Do not be afraid. We find this command over one hundred times in God’s word to us for a reason. Life can easily become full of fear. For wives, there can be the overwhelming opportunity to live in fear when a husband has been in sexual sin. She fears that he’ll betray her again, re-opening the wound and bringing deeper pain to her and her family. In this episode, both Kathy Gallagher and Pastor Ed Buch will share about the topic of fear, so that we understand how to face it head on, as well as come out of life’s trials with a deeper faith and a greater love for Jesus.

Many wives of men in sexual sin have said to us, “He told me he would stop, why won’t he just stop?” These women are exasperated and confused as to how their husbands could commit sexual sin, knowing that his actions would hurt them. Pure Life co-founder, Kathy Gallagher, joins us in this episode to offer her insight into this subject. And for couples beginning the process of reconciliation, we’ll also take time to offer some thoughts as to how a husband can begin to take his rightful place as a spiritual leader in the home once he has truly repented.

Jesus Christ is coming soon. For those of us who profess to follow Him, the question remains: are we ready for Him to return? Many of us are caught up in the distractions of living in a prosperous nation. Whether it’s our family, career, entertainment or possessions, we tend to give our affections to these and they can become dangerous idols. But if we abide in Jesus, seeking Him passionately through His word and in prayer, He can change our hearts. Just as a bride is excited for her husband to return to her, so we can learn to not be in dread of, but to love and even to hunger for His appearing.

When God made Adam and Eve in His image, He gave them different character qualities and assigned them various responsibilities in the marriage. But sexual sin brings disorder and chaos to the God-given order of things: husbands ignore their role, leaving wives with the feeling that if she doesn’t lead, no one will. So what happens when a husband repents and wants to begin to lead his family spiritually? We brought in pastor Jeff and Rose colon to help address some of the challenges in this situation. (From Podcast Episode #2117 - Why Won't He Just Stop?)

Mike: Jeff and Rose Colon have joined us in the studio for our Focus on Couples segment today. We're going to be talking about role reversal. Jeff, what do see in a couple that's dealing with this issue?

Jeff: Well Mike, what we see a lot of times in couples that are coming out of sexual sin struggles is that the husband hasn’t been the priest of the home as God ordained him to be. A lot of the time the wife has had to take that role, because the husband has been in his sin and has not been where he needed to be at spiritually. But God has ordained the husband to be the head over his wife. It's clear in Scripture, and the husband really must take it seriously.

Mike: Now what does that mean, because I know there's a lot of confusion around that topic. There's probably a lot of bad counsel going on out there about what it means for the husband to be in authority in the relationship. What is the biblical position on his role?

Jeff: What I like to point out to men is that we're to be the head of our wife just as Christ is the head of His Church. That's the pattern we're given. Christ, as of the Church, literally gave Himself for her. So it really becomes an issue of giving. It becomes an issue of laying my life down for her. It's not the role of a dictator who’s just lording over someone. Jesus led us by washing our feet. He became a servant even though He is Lord. And a husband needs to approach it in the same way. He's to serve his wife spiritually. He's to care for her, he's to be her covering.

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Mike: Rose what does this look like from the wife's perspective?

Rose: What we've seen with the wives is that she's been holding the reins while the husband's been in his sin. So, she's been kind of the priest of the home. But once he's gone through our program and the Lord is helping the husband to walk out his repentance, he's learning how to now take that position. And for her, she's got to know how to let go of the reins and trust God to lead her husband. A lot of times the wife will say: "Well, my husband wasn't responsible before, so how do I know he's going to be the priest of the home that God's calling him to be?" It becomes an area of trust for them, as far as them praying for the husband and trusting that the Lord's going to give the husband what he needs to lead that family.

Mike: What is the wife's role? How does she best help the husband to take his leadership responsibility?

Rose: Prayer. Always starting with prayer. Praying for her husband. Trusting that, especially if her husband is seeking the Lord, that the Lord is really going to lead and direct Him. Now let's say she's doing that, and he comes back, and he shares what he feels God is wanting them to do. She might feel in heart, "Well I don't really believe this is God's will." Well, she has to learn how to let him go with it and just continue to pray. And if it wasn't the Lord's will, trust that the Lord's going to use it for both of them. He’ll use it to show them something about themselves, or maybe something about their relationship with the Lord.  

