Stephen Kuhn's Blog, page 29

My One Thing: Seth Alan Taylor

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give

to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Seth Alan Taylor is a blogger at xxxchurch and the author of Feels Like Redemption.

Connect with Seth

Website: www.sethalantaylor.com

Book: mypilgrimage.com

Blog: www.xxxchurch.com/author/seth-taylor

Twitter: @sethtaylor40

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript

Coming soon…

The post My One Thing: Seth Alan Taylor appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

Smart Quote: Brennan Manning

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

The post Smart Quote: Brennan Manning appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

Why Porn Addiction is Not About Fulfilling Sexual Desire—Part Three: Your Need for Adventure

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Note: This post is part three of a six-part series on desire. It has been adapted from my book, 10 Lies Men Believe about Porn, available now wherever books are sold.

You can find beginning of the series here.

If you ask a man what his favorite movies are, you will more than likely get a list of classics such as Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Iron Man, and other movies involving swords and explosions. Few men will add Sleepless in Seattle or The Notebook to their Netflix queue unless an attractive female wants to watch it with them. When was the last time you heard a guy say, “Hey bro, wanna grab a pizza and watch Notting Hill?” Probably never. So why is it the majority of men all seem to like the same types of movies?

Perhaps it’s because these movies awaken the deep sense of adventure that God has placed in your masculine soul.

Adventures are exciting because you are forced to figure out the answers as you go along. The outcome—and often the path—is unknown. You don’t know how it’s going to end. There may be danger involved. Failure is a possibility. Driving to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk is not an adventure. Finding the grocery store on fire and running in to rescue people is. Which scenario gets you more excited as a man? I can’t be the only one who fantasizes about things such as rescuing people from burning buildings or fighting off mountain lions on the trail. It’s written in our hearts as men.

When I was a boy, I was constantly searching for mud and dirt and doing all the typical things little boys do. I would drive my go-kart up and down the road wearing a swim mask while pretending to be an astronaut. I joined the Boy Scouts and daydreamed about building the hovercraft advertised on the back page of every issue of Boys Life magazine. As I got older, I did all the stuff teenage boys with a lack of any common sense consider to be adventure. I bombed down hills on my bike so fast I’d pass the driving cars. I found out that my 1976 AMC Pacer speedometer pegged at 90, but the car still accelerated for quite a while after that. Even today, as an adult, there is little that makes me feel more alive than hiking, climbing, or skiing in the mountains of Oregon.

I have always been aware of this desire for adventure inside me, but I misunderstood the root of it for many years. You see, adventure isn’t just about getting an adrenaline fix or doing something worthy of a YouTube video. It’s about being alive. God created men to desire adventure because the skills we learn through it—endurance, perseverance, trust, risk—are the same skills we need to experience a life fully alive to Him. After all, the greatest adventure of all—the only adventure that will fully meet this need within a man—is the adventure of living by faith.

But what happens if you ignore or reject your desire for adventure, refuse to take risks, and choose to live a “safe” life? Life will become nothing more than punching a clock, doing your daily duties, and only saying the “right” things so you don’t stir the pot. Men who accept this life become passive…jaded…bored. When these men see a burning building, they drive right past it and look for the safer grocery store. They’ve become perfectly content with just picking up the milk—even if they have to go elsewhere.

It’s here, once again, where Satan sweeps in with his own “solution.” Instead of adventure, though, he offers something much safer—something free from risk. He offers fantasy.

Accepting Fantasy as a Substitute for Adventure

Fantasy is the opposite of adventure. Instead of awakening life within you, it encourages you to hide from life. It promises an escape from the pain and disappointment in your real world that you are too afraid to face. Instead of embracing the risk of addressing these things and entering into the adventure of faith that God has called you to, you check out. You turn to the TV, to video games, or often to the computer as a means of distracting yourself from the hard realities of real life. But these distractions are not real. They are merely fantasies.

The power of pornography thrives within this fantasy world. After all, every man feels like Brad Pitt on the Internet. The women are willing and eager to do whatever you want, whenever you want. They won’t ask you how your day went at work or how things are going at home. They will never bring up the painful stuff. They won’t ask you about your insecurities or fears. There is no risk of them rejecting you. You can find a retreat from the imperfect reality of your life, sweep your pain under the rug, and run away with the girl of your dreams to live happily ever after. Or so the lie goes.

