PurifyingGrace

Recovery from pornography addiction (porn addiction, sex addiction) to sexual purity through God's grace.

Devotionals

What Does It Mean to Believe? What Does It Mean to Have Faith?

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What is faith? What does it really mean to believe? Is it:

  • a firm belief in something for which there is no proof, or something desired, and is expected to occur?
  • complete unfounded confidence?
  • makes up what is lacking in knowledge?
  • a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea that has not been proven?
  • a mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim?
  • a convinced belief; a condition of mind fully satisfied; next to actual knowledge?
  • an acceptance of ideals, beliefs, etc., which are not necessarily demonstrable through experimentation or reason?
  • not a mental construct, a set of propositions, or a statement of belief, but an inner attitude of confidence and deep trust which grounds the human soul in peace and inner stability?

What is it? What is biblical faith? What is saving faith? πιστευω (pisteuo) is the Greek word for faith. It basically means “to believe, have faith, have confidence (in something or someone), entrust (something to another).” We must consider the whole of Scripture to really determine what faith is. We must consider both the Apostle Paul (Romans 4, etc) and James, the half-brother of Jesus & leader of the Jerusalem Church. Saving, Justifying Faith has three things.

1. Knowledge/Content
There is no such thing as a contentless faith. A person can accurately say, “I don’t believe in anything.” However, if a person says, “I believe in nothing,” that is just like saying, “I don’t believe in anything.” A person who lacks faith in something lacks faith. However, I believe we would be hardpressed to find a person who truly believes in nothing, even atheists believe something whether evolution or whatever. Agnostics don’t deny believing or not believing. They have only come to an impasse and refuse to take a stand for or against. Either their intellect wants to believe but their heart refuses or their heart wants to believe and their intellect won’t allow them to make the leap. Regardless, it does not make any sense to have contentless faith.

Biblical faith cannot have faith in faith. It is not faith that saves but the content on which the faith resides. If faith alone can save apart from grace and even Jesus, then any faith would suffice. However, the Scriptures are clear that it is faith in Jesus Christ that saves (cf. John 14:6; Acts 4:12; etc.). A person who sincerely believes something is no better than a demon who sincerely believed in Lucifer at the fall of a third of the angels.

A person cannot say that I am a faithful person without stating that they have a faith in something or that something. The essence of faithfulness necessitates a standard or an object or a person to which to be faithful. However, somehow, today it is virtuous to have a contentless faith. Can faith be in and of itself? Is faith an object? Always ask them what their faith is in? However, this is not enough for this is the Christology and theology of demons. James 2:19 states, “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” So for saving, justifying faith, something else is needed.

For me, this was where I was as a Southern living deep in the Bible belt. I can remember to this day being in middle school thinking I was a Christian. I attended FCA under a man named Mr. Manning in 8th grade. If anyone were to ask me if I were a Christian, I would have said, “Yes.” However, not that this is a test of being a Christian, if someone were to ask me what Noah’s arc was I couldn’t have told them. I remember distinctly being made fun of by a Christian friend for not knowing what this was. However, this deceit is cultural and runs deep in the South (From Virginia south, Texas east, probably excluding Florida). “Everyone” in the South is a Christian and attends a local church. And that was me.

2. Agreement/Assent
There are different levels of assent and doubt. With every belief there is a level of doubt (e.g., Mark 9:24; Thomas, Jn 20:24-25; Rom 12:3). It is not just a blind leap, but it is also not just a logical step. It is foolish to say that the greatest faith seeks the least evidence. This is merely a historical reaction against reason (Enlightenment). By learning more about God we don’t have less faith or less reason to have faith. Reason shows that faith is logical. “We believe that we may understand,

Reasons Why We Should Seek Sexual Purity

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In the past, I have been asked and even wrote about my reasons or motivations to be sober or sexually pure. The original goal was to have 35 motivations and I wrote mine here, “My Motivations”. Upon looking at them (something I originally had no intention of doing today-though I should be reviewing them daily), I had only five reasons that were “God-focused?” They were:

