove them. You want to help them see where they're in error, where they're missing the mark, as it were. And the Word of God is profitable to do that. It points out things in their lives such as the way they're reacting to different situations. I always think of the example of Cain when he failed in his sacrifice. It says his countenance fell. And God explained to him what he needed to do. He corrected and reproved Cain and said, "If you do right, will not your countenance be lifted?" And He even explained what would happen if Cain didn't do it. So, the Word of God helps us to see where we've been in error, but it also corrects us and helps us to know what we can do to correct the problem.

Mike: As you're talking about that, I'm just comparing that in my mind with secular counseling, especially psychotherapy where everything is so gray and so variable. With that method, it's all based on feelings about the problem. And there just isn't any hope in that. There's no clear direction. There's no clear definition of the problem. But in God's Word, it's very clearly defined. And what a joyous hope there is in that. That God doesn't just leave us to figure it out.

Jeff: I can't tell you how many times I've had a guy sitting across the table from me that has spent years going to clinics, going to a psychiatrist or a psychologist and reading books or watching videos, going away for weekend retreats that when he is finally given the simple truths of the Bible and he sees his problem the way God sees it, and sees the way out, it's like a light goes on and all of a sudden there's hope. Now they know, there's a way out.

Mike: Wow, that's got to be encouraging for you as a counselor to see.

Jeff: Oh, it is.

Mike: As a counselor, obviously you deal with men who you know are either slow to come around, or they just have got a hard heart. You just know when you talk to them, it's just going to take longer for this guy. But how often do you deal with a guy that's just very difficult to counsel, and how do you deal with that as a counselor?

Jeff: Well I think a lot of the time, it is difficult. It's never easy confronting somebody's flesh. And people usually don't like their flesh getting confronted or having their wills crossed, but you have to realize that God bears us. He's been long-suffering. When I look at my own life, I can see how long-suffering God has been with me. I can't tell you how many times I rebelled against God, and I was hard-hearted and stubborn and dug my heels in. I have to understand that this guy I'm counseling is just starting out. I have to be willing to roll up my sleeves and enter into their situation with compassion. If you haven't walked that out yourself, you're not going to have compassion, you’re just going to be one of those people that throw out Bible verses and beat them over the head with your Bible. But if you understand how Jesus bore you and got you to where you're at, then you're willing to roll your sleeves up and tough it out with this guy through the hard times. And you understand, it's going to be a process.

Satan is an incredibly crafty foe. He can convince multitudes that, though they have ongoing sin in their life, their work in ministry or church attendance means they are living according to God's will. Tragically, hundreds of thousands are living like this, professing Christianity but enslaved to sin. If this describes you, know that it doesn't have to stay this way. In this segment, we talk with Biblical Counselor Luke Imperato about how we can start living wholly in God's will instead of Satan's.

Anyone who has been in sexual sin for a long time, has had to keep their private lives covered with a lot of lies. They have lied to their families and friends. They have lied to their churches, pretending that everything is ok with them spiritually.

They also lie to themselves, saying that God understands, that the rules don’t apply to them. But the worst lie they have told is to Jesus. They say they love him and are following him, but they refuse to follow His commands. In this episode, we discuss the false religion that tempts all of us.

It’s easy to get discouraged if you’ve been stuck in sexual sin a long time. You may really want to stop, but you’ve tried everything you can think of to get free and yet, nothing works. Maybe you’re thinking, “This is hopeless. I’ll never be free.” If you’ve been thinking along these lines, you’ve fallen prey to self-pity, just another one of Satan’s schemes to keep people away from true repentance, faith and salvation. It’s an easy trap to fall into. In this episode, we look at how to know if you’re in self-pity, how to avoid it, and how to get out of it.

Mike: Kathy, we got a response from a woman who really had been impacted by At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry, which of course, was written primarily for men, before you and Steve wrote Create in Me a Pure Heart for women. And two things that she said really helped her in dealing with sexual sin in her own life were one, accountability, and two, someone who was willing to tell her the truth and help her to really face the truth about herself.  

Kathy: Yeah, that's very important. This woman that she's calling her mother, she's not really her mother, just a very dear woman who had the courage to tell Brittney what she saw, to tell her straight up what she saw, that she was full of lust and self-pity. And it caused Britney to really look at her life. And that began a relationship between them, where Britney was able to confess her sins to this woman, and this woman has really bore Britney in her heart for a number of years now. It's been the thing that has changed her life.  

