Stephen Kuhn's Blog, page 15

Smart Quote: Dallas Willard

Thoughts on this quote? Feel free to discuss them in the comments below.

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Weekly Web (W)roundup

Each week, I round up the best resources, articles, and videos I find that are relevant to finding freedom from porn and sexual addiction. Please note that by posting a link here it does not mean I agree with everything in the linked article. It just means I found it interesting enough to share.

XXXchurch | It’s Time to Confess Your Porn Addiction (3 Ways to Prepare Your Significant Other for the Truth)

“It is my belief that an honest conversation with our partners is a vital and important step into the actual death that is necessary within each person if they are going to step into the sacred journey that is the pilgrimage to health and healing.”

CovenantEyes | How Science Helped Me Understand My Porn Use

“For decades, opponents of pornography fell into one of two categories–religious conservatives or feminists. Now, with over 24 years of Internet usage behind us, many doctors, psychologists and scientists are starting to consider the real possibility of a correlation between prolonged pornography use and adverse brain development, fractured relationships, and overall poor mental health.”

For the Church | Identity Theft: Losing Our Christian Self-Consciousness

“God has created the identity of His church. It is far beyond what we claim of ourselves. In fact, we may have a harder time than Gideon believing we are who we are. But failure to believe what is true about ourselves will keep us from doing mighty deeds for God.”

Randy Alcorn | Our Best Life Yet to Come: The New Earth, Our Eternal Home

“Mankind was designed to live on the Earth to God’s glory. That’s exactly what Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection secured—a renewed humanity upon a renewed Earth.”

And Sons: Risk vs. Courage

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Smart Quote: Steven Moffat, Dr. Who

Thoughts on this quote? Feel free to discuss them in the comments below.

The post Smart Quote: Steven Moffat, Dr. Who appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

Weekly Web (W)roundup

Each week, I round up the best resources, articles, and videos I find that are relevant to finding freedom from porn and sexual addiction. Please note that by posting a link here it does not mean I agree with everything in the linked article. It just means I found it interesting enough to share.

Tim Challies: 8 Ways Satan Convinces You To Question Your Salvation

“Though Satan can never rob a Christian of his crown, yet such is his malice, that he will therefore tempt, that he may spoil them of their comforts.”

Steve McVey: The Biggest Reason We Don’t Feel Close to God

“The specifics of our circumstances are probably different, but most of us in the modern church face the same basic temptation, namely that of allowing ourselves to become so busy with life that we miss the promised abundance of the Life that God has given us.”

Barnabas Piper: How did Rape Become a Culture for Young Men?

“How did we get here? What led young men to believe that sex is a thing to be forcibly inflicted on young women? What led them to see themselves so dishonorably and to view women so cheaply? Sin unchecked, sex commoditized, and selves worshiped. Young men live without boundaries and with no sense of who they are or what place sex has in life.”

Desiring God: Can I be Blotted from the Book of Life?

“Let me say that again. Being in the book, having your name in the book, keeps you from doing what would get you erased from the book if you did it.”

XXXchurch: Will I Die If I Don’t Masturbate?

“If someone asks me about whether masturbation is a sin I usually answer like this: Why does it matter if it is or not? If it is, are you going to be able to stop doing it? If it’s not, then what’s the problem?”

Gospel Coalition: Parents, Tell Your Kids They Are Sinners

“As we talked about his sin, I reminded him of the gospel. God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross so we could be forgiven of our sin. Because we’re forgiven, we should live differently—not for his acceptance, but from his acceptance. We say no to ourselves and yes to God because he loves us and is making us more like himself. And when we look like Christ, the world sees a glimpse of the greatness of God.”

Communicate Jesus: Christian Men Need to Talk about Sex

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DONE: You Have Been Seated in the Heavenly Realms

[God] raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6).

There seems to be a lot of talk in churches these days about believers being crucified with Christ. That’s a good thing of course, because it’s true. But what I don’t hear as much of, is how those who’ve trusted Christ have been raised up from death with Him as well.

It’s almost like we’re only hearing the first half of the gospel.

Paul reminds us of that sometimes forgotten second half of the gospel here in Ephesians 2:6: The reality that everything God did for Jesus (including raising Him from the dead and seating Him in heaven), He did for you as well because of your unification with Christ.

This means you were not only connected to Jesus in His death, you were connected to Him in His resurrection and ascension as well.

Your soul already has eternal life and already lives in heaven.

