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Timeless Truths: God Must Be First in Our Hearts and Lives
April 25, 2024
When we allow something to become more important to us than the Lord, it has become an idol. In this "Timeless Truths" segment from our archives, Jeff & Rose Colón talk to couples about making sure that the Lord is first in their hearts and lives. Host: Jeff and Rose Colón have joined us in the studio. It's good to see you again. Jeff & Rose: Good to see you. Host: Thank you for coming in and talking with us. We want to talk today about spousal idolatry. We use the term idolatry a lot in our everyday topics here at Pure Life. Could you kind of give our listeners an idea of what idolatry truly is? Jeff: Well, I've heard it said like this: An idol is something that we consistently make equal to or more important than God in our attention and desire. Maybe we just talk about it all the time. Or we're very devoted to it. Or we make choices that revolve around it. It's just something in our lives that has become more important to us than God. Host: So, it could be anything. It doesn't necessarily have to be something bad. Jeff: No. Absolutely. Host: So, how does someone know if he or she has made their spouse an idol in their heart? Jeff: Well, there's some telltale signs that people can see if they look inside themselves. They can ask themselves, “What is it that I really adore? What is it that I really put my hope in? What is it that I really look forward to? What is it that I really make sacrifices for in my life? What is the most prevalent topic that I tend to talk about? What do I look for my peace in? Where do I look for my meaning and my happiness? Am I looking to my spouse to make me happy? There are a lot of telltale signs that will show us if something is really an idol in our hearts. Host: Rose, when you're looking at the wife in a marriage, what are some of the ways as a counselor that you might see how a wife has made an idol of her husband? Rose: One of the ways that I've seen this manifest is when a wife is being consumed with her husband as far as what he's doing and what he's not doing. She is looking to see if he's spending time with the Lord or if he's not spending time with the Lord. She constantly wants to know if he's pressing into God the way he's supposed to be pressing into Him. Ultimately the focus for this wife is just the husband. She's made the husband out bigger than God is and because of that God is very small in her world. She's just consumed with her husband. An example I can give from my own life is when my husband was in his sin. I was consumed with how he was doing and what he was doing. I was consumed all day wondering if he was going to be acting out and because of that I wasn't focused on my own walk with the Lord or even my own responsibilities. So, what I've seen in my personal life and in counseling women is that when the husband becomes an all-consuming object, then it starts affecting a wife’s relationship with the Lord. But then too it affects how she acts and responds toward her husband. Host: So, you're not saying that a wife shouldn't care about her husband and that she should never think about her husband. It's really a matter of balance. Rose: Right. It is a matter of balance because it's okay to wonder how my husband is doing. But to be wondering how he is doing 24/7 to the point where you’re anxious and worried inside your heart, that's where you are crossing a line because you’re not trusting the Lord with your husband. Host: Jeff, when a husband or a wife has made an idol of their spouse, how do they begin to deal with that? If they've recognized it, then what are the steps they need to take to deal with it? Jeff: Well, first of all, they need to understand that from the Word of God,we're told that God will have no other gods before Him. He's a jealous God. He longs for the attention that we give to other things, because He desires to have a relationship with us and He wants us all to Himself. That should be our desire as well because He is what we ultimately need. He created us to have fellowship with Him and to be satisfied by Him and He knows that when we look to other things then we're not going to be fulfilled. He ultimately just wants to bless us and give us what we ultimately need. So, He encourages us in His Word to turn away from worthless things, to turn away from things that won't satisfy and to seek Him diligently and to make Him the all engrossing object of our lives. He doesn’t have a vain desire for us to fall at His feet, selfishly needing that worship. It’s because we were created by Him and for Him. We were created to have fellowship with Him and He wants that fellowship with us. So, it displeases Him when we look to other things. So, a husband or wife needs to understand that when they are idolizing their spouse, they are giving an amount of attention to someone else that only God should be receiving from them. And if the Lord is not first in their lives, then they're not going to be able to fulfill His purpose and plan for their lives. Host: Well, is it too strong of a statement to say that if this is the reality that a person is living in then they're in sin and they need to repent? Jeff: Absolutely. Because sin is missing the mark. And if God is not who we are focusing on then we're missing the mark. One of the main aspects of sin is going around God to get what we want. So, God must be at the center of the marriage. And if both spouses don't have Him as their first source or their first object of desire, they are going to be off track and they are not going to be in the will of God. Rose: Also, in 1 John, John tells us to keep ourselves from idols. And when you read that command in light of marriage you will see that there's something that you need to do to make sure that you are not allowing your spouse to become an idol in your heart. We need to always be checking our hearts to make sure that God is bigger than our spouse. He's able to keep our spouses. He's able to watch over our spouses. I don't have to be worrying 24/7 about what my husband is doing because our God is bigger than that. When we start worrying and fretting that just reveals that something is not right in our heart and it's usually the tendency of making our spouse an idol. Host: What are some of the practical things that either a couple can do together or the spouse can do in their own walk to overcome spousal idolatry? Jeff: Well, I know for myself that if I have something in my life that is taking my attention away from where it needs to be, I need to start making choices to get my focus where it needs to be. The Bible commands us to set our minds on the things above and not the things of the earth. And we just need to rein in our thoughts and our feelings, and we need to start going to the throne of grace which is where we'll get what we need. We need to start getting in the Word of God. We need to start seeking God more on a daily basis. The more time we start spending with God and the more time we start choosing to make Him the first thing that we're pursuing, He's going to automatically balance things out and then we're going to start seeing things right. And we're going to start to see our spouse in the right perspective. What spouses don't realize is that when God is first and when you're in a right relationship with Him, you're going to be able to fulfill your role as a husband or a wife the way God designed you to because things are going to be in their proper order. Host: Rose, how often have you seen in counseling where the spouse who has been in idolatry begins to let go of their idolatry and then a lot of issues and problems that were coming up in the marriage kind of begin to take care of themselves. Rose: Yeah. Those problems do begin to fall by the wayside because the focus is off the other spouse and they're focusing more on the Lord and what the Lord wants to be to them and that they were created for Him first and for His purposes. So, the focus really gets off of self or their spouse and it starts to get more on the Lord. And as that happens, you become freer, and you have more peace inside and you're able to be a blessing. Instead of looking to get something from the other person, you're just looking to give and be a blessing to them.
Timeless Truths: A Changed Heart will Bear Obvious Fruit
April 18, 2024
In this "Timeless Truths" segment from our archives, counselor Judy Lucas gives some guidance to a woman who wants to know if her fiancé has truly repented of sexual sin. Host: Judy, we want to tackle a question here from a woman that is considering marrying a man. He has confided in her letting her know that he spent five years addicted to pornography, but he does not currently have any desire to go back to sexual sin. He apparently has had some period of freedom. He did acknowledge to her that he only struggles with images when he brings them up in his mind. She wants to marry him, but she doesn't want to marry someone involved in pornography. How should she be looking at the situation? Judy: Well, one thing I would definitely tell her is that it’s a really good thing that she can thank the Lord for that he is willing to be honest and walk in the light about his past involvement in sexual sin and that he is honest about his current struggles. There are too many men on the other side of the fence where they are hiding and lying. So, it is a very good thing that he is willing to tell on himself. Another question that we hear all the time from women who are either dating or married to guys that have a past of viewing pornography is, “How do I know that he's not going to do this again?” And the honest truth is that it is hard to know. I can't give them full assurance that the man will never go back to his sin. There are many things we don't know about this relationship. How long have they been seeing each other? How long has she known him? What's been his track record? One thing I do want to encourage any woman to do when dating is to not be in a hurry to get married. Instead, she should begin to pay attention to his lifestyle a bit. What is some of the fruit he displays in his life? What do his daily activities look like? Does he seem to have a strong relationship with the Lord? Is he in the word? Is he in prayer? Does he spend time at church? Is he serving others in a selfless manner? Or is he in to things that would raise up red flags? I would even ask her about what her relationship with this guy looks like. Are they walking in purity, or is he making suggestions to cross lines into sexual intimacy? There are a lot of things to process and think about. The main thing she should be doing is praying and seeking the Lord for direction. She should maybe even be talking with her pastor to get some wise counsel along the way too. Host: We do need to add as an encouragement that God can keep a man that is truly repentant and who’s desire truly is to not to go back to his sin safe in His hand. Judy: Yes, He can. There's a lot of wonderful Scripture that talks about how the Lord will keep you. He gives us the Holy Spirit to bring the conviction that keeps us on the narrow way. The other thing is that when a guy looks at pornography, those images are imprinted in his brain and it's a continual battle for that man. So, I'm sure that the enemy does come to bring those images back to mind. But also, there is the reality of the power of God to transform the human mind. That transforming power comes slowly over time as he spends time in the Word. The Holy Spirit begins to renew the mind and wash out those images. He begins to replace those images with who God is and the things of God. It's like the washing out of the old junk and bringing something brand new and beautiful to think about. One last thing I would encourage this woman to do as she's thinking about marriage is to make sure her relationship with God is where it needs to be. She needs to make sure that God is her first love. He needs to be her heavenly husband. Her walk with God should be strong. It is also crucial that they are both walking with the Lord and making Him the first priority in their lives. Host: Yes. And that's so important particularly when looking at a suitor who has a background of sexual sin. Our prayer of course is that they will continue to walk in victory. But if something happens where he falls into sin or the enemy sets a trap that he steps into, a woman is going to need a solid relationship with the Lord to be able to respond to that appropriately in the marriage or the dating relationship. Judy: Absolutely. And again, that's why it's so important for him not to just be honest with her but to have another godly man in his life that can come alongside him and help him walk through his struggles with temptation. We always tell women that they are not to be the main accountability person for their spouse or someone they are dating. So, it is important for him to have a godly male figure that he can be open and honest with. Host: Yeah. Well, as a guy, I'll just second that and say we need that. So, I appreciate you underscoring the need for accountability as well. Thanks so much for your counsel on this issue. Judy: Thank you. It was great to be here.