Mike: We do have tremendous sympathy and compassion for these women. I know that you do. I hear it in your voice when you talk about these women. But true mercy, the mercy of God, will confront these women about what's going on in their heart.  

Kathy: Absolutely. And that's what mercy is. I mean, mercy is stepping in to the life of someone that is on their way to hell, in many cases, and stopping them. It's throwing up a roadblock and saying, "Stop!" That's mercy. It's the right thing to do. And to turn away from someone that you know is really struggling, and to act like they'll figure it out on their own, or to just go into denial, is really unkind and unmerciful.  

Mike: And sometimes, just a lack of courage.  

Kathy: Yeah.  

Mike: Well, hopefully what we talk about today will really help some women that have come to a point in their life where they see they have a problem, and really want to deal with the root issues. But, there is so much misinformation out there about what the "root issues" are. Let's talk about, what I'll call, "The Blame Game." A lot of people blame their parents or their past for the choices and the decisions they're making in their lives. And many also blame their partners, their mates for the sexual sin they're involved in.  

Kathy: A lot of women will say that because their husbands neglect them, sexually, that that's the reason why they've gone into sin. And I understand, you know. I've talked to a lot of women whose husbands have neglected them. My heart goes out to them, I do have a lot of compassion. But, I also have to say, in that same compassion, that is not an excuse to go that way. They are only bringing on themselves corruption and distance from God - separation from God and all the other miseries that go along with it. You can't ever try to fill your own need as a Christian. You just can't. That's a dead end.  

Mike: The story that comes to my mind, is the story of Joseph, and how mistreated he was by his own family.  

Kathy: Right, and there was no self-pity which is really the root issue with a woman who's been neglected by her husband. Self-pity is something that you really have to be on guard against, because it allows you to so easily, justify in your own mind, going outside of the marriage to get your needs met. It's basically saying, "God, you're not taking care of me."  

Mike: That really leads us to our next point. Kathy, a lot of women are blaming God for the circumstances they find themselves in.  

Kathy: Well, they view God as a cosmic bellhop that can snap his fingers and make this go away. And, that's kind of a spiritually immature attitude to have. To ever take the position that God is responsible for the sin I'm presently in, is kind of a dangerous attitude to get yourself into. The reality is, for anybody that's in sin, God is not the author of it. God is the author of faith. He's the perfecter of faith. But he does not tempt us. He doesn't drag us into sin. He doesn't leave us in sin. We are where we are because that is ultimately the choice that we have made. God has put in our hands the power to overcome sin. He's given us His Holy Spirit. I never want to sound like I'm simplifying or minimizing. But the bottom line is, we have choices to make. If we don't choose God then we're choosing something else and then sin becomes our master and we become mastered by it.  

Mike: So, what you're really saying here with these issues, whether it's blaming your parents or blaming your past or even blaming your mate, these women must, we all must, take responsibility for their sins.  

Kathy: Yeah, they do. And, you know, I also want to just kind of throw in the mix here that I know a lot of these women that I have dealt with have been horribly abused. I don't want to discount how that has deeply affected them. But, it would be wrong for me, and unmerciful of me, to tell them that they get a pass because of that. If I don't challenge them to walk uprightly and above reproach, then I have done them a disservice. I'm not walking right myself, if I'm not challenging them to come out of a life of sexual sin.  

Mike: The Word of God is full of examples of God healing those wounds and bringing a renewed innocence, bringing a renewed joy and peace into their life. But, they certainly are not going to experience that if they're blaming God or someone else for their current decisions.  

Kathy: Their heart will grow cold and hard. There's words to a song that Point of Grace sings. I just recently heard it and one of the lines in that song says, "Heal the wound, but leave the scar." That really is beautiful. I like that, because it's like saying to the Lord, "Lord, heal this thing in me. But don't ever let me forget where I've come from. Don't ever let me forget the mercy that rescued me." And it is mercy that rescues us. But we have to position ourselves for that mercy to come and cleanse and do away with the thing that's going to destroy us.  

Mike: And I think of Romans 8:28. I almost hesitate to say it because, we've heard it so often that it doesn't mean much to us anymore, but it is so true. All of these things, no matter how horrible they have been, can work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Look at your life. Kathy, we see the terrible scars that occurred in your heart in your life. In part, because of Steve, your husband's, sexual sin. But look how God is using that. Even in this program today, he prepared you to help other women in similar positions.  