#1 “I want intimacy with God.”
#7 “God wants it for my benefit.”
#8 “God demands it. I want to obey.”
#27 I want to please God (“Well done good and faithful servant.”).
#31 I desire to do God’s will

I had only two that began with “God” instead of “I!” And both of those were me-focused! One had my benefit in italics stressing me! And the other had an “I” statement after it! I put #1 down first because that’s what we are supposed to do, right? #27 was still about me getting something, not about pleasing God. So all in all, I had only one reason that was God-focused! And I even doubt that. Even in my recovery motivation, I was selfish! My wife has been telling me this for weeks, maybe even months. But I never listened to her. I dismissed her every time sometimes, frankly, rather rudely and deprecatingly basically devaluing her, degrading her, and diminishing her.

Today even, I did not mean to write this post. Instead, I wanted to begin writing about my definition or thoughts about sexual purity and sobriety from a biblical perspective, something I should have done a long time ago. So in reading 1 Thessalonians 4:3 again and again, I expanded to include 4:4 and 4:5. Then I realized that I was still out of context and needed to included 4:1-2 and 4:6-8 again all the while seeking out “What is sexual purity?”

So probably for the first time in my recovery am I seeking out what God has to say to me about sexual purity and sobriety. In the past, it has all (maybe except for the 4 or 5 devotionals that I’ve written) been reflections about various thoughts or books that I’ve read. Rarely did I ever start with the Scriptures.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 states,

1 Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more.  2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.  3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;  4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,  5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;  6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.  7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.  8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

To me, these verses are very straightforward…maybe too straightforward.The will of God for us is to be holy, set apart unto God as His unequivocally, namely and especially in regards to sexual immorality. But why? Why be sexually pure?

  1. It is extremely important to God. While sexual purity does not equal the whole of sanctification, it is the first instruction, maybe even a primary objective in sanctification because it speaks to faithfulness, loyalty, and singularity (1 Thess 4:3).
  2. It is also the will of God (1 Thess 4:3).
  3. It is our calling (1 Thess 4:7).
  4. It is how we walk and please God (1 Thess 4:1).
  5. It is a demonstration of the Holy Spirit in one’s life(1 Thess 4:4). First, we must “know how to possess our own vessels,” or bodies, “in sanctification and honor.” This primarily is an action of self-control, which is part of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23). To do so in sanctification requires the Spirit of God, for apart from God we can do nothing (cf. John 15:5). How else can we be holy (Lev 19:2; 1 Peter 1:16) or perfect (Matt 5:48)?
  6. It is honorable (1 Thess 4:4). It is honorable before God and before man. To live purely in a sexualized world as Daniel lived godly in a pagan world is to stand out among people. To show honor and respect to women instead of objectifying and sexualizing them is to be different and stand apart. It is honoring them in God’s image.
  7. It treats our brothers rightly (1 Thess 4:6). Or in other words, not to abstain from sexual immorality is to sin against and defraud/take advantage of our brother. So to not control my lustful passions and commit adultery of the heart/mind I not only sin against my wife, the person(s) being depicted, but also my brother(s) and the parents of the person(s) being depicted.
  8. Not to abstain from sexual immorality is rejecting God (1 Thess 4:8).
  9. Not to abstain from sexual immorality has grave consequences including the vengeance of God (1 Thess 4:6).

These reasons remove me from the subject placing God as the subject because these motivations are founded on what God has said. While some of my other motivations may have been biblical, they didn’t start with the Bible. The Bible has many more (infinite?) motivations than I could ever conjure.

Devotion: Romans 13:13-14

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I have been getting the BeBroken Purity Devotions, and the first one was on Romans 13:13-14.

Romans 13:13-14 (NASB) states,

13 Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.
14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

To be fair to BeBroken Ministries, here is what they wrote (emphasis mine):

We are told to live upright lives. We are told to clothe ourselves in the lordship of Jesus. Finally, we are told to stop putting the focus on “satisfying our sinful self.”

Today’s choices are:

  1. a full day of walking in uprightness under the lordship of Jesus, or
  2. spending part of the day feeding your sexual appetite [under the influence of our flesh].

