Real Men Of the City in the Sun

Heavy lurden

Like a bag of sand on my shoulders, I have struggled my whole life with this burden. From an innocent introduction to sexual activity by a family friend (more like preditor) at a tender age of 3, I have fought the thoughts for over 30years now. Now living in London away from my parents, friends and the life I built in Kenya, I reminise the hope that God brought to my life.

I give God all glory that I have never cracked and become a lunatic. A Throwback moment :- The exposure to sex when a toddler meant that I thought sex was a game. Oh! how I was wrong! I remember when I was first caught by my teacher at around 5years of age, trying to fondle a classmate! I know, crazy, scary! Wow, the beating I got… you know, the kind that is so severe, a$$whooping that sends you to hell and back. You know, the kind that, your held facedown below the sink, receiving lightning spike-like beatings that vapourise your rear from the wrath of an angry parent. I quickly learnt that sex is a taboo, never to be thought or spoken about under my parents’ roof.

In comes my male man cave.. which I went into for many years to hide my burden. It was quickly triggered and escalated to relentless watching of sensual movies and videos, to soft prn, to hardcore VHS tapes masquerading as Tom & Jerry films, to doors of filth on the internet I regret ever opening and eventually prostitution. Chronicles of my life are filled with intense lonely battles from 14 year until I got the courage to speak up and find help when I turned 26.

Hope in the midst of darkness

In 2009, I found a band of brothers, 7 highly valued brothers, during my time in Mavuno church, in the same boat as I was, willing to each other to conquer this beast. Tough love, is exactly what I got and what we all needed and I found it through the iStopped group dubbed “G7”. In 2012 it simple became a group of born-again men, who I have walked with for the last 5 years through my recovery journey.  I learnt that accountability starts with me. If you are patient to walk with someone for a couple of months, you will see the difference.

We initially met every week on a Tuesday night for a year, and went through a book recommended by the Man @PastorSimonMbevi, “Every man’s battle”. It was liberating, a true hidden treasure worth experiencing; We now meet every first Friday of the month now in South C/ N.West from 6.30am – 9.30am, to hold each other accountable and men have really been transformed. I have seen men moving from additive behaviour that used to lead them to red-light streets, cheating, now into rich, healthy, marriages free of sexual bondage. Wives and spouses, including mine played a great role in supporting the men, holding them accountable at home and joinly praying that this wolf does not affect their relationships.

These sessions works, you have to be honest with yourself and the men and mark up courage to confront your problem, surrendering them all to God. It is written “Confess your sins one unto another so that you may be healed”. Jesus showed me his love throught the men, while maintaining a gentleman’s pact of highest level of confidentiality of matters discussed every week.

Art of war

The battle plan we have been using is simple. It is based on the book “Every man’s battle” i.e. you have to allow God to fight through your;

1. Eyes ; (Job 31:1 – I make a covenant with my eyes not to look at any woman lustfully);
2. Mind; (2 Corinthians 10:5 – Hold all thoughts captive under the obedience of Christ Jesus, 1 Corinthians10:13 – No temptation is unique to man, others have gone through it and God gives you a way out. Many have overcome e.g. Joseph in Egypt, samaritan woman)
3. Heart; (Psalms 119:9 How can a young man keep his ways pure? by hiding the word of God in his heart.) Dedicate your life to a relationship with God consistently in surrender)

If your eyes are your perimeter fence and your mind is the walls of the house, then your mind is like the panga that you put under your bed. Gen 39:9 ‘How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?’  

Hats off to you all men of G7.

OUR OBJECTIVE :- You should not fight this vice alone. If you have to, only one strategy is effective 1 Cor 6:18 says ‘Flee from all forms of sexual immorality!’ We beat the devil through offense, but when it comes to sexual temptation, we must play defense!

Join us if you need help! Leave a comment or request to join the Facebook page for more details https://www.facebook.com/groups/173596679462929/?ref=group_header

Blog.Mavuno

Today we want to want to focus on the men and the title of my message is ‘Real Husbands Of Nairobi’. We want to talk about real men. This sermon is not just for the men, but also for the women who love them, live with them or simply just want to understand them! The whole region was thrown in shock in July 2013 when two men from Kisauni agreed to sign a contract to marry the smae woman when they both realized they were having an affair with her. The agreement stated when each would take their shift in her house, how they would respect one another, and how if she gave birth they would both raise the child as their own. One of the men had already paid bride price for the woman but the other one agreed that he would also pay his bride price when ready…

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Between Us Guys : The Truth About Pornography [video]

Amazing blog post. Please check it out.

