The Naked Bride

     Welcome to all who came for the controversial blog title! Since you’re here... Picture the scene. It’s Sunday morning. You’ve not had the best of weeks. You fell into that sin you said you’d stay away from and you’re feeling the emotional effects of it. Your faith in God is feeling more and more uncertain. Someone comes up and asks you how you are. What do you say? Or let’s try this one. A special guest speaker visits your church. They’re a big time evangelist. They share all the intimate details of their drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll testimony, how God reached in and pulled them out of thick darkness into light and restored them. There’s not a dry eye in the house. 

     In the Church it has somehow become unacceptable for us to have problems. Getting dressed in your Sunday best must include the “Sunday Smile” that assures everyone that everything is great and you’re going from glory to glory! We blurt out the "God is good" and the "I'm just trusting God brother"* while we cry inside. We celebrate testimonies about trials and struggles of various kinds but the story cannot be shared until the final battle is fought and won. I believe this attitude is crippling the Bride of Christ.

     To the rest of the Western World, the Church has often been recognised as a beacon of judgementalism, double-standards and hypocrisy and I think this is part of the problem. Somewhere along the line we've instilled fear into people that comes from judgement and we've forgotten 1John 4:18 which says: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” Although we desperately need help when we’re struggling or things aren't going well, fear keeps us from coming clean. It may be fear of being judged by members of the church, fear of being punished by leaders or fear of losing the appearance of being a Super-Christian. Whatever. Ultimately our actions are being dictated by fear and that is not a healthy way to live.

     The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and of knowledge (Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 1:7) and it should be foundationalto our lives. The deepest awe and respect for the power and authority of God should guide us through life and the decisions we make. I've talked with some friends lately about what it means to fear the Lord. Is it just about respect? Is it about being afraid? Although I think there are elements of both in there we found two quotes really helpful: 

"The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion it chases all other fears away."

"The one who is afraid of the Lord stays away. The one who fears the Lord stays close." 

     1John encourages not to allow fear to keep us away from God but actually to draw us to Him. He is the One who forgives, cleanses and heals us! It's like getting shot but staying away from the hospital because they will want to remove the bullet and clean and dress the wound! In the Church we often trip each other up in this area because we don't act like God. When someone makes a mistake we can be so quick to judge them or keep them at arm's length and make them feel like an outcast. We we're the one who made the mistake we can be quick marginalise ourselves because we don't feel worthy to be in community and certainly not to be in the presence of God.

     I think we’re forgetting the kinds of people Jesus hung out with. I'm not just talking about the “sinners”, look at the disciples! They had issues with anger and problems with greed. They were elitist and argumentative. James and John had homicidal thoughts (Luke 9:54), Peter was always ready with something stupid to say (read any of the gospels!) and Judas was a thief and... well...you know. 

There was a level of openness and honesty that Jesus had with the disciples that we need to see more in the Church today. Think about it. Think about how you behave when your church leaders are around. If any of us were hanging around Jesus we'd be on our best behaviour trying so hard not to slip up! There's something about the presence of Jesus that brings out the best in you - to be celebrated as well as the worst in you - to be corrected. They felt so free to be themselves around him that their faults would be exposed and when they were, in His love, He would either gently point them in the right direction or outright rebuke them and then they could make changes in their lives and carry on. Jesus says that when as little as two or three Christians gather together in His name, His presence is made known (Matt 18:20). We should expect to encounter the same freedom as the disciples when we meet certainly when we meet with God and also when we meet with other believers but for a lot of us, sadly that isn't the case.

     There’s two sides to this problem. On the one hand I think we can be quite wimpy when it comes to being corrected. This is a particular area of struggle for me. Sometimes I can be so insecure and so immature that when someone challenges me on sinful attitudes and practices I take it personally and distance myself or maybe even rebel against them (Proverbs 9:8). “Who do they think they are telling me that when they do this?!” or “What I do is none of their business!” or "They don't really understand the situation!" We even sometimes use Scripture to justify ourselves! 