Talk to God. What do you want to say to Him about the challenges ahead of you today? Write down some thoughts in a journal…

This is great and simple. However, I wanted to add a few things. First there are 2 positive commands and one negative command. Simply, we are to:

  1. Behave properly (13a)
  2. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ (14a)
  3. Make no provision for the flesh (14b)

The first positive command is to behave properly. This is defined in two ways.

  1. It is defined as acting out in the daytime (NIV). It is how we would act around other n0rmal people. It is how we would act in front of our pastors or those we respect and those whom we want to admire/respect us. It is behaving properly. However, it is more than that! If we read the previous two verses, (“11 Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. 12 The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”), we see that “the day” refers to the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus. So whether you believe in a pre-tribulation/post-tribulation rapture, the point is this: behave properly. Behave as you would knowing that Jesus would appear now. Or now. Or now. Literally, the text reads “walk properly.” Elsewhere, Paul writes that we should “walk worthy” or “behave in a manner worthy” (“walk” is an idiom for behaving; cf. Eph 4:1; cf. Col 1:10; 1 Th 2:12). The adverb “properly” only appears here and 1 Cor 14:14 (“But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.”) in reference to the exercise of spiritual gifts “in church” and 1 Thess 4:12 (“so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.”) while the adjective/noun form appears elsewhere in 1 Corinthians (7:35; 12:23-24). In other words, we should behave like Christians. We should behave as we would in the light (cf. 1 John 1).
  2. It is defined by what it is NOT. Here Paul gives us 6 concrete examples (in 3 pairs) of what it is not. It is not, in case there was any question, carousing (NASB)/orgies(NIV), drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, sexual sensuality, strife, and jealousy. Out of the 6 words used, 1 pair refers to sexual infidelity/immorality. Simply, they are:
    • Inappropriate use of drink
    • Inappropriate use of sex
    • Inappropriate use of control and attention

    Both alcoholism and sexual addiction breed strife and jealousy within the addict, and for the addict strife and jealous can be triggers that lead to acting out in one’s sin of choice. Instead of simply not doing these things, we are to clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, the second positive command.

The second positive command is to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. To really get the power of this verse, we need to look up to the previous verse again. Romans 13:12 writes, “The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” This armor of light is clothing ourselves in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need to see it as such: armor. Elsewhere, in Galatians 3:27, Paul speaks as though we have already put on the Lord Jesus Christ. To the Galatians, Paul writes, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed [or put on, same word] yourselves with Christ.” So at the moment of conversion or belief, we put on Jesus Christ once and for all. We are so identified with Jesus Christ that we wear Him. So here in Romans 13:14, we are to put on Jesus Christ. Did we take Him off? Can we take Him off? I am not sure. But I do know that we can grieve and quench the Spirit, so likewise we can mask our clothing. Here Paul is simply stating “Become who you are.” The parallel to this passage is 1 Thess 5:7-8, which states,

7 For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night.
8 But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

Note the similar motifs of “day” and “put on.” Elsewhere we are commanded to put on the full armor of God in the infamous Ephesians 6:11, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” So when Paul commands us to “put on the armor of light” or “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” he is telling us to put on our faith in Jesus Christ & his faithfulness, our absolutely sure hope in Jesus Christ (not simply wishful thinking), and the love that comes from Jesus Christ (as mentioned in Rom 13:10) carrying the Word of God with us, in us.

As Piper writes,

And how do you do that [put on Jesus Christ]? We could answer this question simply from the nature of faith and hope and love themselves. Faith comes from hearing, so put on Christ by listening to the word of God about Christ. Hope comes from promises, so put on Christ by remembering the promises of Christ. Love comes by the loveliness of Christ, so put on Christ by calling to mind his beauty.

And all of this is governed by the Word, just as the Psalmist said, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You” (119:11).

And the last command is to make NO provision for the flesh. And Piper explains this extremely well:

The word “provision” means literally “forethought,” and the whole sentence would go like this: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t let any thought in your head that would lead to a sinful desire—not just to the gratification of the sinful desire, but even the desire itself.”

