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Root Issues

#632 - God Loves Righteousness and Hates Lawlessness | Resisting the Rise of Lawlessness

Pure Life Ministries Podcast

This episode: In our series, "Resisting the Rise of Lawlessness," we'll look at whose authority we're under—God's, or a lawless spirit?

Short Videos
Testimonies

The Story of Nolan & Kendra

I was done. I gave him my wedding rings back and told him, "until you know the meaning of the ring, I don't want to be associated with you."

Sermons
Spiritual Growth

Consider God's Discipline a Joy | Unveiling Yahweh Series

Patrick Hudson

New sermon: We go through Hebrews 12 to unveil the purpose of God’s discipline in our lives.

Podcasts
For Wives

#578 (REPLAY) - You Cannot Live Without God's Word | Hope for Hurting Wives

Pure Life Ministries Podcast

This episode: Hurting wives desperately need the Word of God because it has the power to go inside of them and make them completely new.

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Broken Smart Phone

Worldliness Leads to Sexual Sin (Part 2)

Articles

If you want to find freedom from sexual sin then you are going to have to take radical steps to remove worldly influences from your life.

Sexual Sin
Root Issues
Spiritual Growth

The connection between a worldly lifestyle and sexual sin is very strong. Anyone hoping to overcome their sexual addiction must be willing to admit this, and then examine their lives and see where that connection is strongest and what God might be asking them to do about it.
This is part two of our interview with Luke Imperato on this subject. If you haven’t already read part 1, you can find the link to that article below.

Click here to check out Worldliness Leads to Sexual Sin (Part 1)

Nate: So, we’re talking about the connection between sexual sin and worldliness. I want to start off this half of our conversation by asking, what kind of guidance do you give to somebody who is trying to create a separation between the things of this world and their heart? I think it can sound like reading the Bible and praying are the only good things that you can do and everything else is dangerous and sinful. It is easy to fall into heavy legalism where you think that you have to get rid of everything and you have to basically become like a monk. How do you counsel someone who is thinking along those lines?

Luke: Well, first of all, I would say that it is truth to say that everything in this world is dangerous. The enemy is looking for ways into our lives and as soon as we leave our prayer closet, we’re in a war zone and the enemy is looking for ways to attack. So a lot of the things in this world really are dangerous. That doesn't mean that we'll always get hurt by them, but they are dangerous. I would say that the first step if you're looking to really get serious in your walk with the Lord, especially if you're struggling with sexual sin, is to start cutting things out of your life that are causing you to stumble.
        If you asked yourself or if someone were to ask you what's the most important thing in your life, the Christian answer would be, “Well, you know, following Jesus, or following the Lord. That's the most important thing in my life.” Okay, good answer. But what does the reality of your life indicate? If you listed out the order of priorities – faith, family, career, hobbies, based on the time and attention you give each one, what would be the true order? If you find that your walk with the Lord is getting beat out by other things in your life, I think you need to be a little more brutally honest with yourself and realize that maybe your profession of faith is just talk and it's just an outward form of Godliness.
       The book of James says that if you're hearing a lot of the Word but not doing it, you will be deceived. If you’re hearing the truth that the Lord has to be number one in your life, but you’re not actually implementing that in the reality of your life, the product is that you're going to be deceived. So, you need to understand that you have been deceived and realize that some things do need to change in your life. You may do an inventory of your life and say, “Maybe God isn’t the most important thing in my life, but I don’t feel like that is true.” According to James, you have been deceived. It would be better to just take God at His Word and admit that you may be being deceived.
         Get brutally honest with the Lord and say, “Hey God, you have to do a radical work. You have to change the way I see things. You have to really show me in my life where I'm wrong. What things do I need to cut off?” If you’re not willing to cut the things off that He shows you that you clearly need to, then I don't think you're going to find the victory over sexual sin that you're looking for. It's just not going to happen, because this world will foster every kind of sexual perversion and selfish lifestyle you could imagine. And you could even find that kind of teaching in a church, so if you're not really willing to make some serious decisions to cut things off, you're not going to find victory.