Timeless Truths: There is Nothing More Christ-like Than Forgiveness
April 4, 2024
In this "Timeless Truths" segment from our archives, Kathy Gallagher talks about the beauty of forgiveness and mercy, and shows hurting wives how to be in that spirit toward their husbands. Host: Kathy, I know that you were thrilled to get this letter from Yolanda. She wants some information and help on how she can live the mercy life. Her problem is, how do you live the mercy life in a marriage where you've been hurt by your husband? Kathy: Yeah. First of all, Mike, I'd like to try and describe what the mercy life is as we know it here at Pure Life Ministries. The Mercy Life is a life where we put the needs of others above our own. It's a Biblical life. The Mercy life is a life where you are meeting the needs of other people. It’s a life where you see a need and you fill it and that can be applied in any situation in life. You could do some small thing to meet a need for someone that's struggling in your workplace. You can do an act of kindness for a neighbor. There's an endless list of ways that you can just simply meet a need. And because you love Jesus and because He lives in you, naturally you do kindnesses to other people. So, now let me paint how this mercy life can be lived out in a marriage where the husband is living in sexual sin. A lot of women are afraid to be too kind because understandably, they have their guard up. But I just want to encourage wives that living the mercy life toward your husband is the only way to live your life in a way that's pleasing to God. Host: Well, basically what you're saying Kathy is the mercy life is what Christianity is really supposed to be about. But you're not talking about just people doing good things for other people. There's nothing wrong with that, but it has to be motivated by something. What is it in us that produces the mercy life as we mature as Christians? Kathy: As time goes on, the love of Jesus takes over in us and we begin to see the needs around us and we want to meet those needs. I'll never forget a lady I met up in Vermont. She was an elderly woman and she was just such a tremendous blessing to me. And I don't even know why she said this to me, but she walked up to me and she wrapped her arms around me and she said, “The most God-like characteristic there is, is forgiveness.” That was many years ago and it really affected me. When she said it, I was trying to process through why she was saying that to me. And over the years it has become so real to me what she was saying. It was Jesus Himself speaking to me through her that forgiveness, mercy and love are the characteristics that are manifested in the life of a believer that shows we really belong to Jesus. You know you've been born from above when you love the brethren and mercy is flowing out of your life. As we mature as Christians, that's what comes out of us more and more. Host: I know as you're saying that women are going to be thinking to themselves, “Okay. So, I have to go be merciful and I have to generate forgiveness in my heart.” But we can't do that on our own. We have to have a revelation of something for that to take place. Kathy: Right. And I think that revelation comes when we come to terms with the mercy that's been given to us. When we understand and we really grasp the goodness of God toward us then it becomes much easier to forgive those who have offended us. But if it's not real to you in your spirit, how much debt has been forgiven you then it becomes very difficult to forgive the debt of another, even if it is your husband. Now, I understand it as well as any woman listening how much it hurts to be devastated by your husband's unfaithfulness and yet I know, and I knew at the time, what a sinner I was and how much God had forgiven me. So, with that knowledge, how could I not forgive Steve? And that revelation and resolve came to me from God. That didn’t come from Kathy Gallagher. It's not in me to be that way. And I think that it is a very big part of the process for a lot of women to really examine themselves when they get in a self-righteous spirit, and they don't want to forgive and they want to hold their husband's sin against them. What they need to do is just remember the debt that has been forgiven for themselves. Their husband's sin is not worse than their own. It's not that God forgave her a little bit and God needs to forgive him a whole bunch. We are all on equal footing. Host: And whether it's a spouse or someone else who sins against us, we have to recognize our own sinfulness. That is the beginning of living the mercy life. Are there some practical ways that a wife can help her husband in a situation like this. What are the needs of her husband who may be struggling with sexual sin? Kathy: Well, there's a lot of things a woman can do. Number one is that without becoming overbearing and demanding, she needs to come up with ways to come alongside her husband. For instance, she should offer for them to pray together. This should be the husband's role, but we have to deal with reality and a lot of guys that are struggling with sexual sin aren't even trying to facilitate times of prayer. So, she can offer to pray with him or they can study the word together, but he needs his wife to support him as he struggles through. That doesn't mean that you're putting your seal of approval on his sin, but you're there for him and you're believing with him and you're going to just throw yourself into this marriage as best you can while he works his way through it. And this is only possible if he's in a repentant spirit and has a repentant heart. A lot of men that women are married to are not in a repentant state of heart. So, everybody's got their own set of circumstances that they have to navigate through. And if he's not repentant, she can't be his cheerleader. So, I'm speaking to women whose husbands are really trying to work through the repentance process. She can really offer herself and be supportive. She can be not afraid to give of herself to her husband. He needs that. Host: Well, I'm glad you made that point because mercy does not always take the same form. Sometimes mercy requires that we rebuke someone. Kathy: Yea, mercy can be very severe at times. And there were many times when I had to pull the plug on Steve so to speak. I'll just mention here one of those times. I did not know that it was the Lord directing me at the time, but I kept sensing that I needed to separate myself from Steve. And that seemed like the weirdest thing to me because he was doing so well in my mind. Well, eventually I did and sure enough, I found out that the whole time I thought he was doing great, he was doing terrible. So, when I did the hard thing, which was to separate myself from him, it ended up really being the merciful thing. And that was the thing that turned it around for Steve. Then there are times when a woman will just have to put her foot down. But again, I always feel like I have to balance everything I say with, “you've got to be in the right spirit,” because we can operate in the flesh. It's too easy to be in the flesh and think what we're doing is mercy when it's really just your flesh causing you to be controlling. Mercy is love in action. It meets the need of another person no matter what the need is and it always costs you something. Whether emotionally, spiritually or physically. When you love someone else, you're giving of yourself. You don't do mercy to get something. Mercy is freely given. Host: And of course, the greatest example we have of mercy was Jesus. And what he did for us. Kathy: Amen.
Embrace the Cross
March 15, 2024
One of the things the Cross is for man is a perfect sacrifice for his sin. We are hopelessly unable to atone for our sin, yet Jesus offered himself as a perfect sacrifice on our behalf. What should our response be when we see the wonder and beauty of such love? Ed Buch uses Colossians 1 to show us in this brief talk given to the men in our Residential Program. Tonight I’ve been thinking about the Cross and there was a line in one of the songs we were singing during worship earlier that says, “Spotless Lamb of God was He.” That just had me thinking about how the Cross represents different things Scripturally, and one of those things is the perfect sacrifice for sin. When we think about the Cross, it was our sin that required the Cross as a sacrifice. According to Hebrews 9:22 without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness and no remission of sin. We see in the Old Testament that life of an animal was is in the blood. And what is the wages of sin? Death. Sin brought death and the life is in the blood. So in order to bring life, it required the shedding of blood. And if you look at the Old Testament system, God accepted animal sacrifices for a season, but even in that, it tells us over 100 times in Scripture that the sacrifice had to be blameless or perfect or unblemished. The emphasis was on this perfect sacrifice because we couldn't do it. We had to choose perfect animals. They were closer than anything we could have come up with ourselves as a sacrifice. But then God of course, sent the perfect one, right? The spotless Lamb of God who could become that sacrifice for us. And if we go to Colossians 1, there's a passage there that is just worth spending a moment on. Colossians 1, verse 19: “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” (Colossians 1:19-20, NKJV) That peace is real. It's deliberate and it's more than just an emotion. It's the peace of God. Like Jesus said, it's a peace that the world can't take away. The passage continues on to say: “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.” (Colossians 1:21-22, NKJV) He was the perfect sacrifice. And what's it saying there? He's saying he’s going to make you perfect. He’s going to make you the blameless one, the perfect one. And that's what we can become in Him. Because of Him and because of His sacrifice. None of us are going to live sinless lives, but we are going to stand before God one day and we’re going to be in a wholly blameless situation if we have really committed our lives to loving and worshipping and surrendering to the Lord. But notice the very next word after all that. A lot of times we want to stop reading at a place like that. But what's the very next word? “’If’ indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.” (Colossians 1:23, NKJV) So, there is something we must do. We must respond to all of this message, and responding to it is not just the act of mentally accepting it. A true response to the Lord is grounded in being steadfast in the faith and continuing to endure in the faith. That's what's required. Jesus did make the perfect sacrifice in our place because of our inability to do so. But there is a right and a wrong response to the sacrifice He offered up for us. And I hear in some of the worship that is going on in our services here at Pure Life that the right response is in many of you, but I want it to be there in all of you. I want you all to have a true sight of the Cross. I'm may not be able to convey the excitement of it very well, but the Cross should excite you. The Cross should be a symbol of gratitude to us. A symbol of hope to us. A symbol of perfect sacrifice to us. It should also be a symbol of Jesus's perfect obedience. Philippians 2 says that He obeyed even to the death of the Cross. You and I struggle with rules. I struggle with following rules as simple as driving the speed limit. But Jesus laid down all of His self-will and obeyed perfectly. When we don't have a will of our own, we don't struggle when it comes to obeying. And the less of our will that we have the better. But that's what the Cross is. It is perfect sacrifice and it is perfect obedience, and we need to come into an understanding and a responding to that. Here at Pure Life Ministries, we talk about having encounters with the Cross or getting a sight of the Cross or even a revelation of the Cross. Yes, you should be seeking to have all of that happen for you, but I also want you to embrace the Cross. I want you to make it yours. The Bible tells us that we need to pick up our cross and carry it daily, so that's what I want us to be able to do as well. Let me just mention one other thing. The Cross was an instrument of death. But just contemplate for a moment what Jesus went through for you. He had spikes driven through His hands and His feet. He was nailed to the Cross with His limbs stretched out and He was suspended so that his body weight was pulling on all of His wounds. He had to actually push himself up to be able to take a breath because His insides were being pressed in tight and it's hard to even breathe in that position for very long. Imagine you're hanging out there in the middle of the day in a place where there's no shade and no rain and no cloud cover to speak of. If you've been to Israel, you know it's hot most of the time. So, you'd be just hanging out there with that sun scorching you as you're trying to push yourself up. But every time you push, you're like pushing against gaping wounds in your flesh where you've been nailed. It was the cruelest form of punishment known to man. And maybe it still is even, but certainly in that day it was the cruelest form of execution known and it was so bad that Roman citizens were automatically exempt from it. It was considered cruel even to them. They would only put their enemies through that punishment. That should tell us something about how much suffering Jesus went through. It was meant to inflict the most pain possible for the longest period of time possible. That's why they used it as a deterrent against criminal behavior because you were going to hang on a cross in incredible pain for an incredibly long time. And then even as Jesus was hanging there everybody was reviling Him. If you remember from Scripture, it says that even the thieves on either side of Him were reviling Him. The people walking by or standing there at the foot of the Cross were mocking Him. He didn't get any sympathy or respect even while He was on the Cross and even all of his friends had fled and deserted Him. This was a horrible thing. I don't think you or I could write a script that would be more horrible than that. And what was Jesus’ attitude like? His attitude was, “not my will but yours be done Father. I want to do this. If this is the way it has to be, this is what I want to do. I want to lay down my life. I want to give my life up for the sake of others. I want people to have hope. I want people to have a way out of their sin. I want people to have a cleansing for their sin that they can't have otherwise. I want to give them this.” So, there should be a lot of gratitude in our hearts as a result of that kind of love. Don't cheapen the Cross. Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Love Will Defeat the Power of Lust in Your Life