Mike: Jeff, I know that you and Rose have dealt with this issue in your own marriage situation. Can you tell us a little bit about how you worked through this?

Jeff: Sure Mike. I remember when I began to take my role in the house. I couldn't just jump in the wagon, rip the reins out of her hands and say, "Okay, I'm in charge now." I had to be sensitive to what I had created in my wife through my sin and through the years of lying and deception. I had to do it gently and with understanding. I needed to love her as Christ loves us. Jesus understands what we can handle. And He takes us along at pace that we can handle. He doesn't just throw everything on us all at once. We need to keep that in mind when we are taking that role once again in our home. As the wife starts seeing your life and you seeking the Lord, and you wanting to do the right thing, she's going to want to submit to you. It's not going to be something that's forced on her.

Mike: How do you deal with the mindset in many women, I think, that as she's submissive to her husband she's nothing but a doormat?

Jeff: I would just say to her that being submissive doesn't make you a doormat. It doesn't make you less important or insignificant in the marriage. Really to the contrary, a submissive wife is a value and an asset to her husband. I mean, I value my wife's opinions. And I allow her to fulfill her role as my helpmate. God created her to be my helpmate. And so, I don't see her as less significant than myself because God doesn't see us in that way.

Mike: How important is this in the scope of things to be dealt with?

Jeff: God is very clear about this issue in Scripture. If a husband isn't obeying the words of God and taking his proper role, and a wife isn't obeying and taking her proper role, they're in rebellion towards God. That's very serious.

Mike: So not only is there going to be a problem in the marriage, but there's going to be a problem for both of them individually in their personal relationships with God.‍

Jeff: Absolutely, and God's not going to be able to bring about what He needs to bring about in the marriage if they're not fulfilling their roles in the way that God designed it.

Since the year 2000, Pure Life Ministries has been holding an annual conference in northern Kentucky. Hundreds of people join us every year to hear powerful messages, to share in wonderful times of corporate worship and fellowship, and to seek hard after God. In this episode, we’ll talk about the origins of the conference, we’ll give a little background about our conference theme this year and let you know what you can expect if you join us on April 23rd and 24th in northern Kentucky.

Brawling and the use of slanderous words often spring up in the proud heart. We brought James Buckley, one of our staff members, to help paint a picture for how our self-life can manifest in wicked acts of brawling and slander and how he was set free from this struggle during his time in the Residential Program. (From Episode #426 - Exposing the Pride that Projects a Spiritual Image)

Host: When James was ten, his mother was saved, and for the next few years he gained a small foundation in the Lord. But when he moved in with his father, he soon forsook the spiritual grounding he had received. For the next decade and a half he lived for the pleasures of the world, becoming addicted and arrogantly proud. By God's grace, he moved in with a family in his thirties and they saw his need, and tried to help him get back on track. But living for self all those years took what little faith he had and turned it into a mountain of spiritual pride. Along with it came some daughters of pride: brawling and slander.

James: I suppose after I came to Kentucky, when I was about thirty-one, a family took me in which became a place I could grow in the Lord with them. That's when I was back in Church and wanting to live for the Lord. After a couple years of that, this brawling and slander just manifested, and I unleashed on the husband. I verbally assaulted him with such hateful words, attacking first his role as a father, then as a husband and even as a business owner. But worst of all, as he was pastoring at that time, I even attacked his role as a pastor. His wife was there standing next to him, so I turned to her and unleashed the same hateful, slanderous, words of accusation upon her. It was even to the point where I laid hands on her and pushed her to the ground, as I continued to slander her with a verbal assault. So those are the two instances that I most remember as far as slander and brawling.

And, during the time that I was with this family, for the two years prior to this outburst of brawling and slander, I was regularly involved in ministry. And the more people asked me to be involved with other things, the more I had a sense that I was a very spiritual person. But there was no true repentance that had happened, no inward change had happened, so it was a real example of the hypocrisy that I was in. I was living outwardly what people saw as a good Christian individual. But inwardly there was constantly a desire for the sin of the world, as well as a brewing hatred in my heart, a contempt for others around me. But more specifically for this family because I lived with them, and I suppose I saw their faults. Yet instead of praying mercy for them and loving them the way that they had loved me, I just criticized. Contempt grew, and one day it just all came out.

