What the Heck is Holiness? - Part 2: The Higher Call of Pure Intimacy

Hi again, please read Part 1: The Power of Porn before you read this post! Thanks.
http://peoplebeingreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/holiness-part-1-power-of-porn.html

Again this was a difficult post to write. Those of you who know me may have been surprised to know about the story in my previous post. I'm hoping that this one will help you make even more sense of me! Haha. You shouldn't feel condemned reading this one. My words come from a heart that is proper happy to have been set free by my King and the lover of my soul! My prayer is that you won't shy away from the conviction of the Holy Spirit if He speaks to you and you won't let the devil tell you lies either. I'm not trying to lead you into a dull and boring life of boycotting stuff and hiding from the world but I do what to shed some light on an issue from the eyes of someone who went pretty deep in and eventually got dragged out by grace. While reading this you might feel something that you think is the spirit of legalism. It's really not about that at all. I'm not a prude or a fun-killer but boy do I have a vision for something glorious! As always, read with discernment and check everything out in the Word. :-)

Purity
     When something is pure, it's just not mixed with anything else. Following my liberation from the world of internet and tv-based pornography, I enjoyed a sweet season of simple, pure passion for God. I was loving living in this purity and enjoying unbroken relationship with Him being able to stand before Him with confidence (1John 3:21)! When I was 18, I started spending more time with young adults in the church which made me feel more grown-up! Something odd happened for me however. I noticed that the vast majority of the humour that was thrown around in our group was kinda crude in nature. The films and TV shows we watched together followed a similar pattern. I felt a little of that "something-is-up" feeling in my heart but I ignored it because I considered the people involved to be more spiritual and more mature than me. They were older than me, some of them knew the Bible better than me, others heard God more clearly than me (prophetically). Considering all this, I decided it must be fine and I must be overreacting. I mixed my conviction with a couple excuses and made a cocktail of compromise and joined in!
Mistake.

     After a while a certain friend of mine who had been a constant source of strength and challenge during my teenage years sent me a message. It simply read "Ephesians 5:4 What do you think of this verse?" I didn't know it off the top of my head so I went to find it. Let's look it up shall we? With a little bit of context:

1Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

3But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

Ephesians 5:1-4 (NIV)

Ever read a verse in the Bible that you swore was never there before but is now jumping up and slapping you in the face?! This one was definitely one of those for me!! I just stared at it! It's really not in any uncertain terms. There it was! Plain as day! Well what the heck was I supposed to do now?! Ever read the Bible and then try to pretend you didn't just read something so you can go on living sinfully *cough cough* excuse me, comfortably? That would work out great if the One who wrote it didn't live inside you! The Holy Spirit was ready to challenge me on it all day and echo what I had read in the caverns of my soul. This started to make it pretty awkward for me to be around some people as they went out of their way to engage in this stuff. It was our main source of entertainment! Of course the temptation to just let it go or not "overdo" the Christianity thing was definitely there and I had plenty of friends letting me know that. I jumped backwards and forwards in this for a while (a couple years). I wanted to live my life for God whole-heartedly but this made things REALLY awkward for me AND other people sometimes! Although I had a real conviction in my heart that this stuff was wrong, what I definitely lacked was grace to share it with others and integrity to walk it out myself. I just slapped on my judgement cap, hopped on my soap box and unleashed! I remember an occasion when I'd moved to Cardiff, I was at a party and the direction of conversation was going south and so I tried to challenge someone directly on the basis of the Ephesians 5:4 verse. Almost everyone in the room turned against me and by the end of the argument the atmosphere was so tense that the only way the party would continue was if I left! So I did, feeling VERY confused!

Passion
     You might be thinking I'm taking this all a little too seriously but I hope you'll continue reading and hear me out. My journey into purity had created in me a hunger and a desire for it because I'd experienced the level of intimacy that came with it. I wanted everyone to have that. Sure we can learn to live in compromise but why would we? I'd developed a passion for my own sexual purity both in my body and in my mind and I was serious about protecting it. I found it odd that I was having to safeguard my thoughts among God's people. "It's just a bit of fun" and "Tony you need to lighten up" were things I heard a fair bit and still do. I even remember someone saying to me "Well you have to look at that verse in its cultural, historical context". Walking away from that party, honestly I wanted to cry. I couldn't understand why people who love the Lord wanted to continue in something that hurt His heart but whenever I tried to share this with people I just came across as arrogant and self-righteous and to be honest, I was! I'd forgotten that it was His grace that had rescued me, not my own personal holiness. I hope the years have brought me a little more humility, discernment and wisdom. I'm grateful for the freedom He's given me. I love Him and want to honour Him with my eyes, ears and mouth.

     Let's face it some rude jokes are just funny. Some dodgey films are hilarious and entertaining. You're on the bus or watching TV and you hear something horrendous but you still want to laugh. Innocent fun right? Maybe. But maybe not. Our culture is totally permeated with subtle sin that can be almost undetectable. Sin disguised as humour is still sin however hilarious it might seem. He bled for it. I've had to ask myself some tough questions as the Holy Spirit has challenged me and continues to challenge me. Why do I laugh at things I know are wrong? Recently the Holy Spirit dropped something like this into my heart "Don't laugh at jokes demons will laugh at." That made me think. Will what I draw my laughter from now still be funny in Heaven? In Hell? Does God share my sense of humour? If I water down my idea of Him and make Him just like me, He certainly does! But I'm supposed to be like Him. If I'm constantly feeding myself with things He doesn't like will it make me more like Him? What if I set my heart to allow the Holy Spirit to direct me in what I watch and listen to?