“Provision” only appears elsewhere in the NT in Acts 24:2, as “providence.” So there is providential forethought, or as the NIV writes, “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” It is that back-of-the-mind planning of acting out on my sin. It is that looking forward to that time where I will have the opportunity to sin, not committing myself not to sinning. It is that knowledge that your spouse will be gone on vacation or out of the house during X time, and “planning” (but not really planning) what we will do when that happens simply “allowing” ourselves to slip begging for the pity and sympathy of our accountability partners, mentors, and spounsors. However, the text says that I cannot allow myself room for these. I cannot not prevent some things; however, other things I can prevent. I need to think and plan. Just as the saying goes, “Failure to plan is planning to fail.” I cannot purposefully leave a end untied or loose, “just in case.” I cannot go somewhere knowing that I just may if I… It is searching on Google or elsewhere without the Safe Mode on. I must ask my accountability partners, mentors, and sponsors to try me, search me, and question me before things and the week happens.

One good accountability question is: “What is one time this coming week that you see yourself possibly being tempted?” The answer to this question lies around:

  • When do you see that you may be extremely tired this week?
  • When do you see youself possibly getting frustrated?
  • What events in this coming week may cause you to lose sleep, get frustrated, become depressed, get angry, be lonely, etc.?
  • Will you ever have the chance to be alone this week?

But how do we make “no provision for the flesh?” How do we “not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature?” As Piper says, “Sometimes just trying to resist them reminds you of them. The answer is not mainly by direct resistance—though that is very important. We should indeed say, “NO!” to a rising thought that would lead to sinful desire. But the answer is mainly in putting on the Lord Jesus Christ—that is, calling to mind the words of God that awaken more faith in Jesus, and calling to mind the promises of God that awaken more hope in Jesus, and calling to mind the beauty of Christ that awakens more love to Jesus” while always meditating on and recalling the Word of God. Let’s make this a bit more concrete. It is logging your prayer requests and the eventual answers (whether affirmative or negative). It is memorizing and recognizing the promises of God as active. It entails reading the Bible, not to just read it or check something off your list. It is reading the Bible to know God, to know Jesus. It is not filling one’s head with knowledge about spiritual things, but to provide an explosive, passionate relationship. It is knowing your identity in Christ by reading Victory over the Darkness by Neil Anderson. It is reading Who Am I in Christ? again and again every day for forty days. It is being in a relationship with someone that can put your feet to the coals. It is being in Accountability Group(s). It is having every part of your life accountable to someone.

Matt 5:27-30 Devotional

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Matt 5:27-30 says that if we look on a person with lust in our heart then we have committed adultery in our heart. Then he goes on to give some extreme statements like “if your right eye causes you to stumble then tear it out and throw it from you…if your right hand causes you to stumble then cut it off and throw it from you.” Both times, Jesus stresses that “it is better for you to lose one of your body parts than for your whole body to go to hell.”

There is a whole lot going on in this section. First we must recognize that it is important to understand the main point which centers on one’s heart and its relationship to sin. Jesus is simply elevating the sin of adultery to the level of the tenth commandment, even beyond. No one can really know if you are committing adultery, except you and God.

Jesus is exhorting us to take whatever extreme measures are necessary to ensure that we do not sin fearing the cumulative consequences of sin and He who can cast us into hell. He does not necessarily mean that we should cut off our hand(s) or gouge out our eye(s). Instead it is better for us to forsake some liberties or limit our freedoms in Christ that may cause us to sin. The writer of Hebrews encourages us to not neglect our salvation. And pursuing a sinful practice of pornography is neglecting our savation.

So what do we so then? Well we get rid of things that trigger us as long as it depends on us. For example, the magazines with beautiful women, even Good Housekeeping or the Health magazines or Runners’ World, and definitely any caalogs like Victoria Secret or Abercrombie. Get rid of your TV/cable. Get rid of your internet. If you cannot get a filter, and a password on the machine that forces you to have someone else around. And do not know the password! BeSafe Home is probably the best. If you don’t want a filter then Covenant Eyes may be the best choice for accountability reasons. What extreme measures do you need to take?