What's My Motivation

As I continue to explore the issues at hand and ask God to reveal to me what I need to look for in my heart, my focus continues to stay on the foundational or root issues. And I've realized that my motivation for seeking healing has often been off base.

Like many addicts and habitual sinners, I continue with cyclical behavior until there is a painful consequence, and then I scramble for a time to change my behavior and make others happy. My focus is then on people and the pain, not on pleasing God, which should be my highest priority. Yes, there have been personal reasons for not having God as my highest priority (mainly, not understanding the character and love of God and therefore not trusting Him), and those are discussed in other articles.

But as I connect the links in this chain of healing and recovery and break the bonds of unhealthy behavior, I have to realize that I can't be a "man pleaser" as the bible puts it. My first desire should be to please God, and therefore my repentance from my habitual sin should be with a focus on doing so for my relationship with God, and not because I am living in fear about the lost relationships because of the continued sin. I can't focus on the pain that I'm in, because it is cyclical and fleeting, and I will always rationalize it away and fall back into the cycles of habitual sin.

But if my focus is on healing for myself and my relationship with God, then my attitude takes on more of a spirit of "against You and You alone have I sinned," coming before God to re-establish a right spirit and a real relationship. I look to God first for the answers and the healing power, rather than the old method of applying temporary patches so my wife is satiated while I continue to make God hang out in the outer courtyards of my life. I didn't understand that I was doing that, but I was. The new approach is to then learn to invite God into every room of my life as my Daddy, the one who loves me, and the one who I want to have purview over everything, because He knows what is best for me. When my attitude turns to one of priority over pain, I have experienced different levels of genuine repentance. I want to repent because I have a God who will never leave me and loves me, and I want to please Him. He is not fickle in His love, and He will never abandon nor forsake me. And that makes me want to repent.

That said, I need to turn my relationship with my wife and my entire sexuality over to God. I expect that God will do wonderful things, because He is in the business of doing so. I don't demand it. But He's my Daddy, and I can go to Him continually and ask Him for the change in my heart and in that of my family. Nonetheless, I have to fathom the possibility of divorce and continued pain as a possibility, and realize that I have to leave all of that in God's hands, let go of it, and proceed with my relationship with Him, fully and unabated by the motivation to fear or please others.

In other words, I have to focus on the priority, not the pain. God first, then all else.

God, please be my Father, my Daddy. Forgive me for harming my relationship with You time and again, and help me to seek you with all of my heart. I pray that our relationship would be healed, above all others. I also pray for my wife's heart to be healed, and for you to restore our marriage - it is dead and would need to be resurrected by your healing touch, your power. Please allow me to be the father and husband that I am meant to be, and may your name be glorified above all when everything is said and done.

The folks at Top Addiction Networks (formerly Transformed Hearts) have written a great article on what I'm talking about here:
http://topaddictionnetworks.com/winning-at-recovery-part-one/

Oh, the Shame!

Cusick's cycle of porn addiction

All too often, the cycle of porn addiction moves from preoccupation, to preparation, to acting out, to shame, and back round again. Michael John Cusick has written a really good book on this matter, Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle. In it, he posits that the shame part of the cycle is the most opportune time to escape (his book contains many other devices and it's chock-full of information about why we look at porn, what it's doing to us, how to heal, etc. Great story teller, great book!). Covenant Eyes has an article, "Destroying Porn Addiction Starts with Destroying Shame", that looks at shame from another angle, in understanding how shame keeps the cycle going because we remain in isolation, hiding our sin in darkness so that it cannot be resolved.

Where Does Shame Start?
In the garden, Adam and Eve's disobedience to God's one law (do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge) "opened their eyes" and gave them a sense of conscience for what was previously considered completely natural - their nakedness. They made the lame attempt to cover themselves with leaves, but it was not until God spilled blood (a foreshadowing of Christ's atoning death) and covered them in the skins of animals that they were sufficiently covered. So, for the sake of this study, I'd like to call the sense of conscience "guiltiness", and the lame attempt to cover it up "shame". There is nothing wrong with the sense of knowing that you have sinned, a sorrow that leads to repentance but not to shame.

Many of us start with the shame cycle by realizing our guilt for having fallen short of God's perfect plan, having missed the mark (sin). Rather than turning our guilt over to God for the power of repentance (more below on this), we pity ourselves, focus inwards, become bitter, and begin to hide from God. Repentance is empty, with no accountability and no desire to bring the sin into the light. Without any boundaries, a person begins to form patterns of behavior, and with each successive venture into sin, the shame grows darker and we dig an insurmountable hole for ourselves. Unfortunately, what would have been an 'easier' initial confession becomes that much more difficult the further down the dark hole we venture.

