Sexual Purity: Introduction - So Let's Talk About Porn...

     In the last few years the issue of pornography has come to the surface a lot both in the Church and in the world. As I learned that I was one of apparently a small percentage of Christian guys who'd fought a porn addiction and come out the other side I decided to post my testimony online to encourage some folks. So I did. That was pretty terrifying, not gonna lie. The response was amazing and made something that was really scary a lot easier so special thanks to all who contacted me! I love you :-) Since then I've felt the need to cut a bit further into this taboo topic and share some more practical insights into the dangers of porn and getting free from it while developing closer intimacy with God. This series is likely to be the longest so far and I hope to be able to provide you with helpful statistics, resources, authors, Bible verses and guest speakers from youtube to help you. Whether you're struggling personally or you have a loved one who is, I want to equip you to experience freedom from the grip of porn addiction as well as restore a passion for sexual purity to your life in body and mind. Whether you're a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, single or married, I want to share principles that will help you to walk free! I hope you're excited, because I am!!

P.S if you're not a Christian and you're wondering why I'm making such a big deal out of this, feel free to read along with the posts and you'll see!

Here's Part 1, just for you!!

What the Heck is Holiness? - Part 3 - Being Light in Darkness

Hey folks, do check out Part 2 before you get into this one!

Who Called Me?

     This isn't about earning salvation, it's about living in the fullness of the relationship Jesus died to give us. One preacher recently helped me to see the difference between holiness and righteousness. I thought they were the same thing before! He said holiness is to do with uniqueness and separation and righteousness is about being sinless. God calls us to be both. Again I'm not talking about the righteousness that Jesus gave us that changes our standing before God but rather what the presence of that righteousness in us does to our day-to-day behaviour. Have you ever watched a film again after years of not watching it since you were younger or before you got saved and thought "Yikes! I don't remember that being in there!" You can't enjoy the film like you used to because something in you is just telling you to turn it off. We're being made more and more like Jesus everyday as the Holy Spirit works in us and it means that our appetites will change also. Stuff that used to entertain, amuse or satisfy us starts to pale in comparison to His face and His voice! I'll stop at this point and say that I'm still very much on this journey myself so I'm not talking down to you. But I do want you to ask yourself if you're standing in the way of His change.

     We probably all have TV shows, movies and songs that we love that we know are a bit dodgey. Maybe it's obvious and people are having sex in every other scene or maybe it's more subtle and there's just that one character who loves to recount his "conquests". Most sitcoms today, trying to become more popular than Friends, have pretty much turned sex into a sport and we find ourselves cheering them on! Also we listen to all sorts of music that is full of violence, sex and blasphemy (yep, I went there). There's usually a single feature to shows, movies and songs that we hold on to and use to justify our enjoyment of them:

• It makes me laugh. 
• It's not like this all the way through. 
• It has a good message behind it. 
• It's really catchy. 
• I don't really listen to the lyrics. 
• It doesn't really affect me.

to name just a few of the usual suspects. At university a non-Christian friend once spotted an RnB song on my ipod about sex and said "You shouldn't have that on here!" Busted! And she was right! I endured some painful itunes culls on several occasions! Ouch. All of these things however do really affect us but I think I'll take another blog to break that one down.

     As we walk in righteousness we die to sin, we become holy i.e. separate from those around us who are living in and indulging in sin. Why's that important? People need to know that there is a higher call, whether they are a Christian or not. God wants us to walk in closer relationship with Him regardless of where we're up to now and frankly sin gets in the way! The Church is called to be the light of the world and to guide people out of the darkness of sin and selfish living into something greater that's not achievable by mere human effort! We can't do that if we're doing the same things as them! That's hypocrisy and we get pulled up on it by the world ALL THE TIME!! Some Christians argue that we're all sinners, Christians and non-Christians alike. Often we believe this is a message people will be able to relate to. The thing is, I don't think our lifestyle is supposed to be easy to relate to, I think our testimony is. We testify that we were lost and helpless in sin but Jesus saved us from it and now His Holy Spirit lives in us empowering us to overcome sin. People shouldn't look at our lives and think "I can do that" because we shouldn't be the ones doing it! Let's live lives the Holy Spirit is happy to take credit for! Personally I don't refer to myself as a sinner any more. If I believe I'm a sinner, I'll sin by faith instead of defeating sin and temptation. Sinning is an action but being a sinner is an identity that produces actions. It's that old trick the devil uses to get you to think your sin is who you are (see the previous post).