Host: James talked about how there was no real change in his heart. That hypocrisy fueled the spiritual pride, brawling and slander that surrounded him. But these were just the fruit at the surface. As we've been discussing in this series, James can now testify that there was a much more insidious root behind all of this.  ‍

James: It certainly can be summed up as a love of self. I just wanted to have my own way. I wanted everything to go my way, and so when it didn't it just fostered more hatred, bitterness, and resentment. I had a critical heart. I was full of criticism, judgements and accusations. It was not necessarily voiced to people around me because that would affect my image as a good Christian man. But it was all inside my heart. I think I just thought that I was something more than I was.

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Host: James did come to Pure Life and the Lord did show him the reality of his spiritual condition. But God also did a wonderful work in his heart. James looked to Jesus and truly repented, and this began to play out in his willingness to obey the commands of Jesus.

James: I had thought that the Lord had given me moments of setting me free from it, over the eighteen years that I was with this family. I was active in church for most of that. But it’s when I came to the residential program that I really saw how much spiritual pride that I had. The Lord began to set me free in ways that I didn't know were possible. But in doing them [that is, obeying Jesus’ commands], really there's freedom. What is the primary thing that I found? Simply by praying mercy for others, which is hard to do when you're such a self-absorbed person. But I had done it and I had learned to practice it to some degree. As a result, there was real victory that the Lord gave me, simply by praying mercy for others. It's what we were taught in the residential program. The conscious, deliberate act of asking God to bless another person. Specifically, the person that offended me, or crossed my will. It’s the act of asking God to bless them and provide for their needs, to pour His Spirit out them. This kind of praying for another person really has the capacity to set a person free.

One specific instance of this from when I was in the program came from working alongside one young man in particular. He was maybe twenty-five years my junior, maybe twenty-two years old, and he just grated on me. He was hardheaded himself, like I was, and he wouldn't listen. I really began to frankly hate this young man. It showed in our work. I could feel the hatred growing in me, and dislike of him. I knew and felt the Lord drawing me to pray mercy for Him and even confront him with my sinful heart and ask him for forgiveness. I did that and he received it, and in turn he asked me to forgive him for his own rebellious ways. We had a real reconciling, that the Lord certainly did. So from that day on, we really became close and it was a joy to work with one another.

An essential component of overthrowing the reign of self is living in the flow of God’s love. Jesus said that if we loved God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves, we would actually be fulfilling all of His commandments. Pride and selfishness cannot flourish, when a person is defined by a desire to meet the needs of others. A life lived in the service of others brings about the death of the self-life.

Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure or hostility towards another person. It can happen when our will is crossed by people or circumstances, and we choose to respond by being annoyed and malicious towards them. Ultimately the self-life is at the root of these sins. We brought biblical counselor David Rodriguez into the studio to share his own experiences with anger and vengeance. Let’s see what can learn from how the Lord mercifully exposed his sin and began to set Him free. (From Episode #425 - Exposing the Pride that Needs to be Perfect).

Host: When pride goes unchecked in a person’s heart there are various sins that tend to come out of them. One of those manifestations is brooding anger, and if you desire to overcome its influence in your life, then understanding the connection between it and pride is critical. This anger isn’t the kind where someone explodes in a moment of rage. Instead, it sits just below the surface, where it can simmer and stew unseen by the eyes of others.

David: My thought life was full of revenge and anger. I saw someone getting something that I wanted, whether it was a job, a girl or a car and I was very frustrated towards them. I was just angry at others because I thought I deserved what they were getting. There was a lot of bitterness, and a lot of brooding over issues I thought I had been wronged in. I always wanted myself to be promoted over these people. I always wanted to step on them and step over them, and I was frustrated that I wasn't able to do that. So I wanted to bring them back down to where I was, which is what I thought they deserved. I was always replaying in my mind how I could best these people, teach them something they didn't know and show them up in some way that would kind of humiliate them.

Host: This brooding anger can sneak by without seeming to break any of God's commandments. Just as the Pharisees were blind to how their lustful thoughts were as wicked as adultery, so too are our evil thoughts toward others as wicked as actual murder.