Shame hides in the shadows when God comes around, and attempts to hide sin under a fig leaf.

How Does the Shame Continue?
Shame continues when we continue to hide ourselves from God. Without the redemptive powers of true repentance, confession, and putting to death the deeds of the flesh by cutting off the right hand that causes us to sin (setting boundaries), the sinner becomes a helpless addict, caught in a cycle of repetitive and darkly rewarding behavior, a counterfeit of the true joy that the Lord provides us with.

For many, life's pain is too much to bear without a healthy and dedicated relationship with God, and some sort of 'fix' is introduced to their life. Rather than seeking healing from God, a lack of faith and preoccupation with worldly ideals will lead this person to find an alternate to God. Some medicate their pain with alcohol or drugs, others depend on emotional and relational ties to buoy their souls, and some turn to porn to empower themselves when their relationships fail. There are an infinite number of addictions, an infinite storehouse of idols from which to choose.

Rather than being able to enjoy God and what He intended us to be, trading "...their glorious God for that shameful god Baal" (Hosea 4:7b), the addict fills the God-sized gap with a puny stand-in that curses rather than blesses them. We make our modern idols not from wood or stone, but fashion them in our minds from drunken hazes, euphoric highs, or human flesh. John Calvin once spoke of our hearts being idol-making factories, where we fall all too easily into false perceptions of life that become idols that we hold out to against God's true purposes. Certainly addiction is a matter of idol(s) that we hold dear in our lives, and shame is the shelf upon which the idol sits, indeed a cabinet within which we can hide our idols from others.

With each session that we worship the idol (our object of addiction that allows us to self-medicate) and reject God's ways, an addict (even a true believer in Christ) experiences more shame and their sense of self worth becomes more and more focused on their failure and lack. They continue to engage in the addictive patterns, and eventually grow  in their sinful activity. The addict increases the stimulation that they gain from sin, as the puny stand-in grows weary and boring with repetition, and the 'high' that they usually get from it grows stale. As the addict's heart grows numb to the sin, they allow for worse and more vile sinful acts. In the case of porn, for example, the addict moves from bathing suits, to nudity, to hardcore porn, to bondage and possibly illegal child porn or other more vile forms.

It is shame that breaks and eventually hardens our hearts and causes us to hide our sin further in the dark recesses of our lifestyles. Without realizing it, we put ourselves into the state of selfish penance, rejecting the cross for our own way. Pitying ourselves and mental self-flagellation seems so much more real to the wordly-minded than words on a page that tell us that some dude died 2000 years ago so that I wouldn't have to bear the burden of shame. It is shame that causes us to believe that we can never be loved and that Christ's death on the cross isn't strong enough to atone for our worst of sins, that we are fooling ourselves to believe that God ever loved such a wretched sinner like us. So we continue the addictive cycle of sin, refusing to believe that it will ever end. As Cusick says, "Wash, rinse, spin. Repeat."

Shame leads to further sin and a downward spiral that eventually leads to death of everything sacred in the person's life, if not their physical death. But there is always hope for the worst of sinners...

How Do We Break the Cycle of Shame?
You can kill the shame in your life. You can kill the sin in your life. But not on your own. The further down the path of sin you follow, the harder it will be to turn away from your sin and break the cycle of shame, but you will finally be free. No longer a slave to your idol.

Here is what God tells us we need to do:

