Pastor reflects

A Pastor Reflects

A Pastor Reflects on Porn and Church Leadership

In this article the author makes some good points about how we should handle church leadership when porn addiction is involved. Like regularly educating the entire congregation of the challenges that leaders face in a sex-crazed world. Like reminding them that “Those who aren’t struggling with sexual addiction need to understand it anyway because so many folks around them are.”

God’s grace and forgiveness alone can heal broken sinners and make them whole so they can serve him in his kingdom.

The article’s discussion of “the goal of spiritual transformation is completeness or perfection” is confusing because this side of heaven no one can be perfect. The goal of “spiritual transformation” is becoming more Christ-like, living as holy (not perfect) a life as one can – always to thank God for his saving grace and forgiveness. God’s grace and forgiveness alone can heal broken sinners and make them whole so they can serve him in his kingdom. Invite and encourage each other with the Gospel of God’s forgiveness which gives the peace and power to overcome and be victorious.

Read: Read A Pastor Reflects on Porn and Church Leadership on the Covenant Eyes website
Author: Luke Gilkerson

Accountible to spouse

FAQ Friday

FAQ Friday: Should my wife be my accountability partner?

…it is better for the addict to have someone for their accountability partner who is detached from the situation…

This article makes a case both for and against having one’s wife be one’s accountability partner. We at Conquerors through Christ lean more against having one’s spouse be one’s accountability partner for all the reasons stated in the “against” section of the article and then some. Whether the wife or the husband is the victim, it is better for the addict to have someone for their accountability partner who is detached from the situation and thus who can be impartial and yet in love hold the addict responsible for their behavior. Any accountability partner needs to be able to relate to the addict’s problem and confront him or her with the right amount of God’s Law to convict them of their sin and God’s Gospel to forgive, heal and empower to conquer the sin.

Read: FAQ Friday on the Covenant Eyes website
Author: Luke Gilkerson

Digital

Pocket Porn

Pocket Porn: Nearly a third of teens carry portable X-rated theaters

one third of all teens carry pornThis article lays out some very alarming statistics of the downward spiral that modern technology is leading an ever increasing number of young people into through porn viewing on mobile devices (smart phones, ipods, ipads, etc.).

…invite and encourage each other with the Gospel of God’s forgiveness

The author emphasizes the need for parents and schools to be involved and proactive in their children’s and student’s use of these devices and access to the internet world.

As the article describes a father and son confessing their sin of porn addiction to each other, may many more fathers and their sons confess this same sin, but more importantly invite and encourage each other with the Gospel of God’s forgiveness which gives the peace and power to overcome and be victorious.

Read: Pocket Porn on the Covenant Eyes website
Author: Luke Gilkerson

Honor God

Honor God

Honor God with Your Body

The Holy Spirit led the apostle Paul to use a very striking example. Would you ever say, “Hey Jesus, I’m going to spend some time with a prostitute? Want to come along?”

Through faith he has united you with Christ.

Of course not! A child of God would never think that. A child of God would never say that. Never! Yet children of God sometimes do that. And children of God do other nasty things. They unite their bodies—or hearts or minds—with a man or woman not their spouse. They unite with sinful images in print or on video. They unite with sinful content on their computers. The temptations are real. Very real!

What is a Christian facing such temptations to do? Think about what Paul urged the Corinthian Christians to do when facing similar temptations.

When battling sexual temptations, remember that your body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord. Why? Because God has done a wonderful thing. Through faith he has united you with Christ. That means everything Christ did is yours. His perfect life is yours. His death is yours. His burial and resurrection are yours. And his new life is yours.

Jesus offered his perfect life and shed his precious blood on the cross for you. That purchase price made complete payment for your sins. Wow! What an awesome gift! Your sins are taken away. And by faith you have been made a member of Christ; you are united with Jesus, your Savior!

Paul mentions a few results. You are not your own. The Holy Spirit lives in you; your body is his temple. And your body will be raised from the dead; you have an eternal future. So, what’s the bottom line in the context of sexuality? Where Jesus goes, you go. And where you go, Jesus goes. All of this moves and enables you to flee from sexual immorality.

We are surrounded by some pretty nasty temptations. When you face those temptations, remember what Christ has done for you. Remember who you are in Christ. And together with him, honor God with your body.