On the other hand we suck at rebuking each other in love! We see correction as a duty we must fulfil in order to be right with God. We're just trying to purge the sin from among us Old Testament style and I think this is a mistake. While the Bible tells us to bring correction into each other’s lives we must remember that it is for our mutual benefit as the Church. As a community. So all of our rebuking has to come from a place of love. That’s how He does it (Rev 3:19). Without love we end up hurting people and causing them to react badly. I had a priceless friend as a teenager who would come to me and say something like “You know I'm for you and not against you right?” I’d then brace myself because I knew some loving correction was soon to follow and I'd take a shot in the pride. I truly knew she loved and valued me and wanted me to grow in God so I was happy to hear what she had to say. I've written a longer blog about this which you can find here: http://peoplebeingreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/taking-hit.html

     Isolation is one of the devil’s main weapons against Christians. Whether it’s physically or emotionally the devil wants to get you alone. Secret sin is a massive killer of Christians because it cuts you off from the life-giving love and restoring forgiveness Jesus has instilled in the Church (John 20:23). I believe that something we NEED to see appearing in the Church now is an increase in openness and acceptance amongst believers. I'm NOT saying we all have pity parties where we confess sin to each other and pat each other on the back. NO! Instead what is needed is a greater revelation of our own sin against God and God’s forgiveness for us (which will keep us from trying to judge anyone else) an increase in supernatural love for each other so that our seeds of correction find good soil and a deeper understanding of community that leads to us supporting each other through the tough times that are real until we’re made whole. Finding people who will constantly speak our true identity over us and remind us of who Christ has made us is vital as well as taking up Paul's charge from 1Thessalonians 5:16-18. We should be celebrating the testimonies all the way through the process, not just at the end!

     Let’s get back to His original intention. Mankind was created to be naked in their relationship with God, vulnerable, honest and without shame. That's how we're supposed to be..but definitely with clothes!  If Jesus isn't ashamed of us, we shouldn't be ashamed of ourselves. (Hebrews 2:11)

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments!

End Notes

*A lot of us have been taught the principle of "positive confession" i.e. speaking positively in the midst of negative situations. I think that this is a powerful tool when used correctly but it is a principle, not a magic formula that fixes problems. If we're not careful, we develop a culture of positive confession that actually becomes a culture of lies because we no longer share the truth of what is happening with each other which cuts us off from each other. Positive confession should either come from faith (believing what God has already told you) or it should stir faith in you. It is not a substitute for faith. 

Sexual Purity: Part 3 - Redefining Pornography

If you haven't already checked out the Intro, Part 1 or Part 2, please do before reading on!

     Hi, thanks for coming back! This blog series is mostly written for Christians who love God and want to live lives of extravagant worship with a Saviour who gave everything so that we could live free from sin and alive to God but are currently tangled in cycles of compromise with pornography and masturbation. This post is not designed to judge or condemn anyone or to be legalistic and constricting so please know that as you read through but I'll be straight with you, this is going to sound pretty extreme and I'm totally aware of that! I want to share about a journey that I've been on myself that has brought me a lot of peace while helping you to think about your own daily habits. I do not have all the answers! Haha! Sometimes I think we choose to live at a lower standard than what the Bible and the Holy Spirit's conviction tells us simply because we think we're doing a bit better than the world or others. I'm convinced that the standard of life God has called us to looks radically different from where we've gotten so far so if you're keen to keep moving forward, please read on! I hope this post will challenge you and remind you of the standard set by Jesus, not by me. 

     Personally I don't think enough of us struggle with lust. Many of us have just given up the struggle and made room for it in our lives keeping it as a pet we think is well-trained. During the time I was trapped in the cycle of internet pornography** I could be found watching 18+ movies on TV like American Pie and raunchy (couldn't think of a less old-fashioned word...) RnB music videos while wondering why I just couldn't seem to get free from porn. I was filling my ears with catchy songs about sex while feasting on a diet of dodgey adverts and still wondering why I couldn't get free from porn. Part of the problem was, I had such a low aim and a narrow view of pornography! When I took the 40days with God away from porn, I told Him I that not only would I not look at internet pornography, I also wouldn't look at anything sexually arousing on TV either (not nearly as difficult as these days). I believe this is part of what brought breakthrough in my life at the time and so I've come to the conclusion that porn isn't just pictures and videos of naked people on the internet. So what is porn? Let's ask the smart books.