This concept can be hard for us to wrap our brains around. After all, if you’re reading this, odds are good that you’re still living with a physical body. Every day you will touch, feel, smell, and taste things from the world around you. Your physical reality is likely to feel much more real to you because you’re constantly experiencing it in tangible ways.

All of which can make it that much harder to grasp this idea that your soul—the truest, deepest part of who you are; the part of you that will live for eternity—is already seated in heaven (no longer here on earth).

Someday, your body will shut down for good. At that point, you’ll be given a new body and your physical and spiritual realities will merge together for the rest of eternity. But until then, I find it can be helpful to remember it this way: Everything that happened to Jesus physically, has already happened to you spiritually:

Jesus was crucified physically; you were crucified with Him spiritually.
Jesus was resurrected physically; you were resurrected with Him spiritually.
Jesus is currently present in heaven physically; you are currently present in heaven spiritually.

But what’s the point of all of this?

I find this truth to be most helpful on those days when it’s difficult to face the broken reality of this world. Whether it’s the constant evil I hear about in the news, or pain and heartache present in my own life—trusting that my soul is seated in heaven next to my Savior helps me to not lose hope.

I receive great peace through knowing that no matter what happens to me here on earth, my eternity in heaven with Jesus is eternally secure.

And how can I know that?

Because I’m already there.

This post was an excerpt from my book, DONE. 52 Amazing Things that Became True of You the Moment You Trusted Christ.

The entire book is available as individual posts here, but if you prefer a good old-fashion paperback, you can purchase a copy from Amazon.

The post DONE: You Have Been Seated in the Heavenly Realms appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

Weekly Web (W)roundup

Each week, I round up the best resources, articles, and videos I find that are relevant to finding freedom from porn and sexual addiction. Please note that by posting a link here it does not mean I agree with everything in the linked article. It just means I found it interesting enough to share.

Desiring God: The Real Battle for Sexual Purity

“One way to tell if you’re measuring success by an outer-cleanness versus an inner-cleanness is if you obsess over how many days it’s been since you last sinned. That mentality presupposes that your issue is one primarily of behavior, and not of the heart. But God always seeks a change deeper than our behavior.”

Storyline: What Matters Most When You’ve Screwed Up

“I can be certain that I am right—or I can have faith that I may not understand the whole picture. I can be certain that things will always be this way—or I have faith that things can change.”

Gospel Coalition: You Can’t Mess it Up

“God brings about his plan amid our messes. It’s like we burn down the house and yet God still makes the flower grow amid the ashes.”

XXXChurch: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Your Boyfriend Looks at Porn

“It isn’t easy, this journey we’re on. Relationships aren’t easy in a porn-saturated world, but we don’t have to accept porn addiction and we don’t have to ignore it. We need to be able to work together with our partner in fighting it.”

Key Life: Is Grace Too Good to Be True?

“Have you ever thought that God’s love, forgiveness and grace are all just too good to be true? Sin, struggle and emotions can color the truth. Life can get in the way of truth…and so we begin to doubt. But it’s really true. You are loved, forgiven, accepted and cherished. As God’s child, you live in his grace. It’s all Good News.”

Six Seeds: What Your Phone Reveals about Your Marriage

“When a spouse is defensive or secretive about his/her phone, it’s usually a symptom of some kind of unhealthy behavior. It’s not aways infidelity, though inappropriate interactions with the opposite sex are certainly common among people who keep passwords from their spouse.”

The Bible Project: Ecclesiastes

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God Isn’t Mad At You So Stop Beating Yourself Up When You Relapse

I’m excited to announce that another post I wrote for xxxChurch.com went live this morning. If you aren’t familiar with xxxChurch, they’re an online ministry offering biblical help for those who struggle with porn addiction. I suggest you check out all the great resources they offer to help you on your journey to freedom. And, of course, check out my post on their site as well.

I spend a fair amount of time on Reddit and other online communities interacting with people who are trying to find freedom from porn. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is there seems to be a tendency for folks to come down hard on themselves when they relapse.

“I looked at porn again after 30 days clean. God must be so mad at me.”

“I screwed up and masturbated last night, why am I such a horrible person?”

“Why can’t I fix myself? I suck at being a Christian.”

You get the idea.

I wish I had the time to respond to every one of these posts and let them know that God isn’t mad at them. Seriously. In fact, this whole idea that God becomes angry with us when we fall is likely one of the major factors in their ongoing struggle to find freedom from porn.

Read the rest of the article on xxxChurch.com

The post God Isn’t Mad At You So Stop Beating Yourself Up When You Relapse appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

DONE: You Have Been Personally Chosen by God

Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan (Ephesians 1:11).

