Sex Sells Pt. 2

So last week we talked about the dangers of sexual impurity and how it leads to consequences and the joy it can bring by fighting for purity and following Christ. What I want you to know is that last week was not meant to make you feel like a piece of crap if you have struggled in this area of your life, it was meant to give you hope and be challenged to fight to live a life that will not lead to emptiness and pain. Let's face it, no one is perfect, we all have messed up in some way or another, now let's work on standing up, facing those struggles and being victorious over them, in Christ, and ONLY in Christ, can we be victorious. This week I'm going to be transparent with you, yup, you get to know about my past and the pain I've gone through and others when I was not fighting for purity.

It all started in middle school, now most of you can agree, that's when we started noticing the opposite sex right? Well, it certainly was for me, and I was introduced to the infamous porn industry from a fellow student. You guessed correctly, I liked it. Being so young, I didn't know the damage that was going to cause. Eventually I realized I was addicted to it, bondage. Years later in high school, junior year, while still being highly addicted to pornography, I got myself a girlfriend. At age 18, I lost my virginity to her. Oh the nightmare that caused. I'm going to say this with no apologies, sex outside of marriage will screw with your head and your heart. It causes jealousy, insecurities, selfishness, trust issues and a lot more. She always accused me of cheating on her, which caused me to wonder about her too, whether or not she was cheating. I wanted all of my time to be with her (selfish). Leaving out family and friends, which I needed time with them as well. What was the outcome of that relationship? I broke up with her. Right after that, I accepted Jesus into my life and to be my Lord and Savior. But I eventually walked away, partially due to alcohol and drugs, but the thing that hindered my relationship with Jesus? My second girlfriend and I became sexually active as well. Yup, I gave God the middle finger. That's what we do when we disobey His word and commands. We say our way is better and we don't need You. That relationship ended years later, after an incident of us breaking up, then talked about how we wanted to work things out, she still loved me and wanted to be with me, but then come to find she slept with someone else later that week. Talk about having some major trust issues after that.

One girl I was "talking too" for a couple months had told me all of these really sweet things, she wanted to be with me, I was such an amazing guy, blah blah blah. Well needless to say she had gotten me to sleep with her that evening. What happened the next day? She tells me she's moving away to be with her ex boyfriend. I was used. I was tricked. I was devastated. You don't hear guys give that story too much, about how they were used by a female in that manner, but it happened to me. The pain fealt unbearable.

Another lady came along and we went from 0-120mph in about 3 seconds. Translate that into we met, liked each other and hit the throttle on the relationship. Oh, just so you know, I still struggled with pornography at this point, this was late 2010. I was basically living with her a month into the relationship. If that's you, you should probably get out now, and don't tell me that you aren't sleeping together, which there really isn't a whole lot of sleeping going on. Don't lie, no two attractive people can lay next to each other every night and nothing happen. I gave that ridiculous lie too. What a fool I was to think people would believe that crap. Anyways, since we went full throttle into the relationship, it wasnt' long before that relationship ended. See the trend here? There are occasions where people will sleep together and still get married, but why risk the pain and all of the emotional and mental confusion? Pornography, I had to tell someone about that, you CANNOT pray that away, get help, someone who you can trust, a Christian mentor is the best. Pornography destroys the image of females, they have hearts and souls and you look at them as a piece of meat at best. It's wrong and it's lustful. Get help, that means leave your pride in the trash can, take a hit on your reputation and let someone help you break the bondage. I can't tell you the amount of blessings God will give you on top of what you already have by fighting for purity (1 Cor 6:13-15). Put Christ at the center of your life, and everything else falls into place. The reason for me telling you about my past is so that you can see that my ways, didn't work. Pleasing myself was the ultimate goal before I followed Christ, pretty obvious isn't? The emotional and mental damage it caused and the physical consequences it could've caused is too great. I've been hurt greatly in the past because of those decisions I made. I was transparent with you to encourage YOU to do the same, get help, confess and change. It IS worth it, I'm experiencing the rewards as I type this. Fight for the joyful life that Jesus Christ wants us to have THROUGH HIM!!! My prayer is that you understand that what I went through was not the best, it's NOT God's best for us.

I hope you enjoyed the mini series on "Sex Sells", let's get some feedback shall we? Next week is a new topic, it will be on depression. Have a blessed week!!!