Definitions
     Let's check out some dictionary definitions: Oxford Dictionary defines it as: "Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement." Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as: "movies, pictures, magazines, etc., that show or describe naked people or sex in a very open and direct way in order to cause sexual excitement." and lastly Collins Dictionary defines it as: "writings, pictures, films, etc, designed to stimulate sexual excitement." They're all pretty much the same right? A summary definition of pornography would basically be: "Stuff that is designed to turn you on."

Sex Sells 

     We all know that the advertising and marketing industry depends heavily on sex appeal in order to sell products and society is becoming more and more ok with that. Music videos, television commercials, magazines and movies showcase the naked or near-naked bodies of men and women pretty blatantly to the point where most of us no longer even notice. It would be funny if it wasn't so depressing. You can watch an advert about tooth-decay today and still see a naked woman! The advertising and marketing industry is taking something given to us by God* (our sex drive, see Genesis 1:28) and abusing it in order to sell us things that we don't need while reducing our value for true sexual intimacy and even for each other. We're told that being "sexy" and promiscuous is the same as being powerful. That's nonsense. The Evolution of the Swimsuit video by Jessica Rey addresses that topic way better than I could with the space I have in this post.

     Have you noticed how most of the major sitcoms and drama series on TV have sexual activity either implied or graphically described in pretty much every episode? Let's take the classic show "F.R.I.E.N.D.S" for example. Calm down! I know you probably love it and watched it for like 10 years just like me but let's think about it. Over the years they all pretty much managed to turn sleeping around into a sport and at times you found yourself cheering on the characters who were trying to pin down a mate! We get so sucked in that we actually do a 360 on our morals! If you told your Christian mates that you don't watch Friends because it's too sexual they'd look at you like you're crazy right?! You might say "But come on man, it's just a TV show." Ok, ok let me carry on. I've never seen the apparently chart-topping "Game of Thrones" that came from a book series that some would probably call a literary masterpiece but I've commonly heard it described as "Lord of the Rings...but with boobs" and I'm told there are pretty graphic sex scenes throughout the show. I actually first heard about the show from Christians and was just plain confused about why they were watching it. You might say "But come on bro, it's really good quality TV, it's not all bad..." Ok, ok just stick with me.

     There was a pretty wide-spread outcry in the Church and the world when "50 Shades of Grey" hit the bookshelves with a lot of people calling it "Porn for Women" as people say that women tend to be more turned on by mental fantasy than visual images and so books like 50 Shades and others like it are said to do for woman what porn magazines do for men. I'm not making a comment on that right now, I'm just identifying another medium where sexual arousal is being fed into society as a commodity that can be bought and sold. There are plenty of other books and book series that have sexual themes running through them that aren't as in-your-face as 50 Shades of Grey "So those ones are ok, right bro?" Keep reading friend :-) From video games to board games, from trashy novels to comic books, sex is being fired at us pretty much wherever we look for entertainment. What is really scary is how normal it all is now. Think about it. How many songs do you hear on the radio today that don't have lyrics that include some variation of "I want you" or "Let's go back to your/my place"?

Heart Porn

     So what's my point? Before I tell you, let's have a look at something Jesus said in Matthew 5:8: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." The implication is that the impure in heart, won't. Ask yourself these questions: Does your desire to watch what you watch, read what you read and listen to whatever you listen to come from a pure heart i.e. the heart of God in you? Do you seek out and enjoy things that you know are considered risqué or naughty? Do you have to find "redeeming features" in the things you enjoy to justify enjoying them to yourself and others? Do you struggle with lust? Are you currently forming clever excuses in your head about everything you've read so far? Your answers to these questions may be uncomfortable for you but I pray that you will have the courage not to tune out but to stand honestly before Jesus to let Him run those blazing eyes over your heart and tell you what He sees. He loves you y'know. 

