Sin of Withholding #4 - Withholding Talents

Many of you reading this are very familiar with the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30.

Sin of Withholding #3 - The "All In" God

When God took out his own pen and wrote His Ten Commandments, the first one was - “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:1-2

Sin of Withholding #2 - It's a Choice

Genesis 4:5-7

Sin of Withholding Series - #1 Begins in the Garden

I want to share with you truly a revelation God has given to me and it is the sin of withholding. This sin goes way back to the book of genesis. After the first sin of lust in the garden which produced sin and death we see adam and eve placed outside the garden. In Genesis 4: 1-7 we see the story of Cain and Abel. It was abel who gave God an acceptable offering and cain who withheld the best from God. Gods reaction to Cains withholding was, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted. But if you do not do what is right , sin is crouching at your door.” Cain withheld the best from God ,which was a reflection of his heart. He felt Gods displeasure, he got angry treated his brother as a disposable object and rationalized plotting and executing killing his brother.

You Are Able to Rewire Your Brain

Do You Promise to Forsake All Others? Part Eight: Community

Forsaking all others includes all others. You can also evaluate whether friends hold too high a value in either of your lives. I’ve had to work with men who give way too much time to a set of guy friends or friend by scheduling hunting and fishing trips or golf outings. He had to adjust priorities. It didn’t mean he had to stop his activities. He just had to adjust his activities. I’ve had to deal with a “golf widow.” That’s what a wife is called when her husband golfs all weekend, most weekends. Her husband adjusted to one time per week and that felt fine to everyone.

Do You Promise to Forsake All Others? Part Seven: The Children

Forsaking all others also means you prioritize your own children in such a way that your marriage remains the priority. I am in full support of women who want to be great mothers, but I’ve repeatedly seen this as an excuse not to be great lovers to their spouse. In these situations, dating the spouse ceases, the woman rarely expresses affection and praise, she lacks the energy or urgency to prioritize sex, she has no time for dates or fun or weekend away here and there. These are all symptoms of a woman who has moved from a lover-spouse to prioritizing her children or her role to be a “good mom” over her husband.

Do You Promise To Forsake All Others? Part Six: Family of Origin

Genesis 2:24: “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And they will become one flesh.” Even in the first marriage where there were no parents, God made clear what the priorities of marriage are.

Do You Promise To Forsake All Others? Part Five: Others

Let’s explore what those “other” options that I’ve seen begin to erode or actually break that early promise to forsake all others. The obvious choice is the one everyone thinks of first: adultery. The husband or wife engages in a sex act—hand, oral or vaginal--either one time or ongoing. This act could include one or many people.

Do You Promise To Forsake All Others? Part Four: Functionship

We all experience change and depending on the paradigms we’re operating upon; our marriage can move from a vibrant lovership during dating and the early years into a functionship.

Do You Promise To Forsake All Others? Part Three: Our Pain

Unfortunately, pain will eventually begin to impact the marriage. This pain was either created within the marriage due to infidelity or another betrayal or is due to issues one or both the individuals didn’t deal with prior to the marriage.

Do You Promise To Forsake All Others? Part Two: Is Your Spouse A Priority?

We all know a Christian couple who have been damaged and divorced because of some form of infidelity. Circumstances surrounding the dissolution of their marriage might involve a long sexual affair, a one-night stand, an anonymous encounter from someone via the Internet or even paid-for sex.

Do You Promise To Forsake All Others? Part One: Means More Than You Think

Almost every couple knowingly made to each other before God, family, and friends. I want to review what we promised each other because I believe with all my heart we promised to be lovers for the rest of our lives. I believe we make a covenant to be lover spouses from this day until death. But somehow walking away with the title “husband and wife” overshadowed our promises to be lovers for a lifetime.

The Brain Series - Part Six: A Brain Covenant

I want to give you one final tool in this series that I have found helpful for men to utilize to help them maintain a clean brain. Up to this point, we have been talking about the physical brain. Now I want to switch to a way to help you take your thoughts captive (II Corinthians 10:5).

The Brain Series: Part Five - Hating Well

So many times when we read the Bible, we have our own preconceived notions of principles that we think Jesus operated on. I want to share one with you that I have never heard preached. I will later add this to the next tool I will share with you.

The Brain Series: Part Four - Braindar

You all have heard of radar. You know it sends out a beam of sound and identifies objects further out from the submarine. If you have trained your brain wrong, you could have a side effect called braindar. This braindar can sense a trigger, image, shape, or color of hair, before you can even make full visual contact with this person or image.