I’m pretty sure I started bugging my parents for a dog right about the time I first learned how to talk. It was always made clear to me, however, that it just wasn’t the right time for us to get one. I’d beg and plead to at least go and look at the pet store, they would give in, and then I’d inevitably fall in love with one of the dogs before being carried out sobbing.

After years of pleading though, my parents finally agreed that it was time for us to get a dog. We decided on a breeder, and then drove up to meet the puppies. The breeder pointed out the “perfect” pups and mentioned she would be keeping them for show dogs. We could have our pick of the others. We settled on a little girl with one ear that stuck straight up and one ear that flopped over. This flaw may have rendered her “imperfect,” but we still thought she was perfect for us.

The hardest part, was even though we knew which puppy was ours, we still couldn’t take her home yet. She was too young and needed to remain with her mother a while longer. During those weeks, I knew I had a dog; I just didn’t have her with me yet. I’d resort to daydreaming about all the fun stuff we were going to do together and the tricks I’d teach her, and I kept getting more and more excited about bringing her home. By the time she did come home, I’d built up so much anticipation I could hardly bear it. Even though I’d only met her once and she hadn’t done anything to earn my love, I couldn’t wait for her to be united with our family.

When I think of how God has chosen me to become a part of His family, I’m sometimes tempted to believe there’s no way He would have actually picked me if given the choice. I assume He had to let me in only because He was bound by His word. My logic goes something like this: God promises to receive anyone who trusts Jesus, and I’ve trusted Jesus. So, even though He probably doesn’t like me and surely doesn’t need me, He had no choice but to let me in lest He go back on His promise.

But that’s not what the Bible tells us at all. The Bible makes it clear that God chose each one of us personally. Not just to be His pets, but to be His adopted children, complete with full rights as His sons and daughters, even including an inheritance.

What’s amazing to me though, is that He chose all of us in advance—even before we were united with Christ. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out God was thinking of you much the same way I was thinking of my dog before she was united with our family. I knew she was going to be mine; it was just a matter of time. And the longer I waited, the more excited I got for us to be together. God knew you were going to be His, and the longer He waited, the more excited He got about being with you.

The difference though, is the only thing I could do was wait. God, however, was actively orchestrating the events of your life to lead you straight to Him. He knew how badly He wanted you specifically, so He did whatever it took to bring you home.

This post was an excerpt from my book, DONE. 52 Amazing Things that Became True of You the Moment You Trusted Christ.

The entire book is available as individual posts here, but if you prefer a good old-fashion paperback, you can purchase a copy from Amazon.

The post DONE: You Have Been Personally Chosen by God appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

Smart Quote: Scott Sauls

Thoughts on this quote? Feel free to discuss them in the comments below.

The post Smart Quote: Scott Sauls appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

Have You Heard of the New Filter, PluckEye?

Hey Friends,

I’d like to introduce you to my friend Jon. He’s been working on a new type of web filter that has some really cool features I think will be helpful for those of you looking for something to help cut off the flow as you seek inner-healing. It’s completely free, and he’s seeking feedback from actual users, so try it out and let him know what you think.

—Stephen

Greetings! My name is Jon Wilkes, and I’m trying to spread the word about Pluckeye, a filter to help people better control their Internet use.

Pluckeye is the filter you’ve always wanted if you really, really, really want to avoid porn on your Windows/Mac/Linux box.

Pluckeye is quite configurable, but out of the box it does the following:

Blocks all images and all video from all websites.
Allows text content from all websites.
Permits the user to select safe sites from which images will be allowed.
Permits the user to set a delay which will initiate a waiting period (e.g. 24 hours) before the user can do any of the following:

• Add a new safe site.

• Uninstall Pluckeye.

• Decrease the delay.

In short, the combination of these features makes it so that porn is no longer one click and one second away on the computer.

Here are a few other things that can be done with Pluckeye:

Block access to search engines except for a set period of time each day.
Allow access to the entire Internet except for a set period of time daily.
Give a friend or spouse a specific URL that allows them to view changes to your Pluckeye settings in real-time.

I believe Pluckeye may be very useful to some people, so I’m trying to spread the word about its existence. I’m also very interested in getting feedback—positive or negative—so that I have a better sense of whether Pluckeye ultimately helps the repentant porn user (or compulsive gambler, or gamer, or whatever).

Oh, and one last thing. It’s currently free. Give it a try, and let me know what you think! After using it for a while, contact me here and let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Jon Wilkes,

Creator of Pluckeye

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