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

How to Communicate Your Sexual Needs to Your Spouse

Reblogged from: How to Communicate Your Sexual Needs to Your Spouse.

I’ve noticed that as I get older my sex drive is tremendously increasing.  However, as my husband gets older his sex drive is quickly decreasing.  Add porn addiction to this combination and it doesn’t make for a very active sex life.

As a result of this, I’ve developed a very proactive approach to getting my needs met when my husband is not. I express my needs to my husband both physically and vocally.  Oftentimes, my husband isn’t moved by words so if I tell him what I want or what I need, it takes him hearing it multiple times to process the information and take action.

A simple conversation can get you exactly what you need if you clearly communicate those needs. I always try to make sure the timing is right before I make my needs known. Why waste your time speaking words that fall on deaf ears? During my conversation with my husband, I must make sure that I do not sound accusatory or cause any offense. I simply want him to know that I have a desire or need that needs to be met by him and only him.  No other person can fulfill those desires and needs.

When my husband hears me and then fulfills my needs there is no greater experience. I embrace the accomplishment at that moment knowing that soon thereafter, I may have to have the same conversation. I’m good with that because I know that growth and progress are taking place.

It is liberating to know that I dictate whether or not my needs are met. If they are not being met, then maybe I’m not sharing with my husband the way I should. What would it profit for me to not have those needed conversations, hold it inside and allow it to fester? NOTHING!!! I do not feeling empty. I want to be fulfilled in every way. I deserve it.

If you are not proactively getting your needs met, I would challenge you to ask yourself why that may be the case for you. What are you waiting on? Who are you waiting on? You are the only person who can fulfill your desires and needs.

I’ve always heard that conversation rules the nation. Speak up! Make your request known. Be open and honest and empowered. Be considerate and conscious of timing. Be willing to be vulnerable…and be prepared to receive fulfillment

Video: “A pastor’s Disclosure”

Video: “Disclosure”.

R-Rated

Re-blog: R-Rated (click here) to go to Mavuno blog

Sex is great. I like it. I suspect that when God created it he meant it for good.

However it also turns out that in this day, sex is a great way to market and draw attention to things.  Last week we heard about the facebook appeal against tribalism. It read something like this –

SEX!! …now that I have gotten your attention, Tribalism is not good – pray for Kenya.

If sex is good, and it sells then why should we be concerned about what we see in our world? Is there a problem with what we are seeing?

Today we begin a series – Sex Files, living in an R-rated world. This month we take an honest look at ourselves, and our world, against the mirror of God’s Word. We will also pick out some practical things to help us thrive in the area of our sexuality.

If sex is good, and it sells then why should we be concerned about what we see in our world?

Like I said – It is used to sell – commodities, jobs, movies. Breakfast shows.

This seems to have become normal. Our world is R Rated. You need it – sex will get it for you. Sex seems to have become a currency – poverty eradication method [Facebook group – campus divas for rich men]. It is a medium of exchange in our world.

Sex is the answer. What is your question?

What then is the problem? Our normal has changed! That seems to be the problem.

Picture with me this scenario

–       Say I am doing something normal, in my room watching a movie. The people start kissing and undressing. Then my mum walks in with my 7 year old Nephew. Why is it that there is an awkwardness? It was supposed to be normal – but it really isn’t. Something inside of us resists and is pricked by what we call normal.

Let me explain.

–       People watch porn – soft or hard. It is normal. Why don’t they put porn watching as a hobby in their resume?

–       Why do people tend to watch porn on their own not with visitors ?

–       Why don’t people tell my aunties and uncles they are having sex with their boyfriend?

–       How come people can discuss sex with my boys but not with my dad?

–       Why do people change the channel when some people enter your car?

–       Why do people feel the need to change their toilet reading material when the pastor or life group is in the house?

–       Why was 80′s TV show Tushauriane banned and we wonder what the issue is? If Tushauriane was today what time would it be shown?