February 29, 2024
Who would have thought that getting into the needs of others would help a person overcome their sexual sin issue? In this interview, Ed Buch & Jordan Yoshimine open up about how the root of their sin problem was a life of selfishness and how the mercy of the Lord broke through that selfishness and broke the power of lust in their lives. (from Episode #559 - Mercy Destroys the Spirit of Lust | Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom) Nate: Alright. So, it's time for another episode in our series, "Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom." Today's key lesson is learning to meet the needs of other people. And the point of this lesson is that our lives should be at some level devoted to meeting the needs of other people. First off, let me just ask you guys both very simply, why is the "mercy life" a key lesson that we have to learn as we're walking toward freedom? Ed: Well, the journey down that road to freedom requires us to deal with the roots of sexual sin. And at the root of sexual sin, there's a major preoccupation with self. That's just the way it is. Living with self at the center, serving self, taking for self and doing what feels good to self is all hand in hand with the sexual sin issue. So, in biblical counseling, we deal with any issue really with a three-pronged approach. It includes putting off the sin, renewing the mind and then putting on the new man. So, obviously with sexual sin, the put off is pretty obvious. Stop acting out the behaviors that are violating the Word of God with your sexuality. Renewing the mind happens through Scripture. The put on in this case comes through meeting the needs of others and investing into the needs of others. And if you never get to the putting on in this area, you won't really be able to sustain lasting victory over your sexual sin. Jordan: Yeah. I had noted for this discussion pretty much the same concept. Put off, renew the mind and put on. But I also would add in Philippians 2:3, which says, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3, NASB 1995). So we need to put off selfishness. We shouldn't be doing anything that feeds our self-lives, and we should actually be putting on getting into the needs of others. Then we should be doing what Colossians 3:12-14 says, which is to put on love and we should bear one another and forgive one another. So, I think that's an important aspect to remember. When you are battling against selfishness, you need to put on mercy and getting into the needs of others and put on love which is the bond of perfection. Nate: So, what you guys are saying is that the mercy life, or getting into the needs of others, or giving or serving actually is the thing that's chopping out the root that the sin is flowing out of. Ed: That's right. Nate: So, it's not just a matter of needing to put a filter on my phone or I need to have all these boundaries in place. Those things can help. But if you chop out the root, then you're really doing what is needed. Ed: That's right. You're really getting at the heart issue of all of it and that's what you really want to do and need to do. Nate: Yeah. And sexual addiction is actually a pretty hot topic these days. People are talking about it a lot. And a lot of people are trying to offer help, so inevitably they're going to start asking questions like, “What are the root issues?” And, “What is really going on that is giving way or giving rise to these addictive behaviors?” And I wonder how many places or people would bluntly just say that the root issue is selfishness in a person. Ed: I don't think you’d hear that very often. Nate: Yeah. When did the lights come on for you guys where you were like, “Oh my goodness, the reason I'm doing all this stuff is because I just love myself.”? Jordan: I've shared my testimony before and it’s on our website, but there came a point in the program where my counselor asked what my biggest idol was. In that moment I couldn't come up with an answer that wasn’t surfacy. I said that my biggest idol may be my car or hockey, but after I walked out of the counseling office a light bulb went off in my head and I thought, “Wow, it's me. I'm the problem.” It was like the veil was torn back and I was able to see the reality of my condition. I was able to see the devastation that my sin had caused. It was very difficult to see all that, but it was necessary. Ed: Yeah, I honestly did not see myself as the problem before coming to Pure Life. So, when I came to the Residential Program, what really opened my eyes was reading through the book, "At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry." I think Chapter 6 in that book deals with the root cause of sexual sin, and I remember that section of the book pretty vividly because that's where Pastor Steve talks about how you need to quit blaming other things. He talks about how we can't blame our past. We can't blame the fact that we were sexually abused or any of those other sorts of circumstances or issues of our upbringing. On top of that, he talks about how we need to quit blaming other people. So, through that I saw that it wasn’t my parents’ fault and it wasn’t my wife's fault either. And as I eliminated all of the people and things that I was focused on and looking at as the problem, the only real problem left was me in the end. At that point I was left sitting there thinking, “Wow, OK. It really is me. I'm the problem.” And after that realization it is good for a man to couple that with some good solid teaching from the Bible about needing to be a giver instead of a taker and how he needs to deny himself instead of indulging himself. It is important for us to see that we need to put others ahead of ourselves. It’s also important to be receiving clear biblical teaching on those themes and then look at how we can't blame anything or anyone else. And that should lead a man to say, I'm the problem and I'm not doing things right at all. Nate: Okay, so then you guys both came to a place of genuine repentance over your selfishness and self-centeredness. And then you had to learn a totally different lifestyle. What helped you learn to live the mercy life? Ed: As I think about it, I would say it started with good teaching. There was some really good teaching that was assigned to me to read during my program. I was really impacted by another one of Pastor Steve's books called "Living in Victory: Through the Power of Mercy." There was also the Mercy Studies class that we would have and still do have every Sunday evening during the program that uses the book, "What the Bible Teaches About Mercy" by Rex Andrews. And probably outside of Pure Life not many people have ever heard of that book, but there is solid teaching in there about getting into the needs of others and really making that a focus and a priority of the Christian life. But I really think I learned a lot more about living the mercy life toward others by seeing other people do it. That's one of the blessings as you're in the Residential Program. You have these staff members who are a little further along in their journey of freedom from sexual sin and you see how merciful they can be toward you as a student. There were staff members who would show mercy toward myself and others and there were even some odd examples of it that would really capture my attention. There is one that is a long story, so I won't tell the whole thing, but there was one staff member who had a reputation of being kind of gruff. And I was kidding with him one day about giving me some Oreo cookies. When I got back to my room the next day after being at my job, there was a bag of Oreo cookies on my bed and it was just a simple sort of gesture, but it told me that these people are really investing in others and laying down their lives for others. On top of that, probably nothing taught me more about living the mercy life than having to deal with difficult people. I was in this program with 70 men who were all at least as selfish as I was. And when you are in that situation something's got to give. You're either going to kill each other or you're going to learn something about putting others ahead of yourself and meeting the needs of others. You are going to learn to yield your rights away and put others higher than yourself. Jordan: Yeah, I didn't even think of this when you mentioned it but "Living in Victory" was my favorite Steve Gallagher book in the program. And it was because in the last half of the book it talks about living out the mercy life and that was a completely new concept for me. It was foreign to me that I needed to consider others needs above my own and that that was part of the Christian life. Ed: It took it from being just a mental idea of esteeming others better and it brought into light the need to actually put others ahead of myself by serving them and by doing something to practically invest into the lives of others. Jordan: Yeah. And sometimes people can believe they are living the mercy life but they don't recognize that they have mixed motives. They may be doing things for others, but there is some benefit to them for doing their good deeds to others. But the book "Living in Victory" taught so well that mercy is doing something for others and considering their needs above your own without expecting anything in return. So when I was in the Residential Program, the thing that really impacted me was learning how to pray and becoming an intercessor. That was really transformational for me. I don't know if it's in that Rex Andrews book or where I heard it, but I heard someone say that 95% of mercy is in prayer. And so, it was emphasized in the program that we needed to spend time in prayer, but also you need to be praying for the needs of others. When it came to doing mercy through prayer, I got practical applications all the time. When I would complain about other students in the program, my counselor would ask me, “Are you praying for them?” And when he said that I thought to myself, “wow, that's something I can do.” And you can’t imagine the power that prayer has. The person you're praying for may not even change, but your perspective changes and your heart changes through prayer. You begin to see them through God's eyes and you really get into a flow of mercy toward them. Also, when you pray for someone, love wells up in you for that person and genuine concern. So, prayer and intercession for me are pillars when it comes to living the mercy life. Nate: Yeah. So, if anybody's pretty honest and self-aware, they're going to say, “Wow, this is not natural for me to do.” Because it's not. It's not natural to live a life that is intentionally putting the needs of others above your own needs. And so, it can be taxing. It involves a lot of sacrifice. It can be tiring. It can be disappointing. When you get used by other people or the people that you've poured into just don't do well, it can be very discouraging at times. What keeps you guys going with that kind of focus? Where you can say to yourself, “I'm doing this no matter how difficult it is.” Jordan: Gratitude. I tell a lot of the guys I counsel how vital it is to be living at the foot of the Cross, keeping your eyes on Calvary and remaining thankful for what Jesus did for you. When I look at Christ and His mercy, what rises up in me is, “Wow Jesus! You did all of this for me?” And of course, that causes gratitude to just well up inside me. So, when I'm discouraged or I have a counselee that's tough or one that's not responding, I always go back to who Jesus is to me and what He did for me. When I do that, gratitude fills my heart. And then out of that well of gratitude mercy just pours out towards others. When I look at the Cross, what do I have to complain about? What do I have to be discouraged about? The Lord experienced every grief I have known. He is so merciful. He is so lowly. He is so humble. And because of that I choose to be grateful. Yes, I'm going to face trials in this life, but gratitude is what drives the bus for me in this life. If I can stay in an attitude of gratitude, then things are going to go well because my focus is on Jesus. Ed: Yeah, and I would agree with that. Gratitude always tends to take me back to the Lord because when I don't know what else to give thanks for, the four things I was taught is to give thanks for are Jesus, the blood, the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. And usually that's how I'll start my gratitude portion of my prayer time with going through those four things and just talking to the Lord. Then throughout the day, when I want to change the atmosphere of my inside world, I just start thanking the Lord. And if I can’t think of anything new, I can always go back to those four things and end up with my focus on the Lord. And when your focus is on the Lord, it's not going to be on self or serving self.
Is a Lower Sex Drive the Answer to Walking in Victory?
