However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. -Romans 8:6-11
I have one more opponent to share. I've mentioned The Enemy and The Fallen World. But, I am besieged on 3 sides. I don't understand why I have 3 opponents, and I wish I had none. One day it will all be made clear why I am so tested. This last opponent follows me around like a shadow, always siding with temptation. He chides me to take the easy way out because he's a poser and a selfish dog. Passed down from Adam, this opponent actually encompasses me. Some call it the flesh, but I call him The Traitor. Yes, I've been given a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26) but they are currently trapped inside a body. The fight against this opponent is not so much a struggle against sin as it is a fight for my true self. Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. -1 Peter 2:11 I've started winning battles for my true self and it's made me want him more and more. Let your true self show up!
Paul struggled with The Traitor, too...
For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. -Romans 7:19-20
When my wife first came home after the affair I was an emotional wreck. I felt willing to do anything to please her and keep her home. My affirmation, which had come from God, once again, I felt, had to come from my wife. If she was happy, I was happy. If she was upset, I was upset x10. It was at this stage that I found out she is a pornographer. I never knew that. She had hid it well. I wasn't into porn, I wasn't oblivious to it, but it wasn't an addiction I struggled with. She suggested we look at porn to learn new things. She offered the concept of an open marriage. She also suggested we participate in threesomes. I was searching for affirmation from my wife, so I agreed. I told her that yes, we could look at porn together, and yes, we could do threesomes with another girl. I thank God that we were seeing a counselor. The counselor set me straight and helped me stand up to my wife. The threesome never happened - but the pornography did.
The funny thing about counselors is it seems that they can't tell you not to do something. They have to get you to tell yourself not to do something. I could see it on her face when we discussed the porn compromise. I felt somehow that I needed to learn from pornography in order to make my wife happy. During intimacy, she asked me to do things to her that John had done to her. My counselor later explained why those things are unsafe and helped me to stand up to her on that front. But the pornography continued for a while. Finally, I stood up to her on this front as well. We made promises to each other that it would stop. But, like most of her promises, it didn't come true. She password protected her phone and used it to replace me with porn.
I remember a conversation with my councilor very clearly. The councilor told me that, "If I was your mother, I would tell you to leave her." Notice what the councilor did there. The councilor could not say to me, "Leave your wife," so she put it in the context of a family member. The councilor went on to say, "But, I think you may be fighting a larger battle here. A battle you have been called to fight." Looking back on that conversation I mourn the fact that I lost that battle. I could not save her. But truthfully, the important thing was that, once I put God back as #1, I battled for her, not the idol of her or the idea of her, but her true self. I could see her true self. The result is not as important as the fact that I stepped up and fought is. I rose to the occasion, spilled out my blood, and I lost. With porn there is no fight for the maiden.
The Traitor does not want you to fight for the woman, he wants the easy way out. I felt like John knew pornography and I didn't. John took my wife. With pornography, you get what the woman offers without having to fight for it - and without really getting the woman. My wife once confessed to me that what she and John were doing was just sex - nothing more. In fact, once my wife came back home John asked her friend at work to sleep with him. This was the same week she came home! He wanted what these women had to offer, and not the woman. What a coward. Even as I write this my ex-wife and John are boyfriend / girlfriend. I get impatient sometimes waiting for their relationship to fail, to become a statistic. God's timing is perfect and I need to let this impatience go.