Nate: Yeah, I've used this illustration before - Let's say that a person has a pretty healthy lifestyle, but they drink a shot of poison once a day. How are they going to feel? They're going to feel miserable! You can work out, eat right and do a bunch of stuff, but you’re still going to feel miserable until you stop drinking the poison. And you may say, “Oh, but I really like it.” Well, okay, then there is literally nothing you can do to stop feeling the way you do until you stop doing the thing that is killing you. If you're not willing to give up Netflix, or if you're not willing to give up social media or whatever things are clearly leading you consistently into sin, you will be insane for the rest of your life, no matter how much you cry out to God, read the Bible, or go to church, because you're not following Him. He told you get rid of it and you're not listening to Him.

Luke: Yeah, when Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out”, He was referring to sexual immorality. We have to be willing to do that when it comes to worldliness and the influences of this world.

Nate: Yeah, and it's just amazing that many people often worry about what they will do with their time if they give those things up. I know we can both say from testimony that once you are without it, and you experience the liberty and the joy of not having that cloud of lust hanging over your head, you just don't want to go back to it.

Luke: Yes. After living in that kind of freedom from the world you become very sensitive to worldly influences. If you watch an old movie or do something that you used to do, you will see that it makes you feel way different than it did when you watched it when you were enslaved to a worldly mindset. You can look back and see that things you were subjected to were much more worldly, much more sensual, and were alluring your flesh more than you realized previously.

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Nate: One thing we've said a number of times is that God is not only calling us out of the world, but he's also calling us into Himself. Can you talk about that just a little bit.

Luke: Yeah. That is actually really important, because if I don't have hope of where I'm going, and if I don't have any inspiration or a goal, it's very hard to get motivated to do something. I think that's true for many people. If my only takeaway in this conversation was that these are all the things I can't do, while in some degree, it actually might be helpful, it really doesn't give you the full picture and it leaves you feeling fairly hopeless. And that's not the heart of God. He says, “At my right hand are pleasures evermore.” He loves us and He is full of life and joy. We have to remember that the destination that the Lord is taking us to at the end of all of this is full of life and joy for eternity and the true enemy is our flesh, and the world just breathes life into our fleshly and carnal nature. So, when the Lord is saying, don't do this or put this off, it's because it's slowing me down or hindering me from growing closer to Him.
         In Ephesians 4:22 Paul starts off by saying that we are to put off concerning our former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts. He’s talking about the lust of this world. He's saying put those things off and essentially avoid their influence in your life. I take it as a warning because it's dangerous. But he doesn’t stop there. Paul says in Ephesians 4:23, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” You need to spend time with the Lord and have Him renew your mind and put the truth into you. That's referring to quiet time with the Lord, a prayer time, and a devotional time or a time of worship where you are spending time with the Lord and He is renewing your mind. But Paul goes on to say that if you do that, there will be a result. And that’s a good thing. He goes on to say in verse 24, “Put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.” And he goes on in Ephesians 5 saying, “Though, once your heart was full of darkness, now it is full of light from the Lord.” Our behavior should show that.
         It’s similar to Galatians 5 where Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit. He lists all of the fruits, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc., and at the end of listing them he says, “There's no law against these things.” Does anyone have a problem with the fruit of the Spirit? Well, no, we want love, joy and peace in our life. We want self-control and gentleness. We want all of the fruit in our lives that comes as a result of receiving the Holy Spirit. God is saying in His Word that in order to have that kind of fruit coming forth in your life, you need to put off your former life, and all of the things that so easily entangle you and feed your lusts and the things of your flesh.
         And I would throw something in there as well to someone who is living in sexual immorality and is just beginning to make the decision to fight against sin. A lot of the decisions that you make are going to be more radical now than they will be, let's say five or ten years down the road. Initially you need to cut everything off. That may mean getting a phone that has no internet access. That may mean not owning a laptop. That may mean that you can never shop alone and you have to check in with your pastor every other day. At first it’s like, “Man, this is a whole lot.” As time goes on though, those things that you used to be enslaved to will lose their hold on you and they won't have the same grip that they used to in your life. As time goes on, you'll find that you're walking in more and more victory and more and more freedom.
        You will also learn a lot during this process. You will learn what many of your own weaknesses are. When you stumble or fall into sin you can then realize that you need to get more radical and cut more worldly influences out of your life. You may need to just make adjustments as far as when you are allowed to have access to certain things or maybe the Lord calls you to abstain from certain activities that you may even really enjoy for a period of time. If you keep living a life like that, after a few years, I'm telling you, you will see that you have more freedom and your heart is being renewed. You won't desire worldly things like you used to and it won’t be as much of a temptation as it used to be. So, it may seem you are being radical and life is super restrictive right now, but that's okay because you have to take that initial plunge.