Got To Be Real
     I struggled with being true to what I believed about rude jokes, films and songs etc because it often made other people feel bad. I didn't want to make people feel bad and I especially didn't want people to not like me! I like to be liked! Who doesn't?! What was I supposed to do? I've heard some Christians say that we need to be like the world in order to reach the world. Swearing with people who swear, smoking with people who smoke etc. That just sounds a little too much like 1John 4:5 to me though. Jesus spent some of His time hanging out with sinners and they let Him! He didn't change His behaviour to fit in with them. He remained the Son of God in all of His holiness and righteousness but He oozed love! He didn't excuse or condone their sin but pointed them in another direction. A lighthouse is designed to shine brightly on the coast warning ships about dangerous rocks nearby. The lighthouse isn't worried about shining too brightly in sailors' eyes and offending them because its job is to be seen and reveal danger so that sailors can make wise decisions.

     As Christians I really believe we need to learn how to live in the fullness of the righteousness and holiness God has called us to while still radically loving people who aren't living like us. Honestly I spent a lot of time just judging people, Christians and non-Christians alike but as the saying goes, people don't care what you know until they know that you care. The world needs us to live righteous lives that reflect on corruption. People should be able to see their own sin in the reflection of our righteousness like a mirror. Not so that they can feel condemned, but so that they can be convicted (convinced) and answer the call to walk in intimacy with Jesus and and get free from sin! Shoving it in their faces doesn't really help them see that. Have you ever had someone say "HEY LOOK AT THIS" before shoving something so close to your eyes that you can't even tell what it is? You immediately push it away!

     If you know me or you read my blogs, you know I like analogies so I'd like to finish with one that will help us ask ourselves some questions. Imagine your heart or mind is an apartment that you share with the Holy Spirit. The two of you live there together. What sort of pictures do you put up on the walls? Are they the ones He would choose to put up? What do you put on the radio? Does He like it? What would you put on the TV when you're sat together on the sofa? Who would you invite round? Which books would be on the shelf? These questions aren't supposed to create guilt, they're supposed to help us (me included) to look at the things we encounter each day and allow to influence the shape of our hearts. The thoughts and images we allow to linger in our minds. The music and films we let in. The Bible says your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Cor 6:19). If He said "Hey, I don't really like this picture you put up" would you take it down? If you were watching the big screen of your imagination and He asked you to change the channel, would you? (I think the Holy Spirit is saying someone who is reading this blog has had a dream similar to this but didn't understand what it meant. If that's you, please contact me) If this experience would change anything, it may reveal some interesting stuff.

     First of all it may reveal that I don't feel that close to the Holy Spirit and so I don't know how He feels about certain things in my life. It may reveal that I don't care what He thinks about those things, they're mine not His. It may reveal that I've grown callous towards His voice on these topics because I've ignored Him for so long because everyone else was doing it. Who is the interior decorator of your heart? How attached are we to crude humour and are we willing to sacrifice greater intimacy with Him for it? To those of us who feel as though their level of intimacy with the Lord is undeterred by the rude and lewd, ask yourself, what if there's more? What if the living water flows better through a pure vessel? What if your gifting and anointing could actually increase in a life without mixture? Remember I was still able to move in the gifts of the Spirit while living a life of compromise. Why not try it? Why not take some time away from the borderline and see what happens?