     God calls us to be holy because He is holy (1Peter 1:16). That's a pretty scary thought and a pretty high call! The Greek word for "holy" means to be set apart or separate. Quick analogy: If I tear a small piece of paper away from a big piece, technically I've made the little piece holy (thanks Richard). God is holy, He is set apart and He calls us to be with Him, separate from the ways of the world. In the world but not of it. Not sitting above the world in judgement, snobbery and apparent superiority but living in love with Jesus, setting an example in how to walk with God in love and grace. The call to holiness is actually a call to intimacy, not a call to legalism. God knows what a compromised conscience does to our relationship with Him. So many people walk away from God or never approach Him because they feel too dirty for Him! They feel like He could never love them because of what they've done, not knowing that it's His love and what He's done that empowers us to live differently. He calls us to be holy (set apart) because that is the best way we can relate to Him and walk closely with Him, with clean hands and a pure heart (Psalm 24:3-4). Jesus died so that living a life of holiness and purity would be possible for us. His death, burial and resurrection reconciled us to God. He is the Holy One so He gives us the Holy Spirit to live in us and continually make us more like Him, enabling us to live out the holiness that is ours in Him.

Thanks for reading! Share your thoughts or jump over to 

What the Heck is Holiness? - Part 1: The Power of Porn!

     Hi guys, so I was exposed to stuff of a sexual nature from an early age through television and school and first saw a pornographic magazine at the age of 10. YIKES!! Here we go folks, we're going deep with this post!! Please don't let this opening line scare you off. I'm going to be really real and honest here in the hopes that what I have to share will put peace in some people's hearts and set them free while bringing a gracious challenge to others in the lifestyle of a Christian. I'll share personal experience from my own life all the way through as well as truth from the Bible and I'll try to say quite a lot in this post so please don't tune out. I'll be real but not to the point of being crude. This isn't at all easy for me to share, particularly on a public forum and hey maybe it will change how some people feel about me but I've waited a long time before putting this out and I know it's necessary for me to share so it's ok ; ) I pray that the Holy Spirit will give me grace to write and that He'll give you grace to read and hear what I believe He has to say. Ready? Still with me? Awesome, thank you, let's go!! : )

     So I first saw a pornographic magazine at the age of 10 (which is apparently only a year earlier than the average young person in the West) and this opened a door to a new world of temptation and sin. Bad times. Two years later while away at a youth camp I committed my life to loving and serving the Jesus who died to remove me from my sins and give me His new life. It was a beautiful experience, walking in this new connection with God, knowing His heart and His delight towards me. However, the following 6 years for me were a serious battle against lust and pornography. Getting a computer in our house certainly didn't help! With my parents out of the house I'd just get lost in this thing. I became very clever at covering up my tracks. If I was on the computer and alone it seemed like it was inevitable*. I felt so helpless against it. In my spirit it definitely wasn't what I wanted to be doing or giving my mind to but there's a reason Paul told Timothy to "Flee YOUTHFUL passions..." (2Timothy 2:22a) and not just general passions. Youthful passions are powerful and unrelenting! Guilt and shame would descend upon me every time making me feel unfit to go to God. This is one of the enemy's favourite tactics against us! If he can get us to believe we're unwelcome in the presence of God, we won't go to Him but He is the one who heals us and forgives us and strengthens us to resist temptation. When we don't understand this we try fighting the devil on our own and it's just embarrassing! We forget the first part of James 4:7 and simply try to resist the devil without submitting ourselves to God first. It's hard to submit yourself to God when you feel like He doesn't even want to look at you! It's a clever tactic but knowing it definitely helps us.

     At the age of 15 I was asked to start helping to teach the youth (who were aged 11-17) on Sundays in my church. I was really excited about this but I was still up and down with this inner struggle. Sometimes I'd go weeks or months without giving in but then would fall back into it. Of course the devil had an absolute field day with my heart. John tells us that it's in walking in the light that we allow God to cleanse us from sin (1John 1:5-10) but the devil lives in the darkness of secret sin and he will happily kick our heads in all day if we stay there with him, continually whispering, "You call yourself a Christian? No one else has this problem. How can God love you when you do this? How can God use you when you do this? You're a hypocrite." So there's me leading young people, trying to be an example, trying to be a role model while being utterly torn apart on the inside. Riddled with guilt and shame. Maybe you've been there or somewhere similar. Let me tell you about the grace of God though. Through all of this stuff I found that God would still speak to me! I found that He would still use me to speak to others! I can't tell you how humbling it is to know the love and grace of God in the middle of sinning! He remains faithful in all circumstances (2Timothy 2:13) because His faithfulness was never dependent on me! He was faithful before I was born and He'll be faithful after I'm dead, it's who He is!!

     The devil wanted to condemn me but the Holy Spirit wanted to convict me. I began to become aware of the heart of God towards pornography. Thoughts of how lost the people on the screen were flooded my heart. The heart of our Father for His daughters who'd wandered so far from Him and His love pressed heavily on me. This was not ok. Kris Vallotton gives the best description of the difference between condemnation and conviction that I've heard in his book** so let me share it with you. He says that condemnation is from the devil and will always equate you with your sin e.g. you sinned, you're a sinner. You lied, you're a liar etc etc. The goal of condemnation is to convince you that you are what you do. If it's successful, the devil can leave you alone because you'll only ever act out who you believe you are and you'll continue in these cycles of sin, driving you further from your relationship with the Lord. Conviction however is from the Holy Spirit and conviction basically says "You're way too awesome to be acting like that! That's not who you are any more. Why settle for that?" Conviction comes with the power to change, condemnation robs you of that power! I started to feel more of the conviction of the Holy Spirit and I knew I didn't want to live my life like this. After occasions of giving in, I started to find the strength to go before God and speak to Him and cry out for forgiveness and deliverance. Leading a double life is not healthy for anyone. I started to set targets for myself with agreements between me and God. I'd say for 2 weeks I'm not going to look at anything dodgey on the internet or even  anything slightly dodgey on TV e.g. music videos (remember the good old days when people wore clothes in music videos? Good times.) and the fear of the Lord combined with His conviction and grace carried me through those weeks. Obviously this wasn't a permanent solution and something else was needed.