1. Take Responsibility - Own your sin. Realize that you have a problem. Desire the change that it takes to remove the problem from your life, realizing not only the damage that it has done to you and others, but also realizing that you can have so much more in Christ.
2. Repent -  Turn away from your sin, and turn to God. Confess your sins to Him. Realize that our God is infinitely more powerful than your sin, and that He loves you and desires your dedication and then your healing.
3. Confess - Once you have confessed your sins to God, you also need to confess your sins to others close to you. Believers in Christ. People that will react in a Godly way by loving you and desiring to pull alongside you to help you find your way back to a focus on God. Confess that you haven't allowed Christ's atonement to stand in place of your condemnation, and that you are free and a new creation as a result of what God did, nothing that you can ever do.
4. Purge - Get rid of anything that would cause you to sin further. Break the bottle, flush the drugs, disconnect the computer, do whatever it takes to step aside and fast from things so you can re-focus.
5. Set Boundaries - Be extreme. It's silly to say "don't be legalistic" when the sin you are committing is the very bondage that will lead to death. The improper reaction would be to only focus on the law and saying "just stop doing it", without re-dedication to God. Boundaries are important for the addict, because it helps you when you are weak, when your sin nature takes the wheel and you start to fall off the wagon. We are told to cut off the right hand that causes us to sin, and to "put to death the deeds of the flesh", and to dedicate our members for holiness. For the porn addict, for example, when you are feeling particularly hormonal and don't think you will be able to control yourself, you will be glad that the boundaries can help you to refocus. Alcoholics will want to find extreme ways to stay away from the alcohol stores, drug abusers should cut all ties to anyone doing or selling drugs, and porn users should install filters and accountability filters that help them avoid those impulse decisions to sin.
6. Be Accountable - First to God, then to your accountability partners. There are a number of groups such as Celebrate Recovery that have chapters near you, and are full of people that would love to be your sponsor or accountability partner. These are people that you can call at 2 AM to let them know that you're suffering and don't want to fail. They pray with you, visit you, act as your internet filter partner, drive you places, pour themselves out in prayer for you all the day long. The most important part of this is to find someone that you can be continually and completely transparent with, even when you fail. Someone that will ask the difficult questions and get in your face when they think you're being deceptive.
7. Rededicate - Spend Time with God, and either ask Him to be Lord for the first time, or ask Him to forgive you and wash you of your sins. You need to break all bondage in your heart by constantly dedicating yourself to meditation on His word, fasting if it helps, and praying without ceasing. God wants you to enjoy His presence, His glory. Find ways to understand it and worship Him because of it.
8. Persevere - Learn to find ways to give your pain over to the Lord. Keep refocusing yourself on His power and grace, His ability to continue to heal you and uphold you. When you find that you can't handle it anymore, you can. There are plenty of resources on the websites that I link to on this page to keep you occupied with Godly thoughts. You are a warrior and a new creation, equipped already with all the weapons to defeat your enemy (see my other post about doing battle), you just need to learn to pick them up and be proficient at using them against the enemy. Lean on your brothers and sisters in Christ when you are weak. Run the race so as to win, because in Christ it has already been won.
9. Help others - Just as Christ said, "Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you", you should share yourself with others. Serving others is what God's kingdom in this life is all about. Learning to be more sacrificial and Christ-like in your every day life. Love those who hate you so that they may be won over by the gospel and be saved for eternity. Just as you were a starving beggar, now show every other starving beggar where to find the bread of life.

The Victims of Addiction Need to Heal

I recently had a 'coming to Jesus' moment with my wife. Well, it was my moment, and her agonizing years (18+, to be exact) worth of trying to tell me, and warn me, and finally force me. It took being confronted with the landscape of my sins and the solitude of separation and even the specter of divorce to realize that my marriage was dead and my children were spiritual orphans.

Part of an addict's issues is that they don't understand the pain that they've caused to others. Addicts are slaves to the flesh, self-medicating their own pain in alcohol or drugs or fantasy life (porn, etc.) and completely forgetting the trail of tears left behind. In fact, many addicts will repent of their sins and come clean, only to forget what is important and return to their selfishness.

I have a wife of 21 years and we have 8 children - 5 girls and 3 boys. They are all beautiful souls at their core, desiring beautiful things, but they are obvious products of pain and misery and it is pretty obvious that their father and husband has lacked the appropriate servitude and selflessness that should be evident in a Christian man's life, has in fact harmed them with spiritual abandonment, indifference, carelessness, selfishness, anger, and outright sin such as adultery.

I can just hear the choruses of "it takes two to ruin a relationship" and "she's probably got her problems, too, I'm sure." STOP. No, really, just stop. If you are thinking anything close to that in your head, then you likely have some issues in your own life that keep you from an appropriate level of responsibility to your own spouse and family, possibly God.

To meet the issue of addiction head on first, the addict must realize that they have an idolatry in their heart that causes a complete occupation with their god of choice - alcohol, drugs, porn, etc. The addict has a problem with worshiping the true God, and likely has pain that they haven't dealt with in its proper context, possibly blaming others and/or God for their problems. "If only he/she were more loving", or "if only I could get x, I'd be happy." What the addict is doing is replacing the true source of all joy and glory, and trading God for a cheap imitation. And similar to when Israel worshiped idols, their spiritual life suffered beyond hope, and with it, the families - just as they sacrificed their children to Baal, addicts sacrifice intimacy and sacrificial love for our families for the sake of serving ourselves. The family stagnates and gradually dies under these conditions.