–       Why do we keep affairs quiet? It is not called clandestine for nothing. Why doesn’t it make it into our facebook status.

–       Guys like to oogle at chicks with few clothes, but why do you have an issue if it is your sister or your daughter – dancing in nothings.

Either many of us have double standards or there is something wrong with our normal and somehow we know it. Deep inside us we know it.

We are fish in dirty water and we know it. Such is the world we live in. Why? How did we end up here. I would like us to take a look at scripture our reading wil be from Genesis 3.

Scripture: Gen 3

Adam and Eve, in response to their interaction with the serpent disobeyed God and ate the fruit. God found out, for obvious reasons it was hard to hide. He was very upset and came back to have a conversation with them.  This is a conversation that affected their lives and the entire world we life it.

Verse – 17-24

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you;     through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce horns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

A Broken World:

The result of our disobedience to God is that everything in our world was affected negatively. The brokenness we experience in all aspects of our world is a consequence of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God. They were banished out of a perfect world into a world full of consequences of sin.

The consequence is

Pain – in our world we will always experience pain and opposition in what we do. V 17 Cursed is the ground, through painful toil you will eat from it.

Resistance – v.18 the world we live in will resist us and make it difficult for us in what we do. Our world v.18 will produce thorns and thistles. Thorns and thistles are a nag [according to the apostle Paul]. They resist, choke and stifle good things [Jesus used them as an example of the resistance to God’s Word].

Death – our physical lives were cut short, and continue to be cut short because of this sin. We see decay and atrophy in our world. Things generally don’t get better they get worse [2^nd law of thermodynamics]. If you leave things they disintegrate.

A Broken Sexuality

This brokenness which is a consequence of our sin can be seen in our sexuality as well. This is why our world is R-rated. This is why we see what I had said before –

–       People watch porn – soft or hard. It is normal. Why don’t they put porn watching as a hobby in their resume?

–       Why do people tend to watch porn on their own not with visitors ?

–       Why don’t people tell my aunties and uncles they are having sex with their boyfriend?

–       How come people can discuss sex with my boys but not with my dad?

–       Why do people change the channel when some people enter your car?

–       Why do people feel the need to change their toilet reading material when the pastor or life group is in the house?

There is a brokenness that we somehow sense but we seem to live in. There are some consequences to this brokenness. This brokenness seems to have been spoken about in Adam’s encounter with God.

Pain – sex and our sexuality has been the cause of much emotional and relational pain – when trust is broken and relationships are fractured. Sometimes physical pain when sex is forced on us through rape.

Resistance – we find that keeping to the straight and narrow often seems to be going against the grain. It is so hard not to go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing or say what everyone else is saying.

Death – things are not getting better, they seem to get worse. Our sexuality seems to be decaying. People who enter into illicit sexual encounters are more likely to do it again, and again. When you use a sexual swear word once it is much easier to do it again. When you get into a sexually driven conversation you are likely to do it again.

Illustration: An illustration was given about how to kill a frog. Put it in a pot and warm the water slowly. It begins to enjoy the heat. However by the time it realizes that it is cooking it is too late to be able to jump out.

The heat is on in our pot – we are in a state of decay and we seem to be enjoying it at the moment. There is something wrong with our normal and we are having too much fun to notice it. The end result will be death – emotional, relational, probably physical but most scary is – spiritual death.

A Hopeful Conversation

If this is the case, is there any hope for us to be able to thrive in our sexuality in an R-Rated world. The answer is yes. God does not intend for you to enter into spiritual death because of something that he created for good to glorify himself. Sex and sexuality is not meant to be a hindrance to life but an opportunity to glorify God through a thriving and not decaying life.

This is why God sent His Son Jesus into the world for us to overcome the decay and enjoy the fullness of life.

Jesus had many conversations – and in one of these he talked about this full life. In John 10:10 speaking to his disciples and to us he said

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they [you] may have life, and have it to the full.