     When I was 18, Lent came around. To be honest I didn't even really know what Lent was up until then but I heard it's 40 days when people give stuff up. I made my decision. 40 days, no porn, just prayer. At the time there was also a girl in my life, a previous girlfriend who really wasn't doing my heart any good either so I added in that I wouldn't contact her either during this time. I wanted to get free of things that were hindering me in my relationship with Him. So for 40 days I steered clear of any images that might compromise my promise and I just prayed and spent time with God while of course going to school and doing usual day to day stuff. Towards the end before the 40 days were even over, this thought passed through my mind: "The time is almost up then you can look at stuff again." The thought of trading this amazing new and fresh intimacy with God for anything else was actually hilarious! I think I actually laughed out loud! Hahaha!! VICTORY!!! When the 40 days were over I can't describe to you the level of freedom I felt but most of all I was walking in this new unbroken communion with God because my conscience was clear before Him. John tells us in 1John 3 that there is something incredible about being able to stand in His presence with a pure conscience, a heart set at rest, with confidence because we know that we're doing His will (1John 3:19-22). I can't describe this feeling to you but it was delicious!! HAHA!! The desire to even look at anything like that had completely left me and been replaced with a desire to walk closer with God. My journey didn't stop there however, God had more He wanted to teach me.

Thanks for reading friends, that's the end of Part 1. I hope it's helping you. Whether it's sexual sin you've struggled with or something else that has left you feeling far from God, or whether you're not a Christian at all and have felt like you can't possibly live the Christian life, please continue to read this mini series. It's really not about us and our ability, it's about Jesus and His power to save, deliver and heal us and make us more like Himself. It's about us answering the call to walk closely with God and leave our dirt and shame behind. It's about allowing the strength of His love for us to break the chains of our sin. Let the dark power of porn dissolve in the light of His love. Come as you are and let Him do the rest!

End Notes
* By the grace of God I never struggled with masturbation at all throughout the battle against lust and porn. That in itself is a miracle! Haha!

**Moral Revolution: The Naked Truth About Sexual Purity by Kris Vallotton. Buy it! - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Moral-Revolution-Naked-Sexual-Purity/dp/0768438632/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375186402&sr=1-1&keywords=moral+revolution

I also just want to honour my Mum and Dad for being good parents and working so hard to provide for me and my brother. Mum I know you'll probably read this so I want to say thank you for continuing to encourage me in the Lord so I could come out with this testimony of His faithfulness! You continue to inspire me.



Part 2 

Featured Post- "What It Means to be a Friend" by Babette Shaw

“I care so much more about you than I ever could about something you do.”

     When my eight year old nephew Ethan talked to me excitedly about all of his friends that are coming to his birthday party and how they’re going to be best friends forever I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him. You see, after 20 years of “I’ll miss you so much, I’ll call you every night!” and no phone call, or “I can’t wait to come visit you!” and no visit, I've become a tad cynical. As a kid we moved around a few times to plant churches, and so pretty quickly I put true, long lasting friendships on par with Father Christmas and just accepted the fact that people disappoint. I hadn't realised how deep the hurt went until I found myself crying at a friend’s party in first year because she had called me her best friend. We, as human beings, were designed for friendship. And not just with God, but with each other. A need for companionship is etched into our very DNA and yet somewhere along the line we have become bad at it. Sadly this is equally as true for the church as it is for general society. How many times have you come to church having had a terrible week, and yet when someone asked how you were you’d put on your ‘church face’ and talk about how great everything is? I did it every week for at least a year. Someone once told me that problem with Christianity is Christians. Church isn't a safe place any more. Instead of wanting to run to the body of Christ when everything’s gone wrong, people tend to run away from it. Why is this? Why do we struggle so much to let people in? Because it hurts, that’s why. Because true love is sacrificial, it goes after the other person’s best interests before your own and it is determined to love you no matter the damage done. Jesus came to love and we put him on a cross for it. There’s a vulnerability that comes with genuine friendship, I can easily say that there are some people who know me so well that if they wanted to, they could wreck me with a single word – I trust that they wouldn't, but my heart is open to them and so I'm at risk. In order to see someone’s heart you have to expose your own, and that’s scary. It also means allowing people to see your dirt, trusting that when they see your mess they’ll stick around anyway.  A massive problem with this part of friendship comes with a lack of identity, When you see yourself as dirt it’s not surprising that you think people won’t stick around, I mean, why would they? If you think you’re a burden, then you’ll push others away before they push you away – it’s a defence mechanism and it’s entirely logical. The thing is, God see’s your sin, and calls you by your name regardless. We must do the same. When you realise that the king of heaven sees you not as the sinner that you once were but as a saint, that you utterly captivate His heart, that He is jealous for your affections and dotes on you, smiling over you even now. When you realise that the creator thinks these things of you it’s only logical that His created think the same. People often tell me that no-one’s ever truly been there for them, but that’s because they've never given them the chance to. Step out; take a leap of faith, the people around you might surprise you.