     I've been reading through the Sermon on the Mount with some friends lately and over and over Jesus emphasises that sin is not all about outward actions but also the intentions of the heart. It's not determined by external circumstances but internal realities. In Matthew 5:28 Jesus drops another bomb and tells us that the sin of lust begins in the intentions of the heart and the direction of the eyes. Even though Jesus talks about a dude, ladies this is for you too. On the basis of this attitude to sin I believe that Pornography is not only stuff designed to turn you on but also any form of entertainment we indulge in with the intent to be sexually aroused. This isn't me laying down a law or anything, I'm just making a really plain statement to  help us all - including myself - to submit our motives to the Holy Spirit. Sin isn't something that can be forced on you, it's something that you choose and so just because society doesn't call something pornography, doesn't mean that to you, it isn't. I guess I'm saying that a lot of us probably watch porn everyday. I'm saying that for one person a comic book is a fun and colourful storybook but for another person, due to the busty blondes or spandex-clad dudes, it's porn. I'm saying that sitting round a TV talking about how sexy an actor is probably isn't doing you good. I'm saying that we're not called to take part in the deeds of darkness, we're supposed to expose them (Ephesians 5:11). 

Why Does This Matter?

     For those of us struggling with addictions to pornography, internet or otherwise I believe there is power in setting our boundaries away from the cliffs so that if we accidentally fall over one we can still retreat and it's not game over. Anything else is like battling an enemy in the day and then sitting down with them for tea in your house in the evening. You're making things much harder for yourself. It's really simple, if you don't want to think about BIG BLUE ELEPHANTS, don't look at little blue elephants. Set a standard in your life like Job and keep to it even if your friends don't understand it (Job 31:1). 

     For those of us indulging in what I'd call socially acceptable pornography, let's take some time to be really honest with ourselves. Some stuff is just blatantly not good for you, no matter how funny, catchy or artistic it is. You might think that it doesn't affect you but it's a classic, give the devil and inch and he'll take a mile. You know the devil will always offer you less than what indulging him will cost you. Feeding your heart on sexually explicit or even implicit things will not help you to walk in purity and according to Matthew 5:8 it will damage your ability to experience God. It will rob you of a high value for sexuality and sexual intimacy that God describes as being beautiful. Jose Palos delivers a hard-hitting poem that touches a little on this with regards to music, questioning why we willingly submit ourselves to this sort of thing. I'm being very direct about this and I make no apologies for that but it's not because I want to be a prude or a killjoy but because our society is being consumed by this thing and we can't get absorbed along with it. This isn't about boycotts, do's and don'ts or being religious, it's about being smart and jealously guarding something God has given each of us. Sexual Purity in body and mind is something to be fought for and protected and that will be the topic of the next post. 

Thank you for reading! I know this was a long one but you made it through and I appreciate that! Go you! :-)

Jesus help us to listen to Your Holy Spirit. Help us to renew our minds and not be conformed to the ways of this world but be transformed into Your likeness. We want to honour You with our eyes and ears and we want You to be the source of our joy. Help us Lord.
Amen

End Notes
*I believe that our sex drive is designed by God to 

1. Add value to our virginity making it a worthy wedding present for our spouse because we've had to fight to protect it
2. Bring us joy and increase intimacy within the marriage covenant through the joining of bodies and souls
3. Make bringing life into the world an enjoyable experience that acquaints us with the heart of God the Creator

**If you haven't read my testimony you can find it here.

Sexual Purity: Part 2 - "Dear Pornography, you're dead to me. Sincerely, Not Yours."

Hi guys, this is Part 2. Check out the Intro and Part 1 before reading on!

It's often a lot easier to win battles when the war has already been won. Today let's have a look at Romans 6:5-14. I'm going to throw some emphasis in there.

5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,^a that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

He's helping you to see yourself in a new way...

If you're a Christian today and you've trusted Jesus to save you from your sin, congratulations! You're dead. But alive. But dead. Confused? Paul says we're dead to sin but alive to God. Being alive to God means we have something we're living for and it's Him. I'm convinced that one of the keys to living a life free from the trap of pornography is grasping this great bit of scripture. Jesus never sinned. Sin never had mastery of Him. Jesus was so submitted to the will of His Father and so overcome by love for people that He didn't have space for sin in His heart. Paul is saying the opposite to what I often hear from people who struggle with any type of sin but particularly this one. In verse 11 he basically says "Ok this is how I want you to think. Imagine how dead Jesus was to sin. Ok. Have you got it in your mind? Great! That's how dead to sin you are and no less." So why don't we think like that?