Holy Spirit we love you and we want live lives worthy of the calling we have. We want to give ourselves over to You to continue to make us holy as You are holy. We want to pursue lives of holiness and righteousness out of love for you and not out of legalism. We want to answer the higher call of intimacy and walk on the highway of holiness. We need your help to not settle for pleasures that hurt your heart and taint our witness. We need your help to love others passionately without compromising for the sake of comfort. We need the grace of Jesus! Create in us a passion for purity and stir in us a desire to protect it so that the world can truly see what Jesus and life with Him look like. 
Amen

Thank you very much for reading. I hope my heart got across to you. If there is anything you'd like to discuss with me feel free to message me on facebook or comment on this post or if we're friends, why don't we grab a drink? Much love,
Tony

BTW Jesus is madly in love with you.

The Public Secret Soul - Part 1

     Hey guys, I'm becoming increasingly aware that one of the biggest boundaries to us developing real, authentic relationships with each other is social media. Don't run away! This isn't just another "let's have a bash at social media" blog I promise... I just want to look a little at what I feel is one of the (very) negative effects of one of the ways we seem to use social media. I use social media a lot and struggle with some of the issues I want to discuss so I'm speaking from my own experiences as well, not some high horse mentality. I'll say from the start that I am totally not immune to this but maybe this post will help me and you too! Wana ride this crazy train with me? No? Ok, maybe see you next time....as for the rest of you, slap on your 3D glasses! It's gonna be a bumpy ride!
...............
.................unless you're just sat at a computer screen in which case it's probably not. Sorry.

Too Much Information...

     Ok so personally I think it should be weird for you to get a breakdown of every detail of my day. Chances are, if you're reading this blog, you don't know me very well (if you don't know me at all, wow thanks for reading my blog!). I think people are naturally social. We like to hang out with people we know and swap stories. Since celeb mags are still being bought and sold we also know that we like to know personal things about people we don't really know either. Reality TV show ratings tell us we love watching people and knowing what they are doing, without them knowing we're watching them and the comments section of youtube tells us we LOVE to make our opinion on everything known! All of this is sometimes to an obsessive degree (you know who you are) and were we to do it in the world beyond cyber space we'd soon find ourselves in jail, in a mental institute, with a warning from the police or at least with a sore nose. The issue is, today this sort of behaviour has become totally normal, at least to those of us who have the internet following us around in various forms. I want to look at this a little and try to reflect on the ways it affects us in our relationships with each other and if you're a Christian, with God. 

     Technology has become the megaphone of the human mind and today there are just so many ways to make your thoughts heard aren't there? Blogs, vlogs, clogs...ok maybe not clogs but you could definitely post a picture of your clogs and tell everyone how you feel about them! Tweets and statuses also help you to let the world know how your day is going so that the instant you have a thought, you can make it so that anyone in the world with internet access can know exactly what you think about...you know, stuff!! Positive or negative! "My boyfriend broke up with me!" "I met a celebrity!" "I hate Margaret Thatcher." "I love chocolate." We even post statuses about being annoyed about other people posting statuses that we don't like! Like I said before this isn't just another rant on social media. I just want to take a bit of a closer look at what's going on behind some of our online behaviour because I think it may be affecting something I consider pretty precious.

     Have you ever been to the doctor and they tapped you in the knee with a tiny hammer and your leg twitches a tiny bit? It's no big deal but you freak out like it just talked to you or something!! It's called a reflex right? I think in the West a new reflex has developed in the human body. It starts in the brain. We have a thought, or a feeling about something we see or something that happens. It's usually not actually a big deal but suddenly electronic impulses fly from our brains down our arms into our fingers and before we know it, BAM!! It's all over some social media website, dripping with hashtags and exclamation marks!!! When we snap out of it all that's left is an insatiable longing and desire to see someone like or comment on what we've posted be it a blog (cough cough), a status or an instagram edited sepia photo. We yearn for hearty approval of the article we posted that we didn't write and this somehow makes us feel fulfilled. Validated. We're ready to bark at and joust with anyone who doesn't agree and chest bump and high five everyone who does (All of this looks a little different among the Church community but we'll get to that in the next post).