Nate: Yeah. And that's good too because really what's at the heart of it is not all the rules but the fact that what you are doing without restriction is causing you to be mastered by something. What we're not saying though is that after six years you can start living the same kind of life you're living now. In reality, you won't want to. You may even say for a period of time, “You know what, I'm not going to watch baseball at all, because I am being controlled by my love for it.” Well in five years maybe you can watch a baseball game, because you can enjoy it now without it controlling you. That's the point. What is controlling you? And once the Lord begins to control you, then you can enjoy some things in a way that is still honoring and pleasing to Him and you're just living in freedom.

Luke: And also, your lifestyle will match up with your profession of faith, and that's a beautiful thing when you know that you don't have to live a double life anymore. It’s beautiful when the reality of your life is showing that you love the Lord and He's your treasure. The Lord can see when someone comes to that place and at that point there are blessings that He can give you. You can have a life in Christ that gets to the point where the world is dead to you and you are dead to the world. That's what I'm striving for and hoping one day to get to, where the things of this world don't have a hold on me anymore. That's a step into eternity and that's not going to go away.

Articles
Purity for Life Episode #506: Flee from Babylon!

#506 - Flee from Babylon!

Podcasts

It's only by experiencing a very real breaking away from the spirit of Babylon that we are able to walk closely with God.

Spiritual Growth
Root Issues

Babylon began as an ancient city built by a rebel. It later emerged as a proud, idolatrous, God-opposing empire. The origins and history of Babylon are so entwined with defiance toward God that it came to symbolize everything that resists the rule of God in the world. Its king is Satan himself. Its goal is life without God. This is the final episode in our series, Babylon: The Seat of Satan's Power. In today's show, there will be no history lessons, no discussions, no explanations. Just an exhortation to respond to the timeless words of God. Yes, His voice is still echoing in the prophet Jeremiah's ancient words: "Flee from the midst of Babylon!"

Resources

Podcasts
Do Not Love the World | Babylon Series | Episode 6 Part 2

Do Not Love the World | Babylon Series | Episode 6 Part 2

Short Videos

In Scripture, God warns His people to not love the world because there is a very real danger of their doing so.

Root Issues
Spiritual Growth

In this interview, Nate and Ken sat down in our studio to discuss chapter two of John’s first epistle. Their hope was to gain a greater understanding of what the “world system” is and how it impacts each of our lives. And as they took a look at what the Word of God has to say, they discovered that the spirit of the world infiltrates our lives much more broadly, and much more subtly than many of us realize.

We hope that this discussion will challenge you to consider carefully the warnings of Scripture and that you will heed the call to keep yourself unstained from the world.

Resources

This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

Short Videos
Man and woman allowing worldliness into their home

Worldliness Leads to Sexual Sin (Part 1)

Articles

The Lord is adamantly opposed to the things of this world because they are not of Him and they separate us from Him.

Sexual Sin
Spiritual Growth
Root Issues

The Bible teaches us that our hearts are naturally drawn toward wicked things. And these evil desires are adamantly opposed to God. But they are not opposed to the world system. In fact, the things that surround us every day, even things that seem good to us, can feed some of our worst habits. That’s certainly true of sexual sin.  But we often don’t want to hear that something in our lives which we think is good may actually be hurting us. We want to be free from sexual sin, but we also want to hold on to our lives in this world. However, the truth is that hope for freedom over sexual sin is only possible if we are willing to confess and repent of the real issues in our lives. In this interview, Luke Imperato discusses how worldliness is one of those issues.