Marriage

More about intimacy in marriage

More about intimacy in marriage

The beauty of marital intimacy doesn’t shine very brightly in this unfamiliar passage and we wince, imagining this is about a power struggle. Our flesh will see an excuse for selfishness and our renewed heart simply doesn’t understand. What place do these words have in the setting of a Christian marriage? Do they really apply? Maybe that’s not the right question because these words are from our Savior who knows more about yielding rights than we could ever imagine; so perhaps we should listen. The Lord is calling husbands and wives to look at the needs and desires of each other and yield their rights out of love. He is also making it clear that each belongs to the other and both made a promise to live as one flesh. Sexual intimacy is not a manipulative bargaining tool or spiteful move in a power play. There is no withholding sex to prove a point or get pay back. It is part of marriage—to fulfill needs, draw couples together and build love, a very special love.

The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.
1 Corinthians 7:4

You see, the love God has given us for life and marriage affects every part of our lives, including our intimacy. The Greek word for this love is “agape” and we see it most clearly when Christ laid down his life to earn our salvation. It is self-sacrificing love that looks for the benefit of the other. It is love that asks, “What can I give? How can I bless you?” It longs to see the other person grow and thrive. This beautiful, self-sacrificing love influences the sexual intimacy between a man and wife by compelling them to put the needs of the other before their own needs. Each is willing to yield to the other in love, understanding God’s design for sexuality in marriage. A wife will yield to her husband. A husband will yield to his wife. Personal rights are set aside as each serves the other. Christians reflect Christ in their marriage with this love and it is radiant in their intimacy as well. Each understands the important part that sexuality plays in their Christian marriage and the responsibility they have to one another.

It is a perfect design—but living it is much more difficult than understanding it. The reality is, this is really, really hard. The daily life of a Christian is often spent working hard in or out of the home. It is unrealistic to think that after a long day of work the powerful desire for sexual intimacy can simply be set aside as one considers the needs of their spouse. The husband may face a thousand sexual temptations in a day: glances, flirtatious laughs, suggestive comments and unsought images that focus his thinking on one thing. The wife may face a thousand temptations in a day as men appreciate her work, make comments about her femininity, or show interest in who she is as a person. Perhaps the wife is home all day with children who absorb every ounce of her energy and share more than enough physical contact but not a bit of meaningful conversation.

Paul doesn’t address the daily collision of needs at 9pm. The husband does have sexual needs. He comes home to his wife and wants to want her—this is his faith in action! Marriage is the place that God has given for sexual intimacy. But even now, he is called to set aside those needs to think about his wife. It is an incredible concept, that the powerful motion of love can not only pause, but defer to the needs of another. And the wife has needs too, which are often a bit more complex. She may have sexual desires but they are buried under a list of more tangible needs, like help in the kitchen or time to talk about her day. She may recognize her husband’s sexual needs but what about her exhaustion? Now whose needs are more important? Who yields? The Lord answers by giving husbands and wives the directive to consider the needs of the other and yield. Conflicting needs will call each of us to be self-sacrificing in our love. Compromise, consideration, and communication are all so important, especially in times of exhaustion and hurt. Sighs of frustration and emotional isolation don’t resolve conflict. Spouses cannot guess or assume they understand each other’s needs. Talk about it and listen to one another! Speak in love to find a way through it.

A husband can come to see how his help in the kitchen communicates love to his wife and makes her yielding a joy. A wife will begin to understand the importance of her husband’s needs and speak the language of love he longs to hear. Each yields to the other and the bedroom is a continuation of selfless love. It all starts with Christ in each heart as we are washed clean and filled with agape love. Forgiven and empowered with the gospel, we live according to his calling and find new strength and joy every day. Yes, there will be hardship, failures and hurts, but they have all been covered by the blood of Christ. It is God’s love that spurs us on to love one another. Live in his peace, be blessed by his love.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, you are the perfect example of selfless love that blesses others. The sacrifice you made brought us that love as it covered our sins and gave us peace with God. We want to live in that love but it is so hard. How do we give when we feel like we can’t give any more? How do we yield when there are so many reasons not to? Call us to hear your voice and follow, for we know that your words are true and give us the strength we need. Forgive us for the many times we fail. Continue to teach us, remind us, and bless us so that we may honor you in our marriage and intimacy, and in all we do. In Jesus name, Amen.