Sex Sells Pt. 1

In this day and age, the world screams sex at us. Sex is as normal as eating food through out the day. We see it on TV shows, movies, magazines, hear it in music, even from a lot of our friends. The porn industry is one of the top money making businesses in the world. People have turned sex into something it shouldn't be. In Genesis 2:18-25 we see the first relationship that God created between Adam and Eve. They both had a relationship with God first then God brought Eve to Adam, then they got married, anything out of that order, the relationship gets jacked up, BIG TIME. But in todays world, people claim having sex outside of marriage is ok, it's no longer a big deal. The problem with this is that it IS a big deal. Sex outside of marriage will damage your relationship with Christ (1 Cor 6:8-10), and with the person you're having sex with. Take it from someone who's experienced it. On top of that, God commands us to FLEE from sexual immorality, that means run from it! (1 Cor 6:18). Listen, don't be a fool and ask, "what's sexual immorality?" You know what it is, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to pursue Jesus and be having sex with someone you're not married to (1 Thes 4:2-4). It's not worth it. There are consequences that follow sexual impurity, physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual. You may not believe me when I say that, but trust me, if you're having problems with your boyfriend or girlfriend and you're having sex or sleeping together, whatever the case may be, that's probably the root of the problem. Yes, the world wants us to give in to what "feels good" and to do what we want to do. But when in the heck has that ever lead to great decision? Drinking five whiskey sours will make you feel great for about 10 minutes and then you're more than likely puking and insanely drunk, waking up the next morning feeling like someone swatted you across the face with a bat. Now how do you feel? Oh, can you remember what happened as well? Probably not. Listen, fight the good fight of the faith (1 Tim 6:11-13). Jesus doesn't command us to flee from sexual immorality AND any situation where the temptation might arise for no reason. When you pursue Jesus, you pursue purity, doing both leads to a joyful life. In the latter part of Acts 15:29, we are told we will do well avoiding sexual immorality. When the Bible repeats itself over and over again...it's probably really important to listen and do what it says, why put yourself in bondage? Sexual impurity will leave you empty inside, Jesus is the only thing that can fill us with everything we need. Challenge yourselves by following Christ daily, He never said it was going to be easy. Stay tuned for next weeks blog, I'll be opening up my heart with you and sharing my past, the things that I've done wrong dealing with sexual impurities, how following Jesus Christ has changed my heart, mind and soul. Fight the good fight of the faith!!!

Religious People Vs. Christians

There may have been a time when someone has asked you, or you've asked, "Are you a Christian?" And you, or that person, may have had a cringing response. Why? People look at Christianity as rules: you can't do this, can't do that. It has the "I'm better than you", "I'm God's greatest gift" attitude. To tell you the truth, there are people that are Christians that have this mindset and attitude. They may not even realize they are acting a certain way that Jesus would bust you over the dome piece (your head) for. That's why by the grace of our loving God, He's after our heart, not our behavior. But that doesn't pardon our behavior either. In Revelation 3:1-3 Jesus is rebuking the Church of Sardis for their "good deeds". They were so focused on doing what every other Christian thinks is righteous: reading your Bible, praying, attending church, doing a food drive or whatever. They quit walking with the Lord! Just going through all the motions, whistling to themselves I'm sure, and trying to make people think they're insanely spiritual and godly. And for the love, don't boast about your deeds either (1 Cor 5:6-8, Eph 2:8-9). A part-time attender of church is usually a part-time follower of Christ, but a full-time attender of church can also not follow Christ at all (Matt 7:21-23). You can't follow Christ and stay the same. Seriously, it's impossible. See some people think that Christianity is like a, "Get out of jail free card". In other words, go out and do whatever you want, and you can be forgiven. The problem with that is when you focus on exactly what Jesus did for you and me, you become overwhelmed with His love and then you have the desire to do whatever He wants you to, not what we want to do (Rom 5:8). God's one and only Son, died on a cross, naked and bleeding, so that you and I could live an eternal life and be reconciled with God. Jesus doesn't make bad people good, he makes dead people alive! There's nothing extra that comes along with Christianity, it's Jesus Christ, and only Him, follow Him, everything else means nothing (Phil 3:8). A religious person seems to get that part backwards, they think it's works based. You don't gain your green card to heaven by sticking your nose high in the air and thinking to yourself, "Look how good I am because I do all of these wonderful things for God." How empty a person must be when they think of themselves higher than others (Phil 2:3-5). But how easy it is for anyone, including myself, for us to get into that mindset that it's all about us. Maybe that's how people become "religious" rather than sold out for Jesus. Believe it or not, God wants us to have a joyful, fulfilling life (John 15:9-11). Fully sell yourself out for our Lord Jesus, and your mind will be blown. I can't even begin to explain what I've seen happen in other peoples' lives, as well as mine, when they become true disciples of Christ. The overwhelming joy and love you gain is incredible, and ALL of it, is from Jesus, nothing I have done entitles me to take credit for anything. Now go young padawans, be challenged!!! I DARE YOU!!

Taking Your Next Step

So the last couple weeks at house church we've been discussing our next steps as a church. We've been challenged to dream big and become prepared for our official launch of OneSpring Church.

We watched two sermons from Craig Groeschel discussing the book Nehemiah, taking steps and facing opposition and what to do with both of them. The exciting thing, personally for me, is that the past few weeks has challenged me with my personal walk with Christ. Figuring out what my next steps are and how I need to handle the opposition that comes along with it. In order to make an impact in our church, I need to be taking steps in my own time with Jesus. That means prayer, reading God's Word, applying God's Word and what He tells me I need to do, as well as, talking with people about the things going on in my life. Yes, I'm talking about an accountability partner.

It is ESSENTIAL to have someone to talk to who is a believer about the personal and difficult things in your life. And you need to be honest and open with them as well, we need help from other believers in order to grow in our faith and continue our walk with Christ. God calls us to have those close friends. (Proverbs 11:14, Proverbs 19:27)

Swallow this one...you can't follow Christ and continue to be complacent. What if we became so overwhelmed with God's love that we became desperate to know Christ more and more every day? What if we stopped worrying about impressing people, our own ridiculous reputation, and lets face it, our reputation can't stand up with Christ's, so give it up. We should be more concerned about repentance than reputation. Stop pleasing others and lets just do what God wants us to do.

So, what's your next step? Is it to find an accountability partner? Maybe pick up your Bible and dig into some Scripture? Don't forget you need to apply what you read as well. What is it that you need to do to build your relationship with Christ? I can't stress it enough that your own personal walk with Christ will affect everything you do and everyone you interact with. Get pumped about Jesus saving you!!!