Nate: So Luke, what we want to do here is help people see that there's a really clear connection between worldliness and sexual sin. Because what we teach her at Pure Life Ministries, what we tell our counselees and preach from the pulpit, is that one of the main factors in overcoming sexual sin is learning to cut ourselves off from the spirit of the world. This is because when your whole life is centered around just going after what the world offers, then you're creating a spiritual environment inside of yourself that's going to make you really vulnerable to sexual sin. But I think that connection is not super clear, especially if you're in sexual sin yourself. You just don't see it. It's kind of like somebody who's continually having intestinal problems and they don't even realize that they have a food allergy. They're like, why is this happening to me? So, I think I want to dive into that a little bit more right up front. From your perspective, what is it about worldliness that is making our inside world a perfect place for sin to thrive.

Luke: When I was thinking about this question, what came to mind was the fact that the root behind sexual sin or what really makes a sexual sin lifestyle thrive is selfishness. We don't have to conjure that up. It comes naturally. We don't have to work to become selfish. So when I look at a mentality of worldliness, I connect it with a natural tendency to love oneself and the natural tendency to just protect self and to do whatever self wants. With that in mind, worldliness could be almost defined as just the pursuit of any earthly pleasure, or passion, or desire for anything that self wants. When we think about the fact that that's the message of the world, and it’s the natural tendency of our hearts which we know produces sexual sin, it should be no surprise to us that if we keep feeding selfishness and worldliness in our lives, we are going to produce a life of sexual sin.

Nate: That's helpful. What you're basically saying is that we are already selfish by nature and part of that selfishness is wanting to indulge in sexual passions, which all of us have. Then this world’s spirit adds to that saying, “Yeah, do that. Whatever you want, whatever you crave, just go for it.” That perspective really helps to understand how that selfishness can be fostered by the worldly spirit. Why is God is so adamant about being separate from the world.

Luke: It's a chain reaction. If I look back at the chain of events in my own life, I see a lot of sexual sin in my life and I see how that was because I was selfish. The world fostered that selfishness, but the Lord is going to be adamantly opposed to anything in my life that's going to produce sinful behavior. So, if worldliness thrives in a selfish mindset, or even if selfishness thrives in a worldly environment, then the Lord's going to say that He doesn't want a worldly influence to be reigning in my life. Sometimes I find it helpful to just look at it through the lens of Scripture and just let the Word of God tell me what's right or wrong. If the Word of God is saying that something is evil, there are times where we just have to believe that.

Nate: Yeah. Without needing some kind of complex explanation.

Luke: Yeah, exactly. So, when I look at a verse like 1 John 2:15 (ESV) where John says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in Him.” Just that verse is a compelling argument that if you're in love with the world, you don't have the love of the Father in you. That should be a huge warning. John goes on in Verse 16 saying, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father.” It’s like God is saying that when you're holding onto the things of the world, those things are not of me.
          The Living Bible says in 1 John 2:16 (TLB), “For all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God.” We just have to stop and realize that the Lord is adamantly opposed to things that are not of Him. He's trying to make a connection here that the things of this world, these passions, and desires, are not of me. So if we love them, then how can we claim to have a relationship with Him?
          We know the world is perishing. We know that this world is coming to an end and the Lord is going to judge His enemies, but we read several times in Scripture that God takes no pleasure in destroying the wicked. He's patient and He's kind, hoping that all would come to repentance. He doesn't want to destroy, and He doesn't want to judge in that way. He wishes that we would all come to repentance. So when the Lord is telling us to separate from the things of this world, He's saying, “I do not want to judge you. I do not want to harm you.” I think that oftentimes we don’t connect worldliness with the judgment of God, but that's the reality.
         Most of us know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where God rained down fire from heaven and destroyed these cities because they were full of all this immorality and sin. In our mind, we think that they were just a nonstop party city full of obvious evil. We think that it must have just been a terrible place. But if we look in Ezekiel, God gives us a little behind the scenes as to what was actually going on in Sodom and Gomorrah and what their actual heart issues were. The Lord speaks in Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NKJV) saying, “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.” When I read that, I'm like, wait a minute, that’s what was really going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. In that verse you can almost get the sense that it was just worldliness that they were living in. They were just living for the here and now, living for their pleasures and their desires. They pursued whatever they wanted and the Lord said that was that was the iniquity of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Nate: I think that's good to see, because if we could be transported back in time and actually just live there for a day, maybe it would just kind of look like a nice beach town in Florida where everybody's just enjoying life.