Combat with porn is probably (still) the biggest issue Christian men wrestle with that no one talks about. Serious discussions about sexuality are embarrassing and uncomfortable. Too many churches are silent. And many are not proactive regarding faith-based sex education.

Lessons like this one can break the ice and be used to introduce a more comprehensive curriculum that is desperately needed in many Christian homes and churches. We can’t afford to become even more irrelevant and unconvincing in today’s rapidly changing culture.

Ref: Between Us Guys (Part 3): The Truth About Pornography .

Source: Darrell Martin and SameSexAttractions.wordpress.com

2013: A new year, a new you.

2013: A new year, a new you..

An small excerpt of what femalepornaddict blogged …

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Colossians 3:5-10

…. to read more please click here.

Video: “A pastor’s Disclosure”

Video: “Disclosure”.

Surfing for God

Why Is A Book About Porn Addiction Called “Surfing for God”? 

Almost a century ago, G. K. Chesterton wrote that the man who knocks on the brothel door is knocking for God. If he were writing today, he might say that the man who surfs the web for porn is surfing for God. If nothing else, this truth means that sex is a signpost to God.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying that in a marriage the sexual relationship is a barometer for the relationship in general. When a husband and wife enjoy a healthy emotional, relational, and spiritual connection, most of the time good sex follows. In the same way, a man’s sexual appetite is a barometer for what’s going on inside his heart. A man’s sex drive consists of more than testosterone and the buildup of seminal fluid pressing for biological release, more than being visually stimulated and feeling aroused.

Sexual arousal is an accumulation of your experiences, deep needs, and unconscious beliefs. Your heart shares a deep connection to your body parts. The way you are sexually aroused reflects what’s happening deep in your soul. This is why the Apostle Paul wrote, “There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact” (1 Cor 6:16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”).

Want to hear more about this idea? You can get a free download of Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle. Just visit www.nelsonfree.com/surfingforgod.

Dairy of a recovering addict – Jesus my strength

On the journey to recovery, we meet every Tuesday at Nairobi West from 6.30pm – 8.30pm for the sexual addicts accountability group.

Most people think that recovering from an addiction is just a snap of the finger away. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but recovering from an addiction, as I have realized, is one of the hardest battles one has to go through. In fact, to make it worse, it is a battle within which can lead anyone in their right senses crazy.

My recovery journey has been a 3 year journey of ups and downs from Jan 2010. One thing that has helped me is that I can run to God in confession and repentance and he can forgive me. I was however taught that repentance is turning 180 degrees from sin, you have to do this after confessing your sin. I thank God for giving me a good accountability relationship with a group of men, where I can be vulnerable. These guys are tough and have held me up when weak. They hold me accountable to everything I set as an action. I pray that you get such a group, a real group of friends, fearless and principled.

So, be encouraged if you are reading this, God’s grace is sufficient for you. He has the final say on your life. Just surrender to Him and ask for anything from Him in prayer. Remember, sexual sin has not power over you at all. What will it take for you to fight? A lost relationship? Lost job? Brokeness? Broken marriage? Act now man!!!

James 1:12 Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.  You have been given the strength to do all things through Christ. Boast in Christ alone, boast in the cross as your only strength. This is a daily fight, wake up each morning and wear the full armor of God in prayer. If this life has anything to gain at all, I would count it all lost if I can’t hear my savior my strength. This is my solemn prayer for myself as well as you.

Affected by a person living in sin, in addiction, in sexual sin

Hey, you, yeah you, please comment at the end, I need feedback on this…

Some of the most common issues I have had to deal with in the past are rather extra-ordinary. I have heard these, not from the person struggling, but from the people who they go to. All together, I thank God for exposing to me the extent of hurt that sin, more specifically sexual sin causes to those around us. For example;

• a wife/girlfriend of an man who confesses sexual sin,
• a friend or a girlfriend of a guy/girl who turns up to be a homosexual,
• a guy who finds out that the wife/girlfriend is a addicted to sex.
• a parent who identified a child with a weird sexual habit e.g. touching another girls/boys parts or masturbating
• a parent/guardian/teacher who catches a child practicing voyeurism (fetish of seeing people naked)
• a spouse to a partner who is confess/ caught committing adultery/fornication

How can someone deal with such? In the bible the book of John 8:1-10, Jesus was presented with such an individual; pharisees who caught an adulterous woman in the act. They tried to trick him to confess that she deserves punishment according to the Mosaic law in the old testament. However, Jesus, our Lord and saviour who gave us grace, told them that if any of them has never sinned let him/her stone the lady.  To our shock, most of them left one by one with the oldest going first.