     I know this is all a bit messy, and it’s all good and well to stand here and say “Be better friends!” but how? I whole heartedly believe that one of the ways we will see revival is from people on the outside looking in at our genuine, fully committed, sacrificial love for one another – but how do we get there? How do we go from being Sunday acquaintances to brothers and sisters?

1.       1.     Be honest. In order for people to be able to catch you when you fall, you have to show them that you do fall. At one of the Dangerous Bride prayer meetings, God was talking to me about this idea of his girls going from strangers to sisters; and how a culture of honesty needed to develop. It was when I was praying into that that he told me to be honest, to come to my sisters and bare my soul. ey'eight year old nephew Ethan talked to me excitedly about all of his friends that are coming to his birthday party, and hI was terrified. Here I was in front of a group of wonderful woman who all seemed far more together than me; and I had to be brutally honest about the fact that I lie, and struggle with lust and alcohol amongst other things. I braced myself for the awkward silence; or the glare of judgement but instead it created an onslaught of people opening up and baring their dirt to Daddy God in front of their sisters, I’ve never felt more loved.

     That being said, honesty is a two-fold thing. Not only are we called to be honest about ourselves and where we’re at, we’re also called to be honest about others. Friends care too much about you to let you sell yourself short or settle for anything less than Gods calling on your life. I have a guy mate who’s quite flirty, and at one point it looked like he was getting close to one of the girls who I knew he didn’t see in that way. And so, despite the fact that he wasn’t really doing anything wrong, I sat him down and I called him on it. Why? Because I want him to be a man of merit, I want his yes to be his yes and I love him too much to not tell him off when he’s letting himself down. Friends don’t bite their tongue, and in the same way that I was honest with him about how he doesn’t treat women well enough, he’s honest with me when I cross a line or am too flirty, it’s a two way street and I couldn’t be more grateful for his input into my life. 

2.     Be honouring. Firstly, honour has become such a hokey Christian term that I felt the need to define it. It either means 1. High respect & Great esteem or 2. The quality of knowing and doing what is morally right. So why is being honourable important to a friendship? Why should morality matter within our relationships? Because when you decide that no matter what you will honour someone, you set a standard the likes of which are rarely seen in today’s society. You don’t do to others what they do to you, none of this ‘eye for an eye’ business, no matter how they treat us we must be honourable. We must determine to honour and respect people not because of who they are but because of whose they are, not because of what they’ve done but because of what Jesus did, and when we do this people will realise that no matter how much they mess up they’re still loved and we will see communities transformed. There’s a story about a woman in an African village who was fairly plain looking, and then one day a man came up to her father and told him that he wanted to give him ten cows for his daughters hand in marriage. The father was shocked, told him that ten cows were too many and said he’d give him his daughter for just three. The man insisted on paying ten cows and so the father gave in. Once they were married, a rumour started to spread throughout the village of this woman being the most beautiful woman in the whole village because a man had paid ten cows for her, and slowly, as the rumours spread this once shy and plain woman began to transform into a woman that truly was worth ten cows. When we call out the gold in people, they will start to shine. 

3.     Be bold. There’s an episode of Friends where Monica admits to Phoebe that she once tried to ‘freeze’ Phoebe out of her life, but Phoebe was so persistent that Monica gave up trying to get rid of her and they had been best friends ever since. I can’t help but wonder how many more people might be in the church today if we were that bold and shameless when going after our friends. If we hadn’t been too embarrassed to ask the second time if they wanted to get a coffee, or had been stubborn enough to text again even though they didn’t reply. I’ve seen a few mates come to church, one of whom I had to shamelessly pester every Sunday for about three months before he came for the first time. When people are scared to make the first move it usually comes back to the issue of identity once again, but when you realise that your identity is in Jesus not in what your mate thinks of you, it doesn’t really matter if you get shot down because there isn’t an ego to bruise.

4.     Be loyal. Love even when it’s hard to – Like Ruth & Naomi, Ruth renamed herself Mara meaning bitter at one point, she was hardly a barrel of laughs to be around but Ruth remained loyal and was rewarded for it. She also accepted the advice of a friend, which shows a great deal of humility, something else we could learn from. 

     In a world where marriages more often than not end with divorce, children are growing up fatherless, and depression is at an all-time high, nothing is more counter cultural than love. We, as Christians, have become very good at over-complicating things when Jesus himself told us to love God, and love everyone else. Our job is to love people, its God’s job to do something about it. 

Thanks for reading Babette's post! Do leave comments and the like and share with your friends! : )

Insecurity: Nature's Cover-All

Fear is one of the greatest enemies of deep, meaningful and developing relationships between human beings and it manifests itself in a number of ways. When we're afraid in dangerous situations, we instinctively do things to protect ourselves and the parts of us that will feel the most pain. We either become defensive or we lash out! It's the same in our relationships with each other. When fear comes between us as people, our instinct is to guard against pain or inflict it first. In this post I'd like to talk a bit about one of the ways fear can operate in us and outwork itself in our behaviour and relationships. As you've probably guessed from the title, I'm talking about Insecurity.

What is it and what does it look like?
By insecurity I mean being constantly moved and shaken by the opinions of others* towards you, your thoughts and attitudes or your way of life. Insecurity is an issue of identity and whenever someone or something challenges an area of our lives in which we place our identity, our level of insecurity gets put on display. Bill Johnson once said that "Insecurity is wrong security exposed" meaning that when our trust and identity is placed in the wrong thing, we will always be insecure. A lot of people like to think that insecurity is just something that bothers children and teenagers whereas adults are more secure and mature. I personally don't think that's true. I'd say in a lot of cases, our insecurities are most exposed during our teenage years as we go through puberty and all sorts of physical and emotional changes in a diverse environment but we then either adopt them as "personality traits" and allow them to define us, judging each other by them or we learn how to hide them convincingly. Sadly in the Church insecurity can pass for humility and can be encouraged and praised and therefore emulated. Trouble! Jesus wasn't insecure despite the fact that He actually KNEW what people were thinking about Him. But more on that later...