The temptation is to react to large meltdowns in the family by focusing primarily on your family and desire to 'fix' things, and work harder to be the man that you are supposed to be. What you are in fact doing at that point is putting yourself in the place of God, denying the complete washing you need to receive by humbling yourself before the sacrifice on the cross, and finding yet another cheap alternative to true and deep healing. I can just imagine all of the addicts groaning and throwing their hands in the air, but there is only one narrow path that you can follow to true healing, and that is to restore your relationship with God, where the true focus belongs...

YOU NEED TO HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE GOD, and starting with the gospel, meditate heavily on the word of God and then in prayer name your sins and ask God to heal you from them, renouncing them as absolute 100% sin, and an affront to the blood of Christ. Ask God to restore a right spirit in your heart, and to restore a joyful relationship between you and Him. Our whole purpose is to glorify Him and enjoy Him, and you need to desperately seek God and ask for the strength to make that happen. Seek, knock, ask. And humble yourself. And ask again. And humble yourself some more. Every day seek God and ask for His cleansing power and for the ability to come before His presence and worship and love Him with everything you've got.

Yes, there are boundaries that need to be set, you need to do spiritual battle, and there are practical steps to combating sin in your life, but without the direct relationship with God being restored, all of these other resolutions and external-to-your-heart efforts will fail, because all of it is predicated on a right relationship with God.

The stronger your bond with God becomes, the more able you will be to serve and love your family. Sacrificially.

Ephesians 5:25-26 tells us husbands, "For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word." If you have spent the large majority of your marriage dedicated to sin, then you have utterly failed in this manner. We are all supposed to be more Christ-like with every day that passes, and we should be seeking His word and His way fervently, and we should be bringing our families before the word - even more so with our wife, who should be "washed by the cleansing of God's word." Note that this scripture does not say 'shamed into submission by God's word' or 'corrected constantly by your brilliant exegesis and scholastic merit.' It says we should seek to make our wives holy and clean, and this language to me indicates the act of a Savior and Lord kneeling down to wash his disciples' feet, not dumping a bucket over their head and chucking a bar of soap at them.

If you have children, take an opportunity to bring them before God's word every day, in whatever simple illustrations you can give them for their age...

These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.… (Deuteronomy 6:6-8)

The word needs to be in your heart, and then you do your best to bring it to your wife and children, seeking only to humbly serve them, to lead the spiritually hungry to the bread of life. Not as one who is superior, but as a beggar showing others where to find food once discovered.

Do you see a theme here? What you need to do is realize the damage that you have done to your relationship with God first, and then your family. Then humble yourself. Bring yourself back to your Lord. Seek His word regularly. Allow yourself to feel the pain, and don't seek to medicate it anymore. Understand where everyone is at in their walk and fervently pray for healing in your heart and in their hearts. Be patient, it will take a long time, especially if you have been at your addiction for as long as I have. If you set expectations, you will push hurting loved ones further away from you. Just love and serve in whatever ways they will allow you. And humble yourself. Then humble yourself some more. And serve some more. And humble yourself even more. This is, I think the greatest formula for recovery for everyone involved in the addict's life.

Porn Use as Grounds for Divorce

This article on Covenant Eyes is just about the most balanced and fair treatment about this topic that I have ever read. Make sure to read to the very end, because he gives many proofs from the scriptures, and prescribes a very biblical course of action:

http://www.covenanteyes.com/2015/10/08/porn-use-as-grounds-for-divorce-how-my-opinion-changed/

The gist of the article is that though porn use by a spouse should not be used as a hair-trigger reason for divorce, nor should it be used as an excuse for divorce after the porn user has long since repented, an unrepentant spouse that continues to commit adultery in this manner is breaking the marriage covenant continually and binding themselves to other partners. After the offended spouse and the church confront the porn user in the Matthew 18 manner, if the porn user is still unrepentant and has a hardened heart, then similar to excommunication, the spouse may need to separate or divorce the unbeliever. It should be a long, drawn out process allowing plenty of time to repent and rebuild the marriage.

But I would say that God hates divorce, and there should never be any reason to divorce unless all options have been exhausted, the church being in complete agreement that the spouse has done so. Just as the covenant is made in front of the church, it should be broken in front of the church, with no other options finally being available. Left up to the emotions of one spouse, divorce is all to convenient and an easy option, and their emotions should be kept in check so elders can come in and counsel both parties.

