La sanidad de Dios apesta

In the midst of my guilt and shame, frustration filled my mind. “I can’t believe I sinned… again. Does God hate me for my addiction? Will I ever find freedom?” Countless men and women I’ve talked to have asked similar questions. What are you supposed to do when you keep messing up? If you are struggling with sexual sin today, I’ve been in your shoes. I struggled with promiscuity, pornography, and habitual masturbation for years, promising over and over each time I sinned that it was the “last time.” We often spend a lot of time thinking about the importance of fighting for sexual integrity but often forget to talk about God’s grace. To help you better understand grace, here are a few definitions: Grace is the beauty of following Christ. Grace is unmerited favor. Grace is God loving us when we don’t deserve it. Grace is God’s riches at Christ’s expense. Grace is the divine means by which God makes Himself everything we need. When we mess up, God gives us grace. When we feel shameful and defeated, God gives us grace. When we hide from Him, God gives us grace. Just like Adam and Eve tried to cover their shame with fig leaves after they had sinned, we run, hide, and find our own fig leaves. What fig leaves are you hiding behind, attempting to cover your shame? For some this is turning to pornography. For others, it might look like continuing a “friends with benefits” relationship. Whatever fig leaves you are hiding behind will not provide lasting healing or comfort. After Adam and Eve sinned and hid in the Garden, God, being good and gracious, sought them out and said, “Where are you?” He invites us, too, out of our hiding and into His light. He calls us from the darkness of shame and into His presence. The Lord walked with Adam and Eve after they sinned—and He walks with you today. God can heal you, comfort you, forgive you, and set you free. Instead of running away from Him, let’s run to Him. Through Christ’s death and surrender to the Holy Spirit, we are no longer slaves to our sin. We will still battle sin, but we are not destined to walk in it any longer. Next time you sin, remember God’s gift of grace. Here are three things to consider when you keep messing up:   Focus on your relationship with the Lord, not on perfect behavior. You don’t become more holy because of right behavior, but because of God’s grace. You can’t earn holiness by what you do or don’t do. It’s not about trying more or doing more or being a “good Christian.” It’s about your personal relationship with Jesus. The more you love Jesus, the more you will want to change your behavior to become more like Him. In Matthew, a Pharisee asks Jesus, “‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22: 35-38). Purity is birthed from loving God, not obeying laws. Juli Slattery wrote, “God will not magically change your behavior without first transforming your heart." Once God changes your heart, your behavior will follow (not the other way around). Allow Him to change who you are from the inside out.   Jesus died for you, while you were still a sinner. “Sorry I messed up, I won’t do it again, God. I promise!” Have you ever said this to God? I know I’ve said this countless times and have always broken my promise. We need to stop making this promise. When we say, “I promise,” we are saying that in our own strength we will stop looking at porn. Even if we don’t look at porn, we may lust or lie or think a bad thought. We need God! We can’t stop sinning on our own. Instead of promising God that we will change, what if we said, “I’m sorry, God. I can’t do this on my own. I need your help!” Let’s invite Him into our sexual brokenness and ask for His power to begin changing us—inside and out. Believing we have to be sinless to earn God’s love is spiritual bondage. That is salvation by works, not salvation by grace. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). When you mess up over and over again and wonder why God saved you, remember that you did nothing to earn His salvation in the first place. Your salvation is a gift from God, freely given, no matter how long you struggle with sexual sin.   God invites you to come back to Him. This is the gift of grace. No matter how many times you’ve messed up, God invites you back. When you mess up, turn back to God, and live in His grace and freedom instead of in your shame. We are a work in progress. We will mess up. We will battle sin on this earth for the rest of our lives. Instead of running from God or getting down on ourselves, let’s live like the prodigal son and return to our Father.  When the prodigal son goes back home, his father greets him, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). When we turn back to our Father, He will run to us with open arms.  Do you need to turn back to God today? Do you need to experience His grace? If you have never accepted God’s gift of grace through salvation, I invite you to make this decision today. Here is a prayer you can pray. Saying the right words is not important, rather, the condition of your heart is what matters. God sees your heart and knows your desires. Dear God, Thank you for loving me. Thank you that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins and failures. I admit to you that I am a sinner and that I need You to save me. I ask You to forgive me for my sins. I turn from them now. I invite Jesus into my life as my Savior and Lord. I turn my life over to Him. I will live for Him as long as I live. Thank you for giving me eternal life and making me Your child. In Jesus’ name, Amen. If you are struggling with sexual sin and longing to better understand God’s grace, I invite you to join one of our Online Book Studies. New groups begin every few months. Sign up today!   Image by Anusha A on Unsplash