So let me ask you, do you think you're a secure person? Being secure is not the same as being good at or sufficient in everything that you place your identity in. Often people who claim to be secure on this basis get very upset when either their performance is mocked or their position is challenged. Stereotypical examples? Sheila, who claims to be secure in her appearance when she is apparently the most attractive girl around and receives a lot of male attention. This security is tested when a girl who is deemed more attractive than her comes in and the male attention shifts. Bruce has the biggest muscles in his social group. If people comment on him looking weedy or if another guy with bigger muscles shows up and Bruce doesn't start hitting the gym hard, we know he's probably secure! As I mentioned before, insecurity is an issue of identity. When something is secure, it is safe, fixed, immovable. If someone's words can reduce us to a self-conscious mess, we may have some insecurity to work out of our lives!

Fear of failing in the eyes of others is at the root of insecurity which actually exposes the fact that our understanding of personal success lies in the opinions of other people. If we can stop at this moment and look at the logic of that, we see that it's crazy! There will be as many different opinions of us out there as there are people! One of the ways we can wrongly convince ourselves that we're no longer insecure is by only hanging out with people that either like us or are like us. These people are far less likely to challenge our thoughts and ideals, call us names or disagree with us. We no longer feel as though we need our guard up because we believe we can be ourselves with these people. This level of openness makes us feel as though our insecurities have disappeared and we're now a well-rounded, confident individual ready to take on the world. We're likely to find out the truth when we're in the absence of our trusted group of friends. What happens when we meet new people? What happens when we enter a room alone? Are we struck with fear? Do we change our behaviour to fit the people around us? Do we become painfully aware of everyone's eyes? Are we hoping that our trousers don't roll up and reveal our "Wednesday" socks on a Thursday? Insecurity is also being unable to be yourself when those around you aren't like you. 

     The fear of not measuring up to people's expectations can pretty much be crippling. Insecurity becomes a lens through which you see the world, filtering out positivity giving you the impression that as you do and say things, you're walking on a tightrope. You automatically interpret people's opinions of you to be negative if they are not immediately positive**. If you went to a school where uniform was compulsory, you know what I'm talking about! "Own clothes day" was make or break! Up until this point you were equals with everyone and maybe even considered cool but an out of season jumper, a holey trainer or your WWJD t-shirt could ruin all that! You spent the night before carefully crafting your outfit for the next day (the scary part is that you probably spent the rest of the day judging everyone else by their clothes as well!) because you just had to get this right. Putting on whatever was clean never even crossed your mind. Maybe that wasn't you but situations like this in school tend to prepare us for life. We often have this expectation that people are going to judge us no matter what and that can be scary if we don't already know who we are. Very few teenagers know who they are and so the cruel labels that others want to dish out to them are terrifying because if you don't know who you are, you don't have a reason to object to someone who claims they do. "Geek", "Gayboy", "Ugly", "Bible basher", "Emo" etc etc. All weapons in the hands of other people who are probably just as scared and confused as you. Knowing who you are takes away the power of labels and looks. 

Potential cover-ups...
I've found that there are plenty of ways that insecurity can be covered up and disguised and pass for security. One that I've noticed that may be less obvious is perfectionism. In some cases, but not all, I believe perfectionism is a fear of imperfection fuelled by the belief that people will judge us on the quality of what we produce or what we do. That can be really intimidating and can even scare us into doing nothing aka apathy (apathy is really just a fear of failure). Perfectionism often gets praised because the rest of the world gets to see the positive fruit e.g. perfectly formed sculptures, perfectly written poems, perfectly cooked dishes. We can raise perfectionists up as heroes and I definitely believe some of them are but I also think that some of them are prisoners of the opinions of others forced to work down the mines of solitude, disappearing deeper and deeper into themselves and only emerging when they believe they have something that will be of worth to the world instead of understanding that they are of worth. We can defend our perfectionism by claiming that we "just want to do a good job" or that "if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well" but this is often just a way of turning our weaknesses into apparent strengths which is another clever defensive manoeuvre for Team Insecurity***.

     Another potential cover up is continually talking about how secure we are and outwardly judging others that we think are insecure. "Gosh, I wish those girls would have more respect for themselves." "He's just fishing for a compliment because he's insecure." "I really don't care what people think of me." "I don't need to wear make-up because I'm happy with myself the way I am." Sometimes I hear people say these things or I say them myself and I hear the faint echo of hollowness and it becomes apparent that the speaker is simultaneously trying to convince themselves and their audience of what they're saying. If I came up to you and told you I was a human being, I hope you wouldn't be too surprised but I expect you'd be a little confused. "That's obvious" you'd think "Why is he telling me that?" We don't go around telling people that we're human beings because it's obvious. We know it enough to not feel the need to convince others and we know others know it enough to not need us to tell them. If I'm constantly talking about how buff I am or how much I've been to the gym, it's likely I'm looking for some validation. I think it's the same with insecurity. The more I feel the need to tell you how secure I am, the less secure I probably am. Tricky.