What a powerful way of demonstrating that in God’s eyes all of us are sinners. It doesn’t matter whether it is a lie, a sexual lustful thought or sexual sin (all are sins), God’s love and grace, as shown to the adulterous woman, is enough to forgive us. As human beings, we magnify some sins above others based on our carnal minds forgetting that God’s standard of holiness is apart from us and can only be attained through Jesus Christ’ righteousness at the cross. God’s hates the sin not the sinner, he loves you and wants you to repent (confess and turn away from sin).

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness

From my short experience in dealing with sexual sinners, I have learnt several things;

1. Never condemn the person who sins. Separate the person from the sin and walk with that person to the realization of who he/she is in Christ.
2. Come down to that individuals level and understand what lead to them acting the way they did. May be they were exposed to the behavior by someone else and didn’t know any better when it happened
3. Learn what God standard is and leave the example, by what you watch, listen to, speak, read, stand for. Impart that same standard through the word to the person gently.
4. Help the person come up with an action plan by themselves and help them get accountability. If you can walk with the person through it. Ownership of accountability is on both partners, not one.
5. Pray for the person and yourself for wisdom.

I praise God that someone, Pastor Chris Gatihi, took time to walk with me and impart the word of God, God’s standard in my heart where I have hidden it to stay pure.

Psalms 119:9-11

⁹ How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
    By living according to your word.
¹⁰ I seek you with all my heart;
    do not let me stray from your commands.
¹¹ I have hidden your word in my heart
    that I might not sin against you.

7 Reasons Why Masturbation is Bad

This are the reasons taken from an article on Aspire. Here’s the full article here http://www.aspire.org.ng/2012/05/understanding-masturbation/

Now here are the reasons

1. It is addictive
2. It conditions your body for self-stimulation (inspired by lust which is selfish)
3. It causes sexual imbalance
4. It causes you to be mastered by sin
5. It makes you use your body as an instrument for sin
6. It defiles God’s temple and grieves the Holy Spirit
7. It reinforces carnal mindedness

When you get free from masturbation, you’re free to worship God better and with a pure heart.

PressThis: from http://howtostopmasturbation.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/7-reasons-why-masturbation-is-bad/

“It is better to marry than to burn with passion”—What does this mean?

Hey readers,

I am glad to finally announce that I got married a few weeks ago and I have found it liberating in the path of sexual addiction recovery. I couldn’t help it but share that just after the wedding was over, God spoke to me in a dream and told me “it is finished”. The many years of burning in sexual desire had ended. And just like any path that ends, a challenging new beginning emerged; A high expectation from my wife for a life of bliss in marriage and love for one another sealed in God’s covenant and consummated in a joining of flesh.

So my thought ran up and down while in the honeymoon, what did God through Paul mean when he wrote 1 Corinthians 7:9. How is the flesh defeated by this great covenant of marriage? I did a bit of research and realized that God has destined me to worship him in marriage just as before with all my physical desires. See what John Piper says in his sermon-ette below.

I should say just one brief word about that infamous sentence in 1 Corinthians 7:9: “If they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” Remember, this is addressed explicitly to men and women (v. 8). And here is the one thing I want to say about it: When a person seeks to be married, knowing that as a single he or she would “burn with passion,” it doesn’t have to mean that marriage becomes a mere channel for the sex drive. Paul would never mean that in view of Ephesians 5.

Instead when a person marries—let me simply use the man as an example—he takes his sexual desire, and he does the same thing with it that we must all do with all our physical desires if we would make them means of worship—

1) he brings it into conformity to God’s word;

2) he subordinates it to a higher pattern of love and care;

3) he transposes the music of physical pleasure into the music of spiritual worship,

4) he listens for the echoes of God’s goodness in every nerve;

5) he seeks to double his pleasure by making her joy his joy; and

6) he gives thanks to God from the bottom of his heart because he knows and he feels that he never deserved one minute of this pleasure.

Listen to the Full sermon By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

The last pointer #6 is the one that I relate to the most, after all that I had done outside marriage to the point that God had brought me to, I know that I didn’t deserve one minute of the pleasure that us shared in marriage with my wife, but God… In his mercies and grace gave me this gift and I am eternally grateful to the King of Kings and Lord of lords. Bless your name of Lord God almighty.