Kathy: And that's so much of what Christianity is. Whatever I've gone through has purpose. It all has a purpose. For me, my purpose is because there are other women out there. They're going through what I went through. And I want to be able to tell them that Jesus is The Way He's The Answer. You know I said on a different program, another time, and I've said this to many hundreds of women: I don't regret one day of the misery I went through with my husband. It taught me obedience. It taught me love for God. It gave me a healthy fear of God. I'm not one bit sorry I went through what I went through. And I believe, in my heart, most of those women want to serve the Lord. They just feel like they are stuck because of the sin they are in. But you just keep pressing on. God is going to hear those cries. He hears the cry of the afflicted and he wants to heal you. He wants to set you free. Don't ever lose sight of that.  

Mike: Amen. Well, let's talk about blaming emotional problems. We've really hinted at the response to this. Most often we hear that someone has these unmet needs, unmet emotional needs. And they believe that until those needs are met, they are not going to overcome their problems.  

Kathy: It is only the Lord God who can make right what's wrong in our emotional life. God is the restorer or of all things, and the more we sit and focus on ourselves, the more we talk about ourselves, the more we talk about the things that have been done to us: the more self-centered we become and self-absorbed. We become more depressed. The answer to overcoming depression is get out of yourself, as hard as that may be. You get out of yourself and you go out and you find someone who's in worse shape than you are and you start to wash their feet. You minister to their needs and take care of them. That's how you get free of depression.  

Mike: Well Kathy, we've looked at some of the areas that are the wrong path to go down when a woman is looking for help. Let's look at the right way to go. Once a woman is born again, God immediately begins a process of renewal in her life. And, surprisingly to some people, that begins with the death process. Talk a little bit about that.  

Kathy: The death process is this death to self or the self-life, which has created so much death in us as we've been so self-absorbed and trying to live a Christian life, but also given over to worldly and carnal lusts. You can't do both. Jesus said you cannot serve two masters. And it's so true. So, God begins this process of tearing down and doing away with that old life. And the new creation that came about at the new birth is God working in us and dealing with us and transforming us into the image of His dear Son. We have to die. And we have to allow God to kill off that old flesh nature. And it's a very painful process because, quite frankly, we love ourselves. We love ourselves in this world. We love our lives in this world. But this transformation - it really is such a transformation - into the nature of God doesn't happen without some pain. But it's a wonderful thing. And the deeper into the process you get, the more you love Jesus because you realize what an enormous, enormous blessing in favor he's doing you by doing that in you.  

Mike: And for these women, God has a wonderful plan for her, doesn't he?  

Kathy: Yes He does. The wonderful plan is that God is going to create in us a pure heart. That's His plan; that's where we're headed as he transforms us -  

Mike: Into the image of Jesus.  

Kathy: That's the goal, to be like Jesus.

It’s easy to get discouraged if you’ve been stuck in sexual sin a long time. You may really want to stop, but you’ve tried everything you can think of to get free and yet, nothing works. Maybe you’re thinking, “This is hopeless. I’ll never be free.”

If you’ve been thinking along these lines, you’ve fallen prey to self-pity, just another one of Satan’s schemes to keep people away from true repentance, faith and salvation. It’s an easy trap to fall into. In this episode, we look at how to know if you’re in self-pity, how to avoid it, and how to get out of it.

Dating in America is almost exclusively driven by an obsession with personal happiness and getting what we want. It’s clear that these ideas do not line up with Scripture. As Christians, we must be radically different from the world when we approach romantic relationships. Obviously, we must abstain from sex before marriage, but it goes much deeper than that. Today we look at how Christians should seek, not only to find a good spouse, but to please God in this whole process, so that their relationships honor God and reveal that He is trustworthy in all things.

Mike: Kathy, when we look at a woman who is dealing with sexual sin, I think we need to make it clear, right up front, that it's not just the sexual sin that the woman is addicted to, but she's really addicted to a complex chain of actions.  

Kathy: That's right, Mike. It all begins with temptation and then moves into the person's particular routine, whatever that may be and peaks, in the act itself and ends with the lingering, inevitable consequences of that death process that sin always brings.  