After my wife left for good, The Traitor was more persistent than ever. The Traitor told me I needed to visit her porn sites to become a man. The problem is, I could no longer call them her sites. They were becoming mine. Having a sinful lifestyle decimates your true self. I found myself skipping my devotionals, reading Scripture less, and helping others through their mud less, too. The Traitor labeled me a hypocrite, he told me to run from God because God hates me for what I've done. The Traitor told me to abandon Jen and seek a hedonistic lifestyle, instead. The truth is that I needed to run to God. Not a day later, but right away. My true self needed to show up, face The Traitor head on, and punch him right between the eyes. When you face The Traitor, run to God, confess your sin, and pray for His help because you can't face The Traitor alone. Don't just pray once, pray without ceasing. One day, after prayers did not seem to be getting through, I wrote this letter to God:
Lord, hold me to your path though I constantly rebel. By your strength keep me in your grasp for I am wholly depraved without you. Constantly my mind wonders to dark places and I feel like such a pretender. How amazing is your grace that I, the worst of sinners, should be saved. I am (The Traitor) a wretch Absolute, oh the power of the blood! Your grace is enough yet still I mourn my sin. No matter what I try I still rebel. Only you can hold me on the path; please pull me back to it always! Even simple commands I fail. Help me! Oh, how you've established me! You've given me a spacious place, allowed me to have custody of my kids, and set me up with one full of the Spirit (Jen). Thank you! A thousand times thank you! Don't let me throw Jen away. How foolish am I? Save me from myself! Rescue me from these thoughts that compel me! I would be destroyed within days if not hours if not for your power alone. I despise my depravity yet can't escape it. I seek your peace, yet how can I dare ask for anything more? You can fix me! You've shut the mouths of lions, parted the sea and stopped the sun in the sky. You could roll up Heaven and Earth like a scroll. What am I? So I humbly ask, Lord, give me peace. Help me be less depraved. Save me from myself. Help me to appreciate all the good you shower on me. I am a thorn in your crown and I am sorry! Somehow I have not left you. Grab me tight and never let me fall from grace. I deserve to be among the ranks of the lost. My spirit is weak. Save me! Praise your holy and perfect Name. I am sweetly broken. Every day you fix me. Help me not to resist your difficult teaching. Focus me to my Mission. I ask these things to bring you glory! I want to sing your songs again. Fill me! Over, under, inside and in between. I need you. You called me onto the water, full of faith. Why do I now see only the storm? I pray you won't let go! How easily I sink. I am exhausted by my sinking. Lord please remember my prayer and keep saving me. What was on that tree that I may know such depravity? Thank God for the tree Jesus was crucified on, for what hung on that tree was even greater! Who am I? Remind me or please tell me for the first time!
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, -Ephesians 6:14
As I write this blog entry I am over 40 days free of those Websites my ex-wife showed me. I remain on my guard against The Traitor, praying without ceasing. How did I escape? God laid out the process and gave me the courage to follow it. First of all I got an Accountability Partner. No wait, I hate that expression, I enlisted a soldier to battle The Traitor with me: Jen. She checks in on me to see how I'm doing. I need that. I need to know she's checking in. She keeps me girded with the Belt of Truth, she keeps me honest and accountable. The Belt of Truth keeps my purity sealed, holding everything else that I've armed myself with from falling off. Like I said before, if I give into a sinful lifestyle I'm less likely to do my devotionals and Scripture readings and even less likely to pray. The Belt of Truth holds all these things in place. Who in your life can be your battle partner? A name just came to your mind. The Traitor right now is telling you not to contact that person. It's time to let the The Traitor deal with the full weight of your true self.
Secondly, God let me know in a very tangible way that I do not need The Traitor. He reminded me I've been given a new heart. Yes, I'm a soul trapped inside a body. He's armed me with the Breastplate of Righteousness to protect that heart from arrows aimed at both the front and the back. He showed me that I don't need The Traitor by, for a while, removing my reliance on the physical and focusing me instead on the spiritual. The more I focus on the spiritual over the physical the stronger the armor that protects my heart becomes. The Spirit led me to fast.
"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. -Matthew 6:16
Do you notice that Jesus doesn't say "if" you fast, but rather "when"? Yet, I had never taken part in a fast until recently. Jesus assumed fasting as a normal part of spiritual life. When entering into a time of fasting it is important that your motives are in the right place. Fasting is NOT a way to gain God's favor. His grace is a free gift. Rather, fasting helps us gain a clearer focus on the spiritual over the physical (The Traitor). It is something to be done in private (see the verse above). Jen was the only person I really talked about my fast with while it was happening. King David said, "I humble myself through fasting." (Psalm 69:10). By relenting the gifts of God and focusing on the Giver Himself you put into perspective how lost you are without Him. The truth is that I depend more on God than on food. I need to call on Him for my strength and patience and he will provide. I can't even breathe without God allowing it, very humbling indeed. In a fast we give up control and replace it with confidence.
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. -Deuteronomy 8:2-3
Consider the great fasts of the Bible. After Moses fasted he received the Law. After Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert he began his 3 year ministry. After the early Church fasted in the book of Acts Christianity exploded. Fasting is setting aside something in order to have more time with the creator of the universe - for a purpose.
My 40 day fast began by setting aside lunch and instead reading the Harmony of the Gospels. This was in order to answer the question, Who Am I? I intended all along to ramp it up for Easter, to omit food completely for 3 days and 3 nights, the amount of time Jesus was in the grave. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. -Matthew 12:40 I know our culture tends to celebrate Good Friday as the date of Jesus' crucifixion but that would mean Matthew 12:40 is a bunch of bologna. We know that he rose on the 1st day of the week (a Sunday) from Luke 24:1. Counting backward from that would make it actually Good Wednesday and NOT Good Friday. Google it sometime and see how Jesus is actually fulfilling His Feast Days. It's extremely interesting stuff.