Often we refer to ourselves as "Sinners saved by grace." Personally I have a problem with this term or at least the way it's often used. I think sometimes when we say this we're actually giving ourselves an excuse for sinning. It puts us down as "sinners" instead of Saints. I can't remember who said it but I know someone has said "If you believe you're a sinner then you'll sin by faith." Please wait and calm down! I'm not saying I or anyone else doesn't sin but I'm pointing out what I believe is an important point even though it may just seem like it's all about words. Whenever Paul writes to the believers in the New Testament, he seems to refer to them as the saints or the "holy ones" and I think this is something to pay attention to and copy. Paul doesn't address the believers as the sinners they were but the saints they had become so that that would form the basis of their new identity. Now it would be strange for them if they sinned because they weren't slaves to sin. Another unknown source simply says that it's normal to sin if you're not a Christian because you're a slave to sin but if you sin as a Christian, you're just stupid! Haha!

Now that we know God and His salvation, we can make far more informed choices when presented with temptation. As I mentioned in my testimony the choice to look at pornography again after knowing the new depth of closeness and intimacy with God just seemed foolish to me and I'd have been stupid to lack myself in a prison I just got released from! I believe this is so important to catch! It's all about Romans 12:2 and getting our way of thinking renewed. We wouldn't have to renew our minds if we didn't have wrong ways of thinking already established. I think one of the reasons we fail to grab a hold of Romans 6 is because it doesn't always line up with our experience. "But dude I don't feel dead to sin, I feel REALLY alive to it! It's on my mind all the time." Guess what? His truth trumps your experience! If you and God disagree, someone is wrong...it's not Him. Sometimes reading what the Bible doesn't say can be almost as helpful as reading what it does say. Verse 11 does not say count yourselves dead to temptation, it says count yourselves dead to sin! Think about that! Temptation is not sin. Dead things don't respond. At all. Being dead to sin as about not responding to the call of temptation.

The phrase "Sinners saved by grace" can also get us to a place where we abuse the grace of God and assume that He is ok with us sinning because Jesus' blood has covered it. WRONG!!! Yes Jesus' death totally obliterated our sin but His resurrection also empowered us to resist the devil. Ever heard that verse? Resist the devil and he will flee from you? Me too. Except it's incomplete.

James 4:7 says: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you."

Get alone with God and stare into His eyes!

We can resist the devil not just because we died to sin with Christ but because we were raised to a life with God in Him as well! We have a new appetite for God and the more we feed on Him the more our appetite for sin dries up and dies! Think about it! You LOVE it when God speaks to you or you feel His presence. You LOVE it when God uses you to minister to or love someone. That feels good and right and natural to you doesn't it? You LOVE it because you're alive to God! Right now try not to think about Superman...oops! There he is flying through your mind in his red and blue! The way our mind works means that sitting around thinking about not watching porn isn't going to bring us victory. Worshipping and adoring God and meditating on the near-hilarious victory Jesus won over sin and death will make porn boring. SERIOUSLY!! Make a playlist of your favourite worship songs and take time in the day to just aim them straight at His heart and belt them out!

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you and He will reveal the truth of Jesus' victory to your heart as you praise God and read His Word. Sometimes God delivers someone of an addiction in a moment and that is a beautiful miracle that I want to see more often. However, often we get free from addiction as gradually as we got hooked in. Day by day we devote our mind to the Lord and He renews it. Mike Bickle gives a fantastic talk on how to fellowship with the Holy Spirit and how He changes us from the inside out. It's also good to have other people to remind you of who you are because sometimes we forget and fall for the tricks. I have a few friends who text me when they're struggling with lust and battle it with what the Word says about them! This is powerful! You should get a friend who knows God, knows you and knows the Word and partner up with them!