The Soul and the Secret Place
     So what's the big deal? What's the point? What's the concern? There's two actually. One is the soul. Yes the soul and the other is... "Dude what the heck does the soul have to do with Facebook and Twitter?" Since you're here and apparently willing to read on (even though you rudely interrupted me), I'll try to explain my thoughts. First of all, there are lots of definitions of what the "soul" of a person is. I'm not going super deep on that one right now, I'll just let you know that when I say "soul" I'm talking about your mind, will and emotions. If it helps, whenever you read soul say "mind, will and emotions" in your head okay? Awesome. I think that we're paying less and less attention to what's going on in our soul before shooting it out all over the internet where people can affirm or wound us. We're either regurgitating stuff we read or watch or we're displaying the ongoings of our personal lives for all to see or we're photographing everything and anything. Many of us are no longer taking  time to mull things over, take moments in or even enjoy them before sharing them with the world! My friend Dave challenged me as a group of us were walking down the street doing something pretty weird and hilarious and I immediately went for my phone to make a video. "Just enjoy the moment" he said. Simple but profound. I think this is dangerous. I'm not at all saying that posting about your day or taking photos or any of this stuff is inherently "bad" by the way so please keep reading.

     My second concern is just that we're losing our sense of privacy and the value for our souls* as well as what some Christians call the "Secret Place" (more on that in Part 2). We're giving the keys to our souls away for free! People used to have to get to know you before they knew your relationship troubles! People used to have to come to your house before they saw what you had for dinner! We end up feeling close to people who really aren't sharing our lives with us. Social media seems to amplify our insecurities too. What did we do before we had to be constantly aware of trying to impress everyone we knew with the harrowing and daring tale of our trip to the bus stop in the rain? What did we do before we had to worry about getting just the right shading on our instagram photo to ensure people thought we really time-travelled to the 50s? What did we do before...you get the picture. THIS IS WEIRD!! For most of us, we probably just enjoyed the moment and shared the stories with our close friends and the odd stranger on the train! For some of us I think social media is really a way of making ourselves and our lives feel more special and I think that's sad. We allow people to judge our lives through likes and comments or the lack thereof and these judgements can then shape our view of ourselves and our lives. What if all my friends hate the film I just tweeted that I love?! Do I change my opinion on it? "Well it really wasn't that good..." We're letting other people do our soul-searching for us! What's up with that?!?!

     I think people need to have friends. Good friends, close friends. But friends shouldn't entirely replace your inner world and your interaction with your soul. Before you think I'm getting all weird and esoteric (a cool word I learnt) I'm just talking about being more intentional in thinking about what goes through your mind, the things you want to do and the way you feel about stuff before immediately shoving them online. Let's be real, a lot of us are seeking validation from our online buddies. We want everyone to believe our life is amazing, maybe even better than theirs!! We want them to know we're really witty, maybe even wittier than them!! Some of us intentionally post very little on social media but the motive is the same. We want people to think we're too cool or too busy for that stuff. We want them to think better of us, maybe even better than themselves. Have you spotted yourself anywhere in this blog yet? I find asking yourself some questions can really help you get beneath the surface of what's going on in your soul and why (the Holy Spirit is very good at being honest with you if you suck at it yourself). It's ok to have needs but how you get them met is very important for the health of your soul. Do you tag tons of people in your statuses about events so that other people can think that you're really popular going to events with lots of people and that you're loved by everyone? When God says something to you do post it up straight away so everyone can see or do you actually talk to Him about it?

I said I'd get personal with the Christians earlier and now seems like a good time. To take a break. You can leave your comments and questions here if you like or if you want you can jump over to Part 2

Thanks for reading!