So I urge you my brothers, do not burn with passion but be quick to pray for God to gift you with a spouse. Then live in eternal worship to your creator for the gift he has given you.

God bless you,

Gathungu, iStopped

Man of Valor – Manhood vs Maleness

Man of Valor

James 1:2-4 – Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

If you are working through Every Man’s Battle, review pp. 61-70

Who we are, who we are becoming

Suggested: Peruse Judges 6-8; James 1:2-4

Page 70 of Every Man’s Battle makes the distinction between “maleness” and “manhood.” In our “maleness” we discover who we are simply by virtue of having been created as male human beings. As we live our lives, we discover needs and desires that are unique to our gender. Of course, our sexuality is no exception. There is nothing wrong with this part of ourselves. Every need that comes with being male is a God-given need, and is therefore good. Yet, not every avenue we would choose to try to get those needs met is good. “Manhood” is a different matter. In addition to the idea of maleness, the idea of “manhood” addresses who a male can become if he lives his life according to God’s ways. What the authors are expressing is the difference between how any male could easily live his life, left to his own devices, and how he could live his life if he were truly surrendered to God, which would enable him to reach his full potential as a created being. Maleness is self-directed, or even aimless, whereas manhood is purposeful, achieved only if one aligns himself with the vision God has for him. The first is a matter of being, whereas the second is a matter of calling. As the idea is played out in application, we never shed our maleness but we can see it reach it’s potential according to God’s purpose as it is transformed into manhood. We never cease to be creatures, but we must follow the Creator in order to become all He has created us to be.

When we follow, God leads us through trials and often uses our journey to bring us into maturity. Left to our own devices, we would generally avoid trials and because of this we would not fulfill God’s plan for us. We would not grow into the men He is calling us to become. James addresses this issue. James 1:2 instructs us to consider our trials with joy, not for their own sake, but because of what we know will result from them. God is growing us into the men He wants us to be. If we have His vision in our minds as our goals for our lives, then we can be joyful in knowing what is happening, even when it is unpleasant for a time. If we lose sight of that, thinking only of our present circumstances and seeking only pleasure, we will become increasingly discouraged.

Our potential and our destiny are not mysteries to God. They are known and they are certain. Many times, when we are in the middle of a trial, we do not feel like the men He wants us to be. This is especially true when our trials have to do with the recovery process and with our struggle against sin. When we have a spotty track record and very little success, much fear and low self-esteem, the idea of fulfilling God’s will can be more discouraging than anything. We often feel like we will never get there, and that we are beyond hope. We see evidence of our failure rather than evidence of His design.

Scan through Judges 6-8 and reacquaint yourself with the story of Gideon. This story from the Old Testament actually gives us a wonderful picture of what identity is and whose opinion really matters. Gideon is a classic picture of someone who was fearful, who doubted what God would do through him. Despite this, when the Angel of the Lord addresses Gideon, He refers to him as a “valiant warrior” or a “man of valor” depending on which translation you read. God saw beyond Gideon’s present condition and behavior and knew who he would become and what he would do.

God had a calling on Gideon’s life, and He would enable him to do mighty things as well as bless the lives of many around him. As you read the story, you can see that God brought Gideon through many trials, things he would have never done on his own initiative. This is also a powerful illustration of one who could, like Paul after him, boast in his own weakness. Because of Gideon’s cowardice and uncertainty, God’s power working through him was all the more evident when it manifested itself as valor.

How are you like Gideon? What have you been called to overcome that you know you cannot do in your own strength? What do you see that needs to change, that you know you cannot change yourself? What trials are you avoiding? What trials are you walking through that you curse in resentment because of the present pain rather than walk through in joy for the potential results?

Remember who you are by God’s grace, valiant warrior, man of valor.

Choose from the following discussion questions, or create some of your own:

1 In what ways can you relate to Gideon? Are you hesitating or doubting that God can help you overcome major obstacles? What are they? Is your journey toward sexual purity one of those things?
2 What trials are you currently going through that you would rather not face to begin with? Who is there to support you while you go through it? Take some time to talk about your trials with each other. Don’t jump in with advice, or attempt to fix another person’s problem to soon, instead take some time to “mourn with those who mourn.”
3 When the time is right to discuss it, talk about what you think God might be doing in your life. How might going through these trials change you for the better? What is God’s vision for who He wants you to become?

Aaron Switzer, M.A. in Biblical Counseling