The serpent, Satan brought – pain, resistance and death. He spoke with Eve and sin entered. He came to destroy and kill what God had created for us.

Jesus on the other hand came so that we can have full, abundant, thriving life – even in our sexuality.

How do we access this full abundant life?

As I look at scripture there are a number of things I see we can do. We can choose to do the right things, we can made deliberate decisions to cleanse our minds from those things which are wrong, we can build the right company around us to keep us accountable.

I would like to focus on one practical area we can apply this week to help us get back to the right normal. I want to take a cue from the passages I have referred to today

You see –

o      God entered into a conversation to create men and women

o      While in the Garden God conversed with Adam and his wife and built relationship

o      The serpent is the one who came into a conversation which resulted in disobedience

o      The consequences came out of the conversation between Adam, Even and a heartbroken God. But it didn’t end there –

o      Our hope has come from Jesus who, through a conversation with us, promised a full life of abundance in every area of our lives including our sexuality

o      I think that we too can use our conversations to redirect us into God’s standard and values for our sexuality

Take out:

Our world is R-Rated. Could it be that you can change your part of your world with the conversations you enter into? Could it be that your words can begin to affect your world and the world of those around you and return us back to God’s normal? Could we end the awkward moments and the double standards we live in with what we do with conversations around us

What if

–       you made a decision not to be part of lewd conversations when you are with your friends?

–       You chose not to flirt with ladies [or men] in the office?

–       You stopped retweeting those funny but dishonorable things, exit wrong conversations?

–       You resisted all temptations to put on and listen to radio shows that you couldn’t listen with your mother in the same car?

–       You stepped out of conversations with friends that you knew are going south?

–       You as a married person – opted to reserve all compliments that have to do with sexuality only for your spouse – and not your PA, officemate, friend? You chose to affirm your spouses sexuality even though it has been a few years, several babies and one pot belly later? You as a married person chose to use your words to build the sexual life inside your family and not that of others?

–       You as a single person – chose not to allow yourself to be drawn into conversations that arouse your sexual desires yet you know that they will not find fulfillment in a spouse? You chose not to subscribe to text messaging services that send sexual messages to you? You chose not to play around and flirt with friends and even online entities who make you feel good and sexual yet are not the right people for you to be with?

–       You chose to say things about our sexuality that are right and honorable before both the older and younger generation?

Interview at Venus 101.9fm

Yesterday, I got a strange call inviting me for a radio interview on Venus , a local radio station, to speak about sexual addiction. Do you know what my 1st mental response was, ‘glory to God Almighty’. I really appreciate when I can get out there and speak about how I was able to get out of sexual addiction.

So, today I went there early in the morning, sharply dressed in my charcoal grey suit, white shirt and a red/white striped tie. I felt like busting from all the anxiety within. Mainly due to the fact that I was help up in traffic for about 40 minutes.

All in all, today went really well. I thank God almighty because he gave me the eloquence, wisdom and grace to withstand a 1 hour interview.It was good to give advice to parents, to speak about the success stories and how guys can get help out there.

So, one questions was asked and had me thinking. How do you know that you are a sexual addict? How can you evaluate yourself?

Here is a simple quiz.

If you’re wondering whether you’re hooked to sex, answer the following questions honestly:
1.  (Particularly for women:) Do you find your greatest source of emotional intimacy in Internet chat rooms?
2. Do you stare at or flirt with people other than your spouse, or fantasize about people such as actors or actresses, lingerie models, joggers on the beach, etc.?
3. Do you regularly look at pornographic magazines, movies, or websites?
4. Do you masturbate while doing any of the above?
5. Do your sexual fantasies and activities draw you away from your spouse, your family, and God?
6. Do you have a secret sex compartment that you hide from your friends and family?
7.  Have you had phone sex or an extramarital affair, or visited prostitutes, strip clubs, or sensual massage parlors?
8. Have you vowed to stop, only to give in the next time temptation arises?
9. Do you engage in sex with multiple sexual partners / the same sex?