Believing that the quality of our existence is validated by other people and what they think often leads us into ill-advise relationships (maybe romantic ones but not necessarily) with people who will a) tell us we're amazing ALL THE TIME and keep our insecurities at bay; b) give us the appearance of being a valid member of society by having a boyfriend/girlfriend or c) treat us terribly as we think we deserve because we've decided our insecurities are the same as our identity. All of these relationships are just about treating the symptoms, not finding a cure. It's about as affective as putting on a new shirt to heal your bullet wound. The problem is that the relationships are likely to end (badly, loudly and messily with lots of smoke) and when they do our insecurities are upset that we left them alone for so long and they come back with a vengeance! We then try to do more extreme things to quiet them again. Don't get me wrong, what people think of us is important and can be helpful but it's not the last word in our identity or our worth.
Sometimes, in order to in-courage ourselves or someone else, we first have to expose fear. As they say, courage isn't the absence of fear it's action in the presence of it. If we want to be bold enough to overcome insecurity in our lives we need to admit that it's there. That means no cover-ups, no denial, no treatment of symptoms. Then we're ready to deal with the problem.

What's the answer?
Well let's look at Jesus (if you're not a Christian carry on reading but I'm talking to Christians in this bit. If you want to get to know God and have a relationship with this Jesus, let's talk). He is our role model and we're supposed to be becoming more like Him so what were His tactics when insecurity came knocking at His door? We know that the devil went after Jesus' identity in the wilderness while He was fasting, "If you are the Son of God..." He would challenge Jesus to prove His sonship i.e. prove His identity was as solid as He thought. Instead of being provoked by the audacity of a created being challenging the Godhood of the Eternal Son and vaporising him by whipping out some unapproachable light, Jesus just quoted Scripture. Interestingly He didn't quote the Scriptures that spoke of Him and His identity as the Son and the Christ, but only those that directly responded to the devil's attempts to call Him out. He did this until the devil had nothing else to say and awkwardly walked off (I imagine there was laughter and cheering in Heaven). This is important for us to understand. Sometimes we get our identity challenged by people (or the devil) and we fly into a self-justifying frenzy! Sometimes it's external for all to see, sometimes it's internal and we pretend not to care but either way it's happening instead of us remembering what God says about us. Let's look at Jesus again in John 5. Don't worry, I'll get it for ya! Red print and everything! You're welcome.

31“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true.

33“You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

36“I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

41“I do not accept glory from human beings, 42but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 

Basically some guys tried to step in the ring with Jesus like satan did but check out how He responds. He says's it's not even about what He says about Himself but what the Father says about Him. He tells the guys straight that the Father is the only one He will be listening to when it comes to defining His identity. He says that He's not bothered about human glory because these dudes would be ready to embrace another person that was promoting themselves because they'd recognise their own kindred spirit of pride in them (my interpretation). So what can we learn? Jesus says that He knows that the testimony of the Father about Him is true. How? Whatever God says, is. If it wasn't before it becomes. "Let there be light" Erm sorry God, light doesn't exist here I don't think we can just do that... Haha nope! Light came into being because He spoke it. The creative voice of God is a beautiful thing but when it gets applied to your life, it's still true. If we want to find our identity we need to know what God says about us! A lot of people like to promote positive self-talk and a positive mental attitude (PMA, shout out to Kriss Akabusi and my 90s kid massive) and I'm not against that but I do think it doesn't cut it when it comes to identity. I can tell myself all day that I'm a world class ballet dancer but that won't make it true. We need to hear from God concerning ourselves and regularly too if we want to know who we are and be secure in it, not just because it helps us to remember but what He says about us actually MAKES us who we are. It's SO important for us as Christians to be constantly growing in our security and identity because it prevents most of the relational issues we have in the Church. If we're secure we don't need to judge others out of fear of them judging us. If we're secure we don't need to form exclusive cliques to keep our insecurities safe. If we're secure we don't need to keep each other at arm's length to avoid being challenged on our lifestyle. If we're secure we can have healthy, vibrant platonic and romantic relationships and fulfil John 13:35.

Final Thought
I was once speaking to some non-Christian girls I met on the streets of Oldham about God and one of them suddenly asked me with a slight impression of desperation, "Would God still love me if I did pornographic stuff?" I've got to say the question caught me off guard haha but the answer came out of my mouth quicker than I could think it: "God loved you before He made you so it's never been about what you do."
Try and wrap your heart around that.

End Notes
*Listening to wise counsel and allowing it to affect your decisions isn't the same as being insecure.
** If this sounds familiar, check out my blog on rejection: http://peoplebeingreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-rejects.html
***Here's a link a blog on weaknesses: http://peoplebeingreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/taking-hit.html

Thank you for reading. Let me know your thoughts and if there were any typos!

Freedom and Grace

17Now the Lord^e is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,^f are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2Corinthians 3:17-18 (ESV)

Have a listen to this song before we dive in! Feel free to dance...

     FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOM!!!! I've been excited to write this post for quite a while so I hope you enjoy it and that it helps provoke you to enjoy the fullness of your freedom in Christ! I've been hearing a lot of things about freedom  that I feel  misrepresent, abuse or cheapen it which have upset me and I'd like to address some of those things but most of all I hope to paint a picture of the true nature of the freedom that was won for us at the cross! Of course that sounds like I think I have all the answers and I don't so please read with discernment and go to the Word, Berean style (Acts 17:11) There is plenty of opportunity for offence in here so I pray that you hear His heart over my words. Enjoy : )