Instead of "Sinners saved by grace" I think we should call ourselves "Saints Made Holy by the Blood of Jesus and the Power of God." It's not about forgetting where He's brought us from but rejoicing in what He has brought us into! I believe this focus and understanding of what Jesus has done will really help you in your battle. Remember, He has already won the ultimate victory for you. The battle is the Lord's and He will protect you as you fight on. 

Thanks so much for reading. Let me know your thoughts. Part 3 coming soon!

Sexual Purity: Part 1 - The Awkward Moment When Watching Porn Doesn't Make You a Man

Welcome to Part 1 of the Series. Please have a read of the Intro before you go any further!

     The first author I want to share with you goes by the name John Eldredge. He wrote a book called Wild at Heart which describes the way a man carries the wounds of his heart and how he responds to the world. John talks about how a man's heart is made to live passionately but a combination of wounds and disappointments he picks up during childhood, his own sin and the structure of society can rob him of that passion.* What's that got to do with pornography you ask? Well let's hear a little from Mr Eldredge:

     "If a man does not find those things for which his heart is made, if he is never even invited to live for them from his deep heart, he will look for them in some other way. Why is pornography the number one snare for men? He longs for the beauty, but without his fierce and passionate heart he cannot find her or win her or keep her. Though he is powerfully drawn to the woman, he does not know how to fight for her or even that he IS to fight for her. Rather, he finds her mostly a mystery that he knows he cannot solve and so at a soul level he keeps his distance. And privately, secretly, he turns to the imitation. What makes pornography so addictive is that more than anything else in a lost man's life, it makes him FEEL like a man without ever requiring a thing of him. The less a guy feels like a real man in the presence of a real woman, the more vulnerable he is to porn." - Wild at Heart

     Sorry lads but I'm gonna have to rat us out to the ladies reading now.  Most boys (not all) continually feel like their masculinity is under question, so because they're not convinced that they're a "real man", they feel like they have to do things to prove it to themselves and to others. They may not be thinking in their brain "Stand back everyone! I must prove to all that I'm a MAN!" But if you could ask a man's heart directly why he does what he does, you'd probably make some interesting discoveries. Sir Eldredge (yes I've knighted him, read the book and you'll see why) says that there is a question that haunts every man's soul. It's right on the surface and clear for some but deep down, buried and hidden to others. That question is simply any variation of "Have I got what it takes?". It's a question of strength, ability, skill and effectiveness. Any situation that might give a negative answer they will automatically shy away from it and give excuses e.g. "Oh that's for girls, I don't like playing football, I just think it's boring."

     John is basically saying that pornography is a coward's route to sexual intimacy. The woman on the screen is under his control. He doesn't have to commit to her, he doesn't have to romance her, he doesn't have to respect her, he doesn't have to be vulnerable with her, he doesn't have to listen to her, he doesn't have to cater to her needs, he doesn't even have to talk to her! He can just use her to satisfy himself and be done with her. His strength and masculinity will never be called into question. She will never reject him. In fact the woman on the screen will probably tell him how great he is and how happy he makes her. 

     Let me take a moment to address some questions to the gents reading this. Have a look at your life. Are you drawing a sense of accomplishment from pornography? Do you brag about it to your friends? Does it make you feel like a man? Does it make you feel powerful? Let's go a little deeper. Maybe you don't actually have an issue with pornography, that's great! But are you using your relationships with women to make you feel like a man? Do you try and see how many girls you can get to like you at once? Have you ever broken up with a girl first because you thought she would dump you? Do you feel intimidated, threatened or invalidated around confident and independent women? 

     If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be a boy who hasn't had his question answered and is taking it around as a little survey to God's daughters. You may be a dude who doesn't know what it's like to live passionately from your heart so you pretend not to care about anything because it's easier. You may appear confident on the outside but are actually a guy who is inwardly, desperately needing to be validated. God the Father wants to answer that question for you and seal up the holes in your heart with His love. If that last sentence made you squirm, I'm talking to you sir! I recommend you buy John's book. If you're a young man and can't afford it but really want it, contact me and I'll gladly get a hold of it for you.

More on that next time.
Thank you for reading!

End Notes
*Many of John's points are applicable to men and women but the book is written for men in general.

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!