Written by Naomi Schmidt
Reviewed by Pastor Gary Pufahl
Original devotion on WELS.net Women’s Ministry

Am I?

Am I A Sex Addict?

Am I A Sex Addict?

The good folks over at Covenant Eyes want to help you answer your most secret question: Am I a sex addict?

We at CtC encourage you to take a look at this article if you’ve ever, even furtively, wondered about your sexual behavior. It is worth the 5-10 minutes of personal reflection. We also encourage you to compassionately share this with anyone you know who may be struggling with sexual addiction – but carefully. Maybe it would be best for you to have a more informal conversation about this before you drop the bomb of “I think you are addicted to sex” on them.

…overcoming sinful behavior, especially addiction, is difficult. But it is much, much easier through Jesus.

Finally, NOTE this: overcoming sinful behavior, especially addiction, is difficult (as the article notes.) But it is much, much easier through Jesus. He has already suffered the consequences of our foolishness on the cross. He has already overcome the punishment we caused him to bear through his resurrection. He is investing in you, with his body and blood, his time and attention, his Spirit and his love, so that you can know you are not alone in this fight.

In fact, when you overcome your sexual addiction, you will be able to point to Jesus as the one who made it possible. Are you a sex addict? Perhaps. Are you a conqueror? Absolutely.

Read: Am I A Sex Addict at Covenant Eyes

kids porn

What Kids are Learning from Porn

What Kids are Learning from Porn

James Emery White – a prescient thinker, Charlotte-based pastor, and culture blogger – paints a bleak picture of ways porn affects teens view of sex.

These kids are led astray by the devil, the world, and their sinful flesh.

His article was inspired by another, from the New York Times, in which they interviewed and studied several young teenagers who used pornography. The article particularly explores the ways the pornography encourages men to abuse women.

Overall, there is grim reality in the piece, and he uses the harshness of it as a call to action. At the same time, we at CtC would add a call to grace. These kids are led astray by the devil, the world, and their sinful flesh. If we want to help them or those among them who have not yet learned from porn, we need to introduce them to the unconditional gospel of Jesus. At the same time, we need to be ready to explain what good sex looks like and why bad sex is dangerous – but they aren’t going to care about that unless they’re motivated by the powerful love of Jesus.

Article Author: James Emery White
Published Date: 2/26/18
Reviewed Date: 4/2/18
Reviewer: Kent Reeder

Filtering Software

Filtering Software Reviews

Recently the CtC team became aware of two sets of reviews of filtering software that can be helpful in the fight to preserve or restore godly sexuality.

children and adults often need assistance while this spiritual maturing is underway.

The battle is largely fought on two fronts: Protecting kids from accidental or purposeful exposure to pornography (though no tool can provide perfect protection). Helping recovering addicts in their struggle against their own sinful natures and the abundant false promises offered by the world’s portrayal of sexuality.

The best protection is a well-trained conscience motivated by the gospel to live for Jesus. But that can take years to develop. Our Parent Support Plan provides tools for building this spiritual weapon in children. But children and adults often need assistance while this spiritual maturing is underway. Filtering software can be one of the tools that assists. The following two links provide reviews of the capabilities, effectiveness, and cost of the many options that are available.

Reviews focused on:

Note: These links take you out of the CtC website. We believe the information on the linked pages can be helpful, especially with respect to the technical capabilities of the software, their effectiveness, and costs. But the reader is urged to view the information with discernment. CtC has no relationship with the reviewing entities and cannot ensure that all the information presented aligns with our values and beliefs.

Utah

Utah vs. Porn

Utah vs. Porn

Pornography is legal here in the United States, and it will very likely remain so. Even if it were made illegal (like Utah hasn’t exactly done but is trying to do (Utah vs Porn – or kind of trying to do) the illegality of certain images would likely inspire a prohibition-style underground while failing to actually curb all images that can cause a person to lust.

So, it’s legal. Mostly.