There is no way around the fact that life will be hard at times. Bosses can yell at you. Your wife may pull away from you. People you don’t even know might attack you for your faith. After all, Jesus warned us the world would hate us. He was raising people from the dead and healing the sick, and the world still murdered Him. Why would we assume it will go any better for us? The reality is, we live in a fallen, broken, hurting world full of pain and suffering.

But as men, God has called us to stand firm in our faith and trust in Him, no matter how hard life gets. He wants you to fight for what is good and right, even in your own life. So please, my brother, stop running away from the adventure and hiding in your “safe” fantasy world. There is no life there. Be honest with yourself and ask what makes your heart come alive more: Fighting for your family at all cost, or sitting in front of a computer with your pants around your ankles? It’s like asking if you’d rather watch Return of the King or Sex in the City, isn’t it?

The real world needs your strength. Your family needs your strength. And the only way to start believing you have it is to trust God when He calls you to run toward the burning building. Yes, you may get singed in places, but it’s worth it.

Continue on to Part Four: Your Need to Experience Intimacy (coming next Monday)

The post Why Porn Addiction is Not About Fulfilling Sexual Desire—Part Three: Your Need for Adventure 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 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.

James Cordrey: Dismantling the Myth “You Can Look. You Just Can’t Touch”

“I never acted out sexually with another person, but over the course of 12 years I watched loads of porn. And it did real damage.”

BC4Women: Your Husband is Viewing Pornography

“You’ve learned your husband is viewing pornography. However you learned of his sexual sin, the news is devastating. Questions abound as you try to figure out where you have gone wrong, and how you could have prevented it or missed it. The question is, now what do you do? How do you deal with this? I want to help you, Christian wife and woman, to see this sin through the eyes of the Lord and the Gospel.”

I am Second: You need to read what Justin Bieber said about Christianity—because he’s right

“Sure, he’s still on a journey. He’s still making mistakes. He’s going to continue to make mistakes. There’s room for some skepticism, as his lifestyle choices are still confusing to many. And I pray that God has placed or is placing people in his life that can speak to that. I’m not suggesting he be the speaker at the next Passion conference. But guys, there’s a lot that he gets. And we should be celebrating that.”

Tim Challies: Positive Purity

“Sexual purity has two components to it: the turning away and the turning toward, the stopping of one kind of behavior and the beginning of another.”

CV Global: Why I Believe

The post Weekly Web (W)roundup appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

DONE: You Have the Ability to Be Thankful in All Circumstances

 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus

(1 Thessalonians 5:18).

What words stand out the most to you in this verse?

Thankful?

God’s will?

What about the one word most of us tend to miss: all.

Because you are in Christ, you can be thankful in all circumstances.

Sure, it’s easy to be thankful for the good things that come along in life:

You landed a new job. Thank God for that!
The doctor just told you the cancer is gone. Thank you Jesus!

But what about the hard things?

You just got fired…
Your teenage son got his girlfriend pregnant…
Your wife served you divorce papers…

Crickets.

But as much as we want to ignore it, that one little word is still there.

Be thankful in all circumstances…the good ones…and the bad ones.

But how in the world can God expect us to be thankful when crap hits the fan in our lives?

Because He will make all things work together for your good.

When you trust that God really can (and will) use all things—even the bad things—to bring you to a better place, it gives you hope, increases your faith, and allows you to respond with thankfulness.

Yes, it sucks that my addiction resulted in the end of my marriage. But God used that bomb in my life to bring me face-to-face with my own brokenness. The pain of my divorce, along with the realization that my sin had caused it, was what finally allowed me to recognize my need for a Savior.

If it weren’t for that “bad situation,” I don’t think I would know Jesus today in the way that I do. I would still be looking at porn, hurting my former wife, and desperately trying to control my life.

As crazy as it seems, I am thankful for the path my life has taken me—even for my divorce.

So the next time something bad happens in your life, remember that God has promised to make good come from it. You may not know how right away. You might not even get the answer this side of Heaven. But God has promised you that He will. So if nothing else, you can thankful for the fact that God will always keep His promises.

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 the Ability to Be Thankful in All Circumstances appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

My One Thing: Jeff Fisher

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give

to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Jeff Fisher is the founder of Puritycoaching.com, PorntoPurity.com, and host of the Top Tips For Sexual Purity podcast.