Mike: Underlying that is something else. It's just this idea of the lust in the woman's heart. Talk to us a little bit about that.  

Kathy: Well, I want to read a verse of Scripture, actually 3 verses, James 1: 13-15, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." Lust comes from within. It's not an outside thing that comes to us, but we are drawn away and enticed by something in us. So that's where lust comes from.  

Mike: Well, let's talk about the process of sin. There is a process. The initial step, of sin is what most people would think: the temptation.  

Kathy: Yeah, you get tempted, and you follow that temptation down a trail. There's a path, and there's something that's enticing to a person. One person may be tempted by seeing the cover of a magazine. That may do something for them, so that's going to start a whole chain reaction.  

Mike: One of the things I often hear from people, and I've even said it myself, and we've probably all said it is, "you know, I just hate this temptation. I really don't want to be tempted." Is that true?  

Kathy: No. I think people don't want to have to deal with it. But the truth is, we do enjoy the temptation. We enjoy the process that those thoughts take us down. So, to say, "I don't enjoy this," or, "I don't want this to happen," is really not being honest with yourself. Because, if that were true...

Mike: We'd stop it right then.  

Kathy: You would. It would be like stepping on a nail. I really don't enjoy stepping on nails; therefore, I'm going to put shoes on my feet and I'm going to quit doing that because I really don't like stepping on nails.  

Mike: And there is a sense that temptation is a lot like alcohol, or a lot like drinking. The more we drink, the more intoxicated we become by it. And that’s the same with temptation.  

Kathy: That's very true. I want to read a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who really was able to capture the whole idea of temptation and what happens to us when we are in the throes of our temptation. "At this moment, God is quite unreal to us. He loses all reality, and only desire for the creature [or sin] is real. The only reality is the devil. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. And now his falsehood is added to this proof of strength. The lust thus aroused envelopes the mind and will of a man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us." You know, reality is, and I think I can say this honestly, that for a lot of people we don't want Him. When we're in our lust, it's like we're saying, "Lord, go out and close the door for a while, because I'm going to do my thing." And that's the ugly reality of it.  

Mike: That's a very convenient forgetfulness.  

Kathy: Yes, it is. It's very convenient. And what he says here at the end of this quote, "The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us," I would add to that - not that it's taken from us, but that we have surrendered it. We are not being taken captive by some power outside of ourselves. It is something very much in our hearts. That's why we hammer away at dealing with the heart. Until you deal with your heart and get brutally honest with yourself about your heart and your issues, nothing is going to change.  

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Mike: You mention that as the woman gives over to this temptation, that is when the physical begins to kick in. What's happening there?  

Kathy: Well, she's actually going to start moving towards acting out. Once the thoughts come into her mind and once the temptation comes upon her, if she doesn't stop it right away, she's going to start physically moving towards the act of sin.  

Mike: I assume that, when a woman is in this position, that she's probably imagining to herself, "Well, I'm just going to do this, but I won't go any further and I won't do it again." But that's almost never true.  

Kathy: It's never true. I would say it's never true. It's just more of the lie we have to tell ourselves. She can convince herself she's not going to do it, that she won't do the same thing as the other day. She may say, "I'm not going to get on the Internet," or, "I'm not going to go as far as I went." But as she's speaking those words, she knows in her heart, if she's honest with herself, that's exactly what the plan is.  

Mike: And before long, as she's giving over physically to the sin, her own thinking is really becoming warped.  

Kathy: It's rotting out a resolve to do the right thing. You get a seared conscience after a while. The Bible talks about your heart becoming very calloused and hard. Eventually, you get to the place where you don't care about what God thinks.  

Mike: Well, that leads us to our next point: the point of no return. What is the woman thinking at that point?  

Kathy: She's not thinking. That's probably the problem. She's only entertained now by the thought of what these feelings are going to produce for her. You know, she's in the "feeling-mode." The feelings are now very dominant. They're controlling her, and she wants to satisfy this chain of events that she has entered into.  

Mike: You really do think to yourself, "I can't stop now. There's no way I can stop."  

Kathy: Right, essentially she's saying to herself, "I've gone too far. I might as well go ahead and get it over with." And she begins to justify herself thinking she can go to God get cleaned up afterwards, but right now she has gone too far. Now, it's the point of no return.  

Mike: And we talk about women in this process, and of course, there are various routines that women get into. Give us an example of a routine of sin.  