Luke: Yea. And we don't see that as dangerous, but the Lord does. He's crying out and trying to warn us in His Word not to be caught up in that mindset because it's going to lead to destruction.

Nate: Okay, so let me get your take on something because I know that objections start coming up in people's minds when we start talking about worldliness, especially if we start connecting it with specific aspects of our American lifestyle. How do you respond to somebody who easily gets defensive about this?

Luke: It's hard, because I don't know if you can make a blanket statement that applies to everyone. It would be nice if there were just clear-cut rules like you're allowed 45 minutes on the internet a day and you will be a Christian. That may be simple and nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I think we need to examine our lives and ask ourselves questions like, “What do I treasure? What do I value? And what do I put a lot of time into?” Our answers to those questions will tell us where our hearts are at.
          You just have to do an inventory of your life and realize, okay, while it may not be evil in itself, if you’re spending a substantial amount of time on entertainment or following politics, on hobby’s or at your job, you might have a problem. The Lord says in Scripture that if you want to know where your heart is, just look at what you treasure; look at what you value. So if you run an inventory of your time spent over a period of seven days, you could look and see that maybe 5% of that time was spent with the Lord in that period of time, you should consider how much you really treasure the Lord and if it matches how much you think you treasure Him.

Nate: That's good, because I think when I really studied that portion of Scripture that you read in 1 John 2, what I realized was that what was being represented as the love of the world was not just a blatantly immoral and flagrantly sinful lifestyle, but also a life that just shuts God out. If I look into my past when I was living in unrepentant sin, what my life was saying was that I didn’t have time for God. I pursued what my flesh wanted. I pursued what I saw with my eyes and what I wanted. I was just full of pride.
        I think even maybe some pretty decent people could be living in that spirit just because they decided that they don't have time for God. The bottom line is that they have shut God out by the things they have given their life to.

Articles
Purity for Life Episode #505: Babylon: The Suffocating Grip of Social Media

#505 - Babylon: The Suffocating Grip of Social Media

Podcasts

Social media is a distraction which the enemy uses to push us further away from Jesus.

Root Issues
Spiritual Growth

Satan's end goal is to create a global mindset of rebellion against God's authority. But how does he do it? What are his most effective strategies for shaping the minds of men and women? What are the cultural forces that we need to be most aware of and most on guard against? Our episode this week takes a look at one way he does this, a phenomenon that has gripped the hearts of over 4 billion people - social media.

Resources

Podcasts
A Global Force for Wickedness | Babylon Series | Episode 6 Part 1

A Global Force for Wickedness | Babylon Series | Episode 6 Part 1

Short Videos

A mind set on the pleasures of this life shuts God out from our inside world and separates us from His eternal life.

Root Issues
Spiritual Growth

It’s been estimated that there are over 3,800 distinct cultures on the planet. Even within a single country, you can find a wide range of people groups with differing dialects, traditions and values. Yet despite all these apparent differences, there is a common culture which unites all of mankind together. It was this spirit that the Lord sought to disrupt at the Tower of Babel.

Ever since that day, Satan has been plotting and scheming to reunite humanity in rebellion against God. Today, however, he no longer wants to do this by raising a single tower, but by raising up a single world leader – the Antichrist. But how could he influence billions of people divided across the whole earth? How could he overcome all their differences and unite them once again?

The answer is kosmos.

Join us as Steve Gallagher explains how the spirit of kosmos is being manipulated by Satan to condition multitudes into a cohesive mindset. Pastor Steve also helps us see what all Christians must do if they hope to be prepared for the spiritual battles in the days ahead.

Resources

This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

Short Videos
Bonus from Purity for Life Episode #504: Babylon: Living in a Culture of Frenzy

Bonus (from #504 - Babylon: Living in a Culture of Frenzy)

Podcasts

The more you wait on the Lord in stillness, the more you will experience His goodness and come to find that He is all that you need.

Root Issues
Spiritual Growth

Before they came to Pure Life Ministries, Gabriel, Michael and Chris lived their lives in a frenzy, running from place to place. They couldn’t slow down long enough to allow the Lord to speak to them. This left them in a bad place spiritually. In this discussion, they share what it took for the Lord to slow them down. They’ll talk about how God did that as they went through the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program. They’ll also testify to the peace of God which comes from taking the time to meditate on His Word and taking the time to wait patiently for His direction in life.