For clarity’s sake, not all pornography is legal. The First Amendment defines two categories of pornography as out-of-bounds: “obscenity” and child pornography. While child pornography is relatively easy to define, that which falls into the category of “obscenity” is quite a bit harder to nail down. The goal of the obscenity limitation is to help avoid extremes, but anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the kinds of pornography on the internet realize that’s a pretty tall order that’s barely being filled.

(Keep in mind, we’re talking about pornography on a civic, societal, or governmental level. For a Christian, the question isn’t really “What can I get away with under the law?” but rather “What is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable? I want to think about these kinds of things.”)

Porn addiction is a broken behavior that comes from a broken desire – lust – that comes from a broken relationship with God.

So, it’s legal and not nearly as regulated as it could be.

What are we to do? The oddness of the Utah resolution gives us a pretty good chance to think about the best response. State Senator Todd Weiler’s resolution, proposed this past January and signed by the governor on July 7th (2016), actually includes fines and potential jail time for anyone who owns porn magazines or is caught watching pornography of any kind. This is odd because, as we’ve established, the First Amendment literally protects some of the things this resolution prohibits (one can only expect that this won’t be the end of this story.)

Nevertheless, let’s imagine that the story didn’t continue with legal challenges, but rather with adherence. What if not only Utah, but also the other 49 states outlawed porn, increased education on the dangers or porn, and found efficient ways to actually enforce this policy? Would it work?

In some ways, maybe. If you’re a pragmatist at heart, you can see how this would make life a little easier. It would make it harder for young boys to hide magazines because the magazines wouldn’t be published. It would be harder for 8-11 year old kids to have their first exposure to pornography because it wouldn’t be so freely available.

But it wouldn’t solve the real problem. Porn addiction is a broken behavior that comes from a broken desire – lust – that comes from a broken relationship with God. The problem of porn is the problem of sin, and the solution to sin isn’t the law – whether God’s law or the government’s law. The law can help on the surface level, but it can’t really lead to a solution. Making porn illegal doesn’t make it so people don’t want porn. Threatening jail time for porn use doesn’t make it so people don’t want porn – they just don’t want to go to jail.

If we want to affect motivation, to transform people’s desire from being focused on base, sexual wants to being focused on more glorious ideals, the only solution is the message of Jesus’ unconditional love. Gospel-driven motivation is the only motivation that has a place in a transformed life. Grace-driven motivation is the only motivation that can take a person who is running toward hell and turn them around so they pursue God. The law, at best, can only slow them down – it can’t turn them around.

So, kudos be to Utah, for the moment.
Praise, honor, glory, and strength be to Christ, forever.

Want to talk more about this? Leave a comment below!

Miner

The Bunny Has Become the Canary

The Bunny Has Become the Canary

And just when you thought the news was good for God’s people…

If you worked in a mine and hated the sound of birds chirping, you may have felt a momentary happiness when the infernal tweeting stopped. This happiness vanished, though, when you realized that the canary had stopped because it was dead, and it was dead because toxic gas was leaking into the mine shaft.

The canary’s death was a warning of increasing danger.

Playboy’s recent decision to quit publishing nude photos might give those who appreciate the damaging effects of porn reason to rejoice, at least at first. CtC Chairman Mike Novotny would disagree – explaining why in a recent email to the CtC team:

Playboy is closing its doors…I mean, pages. Well, kind of. Did you all hear the news? Playboy magazine recently announced that it will stop publishing pictures of (completely) naked women.

Good news, right? Wrong.

Playboy spokesmen explained that the reason for the decisions was because of internet porn. In essence, they admitted, “You can get whatever sexual perversion you want for free online, so we can’t keep this old magazine thing going anymore.”

And just when you thought the news was good for God’s people…

Friends, maybe this is just a reminder of the importance of our work. We live in a digital age where the most notable name in sexual impurity, Playboy, is surrendering to the onslaught of free porn. Therefore, what we are doing in equipping parents for “the talks” (plural!), shipping brochures to pastors, presenting to hundreds of high schoolers, connecting with teachers, creating CtC’s mobile version, and everything else on our to-do list matters.

It matters because we are facing an enemy a billion times bigger than the magazine a 12 year-old used to find in dad’s bottom drawer. It matters because we are sharing a Savior whose broom is always bigger than the mess porn makes.

So, let’s finish the year strong and remember why we do what we do. Bodies and souls are at stake!

A fellow conqueror,
Mike