The 'M' Word

So, I'll admit that this is one that I still struggle with. No matter how many nervous jokes we might try to make out of it, and no matter how much we might justify the activity by saying that the bible doesn't outright label it a sin, I think we can admit that masturbation is a selfish act that misses the mark (the very definition of sin) as far as God's design for sexuality and our sexual parts. It is purely self-serving, and lacks the sacrificial aspect of sex between husband and wife, not to mention the intimacy that fuels a real relationship between spouses. In fact, masturbation often causes bitterness and distance in marriages, as the difficulties that spouses should work through and allow them to work toward intimacy can be easily bypassed and ignored if one is taking care of their own needs.

So, what is a man (or woman, I suppose) to do? There are a number of married men that believe that they have to fill in those gaps in time when their wife can't perform in the bedroom, or there may be times of separation for any number of reasons, or a man might be single and awaiting his future wife. How do we handle these situations? I would posit the following...

1. Admit that masturbation misses the mark for your calling, and that it is therefore a sin, no matter how minor we might think that it is. This puts the act in proper context for how we react to the temptation to do it.
2. Practice the presence of God and pray without ceasing. This within itself should be somewhat of a deterrent to sin.
3. Avoid isolation and periods of time alone when you are tempted. If you are overloaded sexually and don't think that you'll be able to avoid masturbation, call someone and/or get out of the situation that you are in. Get away from the computer. Get out of the house, if needed.
4. Avoid stimulation on TV and computer that would cause you to want to seek your own pleasure. Even seemingly innocuous shows and movies and fully clothed women can cause you to be stimulated on any given day, so be watchful about this one. Bounce your eyes, but if it becomes too much, you may need to take further action...
5. Go for a walk, do something constructive for someone else, go to the library, call your accountability partners, call/talk to your spouse, do whatever it takes to move your mind off of yourself and onto God and others.
6. If you do fail in this area, reset. Don't shame yourself, try to do penance, or earn your way back into God's favor. Christ paid it all on the cross, so you merely need to ask for forgiveness, admit your mistake before God, and move on. Maybe meditate on how you can do better next time you are tempted, but don't engage in unhealthy preoccupation with your sin. 

Generally speaking, remember the rule of thumb to Run FROM, Run TO, and Run WITH. Flee from sin, run to God, and then practice the presence of and dwell richly with God.

Just about all battles begins in espionage, setting the battle lines, and the 'black ops' where specialized teams attack behind the lines. Our sneaky enemy will gradually change our thinking about sensuality to the point of making us think that sex is an absolute need and that fantasizing is normal, even about other women. And he will get us to think about our needs and our rights.

Even if you keep your mind on your own spouse initially, I think it's pretty much been proven that masturbation is a gateway to other sexual sin. Be careful to guide your mind and dedicate your body to God's purposes, and you will find that your self-serving desires will gradually abate. 

Flee From Sin, But Don't Stop There

For those porn addicts, the bible is pretty clear that we are to flee from sexual immorality, from the porneia that can so easily settle into our hearts. I think the basic video that starts off the Covenant Eyes 40-Day Challenge (http://www.covenanteyes.com/challenge/) is very astute that you can't just stop there. They prescribe the following:

1. Run FROM
2. Run TO
3. Run WITH

First, you should flee sexual immorality. This particular sin joins the Holy Spirit to the body of a harlot. If you think that avoiding full coitus will keep you from dragging the Holy Spirit through your sinful acts, think again. Your body's chemical reactions are virtually the same in reaction to porn as they are with a full sexual act with a real woman. And if you think that you do not grieve the indwealt Holy Spirit with your eyes and hands when you perform sexual acts with yourself, you are deceiving yourself altogether. So, run AWAY from sin. Get away from the computer, out of the house if you need to. Create the hard-line boundaries in your life, no matter how important the object that you may need to cut from your life...   "If your right hand should cause you to sin, cut it off". Install filters, or at least accountability software (Covenant Eyes is great, and there is a link to it in this blog). This is where victory begins, but you cannot merely empty a household of demons and not expect them to come back stronger than before. Your household, your temple of the Holy Spirit, needs to become a stronghold for God. That is accomplished in the next steps...