Connect with Jeff

Website: PurityCoaching.com

Website:  PorntoPurity.com

Podcast:  Top Tips For Sexual Purity Podcast

Twitter: @porntopurity

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript

Steve: Hey, guys! Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got Jeff Fisher on the line. Jeff is the founder of Puritycoaching.com, Porntopurity.com, and he also hosts the Top Tips for Sexual Purity podcast which you can find on iTunes. So Jeff, let me go ahead and ask you what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

Jeff: Hey, Steven! Glad to be on your show and everybody out there. I think one of the biggest tips that I’ve learned in the process is that we need to keep coming out of isolation. There’s an initial coming out of isolation where I share my secret story, I share the things that I’ve been hiding and covering up for so long. That initial share is one of the hardest things to get over but finding somebody safe, finding an old friend, maybe paying to go to somebody who’s confidential like a counselor, or even setting an appointment with the minister, finding somebody where you can break the ice. Once you break the ice and start to talk about the struggles within in regards to your sexual purity, then it’s like God is just there and it’s this freeing up feeling and this fountain of relief. And it’s hard to describe that I can finally talk to somebody openly about what’s going on. It’s still scary and it still takes a lot of courage but that initial share, and maybe I haven’t talked about it in a long time or I haven’t talked about really the deeper things, and that’s what I mean is going to those levels where you’re breaking the isolation and you’re sharing. But you know the tip is to keep doing that. We who are in recovery from our sexual struggles have to keep doing that on a regular basis. It gets easier as we work through the pain and the difficult things. And people are good for it. Then I feel comfortable to share more and build trust. I think sometimes that I need to go to somebody like you, Steven, or somebody like our ministry, or another ministry that is equipped and is used to hearing people’s struggles. Sometimes, we can do enough work on the front end to find a minister or a counselor who is used to talking to people about their sexual struggles but I think that is one of the benefits of ministries like ours. We’re automatic safe people that we’re not going to flinch. It’s not that we’ve heard it all but we’ve heard a whole lot. And everybody thinks that their story is unique and the worst. And it’s not, it’s very common but we just are not around people that talk about it to know that our struggle is a common thing. And sometimes, the depths and widths of our struggle might be more unique but just the core of our struggle. For seven years ago was when the stuff hit the fan for me. I got caught, I got exposed and I was kind of forced out but then I had to still make a decision to keep sharing. So admitting that I had looked at bad stuff on the computer was one thing but then to keep sharing and keep opening up, that’s where God started to bless and that’s where I started to find the healing that I needed from the Lord.

Steve: I think that’s great advice. We have heard of that as walking in the light. And I know that was hugely important when I started recovery. It was just getting comfortable sharing my story and…

Jeff: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. I couldn’t agree with you more so thanks for sharing that, Jeff. Tell people where they can find you online.

Jeff: Yeah, sure. My wife and I, Marcia and I, we started Porntopurity.com about seven years ago, just as a way to blog about our struggles and then it started to turn into a podcast and so I started a podcast called Top Tips for Sexual Purity and you could find that on iTunes. That’s the best place to search for it. There’s a huge catalogue, huge back catalogue of episodes. So download whatever ones that you feel are good for you. And then our latest website is called Puritycoaching.com and that’s where we offer our support groups, offer a unique thing called Accountability jumpstart where I can help you get started in you accountability for 1, 2, or 3 months. I can be your accountability partner. And then there’s regular coaching where there’s a more comprehensive in-depth help to build your purity strategy so that it goes for the long-term.

Steve: Okay. We will be sure to link to all that in the show notes. Thanks again for your time, Jeff. I really appreciate it. And we’ll keep in touch.

Jeff: Yeah, thanks a lot!

Steve: Okay, see you!

The post My One Thing: Jeff Fisher appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

Smart Quote: Tim Keller

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

The post Smart Quote: Tim Keller appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

Why Porn Addiction is Not About Fulfilling Sexual Desire—Part Two: Your Need to be Validated as a Man

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Note: This post is part two of a six-part series on desire. It has been adapted from my book, 10 Lies Men Believe about Porn, available now wherever books are sold.

You can find beginning of the series here.