February 1, 2024
Many men often blame their strong sex drive for their sexual sin. That begs the question, is somehow lowering one's sex drive the answer for overcoming sexual addiction? Steve Gallagher answers that question in this interview. Host: Hey, Steve, thanks for coming in. We want to deal today with an email that came in from a 21-year-old man who is struggling with the power of his sex drive. And it seems that someone has suggested to him that psychiatric drugs may be an option to help lower his sex drive. How would you respond to that? Steve: Well, I would respond from Scripture like I would with any kind of an issue that comes up in life like this. In 2 Peter 1, Peter made a couple of interesting statements that I think we should take a look at. He said this, “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” (1 Peter 1:3-4, NASB 1995) Now that's a mouthful and I understand that, but I do want to say a couple of things about this. First of all, I need to say that I believe this statement is true. With all my heart I believe it's true. Not only because the Bible says it, but also because it's my testimony. It's something that I have experienced and have seen lived out in the lives of many people. God has what every believer needs. That's not just cheap preacher talk or something. It’s the reality of anyone who has a life with God. Peter promises us here that God's power will provide everything we need to make it in life. We have to decide if we really believe that. That's what it boils down to when we hear these kinds of promises made in Scripture. Do we really believe what the Bible is saying? Personally, the idea of a Christian needing to take drugs to live in victory is absolutely preposterous to me. It shows me that the young man asking this question does not yet know what it means to have the power of God in his inner life. If he will establish a strong devotional life, not only will he find that there is power to live victoriously in Christ, but it'll give him a wonderful opportunity to ask God for a greater infilling of the Holy Spirit. Host: Now, one of the things that I see in his email is that he is so focused on his physical sex drive. And of course, most guys that are 16 years and older are often focused on their hormonal issues that are drawing them toward giving over to their sexual sin. But in the passage you just read from 1 Peter, there’s more being spoken of than just a strong sex drive when Peter uses the phrase “corruption is in the world because of lust” isn’t there? Steve: Well, this young man who reached out is overwhelmed. And like you said, a lot of young people do become overwhelmed when their hormones are raging inside. But when God becomes large in a person's heart, mind and their daily life to where they are spending time with God and they are connected to the vine, then their problems become much smaller and more manageable. When you're just living in the flesh, of course, your problems are going to be overwhelming. Host: Now, in his email, he said that he wants to reduce his sex drive. Now are we saying that if he develops a solid relationship with the Lord that his sex drive is going to go diminish? Steve: No. His sex drive is not going to change. It's a physical thing that he has to deal with. But what does come into play is the power to be able to deal with it in the right way. That's what he's missing. All he's focused on is his sex drive, but he's not seeing the power of God at work in his inner man. Host: And of course, one of the things that fights against young men who want to go on the right path with this issue is that the culture is saying that you are a captive to these desires and you can't help but indulge in them. In fact, the culture teaches that you are abnormal if you don't give into these desires. Steve: Right. And one of the problems which that raises is the fact that so many young people are more plugged in with the world and our pagan culture than they are to the things of God. So of course, when you're more plugged in to the strong messages coming from television and the internet, that's going to shape your thinking, your belief system and it's going to strengthen the unbelief that's already in you. Host: And for a young man or even for a young woman, if you look at it right, this is a wonderful opportunity to prove the faithfulness of God in your own life. Steve: Yes, it is a wonderful opportunity to glorify God in your body. It sends such powerful message to young people around you today who are totally given over to the things of this world, their flesh and sexual sin for you to stand strong and say, “I choose to say no to my flesh. My life in God means more to me than worldly pleasure.”
When Should I Forgive Someone Who Has Offended Me?
January 25, 2024
How do you forgive a brother or sister in Christ that has sinned against you? What do you do if this person is unrepentant over their actions? Steve Gallagher answers these questions in this interview from our archives. Host: Steve Gallagher has joined me in the studio. Steve is the Founder and President of Pure Life Ministries. Steve, we want to deal today with a question involving forgiveness and repentance. An individual wrote us a letter and they are in a situation where someone has wronged them and yet has not repented for what they did. They want to know, is there real forgiveness for them to offer to this person who wronged them in this case? Steve: Well, it can be a tricky matter. Jesus did give us a course of action in dealing with these kinds of situations. In Luke 17, He said, “Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” Now, the implication here seems to be that forgiveness is only extended if it's requested. To a certain degree that is true. But we should also keep in mind that Jesus asked the father to forgive the men who murdered him. Those people obviously weren't repentant. Yet it was one of the last prayers that he prayed before expiring on the cross. He prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” And you know, someone once said that forgiveness is the most Christlike characteristic a person can have. So, you kind of have two sides to this tension. On the one side, if a believer sins against me or offends me and it has bothered me enough that it's not just going away, then the right thing for me to do is to go to that person in a humble and gentle spirit and try to express to them how their actions have affected me. In Luke 17 Jesus is using the term rebuke, which sounds harsh, but it doesn't have to be harsh. It shouldn't be harsh, because it should be done in a spirit of humility and hopefully in the end there will be reconciliation. If the person refuses to acknowledge what they have done or decides to avoid accepting the blame, then you have to decide if you are going to continue the process that Jesus laid out in Matthew 18, which is basically church discipline. In Matthew 18 it says that if your brother sins, go to him privately and show him his way, and if he doesn't repent, take two or three with you to correct him. And then if he still doesn't repent, take him before the church. Now I will say it would have to be something pretty serious to see that process through to its ultimate conclusion. Now on the other side, Scripture tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. So, there is tension between the fact that we are given a scriptural basis to both confront, but also cover, sin. Now if you're filled with the spirit of love, you can overlook a whole lot more than if you are walking in the flesh. But you still must deal with the situation properly. If someone is unwilling to repent for their actions, it doesn't mean that we take our heart out and throw it down on the table for them to do us wrong again. We may need to withdraw our trust for that person, but that isn't a lack of forgiveness. We do still need to forgive people. But withdrawing trust is simply being wise with who we entrust ourselves to. Host: I see. So, really the answer to the question comes down more to an issue of my own heart than the heart of the individual who has wronged me. Because if I really have a sight of the tremendous mercy and forgiveness that I have been granted by the Lord, then as I walk in that reality, it becomes much more difficult for me to hold anything against anybody else. Steve: That's a very good point. And that is also in Matthew 18 in the parable of the unforgiving servant. But there's also the issue of what's good for the other person. If that person is going around offending people, if you can handle it in the right way, then you can possibly help that person by letting them know how they've affected you so that they don’t continue to offend others in the same way. Host: But still having a forgiving heart, right? Steve: Yes. And still doing it in the right spirit as well. Host: Yea. And the Lord draws us with chords of lovingkindness even though we certainly don't deserve His forgiveness. It is often difficult to know exactly how to deal with situations. Now, you mentioned the process for dealing with a believer who has offended you, but it is probably even more difficult when you're dealing with a non-believer when it comes to responding to that individual. Steve: Well, you are bringing up a good point, because you don't deal with an unbeliever the same as you deal with a believer. If a brother offends you, you go to him and you confront him or at least let him know what he has done. But it doesn't work the same with an unbeliever who has sinned against you. You just have to forgive them and do your best to let it go. Nothing is to be gained by confronting them about their sin.
Creating an Atmosphere of Mercy in the Home
January 18, 2024
How can a couple change the environment of their home from one of tension and strife into an atmosphere where mercy is flowing toward one another? Jeff and Rose Colón address that topic in this interview. Host: Jeff and Rose Colón have joined me in the studio. Jeff and Rose, good to see you again. Jeff: Good to be here. Host: We want to talk today about the importance of creating an atmosphere of mercy in the home. Jeff, what do we have to say about that? Jeff: The whole idea of creating an atmosphere of mercy in the home environment is a vital component for a godly marriage. If you think about it, any marriage that's going to glorify God and show forth His goodness is a picture of the Lord’s relationship with His church. Our marriages are supposed to exemplify that. The Lord had compassion on each one of us. Ephesians 2 says He died while we were yet sinners because of His mercy toward us. Is it too much for Him to ask us to show that same mercy in our marriages? Host: As you were talking about that, I was thinking that if there's an atmosphere of mercy in the home, not only is there going to be peace in the home which every couple wants, but what a better testimony for others outside of the home that are watching that relationship. Jeff: Exactly. And if we're in a Christian marriage, especially one that's having difficulties, we're really going to find out how Christian we really are and how much mercy we have in our hearts toward our spouse. I've told my wife many times that there is absolutely no reason why a truly Christian marriage should ever fail even after something as devastating as sexual sin has occurred. Host: Amen. Now let's talk about how to go about creating an atmosphere of mercy in the home. Let's start with the husband. What are some of the things that the husband can do? Jeff: I have dealt with this a lot with the men in the Residential program who have sinned against their wives. And one of the most important things I emphasize to them is to really be willing to bear the burdens of their wife. Not be defensive or react in an unbiblical way to her fears or things that she's still dealing with from their lifestyle of sin that they were living in for years in that home. He needs to give her the same mercy that God has showered upon him. I know in my own household, when mercy is in the atmosphere, then an atmosphere of fighting and disagreement has no hope of surviving. The Bible tells us to not be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good. And I'm not saying your spouse is evil, but that's how we feel sometimes when we're wronged. And I know men can be a little touchy sometimes and we really need to learn to put our wives’ interest before our own and consider their needs more important than ours. Host: Of course, the husband is half of the equation, but how can a wife help to create an atmosphere of mercy in the home? Rose: She can create an atmosphere of mercy in the home by being patient and being willing to suffer long with others in the home. Not only with her husband, but with her children. Because a lot of times wives will reach a limit with their husband around the children, and they start yelling or they may even belittle their husband in front of the children. And when she's in that spirit, she's not creating an atmosphere of mercy in the home toward her husband or even toward her children. If she is acting that way, then she needs to learn how to be willing to admit that she’s wrong and not feel like she needs to prove that she’s right or win the argument. If she is willing to walk in humility toward her husband and to be willing to pray for him instead of voicing her complaints or grievances, she will create an atmosphere of mercy in her home. Host: Jeff, I know that developing an atmosphere of mercy in the home is a challenge for any couple. We all have to bear one another. Is there an encouraging word you can give to a couple that may be struggling with this? Jeff: Sure. As I said earlier, difficulties usually do come in a marriage and it's going to test us, but God has called us to go the Narrow Way. He's called us to be a disciple. In other words, to live and to walk as He walked. To love as He loved. And when we face those tough choices that go against everything that we feel and perceive to be right, we'll really find out how much we love God. And one of the greatest needs in any marriage is for mercy to be flowing freely from both parties. So, my encouragement would be, don't be stingy with the mercy God has given you. Let it blossom. Let it become the atmosphere of your home.