Kathy: Well, everybody is so different. She may go to her computer after work, at night, and convince herself that she is just going to look at the news or just look at the weather. Maybe she says, "I'm going to download some stuff on to my iPod. I'm not going to go there again." But she's already started the process. This is the trigger. And the longer you sit there, the more easy it's going to be for you to go ahead and go into something that you know you shouldn't go into. I mean, everybody's got a different routine, but everybody has a routine.  

Mike: And the commonality, whatever the routine may be, is we lie to ourselves about these routines. I think you said also earlier that, deep in our heart, we really want the sin, so we put ourselves in these routines because, deep in our heart, we know where the routine is going to lead.  

Kathy: Right, when you're really serious about changing, you do hard things to yourself. You put yourself in a hard position, rather than a position of falling. But people that are addicted make sure that their routine won't be thwarted.    

Mike: But we know, of course, that once given over to the routine, it's very unlikely that the woman is going to end up doing anything but giving over.  

Kathy: Right, actually you know that is almost always the case.  

Mike: And we know where sin leads.  

Kathy: In death.  

Mike: Talk to us about what that means. What does it mean that sin ends in death?  

Kathy: The end of the actual sin brings forth death. It brings the death of self-respect and the death of her dignity and the death of feelings and it leaves her in shambles emotionally inside.  

Mike: Well, what a contradiction. Even as you're saying those things, I'm thinking about what she even saw in the sin when she first saw the temptation, compared to what you're describing now?  

Kathy: That's, see, that's the deceitfulness of sin. If I could grab a hold of the women that are listening, that are struggling, and somehow impart to them the reality of that and how deceitful sin is. If I could sit here and tell you right now that, whatever fantasy you may be entertaining or whatever lust you may feel in your heart, I promise you that when you're done, you will hate yourself. You will not walk away fulfilled; you will walk away empty. You won't walk away satisfied; you'll walk away unfulfilled. You’ll be miserable.  

Mike: You know, we look at, very often, the catalyst here: the enemy, Satan, and at one moment in the temptation, he is promising the world and at the end of it, he brings condemnation. It's a terrible, terrible price that he extracts from these women.  

Kathy: Yeah, he's a liar and he's the father of lies. He's a deceiver and, you know, the Holy Spirit is always wooing us in the other direction. But the power of our lust and the power of the enemy is so strong. And that's why it's so important to have a real walk with God. That's the only strength that a woman will have is what she has between her and the Lord.  

Mike: So, I guess it's somewhat of an admonition, but really an encouragement when Paul said that God always - always provides a way of escape.  

Kathy: No temptation has taken you but what is common to man. But God will, with the temptation, make a way for you to - get the heck out of Dodge!  

Mike: And it's up to us to take that way.  

Kathy: I did this when I was a young Christian. I always waited for something to float down out of heaven and make me different. But, so much of the Christian life is obedience. It's going through painful experiences. It's all of those things, and all of it is for our good. And that's what the Christian life is. It's a journey. It's very much a walk. It's very much a relationship. It's me coming into my rightful place before God.

Being betrayed by someone you love brings indescribable pain. When David was betrayed, he cried out, “Fear and trembling grip me. Horror has overwhelmed me.” The betrayed wife knows these emotions well and Kathy Gallagher has been there herself.

She has used that experience to minister to thousands of wives, so that rather than being destroyed by pain, they are drawn closer to the Savior and Lover of their souls. In this week’s episode, Kathy helps us understand how to deal with painful emotions biblically, and how to allow God to have His rightful place in our hearts.

Mike: Kathy I want to start out our discussion today about struggling women with a passage from First Timothy 5:6, "She who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead, even while she lives." Now, I know that you and Steve have been reaching out to men and couples and certainly wives. But you also work with women who struggle with sexual sin. Tell us a little bit about that.  

Kathy: It's always been a man's problem, and now we're seeing that it's not just a man's problem, but women struggle quite a bit. We did a survey on our website, and we had 500 women respond to that survey which really shocked us. But what was more shocking, was what women are actually dealing with and what they're struggling with. The level of sexual addiction among women was very shocking.  

Mike: I do want to share just a few of these statistics and I don't want to bore listeners too much with statistics, but they really are shocking. These 500 women that responded to the survey were self professing Christian women, correct?  

Kathy: Yes, they were all Christian women.  