So on Wednesday before Easter, at 6:00 PM (Actually the Hebrew Thursday. Once again Google it!), I began my 3 day 3 night fast that would end on Saturday at 6:00 PM (the Hebrew Sunday). During this fast I allowed myself 1 meal: a Jewish Seder meal at my Church. It was very educational. Bitter herbs and horse radish never tasted so good! The last thing I ate during the meal was Communion with the Cup of Redemption.
The next day, our Church was open from Noon until 8 PM with 13 interactive Prayer Stations. I went through all of them. Some I connected with more than others. I recall at one station we had to consider the modern day idols in our lives. What did we value greater than our relationship with Jesus? We had to form that idol out of play dough and "leave it behind." As I held a piece of unshaped play dough in my hand I searched my heart for anything coming between myself and Jesus. I could not find anything so I put the play dough back. I don't say this to boast. If you looked at my life a year or two ago I would have had to make so many idols there would not have been enough play dough at the table. The station gave me an opportunity to thank God for crashing down my tower.
Later that night I attended a Catholic Tenebrae service with some of my Catholic friends. At the end of the service, something called "Venerate the Cross" took place. Everyone took turns walking up to the cross and either kissing it or bowing to it. The word "Venerate" has a couple synonyms that stand out in my mind: worship & exalt. I did not participate. It's amazing to me what can become an idol in our lives. Now, I'm not looking to pick a fight with any Catholics reading this. You are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I'm sure some participants were approaching this ritual with a mind set on Christ. But, I dare say MOST were not. I was extremely uncomfortable watching people bow to one knee at the Cross, putting their hand on it, kissing it, and venerating it. The only thing we should be venerating is God. Even the cross can become an idol. Consider Moses and the bronze snake:
The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. -Numbers 21:8-9
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” -John 3:14-15
He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.) -2 Kings 18:4
The Israelites had taken a symbol of Jesus and worshiped it! The Traitor wanted me to make my wife an idol. Yes, if even the cross can become an idol, so can your wife. Because my wife was an idol I valued her definition of right and wrong, concerning the flesh, above God's definition. When Jen and I first started dating I told her that I cannot come between her and God. Here was a woman living a righteous life. She had only had one other boyfriend. I had to let her know up front that God comes first, not me. Of course, she already knew this. But, I had to say it. And, I have to practice it myself. I must be careful that Jen never becomes an idol to me.
As my fast comes to an end I reflect on what I've learned. I now appreciate God's gifts more, but also appreciate the Giver most. At times during the fast I became absent-minded, forgetful, and had trouble doing simple math. I learned that all of those things do not come automatically, God provides them. During the fast, since I could not look forward to my next meal, I instead looked forward to the prayer station, Tenebrae, Easter service at Church, time in Scripture, time in prayer - time with Him. And it filled me. The Traitor is obsolete in the face of my true self in Christ.
At one of the prayer stations at Church we were asked to spray a small amount of perfume onto a cotton ball. As the fragrance filled our nostrils we were reminded of the anointing of Jesus (Matthew 26:6-7). We then spent "a few moments in prayer asking God to reveal what you have to offer Him toward His purpose and honor." I received an answer: God wants me to finish this blog, all 33 posts. For now, that is my Mission.
I don't understand everything. I'm just a regular guy fighting 3 opponents same as you. Because of The Traitor, I came extremely close to following my wife down her path. Sometimes I look back at my escape from my marriage and it looks like a rescue mission. God also rescued me from my false self. One day every knee will bow and every tongue will acknowledge (whether they want to or not) that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:9-11). We will then be given new and perfect bodies, and The Traitor will be in the rear view mirror. Until then, gird yourself with the Belt of Truth and put on the Breastplate of Righteousness because there's so much more to being a man than what The Traitor wants for you.
We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long for the day when we will put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies. Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and have no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. -2 Corinthians 5:2-5
At one of the prayer stations at Church we were asked to spray a small amount of perfume onto a cotton ball. As the fragrance filled our nostrils we were reminded of the anointing of Jesus (Matthew 26:6-7). We then spent "a few moments in prayer asking God to reveal what you have to offer Him toward His purpose and honor." I received an answer: God wants me to finish this blog, all 33 posts. For now, that is my Mission.
I don't understand everything. I'm just a regular guy fighting 3 opponents same as you. Because of The Traitor, I came extremely close to following my wife down her path. Sometimes I look back at my escape from my marriage and it looks like a rescue mission. God also rescued me from my false self. One day every knee will bow and every tongue will acknowledge (whether they want to or not) that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:9-11). We will then be given new and perfect bodies, and The Traitor will be in the rear view mirror. Until then, gird yourself with the Belt of Truth and put on the Breastplate of Righteousness because there's so much more to being a man than what The Traitor wants for you.
We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long for the day when we will put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies. Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and have no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. -2 Corinthians 5:2-5
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