Resources

Podcasts
Purity for Life Episode #504: Babylon: Living in a Culture of Frenzy

#504 - Babylon: Living in a Culture of Frenzy

Podcasts

Spirit filled believers will be characterized by love, joy and peace - even in a world of endless activity and motion.

Root Issues
Spiritual Growth

Many saints throughout the ages have spoken of the value of being still. They've told us about the great spiritual benefits awaiting anyone who will regularly quiet their minds and hearts so that they might contemplate God. They've urged us to think deeply about His works, wonders and promises. They've testified about growing in the reality of eternity. If that’s the impact that was made on those who chose to quiet themselves before God, it’s no wonder why Satan loves fostering stress, pressure, lights, noise, and endless activity and motion in our culture. After all, if we are constantly tyrannized by what is happening right now, we will never have time to think about eternity.

Resources

Podcasts
How Our Desires Can Lead Us Into Darkness | Babylon Series | Episode 5 Part 2

How Our Desires Can Lead Us Into Darkness | Babylon Series | Episode 5 Part 2

Short Videos

Every single day we can make choices that either allow us to participate in the life of God or create a barrier in our hearts toward Him.

Root Issues
Finding Freedom

In the beginning, God created man to dwell in His presence, living entirely for His purpose. But Satan lured humanity away from this noble call by appealing to our desires and brought us into willing rebellion against God. From that point on, every human being was born with the instinct to choose their own way and reject God’s plan for their lives.

Many of us who’ve grown up around Christian teaching agree with that intellectually. But we must ask ourselves how deep does that understanding go? Do we really comprehend that the desires we experience and the choices we make every day are leading us somewhere? Is it real to us that if we aren’t careful, we could easily stray from God’s presence?

Three of our staff took time to study through Ephesians 4:17-24, and in this interview they sit down to talk about what they learned. They also share how the enemy used their desires to blind them and lead them away from God.

We hope this discussion will inspire all true believers to continue to fight against their former passions and to grow deeper in their fellowship with the Lord.

Resources

This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

Short Videos
Purity for Life Episode #503: Babylon: Christian Nationalism

#503 - Babylon: Christian Nationalism

Podcasts

Our motivation and purpose for godly living in America has become enmeshed with the desire to preserve our American way of life.

Spiritual Growth

When the founding fathers gathered to sign the declaration of independence, they fully believed that the Christian God was behind their endeavor. They were, after all, championing noble causes such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Centuries later, multitudes of evangelical Americans have the same conviction - God is on our side. Today we're going to take a look at Christian nationalism, and full disclosure, we're going to stir the pot a little bit.

Resources

Podcasts
Woman embracing her husband as she supports him

How Can I Help My Husband? (Part 2)

Articles

Jesus is our model. In the same way that He laid down His life wives are to lay down their lives for their husbands.

For Wives
Spiritual Growth

What a husband and a wife value in their relationship often differs significantly. The way women process emotions and situations can seem like a foreign language to many men. Kathy Gallagher joins Nate in the studio to discuss her thoughts on this and explain how a wife can learn to love and support her husband, even through their many differences.

Nate: In the past you’ve said that it's really important to praise your husband when he succeeds, even if it's a small thing. What makes that so important?

Kathy: I don't know that I actually ever did that literally with Steve. I was just very, very grateful. I really respected Steve for the effort he put into getting right with God. Also, gratitude and respect were just coming out of me, I wasn't saying it, it was just flowing from what was in my heart towards my husband. I'm not the type that would walk up, throw a hug on him and say, “Honey, I'm so proud of you.” That is totally not my style. He knew how I felt. I wasn’t just saying those things, I was showing him I was proud of him by my actions.
          He absolutely knew I was supporting him and that I was totally on his team, but I never used those words. It was my life that spoke to him about where I was at, and that's what he needed. What's in us comes out of us and that's where we have to be very, very careful. Especially when we're getting very upset inside, when there's this rumbling going on inside and you want to just let it come out. It will come out, even if you don't open your mouth at all. It just shows up in your disposition. What's in the heart does come out of the mouth, but it also comes out of the life.

