*In part three of our series on women struggling with sexual sin, Kathy Gallagher discusses the importance of taking responsibility for our sin. As we begin to take responsibility for our actions and cease to blame others, God can begin to use the circumstances in our lives to transform us into a new creation.*

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

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

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

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

**And sometimes, just a lack of courage.

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes He does. The wonderful plan is that God is going to create in us a pure heart. That's His plan; that's where we're headed as he transforms us -
**Into the image of Jesus.**

That's the goal, to be like Jesus.

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