The Brain Series: Part Three - Being Honest

Being honest in a proactive manner is really helpful to having a clean life. Being honest in the heat of a battle is essential to staying clean that day. When lust hits, be it a landmine or some other opportunity in your environment, immediately call someone and let them know what’s happening. Honesty can be as simple as having Covenant Eyes accountability software on your phone and computer. When your wife, pastor or accountability partner gets the report on your Internet travels, this is a form of honesty that can really protect and help you lead and maintain a clean life. As soon as you call, you've prevented that landmine trigger or opportunity from taking you down a path of guilt and shame again.

The Brain - Part Two: "Spank the Dog"

Today, I want to share with you a tool I have been sharing with men for more than three decades. I think the first time I mentioned this technique was in my book, The Final Freedom.

The Brain: Part One - Research

I wanted to share some brain research with you today. Step one, you create a high chemical reward when you release sexually. Step two, you bond or connect to that image, or person. This bond is long term, not just immediate. Step three, your body stores this bond and you are attracted by that person, and image, in reality or fantasy. You create a landmine. Step four, your environment or fantasy world can recreate this landmine and, whamo, you are flooded physically with feelings toward an innocent person or image.

Pain Agent #4- A Need to Connect

Every human being has a need to connect. I believe that everyone is born with a need to touch and be touched. Many sexual addicts act out sexually as a primary way of being satiated inside. It is through this altered state and false nurturing that the addict feels like he or she is connected. This can be very confusing for the sex addict in recovery since experiences of acting out in the past have all been a way to connect through his sexual addiction. This need to connect can move the addict into the addiction cycle if he doesn’t find other ways to enjoy the true way of meeting the need to connect. I have found that when sexual addicts feel this need to connect, they also feel pain because they don’t know how to get this relationship need met. The addict is faced with the pressure to act out in order to make the pain go away.

Pain Agent #3-Stress

Something we cannot avoid is stress. All of us have stress at some point in our lives. The way a sex addict medicates or avoids stress, is by acting out. After acting out, the stress seems to dissipate. However, the fact that the sex addict acted out creates more stress that makes a cycle for them to keep adding stress to the pain agent and repeat the cycle. Many sex addicts set up these dynamics in which they repeat this behavior by creating stress so that they can alleviate the stress again by acting out.

Pain Agent #2-Unresolved Conflict

Some sex addicts have been victims of physical, emotional or sexual abuse and have unresolved issues about the abuse(s). Some have unresolved conflicts about their sexual identity or goals in life. Any kind of unresolved external or internal conflict can agitate the addict. It is this agitation that becomes part of this particular pain agent’s unresolved conflict. The sense that “I don’t have that skill mastered yet,” or “I don’t feel good about myself because of that” can trigger the addict into the addiction cycle. These unresolved conflicts agitate the addict which is the beginning process for the cycle of addiction. An example of a trigger point for this unresolved conflict might be growing up in a physically abusive home and having unresolved issues around the abuse. When the addict has unresolved conflict, they act out as a way to avoid, minimize or medicate this conflict. This can show up in their personal or professional life. For example, the addict may have an…

Pain Agent #1 - Emotional Discomfort

Emotional discomfort is one of the primary pain agents that will move the addict to the first level of the addiction cycle and cause them to disconnect from their feelings. Emotional discomfort is basically a family of origin issue. The sex addict never learned how to identify feelings while growing up in his or her family. Consequently, many sex addicts have very primitive emotional skills. Therefore, when they have a painful feeling, they act out sexually to feel better. I remember knowing that when I felt any kind of emotional discomfort as an addict, whether it was hopelessness, anger or confusion, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it to identify it. Whatever uncomfortable emotional feelings I had, I knew that if I just acted out in some way, it would go away temporarily. The interesting thing about this is, it worked! My addiction did medicate the emotional discomfort I was feeling temporarily. Emotional discomfort for many sex addicts is the pain agent that moves them forward…

The Will

The will alone, is not that complicated to understand. The will is simply the ability or choice to be about to persist in a matter. The will can be amazingly strong in persisting through an issue over long periods of time. That is the easy part of the will for sure. The complicated part of the will is who is actually driving it. When the Spirit of God drives the will, it can be a powerful and beautiful thing to watch. However, the mind might also drive the will. This can be good or bad. If the mind believes a lie, the will can be utilized to drive behavior that confirms the lie. If the will is driven by the truth, the results will be aligned with truth.