David: Something I remember very specifically happened when I was in high school. There was a girl that I liked, and we were in band together. One day I walked into the band hall and she and one of my friends were holding hands. I remember my gut reaction was immediately anger. I walked outside and turned around immediately to try and hide my anger from everyone that was around me. I went outside and tried to get over it somehow. Eventually my friend came out. I remember looking at Him and thinking awful thoughts, wishing that he was dead and wishing that harm would come to him. I somehow managed to kind of repress those thoughts and keep them hidden. Even though we remained friends, I'm sure that I was always trying to somehow, in subtle or not so subtle ways, one up him or make him pay for what he had done to me.

Host: We can all be blind to the type of sin that broods in the heart, subtly tainting the way that we think and act towards others. We may act kind towards people that inside we wish would pay for the ways they’ve hurt us and excuse our actions because we aren’t acting out on those thoughts and feelings. But this isn’t how Jesus taught us to act towards others. He taught us that to desire something is the same as doing it. See Matthew 5. He taught us that our righteousness has to go way beyond the kind that is only outward. God requires real heart change, real love and a real renewing of the mind. If we don't examine ourselves through the lens of scripture, then our own sinful thinking, not the Holy Spirit's, will be the driving force of our thoughts and actions.

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David: I can clearly see now that this brooding anger and desire for vengeance was a mechanism that was deeply rooted in a strong self-exalting attitude that I had. I reacted to not getting to what I wanted, or not being elevated to a certain position because I had such a high view of myself. I thought I was worthy of attention. I thought I was worthy of promotion. I thought I should get whatever I wanted. So when I saw others getting it, I wanted to defend my honor, so to speak. I wanted to do whatever it took to get what I thought I deserved.  

Host: God wants to set us free from a self-centered existence because a life dominated by selfish thoughts and actions will trap us in misery. But to do this, He must deal with what’s at the root of this prideful way of life or we will remain trapped in sin and sadness.

David: I can see that a major part of my staying in that cycle was that whenever those things were exposed, instead of dragging myself out into the open to get dealt the blow that it deserved, I pitied myself. So, I was stuck in self-pity instead of letting the Lord deal with me, and instead of letting even my superiors deal with me. This got me thinking that I deserved better than I was getting.

Host: Those who remain stuck in this kind of anger, or in any kind of pride, will lack the true peace that comes from walking in a close relationship with God. But there is a way out. We don't have to stay in that kind of thinking. If we will pray for God to open our eyes and allow the situations, He places us in to expose what is really inside of us, He will change us. If we will humble ourselves and say we're wrong, then we can begin the path of repentance into real freedom from the sins that bind us.    

David: The Lord was very merciful to me. He brought me to a job where He began showing me what I was really like. As the bad fruits of anger and vengeance started coming out of me, He helped me to see what was under it: a self-exalting attitude that was always striving to get ahead at the expense of others. So I ended up in a lot of situations where He helped me to see my own pride. He taught me to, instead of being envious or vengeful, to humble myself and submit to where He had me.

Another vital heart attitude that enables us to overthrow sin’s rule in our lives is humility. Pride brought about the fall of Satan and pride put man at odds with God, resulting in the destruction of man. But humility undoes the damage of the fall, because when a man becomes humble, God becomes his protector and his friend. The role of humility in a Christian’s life can hardly be overestimated.

Jesus alone knows how to save the human soul, and to bring it out of bondage and into freedom. For the last six weeks we’ve explored how all our struggles with sin can be traced back to the “self-life,” and the pride that comes out of it. Now it’s time to look to the great Savior and Physician of our souls to see what His remedy is. In this show we look at the important roles poverty of spirit, brokenness, and surrender have in the process of being saved by Jesus Christ.

We’re taking a break this week from our current series. We know that the Lord is actively sanctifying and preparing His church to spend eternity with Him as His bride. But there is also a frightening reality that many people who claim to be Christians are false professors. Satan uses the currents of our culture to entice Christians to live for themselves rather than God, to pursue pleasure rather than Jesus in self-denial, and to pursue worldly philosophies rather than the pure Word of God. These truly are perilous time, and we all need to know how to go through in the power of Jesus Christ.

Do you ever find yourself bragging to others about your spiritual life or telling others about how you gave financially, or how you spent extra time in your devotions?  These can often point to a dangerous sickness called spiritual pride. Pastor Steve Gallagher joins us this week to help us understand this deceptive piety. We also talk about how easy it is for other sins to creep in with spiritual pride.