     I was thinking about the phrase "Freedom in Christ" the other day and just pondering what it really meant. I believe that freedom in Christ is a precious and invaluable gift we have been given and so I really want to use it to its fullest and steward it well! Apparently every cell in your body contains your DNA (back me up anatomy people) which is the written code of what makes up your physical body. If I were to take a cell from anywhere in your body and was able to read your DNA I'd be able to tell not only that that cell belongs to you but from it I'd also be able to tell you other things such as your eye colour and your blood type etc. I feel like I'm over-stepping the boundaries of my biological knowledge with this analogy now so I guess what I notice first about this freedom is that it is IN Christ and I think that is essential to really getting the nature of it. Our repentance and faith in Jesus that we received by grace separated us from our old life as God gave us new life placing us in Christ. Anything that is found in Christ is going to filled with His DNA, His genetic makeup, in essence His attitudes and values. That includes us and our freedom. I believe that our freedom in Christ is first a freedom from the law of sin and death (meaning that we are no longer bound to sin and separated from God but rather we have been freed from sin and returned to our relationship with God, reconciled) and secondly a freedom to become like Him. As He was free from sin, He has made us free from sin also by sacrificing Himself in our place. When we die to ourselves we live in His life and He lives His life in us and through us. Basically this just means that we walk, talk and act more like Jesus. 

     There's a tradition in a lot of secondary or high schools to pull some sort of prank when you are leaving and about to move on to the next stage of your education. I don't think I've ever heard a story where all of the final year students came in on their last day to hug their teachers, give them gifts and thank them for their hard work and sacrifice. Typically cunning acts of sabotage and theft occur with either humorous or costly results. Liberated from the school rules, the students' true feelings towards the school and the teachers are quickly exposed and displayed. The freedom that Christ gives us is a gift that keeps on giving because it exposes what's really going on in our hearts so that with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can deal with it. When we respond to our freedom in ways that don't reflect the beauty of the nature of Jesus it should set off some alarm bells and cause us to question what's going on in our hearts and what is our true value of Him. Paul addresses this a bit, replying to something someone had said to him about their freedom in Christ.

     “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything.

1Corinthians 6:12 (ESV)

I think it can be very tempting to act according to the flesh and then justify it by claiming freedom in Christ. Personally I think that is one of the most offensive things a Christian can do. I think it is an abuse and a mockery of the grace of God in Christ who died to free us from obeying the flesh. It's wilfully going against our new nature of righteousness, hurting the heart of God and then trying to use God's gift of freedom in Christ to excuse our behaviour. Before you envision me on a high horse, I have done it too. But it is NOT ok! If my "freedom in Christ" leads me to give authority to carnality and fleshly desires in my life, maybe I need to consider what it means to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:11). If my "freedom in Christ" leads me to act more like the world, maybe I need a greater experience of who He is and what He is like (1John 2:6). If my "freedom in Christ" leads me to do less for the Lord and more for myself, maybe I need to check if I have any faith at all (James 2:26) If my "freedom in Christ" leads me back into slavery to sin, maybe I need to check the best-before date or make a complaint to whoever sold it to me. 
Our freedom in Christ is supposed to empower us, not take away our responsibility. 

     Our life in Christ is an altogether new life. It's not about giving new life to our old self but instead putting our old self to death and bringing forth a new self that is just like Jesus (2Cor 3:18). I don't really want to get into sanctification but I'll just say that life as a Christian is about uncovering what Christ is like and therefore who He has made us to be. This means that each day I look, think, speak and act less like my old self and more like Him. When we abuse freedom we preach a false Christ and a false gospel that essentially says "Come to Jesus as you are and stay as you are. His love is unconditional so just accept Him then you can do whatever you want and still go to heaven." I believe this is an incredibly damaging perversion of the message of grace because it robs the cross of its power and the kingdom of the King's purpose. Salvation is not just about escaping hell and punishment but it is being delivered from the power of sin  not just in action but right down to the level of thought and intent until my heart becomes like Eden where I can walk in intimacy with God in unbroken communion. The gospel promises a change of heart as well as eternal destination. Our King desires His people be transformed into a kingdom of priests (Rev 1:4-6) who reflect and project the holiness of God to the world (1Peter 1:15-16). 

     I had a friend when I was a teenager (who is still a much loved and valued friend today) who used to challenge me very directly on how my life was matching up with the life God had called me to in the Scriptures. I remember one occasion where she asked me what I thought of Ephesians 5:4 (go check it out) At the time I'd been hanging around with a group of Christians who frequently engaged in coarse jokes and rude films and would tell others to "lighten up" if their behaviour was challenged. Freedom for some of us has become a shield that we use to protect our sinful or immoral practices from the wisdom and counsel of others. It's not easy to have our lifestyle challenged by other people especially in a world where relativism and individual autonomy is glorified. This way of thinking and living can creep into the Church and cause us to recoil in offence when someone questions our actions or our way of life even if they are straight from Scripture and the heart of God. Grace is and always will be an outrageous truth about God and our relationship with Him. When describing it to the Romans, Paul had to emphasise that the power and availability of grace didn't mean we should continue to sin (Rom 6:1+15) Grace isn't a licence to live in sin, it's a licence to kill it! 

     Swearing, initiating or enjoying dirty humour, getting drunk and having sex outside marriage have probably been the most common things that I've heard Christians try to justify using freedom and grace but if I use my freedom in Christ to act like the world who benefits? I don't because I stop being conformed to His image. They don't because I show them a lifestyle that is just like theirs and either they jump on the bandwagon of half-hearted consecration that leads to death (Rev 3:16)or they reject my hippy Jesus altogether because clearly He has no power to transform and there's no real difference between life with Him and life without Him. Jesus definitely doesn't benefit because the people He wants to know Him end up with a warped view of who He is.  Paul makes it pretty clear when He says that living by the flesh leads to death but living by the Spirit leads to life. In Romans 8:13 Paul tells us that living by the Spirit actually means killing sin, so life in the Spirit is a life of uprooting sinful attitudes and behaviours by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit to make room for the seeds of the oaks righteousness (Isaiah 61:3)that is continually being unveiled in us. There is a higher call! If our freedom is leading us into being conformed to the ways of the world, we're in trouble! (Rom 12:2) We tend to be led into cycles of bondage or addiction where we don't utilise our self-control that exists within our freedom and it begins to wither. It's important to remember that a clean conscience and a seared conscience are not the same thing. A clean conscience has conversed and agreed with the Holy Spirit that all is well in our thoughts and motives. A seared conscience has become numb to the voice and promptings of the Lord through continued disobedience or through our desire to do something being greater than our desire to please the Lord. 