Mike: And that's what really makes these statistics, I think, more shocking. 44% of those 500 women admitted to be viewing adult movies alone. 53% admitted to occasionally viewing magazines or internet pornography and 46% reading pornographic stories. 90% of these women acknowledged dealing with masturbation either now or previously in their life. 31% were having online sexual conversations or had at some point. 36% were involved in promiscuity in the form of fornication with other singles. Those are pretty high statistics for women who are professing to be Christian.  

Kathy: Right.

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Mike: Do you think that this is kind of the silent cry going on of the church?  

Kathy: I really do believe this is something that has been boiling beneath the surface in women, not all women, but a lot of women that have already kind of succumbed to the culture. They have succumbed to a lot of other worldly things in their lives, so this is not a huge leap from where they're at.  

Mike: Why are women engaging in this type of behavior?  

Kathy: Well, I think it's a mixed bag. I can't really nail it down to one thing in particular, but I can take a shot at a lot of reasons. I know in my life, at one point when I was young, got involved in pornography because of my husband. You know, Steve introduced me to pornography, and it was our way of trying to hold together a very shaky marriage. And it was what he wanted, and I was more than willing to comply, so I got involved in pornography and saw things I wish I would have never seen. Other women are curious. Single women, they get involved for romantic reasons. They have this romantic fantasy of meeting Prince Charming, so they read novels, or they watch movies and they just keep this kind of a lustful view of life.  

Mike: Well let's talk about some of the specific areas that women are getting involved in, and you already touched on one, and that's the viewing of adult entertainment. Let's talk briefly about online pornography. I know from reading your book, that many women get involved in that, if not because of their husbands, very often just because they're lonely.  

Kathy: Yeah, that's a big motivator, especially if you have a computer in your house and you have access to the internet, you're bored, and you're lonely and you feel just this emptiness then pornography can kind of fill that hole. The thing about pornography is, it’s so addictive, so a young woman or middle-aged woman or a widow may sit in there and she's coming across this stuff, it is very very difficult for her then to detach herself when she has that secret little world. And that's the power of addiction: it's secret. It's powerful.  

Mike: You know, and the sad part of that is that at whatever level of naivete or innocence that woman started out with, as that progresses what's really happening in her inside world, is she's being corrupted with evil. And Satan, the evil one, is destroying whatever godly beauty may have been established in her life at one point.  

Kathy: Yeah. So often people don't even realize how much pornography has affected and warped their minds: the way that they think and the way they view life and people. They think that they have it confined, but they don't realize, and they will find out, at some point in life you will wake up to the reality that this thing has so corrupted them.  

Mike: That's true in the next area that we want to talk about, which is cyber-sex. Now what's going on with a woman who's getting involved with cyber-sex?  

Kathy: Well, I think it starts probably with chat rooms. You know, you get into this fantastical world and you can be anybody you want to. This whole cyber-world, cyber-sex, webcam thing is just, to me, it's a level up from pornography. Now, you can actually, physically become the porn star. You know and throwing your body out there for who knows who.  

Mike: I know one of the comments that I read in your book from the women, is that one of the things they loved about the chat rooms, is they loved the feeling that these men were really desperate for them.  

Kathy: Yes. Yes, and the women are desperate for the men to be desperate for them. That's the insanity of it. Women have this dynamic of wanting to be worshiped and men are all too willing to worship. So, you've got this thing going on between male and female, and a lot of times between two women or even two men. You know, there's just this desperation. Each party is desperate for something.  

Mike: They're feeding off of each other?  

Kathy: They are, they very much are.  

Mike: I think that women are more inclined to want to get involved in these fantasy relationships.  

Kathy: Right, and it really does elevate you to just, enormous ego boosting. It's very, very ego-satisfying.  

Mike: And the whole thing is a lie. And you know, as you were saying that, I thought, "well of course, that is what the enemy is doing." He is the father of lies. He is the father of deception. So, this is his world, and these are his tools.  

Kathy: Yeah, and he's got plenty of instruments in his hands to play with. It's sad to me; it's heartbreaking to me; how many young people, and it's not limited to young people but it's mostly young people, who are just living to just have fun right now. But some day, they are going to have to pay up. And the price is enormously high.  

Mike: I hear the passion in your voice, and I know that's why you and Steve have written Create in Me a Pure Heart.