Second, you should run TO God. He is our salvation, our rock, our mighty fortress, and he will give us shelter from the storm and protection from ourselves and the great tormentor. We should fall on our faces before Him and beg Him for strength to resist temptation, for every temptation comes with a way out, and He can help us. Also, run to accountability partners, other strong believers that can help you get through these difficult moments. Whatever you do, get your mind off of the preoccupation of pleasuring yourself, and work to serve God and to serve others for the sake of God's kingdom and glory. Find a way to accomplish the very thing for which God made us - to glorify Him, and to enjoy Him forever. Find practical ways to get out of your isolation and serve others - widows and orphans in their distress, friends that might need you in their hour of need, or your family that very well may need any number of things done (you might have to do dishes - gasp!).

Third, you should run WITH God. True strength is not found by just avoiding sin, and not by just falling on your face before God, but in communing with and dwelling with God. God equips us with the full armor described in Ephesians 5, all elements of which are attributes that are purely provided by God; only through a full realization and full meditation of all of these attributes can we attain a renewing of our minds. Salvation, Righteousness, Truth, the Gospel, Faith, and the Word of God. These should all be ready in our arsenal as we go about our day. Find ways to pray for those who are close to you, and those that you meet for whom God gives you a heart. Meditate on God's word. Bring God into every situation and ask Him to show you how to glorify Him as you go about your business, as you shop, as you socialize, as you do everything. Pray without ceasing. Treasure His word in your heart. But most of all, ready yourself for battle.

What is Addiction, to the Christian?

There are many Christians that want to deny the wording "addiction" as it pertains to those who are caught in habitual sin altogether. As the world tends to label addiction a helpless state from which a sinner cannot pull themselves, that they were born with a propensity for a behavior (such as alcohol, homosexuality, sexual sin), and the worldly position all to often posits that addicts likely have these tendencies programmed into their bodies and brains, it's understandable that Christians would want to reject these wordly definitions altogether. I would posit that the bible does leave room for habitual sin, but defines it in a different manner: 

Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. (Romans 9:16 NLT)

Paul is here defining a life dedicated to sin, where the non-believer is a slave to their impurity, the fleshliness of their sin and the further depravity that resulted from their ongoing dedication to sin. This can also be associated with what the scriptures label as the "old man".

The question then remains, however, if a Christian is automatically delivered from this old nature and has absolutely no sin in their lives as a result of becoming saved and being in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, the very nature of Christ. I would posit that though Christians have every tool at their disposal to defeat the old nature and resist temptation, there is a possibility that a Christian would continue to stumble in particular areas of sin:

So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.  And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.  (Romans 7:14-20 NLT)

Paul here defines for us a nature that perseveres beyond the time that we become believers, and an ongoing war that is waged between the old nature and the new nature, the "new creation" that God begins in us and has promised to perfect/complete.

I think we need to differentiate between the person that is comfortable with and dedicated to their sinful lives in a unrepentant manner (Galaltians 5:21 and elsewhere tells us that such sinful dedication is a sign that a person is not truly saved), and a person that hates sin, is actively working to combat it and moving the pieces of their lives to actively repent against sin.

For an addict, the level of habitual sin in their lives may be too much to escape, even once they become believers. There is usually no magical deliverance even for true believers, and the ongoing patterns of preoccupation with a sin, then acting out, then feeling shame, then moving back into the cycle starting with preoccupation (even if it is fought) are too much for the believer to escape if they do so in isolation and without the tools they need to be free.

But the Christian and sin can never be friends. A Christian will never live in the practice of sin and be happy with those activities. It is a bondage, a slavery to the flesh from which the Christian should desire utter freedom. If you are a believer in Christ, you should want to be free, and should be willing to "cut off your right hand" (separate from the most important things to you) to be free from your sin. If you aren't willing to separate from any given thing or situation to be free from your sin, you should then be concerned about your security as a believer. If Christ's death on the cross, your family, and all of the other holy things that God has entrusted to you are not worth enough to you to change anything and everything you possibly can to flee immorality, you may want to examine your conversion experience, and whether or not Jesus is really your Lord, or just your sugar daddy in the sky.

God is a loving Father and Friend. He desires your fellowship, your worship, your dedication. He is always willing to forgive and release you from your sin, and is longsuffering in the process. But His plan may very well involve you having to deal with the consequences of your sin, and you have to be willing to submit to His plan, His ways, and then His rewards. His way is going to be so much better than the pit of despair in which you're living.

My next posts will deal more with some of the basic steps that it takes to combat sin. I hope you'll follow me on this journey and take up the tools of warfare to be victorious once and for all over these beasts that have continued to inhibit your joy in Christ.