Saying “Yes” to any questions, especially numbers 3 through 10, may indicate that sex has some power over your life. But take courage! With God’s help, you can win a resounding victory over sexual temptation!

Just comment and we will be able to help you.

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.

Top Tips on Dealing w/ Sexual Temptation

Top Tips on Dealing w/ Sexual Temptation.

First a couple of essentials about temptation:

1. Temptation comes from 3 places: The Devil, other people, and our own hearts.
2. God does not tempt us (James 1)
3. We cannot eliminate temptation, but we can minimize it

So if our purity goal is to rid ourselves of temptation, it’s not going to happen.  If our goal is to stop being tempted sexually, it will never happen.  We need to realign your thinking to what God’s Word teaches.

One more essential is God has created our sexuality.  We are sexual beings.  If God were to take our sexuality or our sexual desires away, we would become less than He created us to be.  Our big goal is to develop a healthy, godly sexuality.

BIG THOUGHTS AND TIPS

1.  Check the nouns – These are the people, places and things we allow in your life.  Remember grade school on this one?  Are the nouns we’re hanging around healthy?  We have to dump bad people, bad places, and bad things we’ve allowed to influence us and replace them with healthy nouns.  More than anything else, this will help us minimize temptation.

2.  Sin nature is a part of it, but not all of it – We can’t blame everything on our sin nature.  We are fully responsible for my choices and the sexual actions I take.  Also, we are tempted when we place ourselves in vulnerable situations.

3.  What’s driving our struggles? (Long-Term Strategy)  – We have to think deeper when it comes to temptation.  We have needs, wounds, feelings and unmet expectations that pull at us too.  If we want to be successful internally, we need to spend time asking God to heal us on the inside.  Finding God’s healing means less vulnerabilities, less triggers, and more health.

4. Be transparent with 2 other people – Call it confession or accountability or sharing… we need to learn to talk about our temptations.  Our buddies need to be the same gender.  Sharing our struggles and temptations helps bring them out in the Light.  It is a way we walk in truth.  When we hide what we are being tempted with, we dwell in darkness, we give it power, and we give the Devil a foothold.

5.  Short-term strategies – We need short-term helps to get through tempting moments that pop up right in front of you.  You have to practice each of these to get good at them.

Bounce the eyes – Keep your eyes moving.  Look somewhere else.

Think through the drink – A great one from Alcoholics Anonymous.  What are the consequences if you go through with this?  Talk yourself out of it.  Train your mind to go there.

Surf through the urge – When we feel the pull, don’t fight it.  Temptations come.  Ride the wave into something healthy.  Ask God to help you use the temptations as springboards to righteous actions.

Run away – Get the heck out!  If you run into a sexually stimulating person, or bounce to a site on the computer, get out!  Flee.  Run.  Turn it off.  Go do something else.  Physically get your body somewhere else.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Q:  What are your best tips (short-term or long-term) for dealing with temptation?

By Jeff Fisher of www.porntopurity.com

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/

God forgive you so, Let it go!

Don’t look back! As Christians we have a significant advantage over the world. We have a past that is forgiven by God and buried with Christ. We have a present that is useful to God and effective in ministry. And we have a future that is bright with promise. We are to look forward and press on, not look backward and mourn the loss of a less-than-perfect past.

“I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me. I am sending him – who is my very heart – back to you. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good- no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord.” (Philemon 1:11-12, 15-16)

Onesimus sinned greatly, and was formerly “useless,” but after becoming a Christian, he was useful. He was encouraged to not look back into his time of uselessness, but to rejoice that he had been forgiven and that God now wanted to use him. It’s no different for us. As God continues to make us new creations in Him, He also wants to use our lives to bring glory and honor to Himself.

What a blessing this is!