Fighting Unwanted, Pornographic Memories
December 7, 2023
Even after a man overcomes his addiction to sexual sin he may still be plagued with vile memories from his past. In this short interview, Steve Gallagher discusses reasons this man may still be struggling with these kinds of thoughts and the right response to them. Host: Today we want to tackle a question that came in from a young man who had gotten himself involved in internet pornography. He is walking in freedom from viewing porn at this point, but he's wondering why as a believer he can't prevent some of those memories from coming back to him. Steve: Well, let's take a look at the dynamic of the human mind for a second. Generally, a man grows up wired by God to be a one-woman man. The whole season of puberty during his teen years is taking him in the direction of his wedding night. So, he's going to, Lord willing, eventually get married and have that beautiful, wonderful experience of intimacy with his wife. Host: So, there is a natural sexual desire that God wants men to have. Steve: Yes, it's normal. God created sex and it's a beautiful thing to the Lord in its right context. It's not something that's dirty in itself. But what happens is if we get involved in something perverted like pornography then the enemy uses that to corrupt our perspective of sexuality. And so, perversions of God’s intentions for things begin to take us down a bad path. Host: Now, we do have a fallen nature. How does that fallen nature play into this? Steve: Well, obviously, the fallen nature is naturally prone to sinful thinking. So, when something like pornography is introduced, our sinful nature is more than willing to go after it. But it's not just a matter of that, there's also the whole element of what I would call the autopilot of our brains. Our minds are a lot like a computer. The computer can be operating all the time, but that can be a separate operation from what the user is actually typing. And that's kind of an illustration of the way our minds work. Our minds can be in auto pilot where we're not purposing to think bad thoughts, but they just kind of float on in and we find ourselves with these images that we must deal with. Host: Well, I'm glad you shared that because I know one of the problems that guys deal with after overcoming an addiction to pornography is that they can be sitting in church and out of the blue they recall a vile memory and they weren't even trying to think of it. Steve: When that sort of thing happens, that could very well be the enemy trying to distract the person from what is going on in that spiritual atmosphere. The enemy can come in and introduce sinful thoughts into our minds. Host: Ok. So, sometimes it is out of our control. Maybe it's the enemy. But sometimes it can also be our own weakness in wanting to pursue those thoughts. What's the answer to the problem? Steve: Well, really the overall answer is to change our thinking. God has left us with the resource to do that and it is the Word of God. If a guy will spend quality time every morning in the Word of God, and I'm talking about at least a half an hour meditating on and studying the Word, it has the power to wash our minds of filthy thinking and to cleanse out our memories over time. And it has the power to introduce a new mindset. The Word of God is God's thinking. It holds His perspectives on life and the more time we spend in it, the more we're going to take on His perspectives. And so, it doesn't happen overnight. But like I've said many times, if you don't want to be thinking the same way you are now six months from now, then you better start getting into the Word of God daily. Host: The verse that comes to my mind is Romans 12:2 that tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And how important it is for these folks to understand that there is more to it than just stopping bad behavior. That of course is critical, but when it comes to actually changing our hearts and changing our minds, it is the Word of God that the Holy Spirit uses to do that. Steve: Yeah. I mean, let's face it. The images that we've introduced into our minds don't just go away. When we quit looking at pornography, there's still that lingering effect. But the Word of God has the power to cleanse that away. Host: And it's your experience after nearly 40 years of dealing with guys in your own life that as you establish a devotional life in the Word of God and in prayer then those memories will fade over time. Steve: Yes. Absolutely.
What Should a Wife Do with Her Suspicions?
November 9, 2023
When a husband is truly trying to overcome his sin, his wife may wonder at times whether or not he is truly changing. In this short interview from our archives, Kathy talks about how to navigate this difficult position. Host: Kathy. We want to talk today about a letter you received from Janet. She was facing what so many women have to face. And that is, how does she know whether or not to confront her husband when she's dealing with suspicions about him? Kathy: That's a very touchy situation for a lot of wives because I think most women that have been through this with their husbands are suspicious. So, when do you decide to take some of those suspicions and actually deal with them? One of the things that I would say to a woman who has suspicions and is concerned that there's something going on is to first of all pray and try to get the heart and mind of God for her own life. I know for myself when I was going through this, I was so paranoid all the time that Steve was up to no good. I had already conditioned my mind to think suspiciously of him. So, when he started doing well, I couldn't believe he was doing well because I had carved these ruts in my mind so deeply. So, I really tried to pray and ask the Lord to help me to believe the best about my husband. There are some questions that a wife can ask herself once she has prayed through some of these things where she can try to get her own heart and mind in a neutral position, which is very hard. First she can look back at the last six months. Look at his track record. Is there some legitimate fruit of repentance in his life? Is he in the Word of God daily? Is he praying? Is he interacting with the family in a good way? Is he in fellowship with other believers? Is there a desire for the things of God? Those are really good telltale signs of where he's at and how he's doing. If those things are kind of weak and lacking then there may be a reason to be suspicious. But always when you confront it has to be in a spirit of gentleness and kindness. Also, I would go into it with a little bit of fear and trepidation because the one thing a wife doesn't want to do is to spew her suspicions on her husband who is trying to obey the Lord and leave him feeling defeated amidst the efforts he's making. It's very discouraging to be trying so hard and then have your wife come along and basically say, “I don't believe you and I don't trust you.” Host: One of the things you said in your response to Janet was that a wife has to walk a fine line between trust and caution. What happens if you go too far in either direction? Kathy: Well, some women will stick their head in the sand and just assume everything's great because they don't want to deal with reality. And that's very detrimental to her family and her husband because she's not going to be there to help hold his feet to the fire. The opposite extreme of that is the woman who doesn't believe anything the guy says. And it's very discouraging for a man who is trying to obey the Lord to have a wife that won't cut him any slack. I would like to also say to the wives who have been through a lot with their husbands that trust takes time to build. I don't recommend that any woman immediately run into a place of giving superficial trust that isn’t real. If he's a week or a month out of sexual sin, I do not feel like a woman should be in a position where she is throwing the gates wide open and saying “I completely trust you.” Trust has to be earned and for the time being he has forfeited it. He has to prove his trustworthiness. That is healthy for both the husband and the wife. Trust is not something that we just offer out freely. And when I talk about being suspicious, being suspicious and not trusting are different. You can be suspicious and be thinking all kinds of things are going on that are not going on. Not trusting him is a merited reaction to bad or sinful behavior. But you don't punish that person. You've got to give it time. You've got to wait for that person to walk it out. Host: Is it true that ultimately whatever evidence she sees, whether it shows he is doing well or not, that she still needs to leave things in God's hands? Kathy: Yes. From beginning to end she has to leave things in God's hands, whether he's doing well or whether he's not doing well. Ultimately his change is going to come from heaven as he is willing and determined to walk a pure life. It really is between Him and God. It's not between the wife and him as much as it is between him and the Lord. If there was one thing I could get across to women, it is that this is not about you, even though you have been so devastated by his sin. I know what that feels like. It took me years to come to the revelation that he did not do this because of me. This is who he was before I came along. And this was definitely a thing between Him and God. So, when I began to understand that in my heart and mind, it changed the way I prayed. It changed the way I saw my husband. I didn't feel like a victim. I didn't feel like he was trying to hurt me or ruin me as a person. This was just a sin that he had harbored in his life for many, many years. Host: Did that free you then to pray for him and be an advocate for him? Kathy: Absolutely.
Bearing with One Another in Marriage
November 2, 2023
What are the most common issues a husband and wife deal with when reconciling after sexual sin? Jeff and Rose Colon share their thoughts in this interview. Mike: Jeff and Rose. As we focus on couples today, I'd like to discuss a scenario where a man is in our Residential Program and his wife is going through the Wives Program at home. What kind of issues do these couples deal with as they come together and go through this experience? Jeff: Typically, what we see is this couple having a hard time bearing one another through the different kinds of issues that they'll be dealing with as they go through their programs. And what I've seen with a husband a lot of times is that he is looking at everything he has sacrificed to come into the program. He is focused on everything that he has given up in order to get his life in order after he's been in sin for maybe 30 years. And now that he's been in the program for four weeks or so, he expects his wife to just come around and forgive him. He wants her to move on from the hurt he has caused her, and he thinks that she needs to start patting him on the back for doing well now. Mike: And Rose, how is the wife looking at the current situation? Obviously, she's seeing it from a different perspective. Rose: Usually for the wife, when the husband comes into the program, whether it's the Residential Program or the Overcomers At-Home Program, has certain expectations for her husband as far as him changing into a totally different person. And if she sees any sign of his old nature coming up, it sends her into a panic. And for her, she may wonder if her husband is really changing because she still sees remnants of his old nature. So, she may start to wonder if her expectations for him to change are realistic or not. Mike: Ok. So Jeff, how do you begin to deal with this man? I mean I guess what you describes is fairly typical of how guys are. We deal with an issue as we see it come up and then we move on and we don't think about it again. How do you begin to help a man to see his wife's perspective? Or what is the real issue that you have to deal with there? Jeff: The real issue is self-pity. He's feeling sorry for himself and he's looking for a little bit of recognition from his wife to make him feel better. What I try to help him understand is that he needs to be in sight of the mercy that God has had on him in the fact that he didn't die out there in his sin. He needs to see that it's the mercy of God that he's even in the program and he needs to have a grateful heart. And with that he also needs to understand that he must bear his wife through what she needs to go through. And if she has a hard time, maybe she doesn't speak nicely to him on the telephone, he needs to bear with her through that and be a little more understanding of what she's going through instead of focusing on how everything is affecting him. Mike: I guess a lot of times for these guys, they may have been dealing with whatever the sin issue is for many years and this may just have been a sudden thing for the wife. And so, you can understand how she may not be as quick to forgive or quick to move on. Rose, what's the real issue you're dealing with when it comes to the wife? Rose: Well, a lot of times the wife is too focused on the husband and how he's not changing. And we really want her to get focused on the Lord and we want to encourage her that her husband's a work in progress just like she is. Sanctification is a process and it takes time for the Lord to change different attitudes in our hearts and our behavior as well. So, I would try to encourage her to get her eyes on the Lord and look to Him. I would also have her write down some things that she does see that are different in her husband and not be so focused on what she still sees is wrong with him. She needs to see what God is doing in her husband's life and encourage him in that way. Jeff: That reminds me of what I told a husband to do recently that really goes along with what Rose is saying. I encouraged him to make a list and write down the things that he's grateful for about his wife. I told him was that he should be grateful that she's talking to him after 30 years of deceiving her and sinning against her. I told him that he should be able to come up with 50 things to be grateful for about his wife. The bottom line was that I told him he needs to get the focus off himself and how he is feeling and how maybe he’s not getting treated the way he would like. I told him instead that he needs to be focused on his wife’s needs and he needs to be praying for her and caring for her. And ultimately, he should be thanking God and he should be having a heart of gratitude for his wife. Mike: Well, it sounds to me like the common thing I hear from both of you, whether you're dealing with the husband or the wife is that they need to bear one another. For both of them, much of the solution involves getting their eyes off of themselves and looking to meet the needs of others. So, this would be something we could all apply to our lives whether we are married or not. How many relationships would be transformed overnight if we would just bear with one another.