I’ve noticed a growing interest in “manly” things in the past few years. First, it was just “Mustache March.” But now we have “No Shave November” and “Beardtober” as well. Here in the northwest, hipsters dress like urban lumberjacks and listen to bands with names like Grizzly Bear and Blitzen Trapper. We are told Chuck Norris can cut through a hot knife with butter, swim through land, and cure cancer with his tears (if he ever cried). As if that isn’t ridiculous enough, you can now buy beer bottled inside of a taxidermy squirrel. Manliness is apparently making quite a comeback.

I must confess, I love manly stuff as much as the next guy. I have a beard, I’ve been known to wear flannel, and I consider red meat to be the base of the food pyramid. But I have also learned that manly things do not make you a man. If that were the case, any woman who loves bacon, beer, and a good action movie would also qualify as a man. (I’d say if anything, she qualifies as a keeper.) So what is it that truly makes you a man?

The thing that makes you a man is your masculinity—specifically, biblical masculinity. As John Piper explains in his book Recovering Biblical Masculinity, you must understand that being a man is accepting God’s call to live your life walking in “Benevolent Responsibility.”

A Biblical Man Offers Benevolence…

Benevolence is the sacrificial giving of yourself, your strength, and your abilities to others. We see this theme repeated all throughout the Scriptures. God calls husbands to love their wives in the same way Christ loves the church, to the point of laying down their lives for them (Ephesians 5:25–27). Isaiah rebukes the leaders of Sodom and Gomorrah for not helping the oppressed, defending orphans, or fighting for the rights of widows (Isaiah 1:17). In other words, not using their masculine strength to help those who are weak.

How often do we see Jesus, our example of true masculinity, modeling benevolence in His interactions with the outcasts of society? Jesus didn’t need to touch the leper physically in order to heal Him (He healed others with words alone), but He chose to give up His rights to cleanliness and sanitation in order to give the man something he needed more than physical healing. He offered this man love and acceptance (Luke 5:12–16).

Or what about the woman at the well? The town surely knew her reputation as an immoral woman, yet Jesus still spoke with her one on one, fully aware of the inevitable gossip. On top of that, it was against the cultural norm for a Jew to interact with a Samaritan, yet Jesus ignored that custom as well. He was willing to risk rumors and judgment against Him in order to give this woman what she desperately needed—hope, salvation, and Him (John 4:1–26). This is true benevolence.

A Biblical Man Accepts Responsibility…

God will never burden you with a responsibility that is too great for you. He will, however, give you responsibilities that will challenge you to grow as a man. This is one of the main purposes of responsibility, and it’s why we see God entrusting men with responsibilities from the very beginning:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15).

The Hebrew words used here for “work” and “keep” are translated elsewhere in the Bible as “serve” and “guard.” God placed the entire garden under Adam’s authority, trusting him with the responsibility to serve it and guard it. If God had never given Adam a job to do and left him to play fetch with the dingoes all day, he would never have had a reason to grow or mature.

In the same way, God will place things under your authority and ask you to serve and guard them as well. Not because He wants to fill your time with meaningless tasks, but because He wants you to be challenged in ways that will lead to true masculinity.

One obvious example of this, for many men, is their family. Men are called to serve their families by providing for them (1 Timothy 5:8), and to guard their families by leading them spiritually and setting appropriate boundaries for their protection. This same responsibility to serve and to guard may pertain to your job, your ministry, or anything else God has entrusted you with as well.

But Men Are Afraid They Won’t Be Able to Answer the Call

Many men have an underlying fear that they won’t be able measure up to what is being asked of them. Whether it is a call for their strength and goodness (benevolence), or their service and protection (responsibility), many men fear they won’t have what it takes. You might fail. You may let people down. You could offend someone. Unfortunately, when men fear failure, they tend to avoid even showing up in the first place. They hide from conflict, run away from risk, and watch their true masculinity die a slow death within them.

If this becomes the pattern of your life, you will always feel a need to “prove yourself” as a man. The death of your masculinity will leave a void within you. Sometimes men will try to fill this void and prove their masculinity through sports or other manly hobbies. Frequently, it’s by climbing higher up the corporate ladder. Unfortunately, it’s often sought through the pursuit of a woman, which commonly manifests as an affair. Either way, you will forever be seeking external validation, because the true validation of your masculinity that you desire will remain unmet.

It’s here, in this moment, where pornography becomes the attractive answer—or at least it seems like the answer.