Are you feeling stuck in your home and in your sex life? Think back to the last time you left your house: It could possibly have been four or five weeks! And most likely it has been even longer since you and your spouse went out for a date night.  When my husband and I were newlyweds, we committed to weekly date nights. Every Thursday night we spent time together—sometimes we dressed up and went to dinner, or we went for a walk and got street tacos. Other nights we stayed home and ordered Thai takeout and played board games. As seasons change, it becomes easier to deprioritize date nights. It starts off with missing once or twice a month, and suddenly you’re thinking, “When was the last time we went on a date?” Right now, you may be spending a lot of time together at home, but being in the same physical space doesn’t mean you are working on your relationship; lack of intentional time together impacts both your emotional and physical intimacy. Recently, my husband and I brainstormed how we can continue having date nights during the quarantine. Some of our favorite date ideas are impossible now. We decided to try “at-home” date nights, which led to a conversation about how to also spice up our sex life. For some personalities, having each day and each intimate experience look the same leads to boredom, while others thrive with routine and consistency. My husband could eat the same breakfast, rice cakes and peanut butter, every day for the rest of his life. If he wakes up late and needs to pack a lunch for work, you guessed it: rice cakes and peanut butter. During this quarantine, he is thriving! When it comes to our sex life, my husband is not any different. He has no problem with each intimate experience looking the same. I love variety. My husband loves me and wants to serve me, so he is always supportive of finding new ways to spice up our love life. Maybe you, just like me, can easily get sick of the routine of quarantine. Maybe you want variety in your sex life. If you or your spouse are itching to mix it up, I encourage you to pick an idea from the list below and try it out.    Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life: Clean out your bedroom and make it more inviting. In Authentic Intimacy’s Bible study Passion Pursuit, Linda and Juli write about the importance of a welcoming bedroom. Use your time at home to make your bedroom more welcoming. Some ideas include cleaning your drawers, closets, or bedside tables; painting your walls or buying a new bedspread online. In my last Passion Pursuit small group, a woman shared that she and her husband redid their entire bedroom, and it had a huge positive impact on their sex life.   Have a fashion show! As you’re cleaning out those closets, model your clothes for your spouse. My husband said seeing me put clothes on and take them off made the cleaning process fun and sexy.    Focus on starting sex in the kitchen. As Dr. Kevin Leman says, too often we limit sex to what happens in the bed and we miss out on all of the smaller ways we can build intimacy. You can experience intimate moments throughout the day that can prepare you for sex. While one spouse does the dishes, the other can give a back massage. When one spouse takes out the trash, thank them with a big hug.    Eat your meals together. While working from home, many of us eat meals while checking emails or watching TV. Instead, be intentional with these times. Look into each other’s eyes during meals and not at screens. Ask each other questions like: What was the best part of your day? What was hard about your day?    Take showers together every morning or night. Since our wedding, my husband and I have taken showers together every night. My husband jokes that we need to “save water,” but in reality, we shower together because it is hard to be upset with someone you know you are going to be showering with later. Showering together is an intimate time that can focus on other things besides genital touching. You can do simple tasks like wash each other's bodies or comb each other's hair and experience intimacy and connection.   Take a bubble bath together. Sadly, we do not have a tub big enough to fit us both. If you have a big tub, take a bubble bath together. You know those candles you keep for when the power goes out? Pull them out. light them up around the bathroom, and have a romantic sexual experience!   Spend more time kissing. Remember when you were dating and a simple kissing session could cause passion to explode? Now that you’re married and can have sex, refresh your memory and body with the power of kissing.    Invest more time on foreplay. Too often couples skip the foreplay and go straight to intercourse. Use the extra time at home to experiment with touch. You can invest in the whole sexual experience by spending time rubbing each other's bodies.   Create a romantic sex playlist. My husband and I created a playlist filled with music that reminds us of our love. They include our first dance song, songs we have inside jokes about, and other songs about love. Playing the music throughout our home gets us in the mood.   Spend your Saturday mornings cuddling in bed. My husband and I have jokingly called our Saturday morning cuddles “quarantine cuddles.” Laying in bed and snuggling before we start our weekend festivities is something we want to continue after this season passes.   Get creative when you have kids at home. If you have small kids, try to prioritize your own “nap”while they’re napping.You could also have a special movie night with snacks to keep the kids entertained. If you have older kids at home, try to keep consistent bedtimes so that you can prioritize time alone in the bedroom. Without schedules, it is easy to allow the kids to stay up later, but lack of structure at night will cut from your intimate time.  Memorize scripture together. We often fail to realize or forget that the Bible is filled with sexual intimacy. Song of Solomon is an entire book in the Bible about two lovers. Read it together out loud and work on memorizing your favorite verses. My husband memorized Proverbs 5:18–19 and quotes it almost daily. “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer, may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.”  I realize some of these ideas will not work for everyone. My husband and I are almost three years into marriage, have no kids, and just moved into our own house. Some of the ideas above are impossible during different life stages and in different homes. Which one will work for you? A few of the ideas are simple tasks that may take time, but the investment into your love life will be worth the sacrifice. I pray that one benefit that comes from this quarantine season is that marriages will grow closer in intimacy.   You may also find the following resources helpful: Passion Pursuit (book) Your Marriage Should Be Fun (blog) Date Nights In  A series of four online events* for married couples about how to talk, fight, and pray about sex. *The live event is over, but the videos series will be available for purchase in our Shop soon! COVID-19 Marriage Survival Guide COVID-19 and Porn: A Quick Fix But No Solution (blog)