Restoring Trust Back Into Your Marriage
October 19, 2023
It’s hard to build trust in a marriage when a man has spent years or even decades lying to his wife about his secret sexual sin. But Jeff and Rose can testify to the Lord’s great power to restore a broken relationship. In this brief segment, they discuss some simple lessons they’ve learned on how to rebuild trust in a marriage. Host: Jeff and Rose, as we focus on couples this week, we want to talk about what is admittedly a difficult issue for anyone. And that is the betrayal of trust. Jeff, how does a couple begin to deal with this issue? Jeff: Well, first of all, the husband needs to understand the impact that has come from lying to his wife for a long time. He has hurt his wife very deeply by lying to the point that some wives actually are more upset at the lies he's told rather than the actual sin that was committed. And the husband has to understand that and realize that trust is not going to be something that's going to come automatic for his wife. He's going to have to be willing to be truthful and to handle things differently so that he can build that trust back into his marriage. And it might take quite some time to do that. Host: So, do you find that sometimes the husbands think, “Well, ok. I've gotten all this out in the open. I've acknowledged everything that I did, so everything should be ok now.” Jeff: Absolutely. That's what we see a lot of the time where the husband expects his wife to immediately begin to trust him as soon as he makes some visible changes. And really, I question whether that guy has really been broken over his sin if he is not willing to bear his wife through the process of building trust back into the marriage. Host: So, are there any particular steps that he can take? What are the things that he needs to begin to do? Jeff: Well, the Bible is pretty clear. In Ephesians 4:25 it says, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” (Ephesians 4:25, ESV) And it pretty much comes down to learning how to speak the truth and being vulnerable. A lot of times a husband who is in sexual sin isn't honest about what is going on inside. So, the wife may sense that something's wrong, but he's lying and saying that everything's fine. But when a husband is honest, and he begins to speak truth from his heart and he's vulnerable to his wife then she can know that she can trust him. She can know that he is not putting a false front to her and that he is being honest about his struggles. Host: Yea. And oftentimes, I would assume that a man is just looking at his own outward behavior, but God is wanting to do a deep inward work in his heart. And that's what the wife is looking for too. So, if a guy is just focusing on changing his behavior to make things right, he maybe won’t understand why his wife isn’t trusting him. What he'd be failing to understand is that she's looking to see if there's a heart change over a period of time. Jeff: Absolutely. And sometimes the husband will fall into the trap of being lead to believe that she is just expecting perfectionism. So, in those cases the husband may fear that if he shares with his wife that he's struggling inside or that there's something not right inside then she's going to freak out. But really what he doesn't understand is it'll actually make her more secure if he is honest about his struggles. Our wives want to know what's going on inside of us and they're not looking for some spiritual superman. They're looking for a man that is honest and vulnerable and willing to open up his inside world with his wife. Host: Rose, is there a different perspective that a wife in this situation has? How does a wife perceive this issue? Does she see it differently? Rose: Usually the wife does not trust the husband at all. Even if he is someone who has gone through the Pure Life Ministries Residential Program and done all the right things, initially she still won’t trust him. And that's just where she's at in that point in time. Also, a wife will get frustrated a lot of times because the husband is in this mindset that he has proven himself to be trustworthy through the right things he has begun to do. But regardless of the outward acts, the husband still has a track record where he can't be trusted. So, I try to help the wife to see that her focus needs to be on the Lord. She needs to see that the Lord is the one that her husband is accountable to primarily and she needs to trust that God is able to deal with him. Overtime as she sees the Lord working in his life and dealing with his heart, then the wife starts seeing that trust can be built back into the marriage. It can come back, but it really depends on the husband and how vulnerable he's willing to be and how open and honest he is with his wife. That’s because you can trust someone that is honest and vulnerable. But someone that's been lying and deceiving – you can’t trust that person. And usually I'll ask the wife “When can you trust someone?” And the right answer is that you can trust someone when they're being honest with you. So, if they're not being honest, then they are hindering the Lord from working in the area of restoring trust in the marriage.
Help! I've Truly Repented, But I Stumbled Again into Sin (Part 2)
October 5, 2023
True repentance is a gamechanger, and it sets a man on a path toward real freedom from sexual sin. But what should he do if he fails? And how should his wife respond to this? In Part 2 of a discussion with Steve & Kathy Gallagher, we show husbands and wives how to respond to failure in the right way so that they keep moving forward in their battle against sexual sin. (from Purity for Life Episode #511 - How to Handle Failure | Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom) Nate: Now, Kathy, if a man who has repented of sexual sin is married, then likely he's married to a woman who has already been through a lot. This is not the first time she's had to face this, so if he happens to have another failure that can be really traumatic for her. All of the pain is freshly opened again. The wounds are open again. It brings back a lot of the memories that she hoped were completely behind her. Maybe she hasn't even really healed from a lot of these memories. What does she need to hear about these failures and how does she deal with them? Kathy: If his repentance is genuine, a failure does not nullify that. It doesn't take you back to ground zero. I remember so well, the dichotomy of seeing Steve deeply repentant and then fall. It was very hard to understand because I knew what I had seen. I knew his repentance was real. I could not get away from the reality of what had happened to him spiritually. So, then I ask myself, “What is this failure then? What in the world are you doing here? You said a lot of things to me and you said a lot of things to the Lord. Things were changing, and now this.” All I want to say to women is that this is part of the process. I had to learn it. You have to learn it. It's not the end. It's not over. We're not going back to ground zero. Actually, the way I see it now, when Steve would fall into a form of sexual sin it was the lingering remnants of his old life still being purged from him. It wasn't truly failure, but it was like a finality to the whole awful thing. He had a few failures with pornography after he had his biggest moment of repentance, and it was pretty devastating because as a wife I went right back to square one in my mind. But what was happening in between the falls was that he was changing and I could see the change was real. And so, we’d go along for a few months and then boom, he would fall again. And in the female mind, we're back to ground zero. We have to start all over again. But he was still changing and the failures became less and less. There was more period of time in between each of those failures. So, he was changing and he was repenting. He was just having to battle his way out of things. In my mind, I was thinking he just wants his sin and that's why he keeps going back to it. That's what was in my heart sometimes, because that fear just takes over inside and you think that your husband is just messing with your head. But that's not what was happening and that's not what's happening in your situation most likely. Your husband is moving forward. It may not feel like he is to you, but he is. The thing that every woman should be looking for isn't necessarily the sin but the fruit of repentance. And for Steve, there was more fruit of repentance in the daily life than there was sinful behavior. What is happening in your husband spiritually? What does his life with God look like? That's the thing I have such a hard time trying to get through to women, because we take so personal what our husbands have done to us. We are always looking at how his sin is affecting us. And I don't mean to make it sound like that’s a horrible thing. It's just the reality of what we as wives are bent toward. But what you should be seeing is what is going on in his life with God, because that's the most important thing. Not the marriage. I hate to say it. I know that ruffles feathers, but the most important thing is his walk with God. If that is growing, your marriage will end up where it's supposed to end up. But if all he is focused on is you and your feelings then he is not going to grow spiritually. The thing that kept me hanging on with Steve was the repentance in him and the life that was developing in him spiritually. I saw something even in the midst of failures. I saw reality and I wasn't going to let go of that. Nate: And that reality doesn't mean an absolutely transformed life overnight. Kathy: No, it took years. And to be honest with you, walking through Steve issues with sexual sin in a certain way was the easy part. Yeah, he would have his lapses of sexual sin after he came into a life of victory, but there were deeply rooted attitudes and ways of thinking in Steve that God needed to deal with. And once the sexual sin got dealt with, I thought, “Oh, boy, a new husband, won't this be fun!” But then I was like, “Who is this guy?” The sexual sin was gone, but there was an angry, grumpy, disgruntled, complaining husband still there. Those were the things that the Lord was working out of him. So, I hate to say it, but women generally have a very fairy tale mentality about marriage. We think of it as if it is supposed to be utopia on earth and that is just not what it is. It’s two sinners coming together under the banner of Jehovah and allowing him to work into both of us His compassion and His mercy. His patience and His long suffering. All that He is we are supposed to be becoming. Not a happily married couple necessarily. That's not really the goal as I see it. Nate: That's a lot to chew on. I'm glad you say that stuff and not me. One thing I have seen with quote unquote sexual addiction specialists is this idea that the failure should be thoroughly analyzed. Like, “Where was I? What did I feel? What were my triggers?” And I think the idea is that if I can understand all the dynamics, then I can protect myself from those circumstances in the future and that will keep me from “relapsing”. Is there any value in this approach where you analyze the failure, or is that a lost cause? Steve: Well, I can tell you this. I sure I am grateful I have the Lord and I am not dependent on my ability to analyze myself. I suppose there may be a little bit of value to doing that, but comparatively to putting your energy, time and effort into developing a life with God, it is a night and day difference. It's like three cents worth of help versus a million dollars worth of help. We are talking about the power of Almighty God working on your behalf inside of, transforming your life, changing your circumstances and carrying you through life. Compare that to analyzing yourself. Are you kidding me? But that's the difference between worldly wisdom and the wisdom that comes from God and from a life in God. All I can say is this is not a mental battle. This is a spiritual battle and it's not won through knowledge of ourselves. It's won through connection to God and it's that connection to God that gives us the victory. Kathy: This whole idea of analyzing self to me is just an extension of what people have already been doing, because sin is like a thesis on self. So, why do you need to look at yourself more? Steve: All it will do is a get a person more wrapped up in themselves. Kathy: Yes. It is totally taking you away from where you should be putting your head and your heart toward, which is the Lord. What Steve just said is absolutely true. Put your energy, put your effort and put your mind in the Word of God and spending time with Jesus, because that is where true change comes from. Not by looking at yourself. We already know we're a mess. We need help and it's not going to come from our self-estimation. Self-examination is such a worldly wisdom approach to me and it grieves me. Steve: And now you know why there's no hope in this world, because the world has nothing to offer. Nate: Yea. Well, one of the struggles that I had with this whole interview was that we're talking about in some ways the good that can come out of failure. And it's a touchy subject because you don't want to give people a sense that every single time I fall good is going to come out of it. That can really let people off the hook from reality, because sin has destructive consequences every single time. So, I know Pastor Steve, in your book at the At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry, when you talked about this you were very clear that this should never be an excuse to give into any kind of sin. Although, you did touch on the good that can come out of it. So, can you identify for us some of the specific kinds of good that can come out of a failure. Steve: Ok. Well, first of all, let's set the proper stage here. We're talking about a man who is walking in victory but then has a failure. So, he's been mostly walking in victory over sexual sin for a matter of months or something like that. We're not talking about a guy who's still in the throes of sin. So, for a guy who things are going pretty well for and he has a failure, is there a silver lining to this cloud? Yes, I would say that there certainly could be the. The potential is certainly there. It'd be better not to fall into sin, because there are consequences. But it's not all black and it's not all negative. For instance, it's a humbling experience. There is an element of the man’s pride that's still there, especially when he starts doing well for a time. He may start feeling pretty self-confident and self-reliant, and sometimes we need to be taken down a peg or two. So, a failure can be a positive in that sense. Another thing is that it creates and deepens the hatred for sin, because there are consequences. And you get sick and tired of paying the price for that little bit of fun. So that reality goes deeper