The less a man feels like a real man, the more vulnerable he is to the lure of pornography

One of the foundational lies behind porn is that you will never be asked to prove your worth or give anything of yourself to be seen as a man. The world of porn is full of beautiful women who seem to be saying, “Hey Stud…I desire you just as you are. You’re masculine enough for me.” In this way, porn offers you the same validation as an affair, but without the same risk. Which is why men turn to pornography to experience the rush of endorphins, the sense of untamed strength that comes with an erection, and the validation of being desired by a woman—all without taking the necessary risks of true, biblical masculinity.

It’s yet another way Satan replaces God’s solution with a cheap counterfeit that will never satisfy.

The worst part of this, is pornography doesn’t just deceives you, it actually pulls you further away from the only thing that will satisfy your need for masculine validation in your life, which is to live as the man God has called you to be. Or to put it another way, pornography keeps you from living in biblical masculinity.

Porn never asks you to give of yourself out of benevolence. In fact, it does exactly the opposite. Porn makes you selfish because the sole focus is on your needs, your wants, and your pleasure—even at the risk of causing pain to others. Furthermore, instead of offering your strength to protect others, you are participating in the exploitation of women. If you are married, you aren’t selflessly protecting your wife; you are selfishly hurting her heart. I am not trying to guilt you here. I am just pointing out the ugly truth behind Satan’s apparent “solution” to this need for validation within you.

It doesn’t matter how many belching contests you win, how thick your facial hair grows in, or how many flesh-colored pixels on a computer monitor appear to desire you—you will still need to come back to these things repeatedly to attempt to receive validation as a man. If, however, you are willing to risk yourself for the good of others and accept responsibility for what God has placed under your authority, then you will begin to experience lasting validation as the man He created you to be.

The best part is, God has already made you the man He wants you to be. You don’t need to make yourself into someone new or become stronger than you already are. You can trust that you are man enough simply because God says you are man enough.

Continue on to Part Three: Your Need for Adventure (coming next Monday)

The post Why Porn Addiction is Not About Fulfilling Sexual Desire—Part Two: Your Need to be Validated as a Man 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 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: How an Affair Really Begins

“One of the great misconceptions about affairs is that they begin with sex. Affairs do not begin with sex. Falling into bed with a man who is not your husband or a woman who is not your wife is never a sudden, unplanned event. Instead, it is a culminating decision in a long list of terrible, self-centered decisions.”

Morgan Snyder: Laying Roofing Shingles in a G-String

“Let’s face it: Our culture is fixated on the boobies. Okay, it’s nothing new. From petroglyphs and neolithic pictures to the art of the Renaissance and the paintings of the 20th century, you don’t have to look far to see the perennial celebration of the breasts of women.”

Covenant Eyes: Are You Repenting the Wrong Way?

“The Bible teaches us that there is a right way and a wrong way to respond and relate to God after we’ve sinned. In my experience many well-intentioned Christians are ‘repenting wrong’ because they’ve never been taught the Bible’s way to repent.”

xxxChurch: 4 Ways Porn Will Ruin Your Sex Life

“As a marriage life coach, I’ve never met one couple where porn has helped the relationship. Only hurt. Here’s why (and how).”

U2: Psalm 40

The post Weekly Web (W)roundup appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.

DONE: You Have Been Given Assurance that You Will Rise from the Dead

For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. (1 Thessalonians 4:14)

What if I told you zombies were real?

Now, don’t go running off to buy a chainsaw or a shotgun just yet. This verse doesn’t mean you need to worry about brain-eating zombies crawling out of their graves and chasing you into a pub.

In order for us to understand what’s really going on here, we need to look at the broader context of this passage:

We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).

When we read this passage in context, we can see that Paul isn’t talking about the dead coming back to steal life away from those who are still living (zombies); he is talking about Christ coming back to restore life to those who are already physically dead (resurrection)!

You see, the early believers in Thessalonica were concerned that anyone who believed in Christ but died before His return would miss out on the resurrection and eternal life. Which is why Paul encourages them to rest in the truth of what God has promised us will happen when Christ returns:

Those who have died after trusting in Christ will be resurrected first.
Living believers will follow closely behind.
All believers will be reunited with their loved ones.
All who are in Christ will be reunited with God!

So yes, my friend, the dead will rise. But they won’t be zombies, they will be resurrected children of God!

 

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 Given Assurance that You Will Rise from the Dead appeared first on Belt of Truth Ministries.