     Just because you "feel at peace about it" doesn't mean it's ok. The fact that God hasn't directly spoken to you about it doesn't mean it's ok. I'd soon find myself in jail if a police officer came round to my crack den to arrest me and I told him "It's ok, I feel like this ok for me to do. I feel at peace about it." If you're in a place where no one can bring challenge or correction into your life unless you agree with them, you're in trouble. As Kris Vallotton says, "the very nature of deception is that you don't know you're deceived." 


     Celebrating freedom in Christ is a beautiful thing! I had a friend text me once to tell me that he was struggling with lust and temptation to look at porn and he wanted me to pray with him. We then had a text convo backwards and forwards just laughing at the idea of him giving in to a defeated foe! We laughed at the thought of him succumbing to temptation when his default is righteousness. We laughed at the idea of him choosing lesser pleasure over Divine pleasure. The temptation went away and he just went to sleep haha. FREEDOM!! There was a time when he was "bound" to sin. It was inevitable. But now he has been "unbound" by the ultimate Freedom Fighter! And for the rest of us there was a time when we were hell-bound but now we've been set free and whom the sets free is free indeed!! (John 8:36) I am free to pray for the sick and see them healed!! I am free to show supernatural love to my enemies in the face of persecution!! I am free to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind and strength!! I am free to experience a relationship of intimacy and obedience with the God who can see all of time, past present and future without even moving His eyes! ("God's Pursuit of Man" - A.W Tozer) I'm so free!! I'm free to love the poor to the point of personal loss because I know that God will provide what I need. Go and find your favourite songs about freedom in Christ and have a rave! Or maybe just sit and think about what He has saved you from and thank Him. 



Jesus you stood alone and took on sin to become our great Saviour! Thank you Lord! Without you were are dead and we are nothing. Thank you for sharing your life with us and making us sons and daughters of God. Thank you for filling us with Your Spirit and daily making us more like you. Help us to desire to see more of our lives given over to You and Your kingdom. Help us not settle for second best or mediocre. Show us how beautiful you are so that the things of the world pale in comparison and we don't want to hold on to them. We want to be salt and light in the world, fully representing you, Your freedom and Your grace.
Amen

Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feelings : ) 

Understanding Forgiveness: Part 4 - The Unoffended Heart

Check out part 3...
http://peoplebeingreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/understanding-forgiveness-part-3.html  

God has been teaching me about the principle of an unoffended heart. This is a heart that regardless of past disappointments and hurts still remains open and bursting with love. The owner of an unoffended heart is not a weak-willed, attention-starved desperate individual but rather a person who is stronger than most of us in being able to see past offences and loving the people behind them. I am convinced that an offended heart is prone to cultivating unforgiveness as well as isolation and loneliness. People who often feel inexplicably lonely in the presence of many friends are likely to have an area of unforgiveness that they are yet to deal with. I believe an unoffended heart is nothing short of supernatural and requires the intervention of God to produce. An unoffended heart will keep the door open even after someone has brought in their muddy shoes. The spirit of the age says those who bare the burden of unforgiveness can never trust again but the Spirit of Christ says "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28) He who prayed for the forgiveness of those who stripped him, beat him, humiliated him and nailed him to a cross is the only One capable of giving us a heart that returns evil with good and hatred with love (Romans 12:21).

Father I pray that you would teach us to love selflessly and outrageously and forgive immediately out of the overflow of an unoffended heart that has known Your unconditional love.

Understanding Forgiveness: Part 3 - Unforgiveness

Part 2...
http://tony-campbell.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/understanding-forgiveness-part-2-paying.html

Unforgiveness is seen as completely justifiable in today's society. We can all probably identify something that is fine not to forgive someone for or at least to delay forgiveness for. Think of a big furry dog covered in mud (weird I know) walking around inside a nice white house. Everytime it enters a room it's only a matter of time before it  does the standard crazy-dog-shake and dirt goes absolutely everywhere! I understand unforgiveness as being like this. As Christians each one of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit and God lives in us (1Corinthians 3:16) making us more like Jesus by renewing our minds (Romans 12:2). Unforgiveness is like inviting that paint-covered dog into the house. It will start in the front room and shake around until the room looks different, dirtier. It will eventually move into the next room and do the same, changing the appearance of the room. If unforgiveness goes unchecked in our lives it begins to twist and change our perceptions. We develop trust issues, become paranoid. As a result we isolate ourselves and build defense mechanisms to prevent ourselves from being vulnerable or hurt again. I believe that one of the main tactics of the devil in taking people down is isolation. In the beginning God said it is not good for Man to be alone (Gen 2:18) and the enemy knows that our faith can fail us in the absence of community and encouragement. If you want to know the areas of your life where the devil may be attacking you, have a look at where you're being separated from people who are positive influences on you. Anyway, unforgiveness is an intruder in the house of God and when detected it should be cast out immediately! Unforgiveness ruins lives. What if we all cast unforgiveness out of our hearts? Why don't we?

Check out part 4...
http://tony-campbell.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/understanding-forgiveness-part-4.html