Nate: Yeah, it does. The looks, the tone of voice, even the lack of words can speak volumes to people. I would think that gives an opportunity for a husband to misread you. Sometimes when things are not said we are quick to fill in the blanks. We try to interpret what the other person means, and it can be real mess.

Kathy: That's a mess. That's a very big mess.

Nate: Yeah, that really feeds into something that I was thinking about, which is really interesting. I was listening to a sermon by Paul Washer a month or two ago and he said something that I thought was fascinating. He was talking about the difference between men and women and what husbands need versus what wives need in the relationship. Basically, he said, “I don't need my wife to send me little notes or a text telling me that she's thinking of me and loves me. I can go a long time without needing that. What I need is for my wife to believe in me. If she doesn't believe in me, I'll fall apart.” And that was really interesting, because it resonates with me as a man and I'd like to hear your perspective on that as a wife.

Kathy: It’s hilarious to me that somebody else is saying that, because I think I said something like that in my book. Your husband does not want to sit around and talk about your emotions and your feelings - he's not your girlfriend and he is not wired that way. He doesn't want to talk about feelings and all the gooey stuff. The whole idea of trying to get men to think like women doesn't work. A woman’s needs are very vastly different than a man's needs. She's the one who needs all of the things that would be classified as more emotional. I think because of the differences in the way men are wired and the way women are wired there is a lot of strife created in marriages. As a woman, I think I need him to tell me how awesome I am or how much he loves me and that I'm his forever, and he's looking at me like I have two heads. A man doesn't have a point of reference for that, because that is not what he needs and he is not wired that way. Men don't think like that and there are a lot of problems in marriages because of that dynamic.
          I cracked up when I heard Paul Washer saying that because it is so true. A husband doesn't need a text message and he doesn't need you to put love notes in his lunchbox. He doesn't need that stuff. He doesn't operate and think the same way that you operate and think. As a wife, you have to learn that he is wired so completely differently than you are and to not be offended when he doesn't have the same needs and responses that you have. Also, don’t fall into the notion that he's this ominous ogre or brute or beast, because he's really not. He's operating the way that he was created to operate by the Lord. Now obviously mixed into that are sin issues, but I'm just talking about the way our minds work.
         The other thing I would like to add is about the differences in the temperaments of a man and a woman. That helped us so much in the early days of our marriage, because me and Steve are opposites. We could not be more opposite if we tried to be. Learning the different temperaments that we had really helped me to understand that what I was misunderstanding about him is just the way he is. I have a much different temperament than my husband, and on top of that I am female. A male and a female with opposite temperaments can have so many issues if they don't understand the temperaments they have. But if you understand those things, things start to make more sense to you. So, I encourage wives to take some time to try and explore those two different situations, because they're very helpful in marriage.

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Nate: Yeah. The thing that I'm thinking about as you're talking is that it really is all a matter of the flow of the heart. If a wife is coming into this marriage relationship demanding that her husband meets her needs, most of the time she is going to find out, “Wow, he can't, because he's not like me.” But if she comes into the marriage thinking that what she wants to do is give and learn, then she will find more unity in her marriage. This requires real death to self, because usually as humans what we want to do is give to people what we value. So, a wife thinks, “I can love him by being super emotional and telling him about all my feelings, because that's what I want him to do for me.” In his mind, he didn't ask for her to do that and he doesn’t even know what to do with all of that. So a wife needs to learn what her husband values and the husband needs to learn what the wife values. But having the knowledge of what a spouse needs and values is only one step in the battle though. Actually taking the step to give of yourself that which isn’t as much a value to you takes real death to self.