in you, which is a good thing also. Which that's the sort of thing that really can keep you from sin later when a temptation comes along. You start remembering, “Yeah, I know it could be really fantastic for a few minutes, but I remember the aftermath and it’s not worth it.” That kind of a thought can come to you. And the other thing we need to keep in mind is God's approach to our dilemma is holistic. He's not interested in just cleaning up this one little sin. We would be happy if that's all He would do. So much so that a man may have thoughts like, “Just leave me alone Lord. Let me live my worldly carnal selfish life. Just take this one sin out of my life because it's bothering me and it's making my wife really mad, so take it.” And praise God that He doesn't think like us. He's thinking about a complete change of character and a movement of our entire being headed towards Him and His Christ likeness. And that encompasses all the different elements of our nature. So, it's not just a matter of sexual sin. He's wanting change everywhere and in everything about us. So, we would be happy maybe to keep things as they are life other than this one sin that is ruining our lives, but God wants to move us into a life of true victory. Nate: Yeah. And Kathy, for the wife, what good can come to her from her husband's failures? Kathy: I have a short list. The first thing I would say is dependence on the Lord because we can very easily go through life without depending on Him when life is going well. So, I see the trials that have come through my husbands’ failures as a blessing, because they have caused me to really cry out to the Lord and put all my faith and hope in Him. I needed to be humbled greatly. When you're the wife and the “victim”, you can really get yourself in a mental quagmire and a spiritual quagmire of trouble from thinking that you're a victim and losing sight of the sovereignty of God. I have had to go through this struggle a million times in my life. Where I ask myself, “Where is God in all of this?” And the truth is that He is in every part of it. That's my answer to that question every time now after 43 years of marriage and looking back, He used it powerfully in my life. I needed to be humbled greatly even at the ripe age of 21 when all this hell broke loose on my life. But it also helped me to see the real battle that my husband was in. And it helped me to see how the Lord uses our struggles and sins to deal with us, to purge us and to conform us. My sight was raised up from not just my life in this world but to the bigger picture of what God is doing. It's so much more than what we can see. We're just so earthbound and it's natural to be that way, but the Lord is wanting to lift our vision to something more than just life on this earth. For decades we have been going through dealing with our own issues, but also dealing with so many other people. I have to ask myself, what is God doing with all of that? What is the point of all of that? That's kind of what we've been saying in different ways through this whole interview. We are being conformed to the image of Christ. We are not just putting off the old man, we are putting on Christ. That's the point. So, to lose our lives in this world and repent and turn away from our sin means that we're turning to Him and that we are taking on Christ likeness. And that to me is worth all the battle and all the struggle. Jesus is the prize. He is the goal. That is the end of the line right there. So, all the other stuff that confuses and muddles up the purpose for the struggle, I'm done with all that. I want Jesus and I don't care what it cost me. And that is where I have ended up after 43 years of marriage and seeing a lot of people go through struggles. But I understand God is still in everything. As painful as it is, He's there for us in every trial. You just have to apprehend Him and set Him as your course and as your prize in life.
Help! I've Truly Repented, But I Stumbled Again into Sin (Part 1)
September 28, 2023
When a husband repents, both he and his wife are hoping that he will never stumble again. So, what should he do if he does? And how should his wife respond to his failure? In Part 1 of a discussion with Steve & Kathy Gallagher, we show husbands and wives how to respond to failure in the right way so that they keep moving forward in their battle against sexual sin. (from Purity for Life Episode #511 - How to Handle Failure | Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom) Nate: Pastor Steve and Kathy, this series is called Key Lessons on the Road to Freedom, and what we're really trying to do is give people who are in the early stages of repentance some real help for what they're going to face in the future, because it's just an uncertain time. It's a difficult process to go through and we don't want people to be discouraged. We want people to make the right choices at the right time. And so one thing that we've already talked about was the need to live by faith instead of feelings. We talked about the need to never quit and how we need to be in this for the long haul. What we want to talk about in this episode is learning to deal with failure. And so obviously, we've kind of given ourselves away even by having a title like this, but we’re just saying that even if someone has genuinely repented, it doesn't guarantee that they're going to be instantaneously delivered from all temptations and it doesn't mean that they'll never stumble or even fall. Could you give people a realistic sense of what their lives will look like if they've genuinely repented—in terms of victory over sexual sin? Steve: That's a very good way to lead into that question. I'm glad you asked it like you did because their lives should look quite a bit different than before and I'm not just talking about in regard to sexual sin. I'm referring to the whole general flow of how they live their lives, because it's been my experience that 99% of the time, a person who is in bondage to sin has a home life that is usually not that great from the Lord's perspective. There's been a lot of compromise. Maybe in terms of worldliness and carnality. Or maybe in terms of selfishness and pride. Or maybe even on both sides of the aisle so to speak. So, what is needed is a whole new lifestyle that is pleasing to the Lord. Of course, this is especially true for the husband who has been in sin and really needs to change, but the wife as well is going to have areas in her life that she will need to change so that they can both be moving in a direction that is closer to what the Lord desires. As part of that, the man is going to be doing better and better in regard to sexual temptation. And if he's got a good devotional life established, he's going to find that those temptations just don't have the power they had. Kathy: Yes. So, for a wife, it kind of is the same thing. Even if she hasn’t been in habitual sin, from my own experience, she has developed negative habits. There are things that get set in motion in a wife’s heart and life that God needs to deal with and she needs to cooperate with the Lord about dealing with those things. When I'm counseling a woman, one of the things I try to get her to do with her husband is pray. There's probably nothing more solid and stable that they can do together as a couple because you're being vulnerable and you're opening your heart up. Hopefully it won't turn into a big argument when you're praying, but that's a good starting place for a wife to get into the place of supporting him as he's journeying his way through this because you can't just stand outside of it and look in. You have to actually come into this trial with him and help him walk through this and get on his team. If there has been genuine repentance you will know it. You won't have to question, “Is he just pulling the wool over my eyes? Is he messing with my head?” Don't even go there. Just assume the best and get on his team and pray with him. But also, in your own life, as far as the lifestyle changes that have to take place, I'm just going to be pretty blunt here. If you've got carnality going on in your own life, you need to deal with it regardless of what your husband is doing. As a Christian, you need to deal with things in your own heart and life and you need to rid yourself of whatever worldly junk that's going on that is pulling you away from Jesus. Those things have to be dealt with, because you're not an island either and you have to come out of the world in certain ways as well to be in unity with your husband. This battle is both of yours. It's not just his. Nate: Yeah, I'm really grateful for how you guys handled that question, because it does broaden the vision—which we always need because we want to focus on the one thing. Let's just get this one area taken care of so that our lives can be better. The Lord is not thinking that way and we need to understand things from His perspective. My next question is, how hopeful should a person be about what their new life could look like? Should they hope and believe for a life where they are impervious to temptation and they will never fall again? Steve: I think to say that they can be impervious to temptation would be an unrealistic and over the top expectation. We still live in a very fallen world and we have a fallen nature, and those two things are always looking to connect. So, I don't want to take it that far. What I would say is that it would be right, and the Lord would want and expect a man to be living a lifestyle where victory is the norm. Where winning those battles would take place on a regular basis. Maybe there would be an occasional fall or maybe not. A lot of guys when they make that turnaround, they go on and they just never really struggle again. I don't know exactly why some do and some don't, but that's the way it goes for a lot guys. All I would say though, is that the wonderful thing about the Lord is that it's not all resting on us. We have our side to it, but this is where grace kicks in. When a man is sincerely trying, the Lord is going to be sincerely working with him. And I can just tell you from my own experience over the past 37 years that the Lord has covered me many times, especially during the earlier years when I was still pretty raw and I had only recently come out of sexual sin. There were times that situations would arise and the Lord would arrange circumstances where it was easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing. And I knew it was the Lord and I went along with the Lord, and I didn't have a problem. So, I would say that we can count on His grace to be there to help us win those battles when we are sincerely trying. Kathy: I want to just throw out kind of a different perspective on the question of people wanting to know, “Will I ever fall again? “Or “Is it all over, because I blew it again?” The point here is not human perfection. The goal is that we are continually becoming more Christlike. Of course, we all want to be done with sin. We don't want to keep falling and the Lord doesn't want us to either, but those failures, as hard as they can be, are part of the transformation process. We have to journey out of sin. The Lord is using the struggle and He's using the battle. And that is so much a part of the transformation process. I remember when Steve would fall and it felt like the bottom was dropping out, but actually what was happening was we were getting closer and closer to the end of the matter. We were coming out of the thing. It was like he was having to get freed of or purged from that old life. It was still clinging to him in some ways, but he was fighting and I was fighting. We weren't fighting each other, though, we were fighting together to get through this thing. So, we were throwing off all that weight and all the sins that were so easily entangling us because we were going in a direction. So, I wouldn't be overly discouraged when someone has failed. I'm not saying get excited about it either, but I'm just saying that it's not the end of the road just because someone blows it. Nate: Yeah. And that's good because that's one of the things I did want to talk about was how to handle failure—because it is very hard. There's the discouragement and the overwhelming fear for the wife that nothing's changed and this is going to go on forever. She may think that she can never trust him again. Then there are also the feelings that can occur in the man. When he falls it can stir up all those old desires and it brings about a darkness and a feeling of being disconnected from the Lord. So, I'm sure that there's a wrong way to handle failure. I want to talk about the right way. What are some right ways to handle failure and how does a couple move forward during those times? Steve: Well, the first thing I would say is, what kind of failure are we talking about? Are we talking about a lapse into pornography or are we talking about hooking up with another person? Because those are two hugely different things. So, let's just say that it's a lapse into pornography. I tell guys all the time, if you have a fall, you pick yourself back up again, repent and get right back on track doing the things you've been doing. The important thing is to keep going forward and don't just stop and die on the spot. You have to keep doing the things that you've been doing because if are headed in the right direction that’s where you want to keep going. A failure is a setback, but what's the alternative? To stop? To not fight anymore? No. That's not an option. So, what I always say is that failure is not a fall, failure is quitting. And that is the one thing we do not want to do, cannot do, and must not do is quit. So, you pick yourself up again and you get going again. When you do that, the devil is going to try to take you in one of two extremes. The one would be what I just said, to quit. To just get so despondent and discouraged that you just give up inside. Telling yourself things like, “What's the use? I'm never going to change. I'm not changing. I still want this stuff like I always did.” Which if you've been going in the right direction, that is not true, but it feels that way at that moment. So that's one way the enemy can get someone. But there are certain types of personalities that can easily go into a Pollyanna delusional state where they're not really dealing with things. They're not really having a deep repentance over what they just did. They are just sloughing it off—too much so. They're sloughing it off like it didn't even phase them. And so, we don't want that either because that means there's nothing of any depth happening inside of them through this process. So, the right thing to do is to repent to the Lord. There should be some sincere grief about it. You should feel badly and repent to the Lord sincerely and genuinely. And then you just got to get back on track and keep going. You can't just drag baggage of previous sins behind you.
How the Church has Lost Her Passion for God
September 21, 2023
What happens when a church culture loses a love for God Himself and replaces it with a focus on other things? Find out in this conversation between Nate Danser and Steve Gallagher. (from Purity for Life Episode #501 - Babylon: An Apathetic Church Culture) Nate: Okay. So, Pastor Steve, you have said that a culture of apathy in the church creates an environment where the standard of Christian living becomes very different from what is laid out in Scripture. So, people feel like as long as they do some basic, outward good things, they are good to go. But I wanted to talk to you in this segment about what you experienced back in the 1970’s, because that was a time of revival when the church was very strong, healthy and passionate. You've mentioned at different times that the atmosphere in the church today is very different than it was then. I want to talk a little bit about some of the differences and how you've seen that affect people's lives. One of the things you've said is that people were very passionate about the things of God. What was it like to have a church culture where the general atmosphere was filled with a passion for God. Steve: Well, I don't want to overstate it. The part of the church that I was involved in, which was the Pentecostal side of things, generally speaking, had a high level of passion. I don't know that it was true of the rest of the church because that's where my involvement was. And the Jesus movement came up out of Chuck Smith, David Wilkerson and Leonard Ravenhill. Those kinds of men are the ones the Lord used to really usher in the Jesus movement that I got saved into in 1970. So, there was such a difference in that movement as opposed to how things are now in the church. Of course, a lot of it was that many of us were young and excited about the things of God. Especially those of us who were ex-drug addicts and came out of a lot of darkness. But I guess if I could just get it narrowed down to one thing that I can use as a comparison, back in those days I used to love Sunday night services because after the service was over, we would gather around the altar of the church and we would literally spend hours seeking the Lord. That was the norm. We would often have all night prayer times on Friday nights. We would pray for a couple hours and then go out witnessing to people. That was the kind of passion we had. Fast forward all these years later and there's hardly any churches that even have Sunday night services. People are so uninterested. They are locked into things of the culture like television and the internet. They go to church on Sunday morning, but for the typical American Christian, there is not much passion for the things of God in their lives. There are people out there that still are really passionate for the Lord, but not at the level that there were in 1970. Nate: Ok. So, you definitely have firsthand experience with the church then and the church now. And you have been watching decade after decade this passion declining. When you think about what contributed to that decline, are there things that really stand out to you as the big contributors? Steve: What happened was when the Jesus movement swept through the church in the late sixties, early seventies, it brought a lot of youth who were excited about the things of God and that just created an overall enthusiasm. And out of that enthusiastic movement, Christianity became more popular in America. There was a real change. It went from being something that old people did to in the eighties when it became something that young people were involved in. So in the eighties, we saw a real change come over the evangelical movement. Mega churches started to proliferate across the country. Christian radio just really took off. There were shows that began then that are still going today and have held that level of success all these years. So, what happened was success came into the church and it really became the thing to look acceptable to the culture. So, the aspects of success, the size and the focus became shifted from godliness to talent. And as that change happened, there was a great diminishment in the passion, because over time the culture of the world began to mix in with the church. And it's really gone downhill since then. So, in my opinion, that is why that fire went out from the 1970’s. Nate: Yeah. So, it's like the fire was there because people were pressing into God Himself. But then when the focus shifts to something else, you start kind of moving away and you just lose the passion. Steve: Yeah, it's just success. I mean, that's what happened. The church became successful, and the culture started noticing the church. And it wasn't all negative attention like what it's mostly become now. Now there is vitriol aimed at the church. Back then it wasn't that way. Nate: One of the things that you just touched on was that when you make something other than the pursuit of God the focus, then there is going to be some kind of negative consequence. There's going to be some kind of diminishment in your spiritual life. And one thing that Patrick and I were talking about in preparation for this interview is how easy it is to pursue a cause because there are so many good ones out there. Like abortion, or justice, or the need to have godly schooling and training for your kids. In a really wicked age, there are a lot of good causes to promote and to fight for. But then there's just the dangers that can come with it when you make that the thing that you're going to focus your whole life on. What do you see as being one of the main negative consequences of doing that? Steve: Well, some of the causes you mentioned were not really going on in the eighties. The main causes back then with Christian activists were against abortion, against pornography and against the homosexual agenda. And because I was in the midst of starting a ministry to men in sexual sin, those issues became big for me as well. And it wasn't until later that I really could look back and see things in hindsight. You see, what was happening was there was a shift in church culture. In the seventies there was a lot of repentance going on. There were people really seeing their need to repent of their sins and to walk circumspectly with God. Meaning they were being very aware of their own tendencies to veer off or to get carnal or worldly. By the time of the eighties, the shift that I could see happening was that Christian activists like Don Wildman and Jerry Falwell were creating a movement within the church, and it was taking the church with it. They were focused on these causes and basically what it amounted to was seeing the faults in the culture and focusing on the faults out there rather than people looking at their own hearts. I think that was one of the main reasons why the American church left its passion for God and was kind of displaced in part by those kind of things. Nate: Ok, briefly, could you talk about what the connection is between why starting to always look outward reduces the passion for God? Steve: Let me answer that question by referring to the Sermon on the Mount. How did Jesus open it? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Those were the foundational pieces that should be in place as people come into the kingdom. But those same components are vital for someone to maintain their life in the kingdom. That requires you to have a tremendous awareness of your own need before God. That is what it means to walk in repentance. And that was at some level very real in the seventies and into the eighties. But it started to change. And part of that change came from people looking at outward issues instead of looking inwardly at their own hearts. And I don't mean there should be morbid introspection and a total fixation on what's wrong with oneself. There is a healthy balance between having our eyes on God and on being aware of our own lack and our own need. Nate: Ok. I have a thought pertaining to what you were talking about. You were saying that sometimes God sees something different in our inner life as we're fighting for these causes. We may be looking out and seeing all the problems in the world around us and God might see something going on in our hearts. That's basically what Jesus’s message to the church in Ephesus was all about in the Book of Revelation, because he saw their works and He said there was a lot of good there. For instance, they were not bearing with those who are evil. They were exposing false apostles. They were patiently enduring. They were bearing up for the sake of His name and not growing weary. But he also said to them that they had abandoned the love that they had at first. He even went as far as to say, “If you don't go back to where you were, I'm going to take your lamp stand away.” Why is maintaining our first love so important to Jesus? Steve: Well, the whole point of Christianity is to enter that relationship with God to where we love Him and have a love relationship with Him. Which is different from religion. The Christian religion says, “Okay. I have all these do’s and don'ts” or “I'm supposed to go to church. I'm supposed to not do these things or go to these places.” That's religion. But Christianity is a spiritual life. It isn't just going to church. It is my spirit interacting with God's Spirit, and the connection between that interaction is love. It's my love for God that makes me want to interact with Him and makes me want to worship Him. And it's His love for me that wants to care for me and watch over my life and so on. That interaction between God and us is what it is all about. I know, for me personally, I started off with a passion for God, but it diminished over time and then it came back. I think that is pretty typical for someone on the right trajectory. They start off in that first love and then over time it kind of dissipates. But then it starts building up into a mature love. And that's what I can say, 40 to 50 years later for myself is that my love for God is so much stronger than it was 20 to 30 years ago, even though I felt more passionate than I do today. But it has matured into something that's real and it controls how I think and act. My love for the Lord is why I don't allow myself to lust and do the things I used to do. I don't have to beat myself into not doing the wrong thing because I don't want to do something that displeases the Lord. There's just a change that has gone on inside me. I'm just using myself as an example, but that I think is part of what has been missing in the Church. A real sincere love for the Lord.