Kathy: In a certain sense, yes, it takes a ton of death to self. But if in your heart you are more of a taker then this will feel like it is killing you. On the other hand, if you are more of a giver, you will really enjoy the process of learning how to please your husband. If your heart is, “I want him to be so happy. I want him to get what he needs,” you're going to win. But if you're a taker and you're always needing your needs met from a guy who's pretty clueless to your needs, you will be very, very disappointed. The problem with so many marriages, and this was true for me too, is that we come with a list of wants. I didn't come with a list of how I could bless him and how I could make his life richer and fuller. I came looking for how he could bless my life and make my life richer and fuller. That is a setup for disaster on both people's part, because men do the same thing.
          A man falls in love with a woman, and he falls in love with his attraction to her in mind. That's not a very good recipe for an enduring relationship. But if you're walking with the Lord and you are putting Jesus at the very center of your marriage, you learn how to love because none of us know how to do it right. Does anybody that can hear my voice right now love perfectly as is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13? Love believes all things, hopes all things and it never fails. I don't have that testimony. But just as any Christian seeking to be more like Jesus, I want that to be my testimony. I may have already said this in another podcast, but it's worth repeating. After a message at one of our conferences several years ago, this young girl came rushing up to me after the meeting and said, “I have to just share this with you, because it goes so well with what you just talked about. Someone told me at a camp I went to that marriage is a death march to a life camp.” And that is exactly what it is. It's a death march. Death to self. That’s because if you're going to love rightly, if you're going to be the right kind of wife and the right kind of Christian, it's a matter of losing your life in this world. But you're headed to a life camp and the eternal life of Jesus Christ becomes yours. His life is being formed in you through all of it and it's worth it and there is joy in the journey. But it is joy mingled with pain.

Nate: I'm not married, but I’ve experienced where I set myself up to try to meet the needs of someone else and I found my own needs being met somehow. It puts in you a spring of satisfaction and contentment, and this grasping goes away, because you're satisfied. So, if husbands and wives could learn to set themselves to meet the needs of others, it would remove the source of so much conflict.

Kathy: That's very, very true. It's a spiritual principle that is very much active and alive, and it's real. We women have the profound privilege of helping our husbands learn how to meet other’s needs, because women tend to be more naturally wired to be givers or nurturers. We nurture, we coddle and we naturally want to take care of others. So, by selflessly laying down your life and giving up your rights, you can show your husband how to do that. That is a beautiful thing, because men do not naturally have a nurturing side to them. I know this is going to sound bad, but men tend to be more takers and women tend to be more givers. So, I would just encourage women to go for it when it comes to laying down their lives. I know a lot of women, including all of my friends that are mothers, lay down their lives for their children. If you're going to be a good mom, you need to lay down your life, but you can easily cut off the spirit of giving with your husband if you've got issues with him.
          I just want to encourage you not to stop with your kids. In fact, I would say that your husband should be the recipient of all that you have to offer. It's not wrong for you to give yourself to him, even if he's not exactly doing the same for you, because that is the heart of God. God didn't stop doing the mercy to us. He came to us while we were yet sinners, while we were His enemies. I'm not saying that we are able to do that perfectly in the way that God did it, but He is our model. He has shown us how to build relationships and that is the framework for it. We are commanded to follow Christ’s model for how to love. It is very hard, but I don't have a day of regret being a Christian or being a wife married to a man who was horribly addicted to sexual sin. I'm grateful for all of it because of what it did in my relationship with Jesus and how it brought me closer to Him.

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The Desolate Life of a Rebel | Babylon Series | Episode 5 Part 1

The Desolate Life of a Rebel | Babylon Series | Episode 5 Part 1

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Satan’s plan for every human being is to bring them into willing rebellion against God, through the pursuit of their own sinful desires.

Root Issues
Spiritual Growth
Sexual Sin

Dictionary.com defines a “rebel” as “a person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in arms against the government or ruler of his or her country, a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition. ”Most rebellions rise and fall without grand success, their leaders lost to history. Very few have gained the prominence and merit of Nimrod, the world’s first rebel leader. Nimrod’s ability to persuade people to follow him, and not the Lord, relied upon the promise that he could bring them a level of joy, happiness and satisfaction God never could.



Today, mankind is not being enticed by a single leader vaunting the potential of a better life. Instead, a message of worldliness is luring billions into its web through countless voices around the globe. The spirit behind that message advocates rebellion against the Lord and His authority by promising unprecedented, unrestricted pleasure. It is a cause devoted to the here and now, and one which can never provide humanity the satisfaction of life which it truly craves.



In episode 5 of Babylon: The Seat of Satan’s Power, Steve Gallagher explains, through Scripture, how this message can only lead a person one way,into utter ruin and desolation.

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This series is based on the book Intoxicated with Babylon: The Seduction of God’s People in the Last Days by Steve Gallagher. You can find out more about that book by visiting our bookstore.

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