godly desire

False identities and our true identity in Christ part 2 (godly identity)

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False identities

In this second post in a series, I’m going to look at one of four false identities that the Father had to remove as part of my journey to wholeness and discovering who I am in Christ.

***CONTENT WARNING***
This is a vulnerable post about my journey to sexual wholeness and may not be appropriate for minors nor for those of a sensitive nature.

I have been honest about my struggles so that others who were trapped in the same lies of shame can also find freedom and release.  Please handle with care.

False identity #2: My identity is in my sin

Hello my name is John and I’m addicted to porn.

The first time I said those words was like a thunderbolt of revelation.  I knew my life had spiralled out of control but confessing that I was addicted was a bitter truth that had taken years to face up to and finally confront.

The first step of the 12 step program used in alcoholic anonymous and other recovery programs based on it is:

We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviours, that our lives had become unmanageable.

A brief history of my addiction (content warning)

It took over 30 years to get to this point.  From an innocent fascination with scantily clad women in the lingerie section of home shopping magazines grading up to softporn magazines when I was 18 and old enough (and sometimes brave enough) to buy them.

They were my escape from my life which was full of abuse and empty of love.  It might have been an illusion to think these images were interested in me – but the illusion was better than the reality.

Encounters with the Holy Spirit and meeting my wife were transformational and I was free for some time.

But then the internet.

Porn became accessible without even having to leave the house.  I spent hours searching for images to escape the stress of my job and the shame built as I couldn’t tell my wife just how much I had let her down.  So I dumped it on my wife and made everything her fault.  As our marriage headed for the rocks, things got worse as online video became a reality and a more powerful pull.  I started looking at porn at work and even got caught by a co-worker.  I reached out for help and had filters installed on my machines but I couldn’t talk about it in any depth with my “personal pastor” as he found the whole thing bizarre that I would do anything like that.  I received healing for many of my childhood wounds and began to learn who I was in Christ but the addiction was so strong it often felt like I had no choice.  It became a habit where I was looking for porn online (despite the filters) every day and masturbating every day.  “It can’t get worse than this” I though.

I was wrong.

I was so used to “normal” porn that to get the fix I needed stronger fix and so I started watching worse and worse.  Each time I would feel physically sick but soon that would subside and it became a new normal.  I kept trying to reach out to the men in my church asking if anyone else struggled.  No-one admitted they had a problem.  In addition, they were upset that I had even mentioned that at a men’s meeting.  Eventually, I found one man who was not shocked and helped me fine tune my filter on my computer.

But my understanding of who I was in Christ was weak and so I still felt powerless against the addiction.  This belief led me to secretly buy new laptops to use or to use keyloggers to steal the filter password from my mentor.

The shame grew – how could I admit to my mentor and my wife each time I did something like this again.

It was then I discovered recovery groups with xxxchurch.com

After so long, I finally had a community of men who were Christians and who were open about their struggles.

It was with this band of brothers that I could finally fully open up about where I was and receive God’s light into some very dark places.

I sin or I am the sin?

However, it was a short step in my journey from saying I was addicted to saying I was an addict.

But this is a very big difference in my identity.

One says I have a problem, the other says I am the problem.

I had defined myself by my sin not by who I was in Christ.

Whilst admitting I had a problem was liberating, saying I was the problem was a cage.

You see confessing that we have sinned sins brings healing (Jas 5:16) whereas saying we are the sin brings shame.

Shame says this is who I am and nothing can change it.

Like Adam and Eve, shame leads us to hide God and cover ourselves up.

I remember being walked through the story of the prodigal son through prayer ministry and I couldn’t embrace the Father.  I felt I was too dirty.

How do we cover our shame?  In my life I have sought to cover my shame through five ways:

  • Religion – I will cover myself in good works to try to counteract the shame I feel inside
  • Transference – I will put my shame on other people and say it’s their fault that I am like this
  • Rebellion – I am the problem, I am rubbish therefore I act rubbish – I live out my identity of sin
  • Self-harm – I am the problem therefore I will punish myself
  • Distraction – I will try to drown out the voice of shame with sensuality (eg drugs, alcohol) or busyness (eg TV, gaming)

Dealing with shame

We don’t need to cover our shame because Jesus has dealt with shame fully at the cross.
You see, the thing they don’t tell you in Sunday School is that the Roman method was to crucify people naked as a final humiliation.  Jesus was shamed to take our shame.

This is symbolised in the Day of Atonement – there was a sacrifice to deal with the punishment that our sin deserves (propitiation) and there was a scapegoat that was sent out into the desert to symbolise our shame being taken away (expiation).

Jesus was the fulfilment of the Day of Atonement – he took the punishment our sins deserve (Isa 53:4-5) but he also bore the shame of our sins (Heb 12:2; Rom 10:11).

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Ps 103:12

This is true even if the shame you feel came from someone doing something to you.  Jesus was innocent but was shamed by others.

Our shame only leads us to withdraw from God, but never does it lead God to withdraw from us.

God came to Adam and Eve in the Garden after they sinned – it was them that hid from Him.

In the story of the prodigal son, it was the Father who shamed himself by running and exposing his legs (which in that culture was a really big deal) to embrace his son.  Furthermore, he bore the shame of what everyone would have said about his son’s behaviour.

In Jesus, God stepped down into our world to meet us in our circumstances and our messes.  In the words of Corrie Ten Boom, “there is no pit that Christ is not deeper still”.

Just like in the story of the prodigal son, God doesn’t wait for us to get home and “get it right” before He loves us.  We just have to turn to Him – that is repentance – and he comes running to us even while we are far off.

That’s why Jesus accepted the shame – because of the joy set before him (Heb 12:2) – the joy of seeing sinners repenting (Lk 15:7,10) and expanding the Kingdom (Lk 10:21).

But there’s more.

Cleansed and made righteous

God not only deals with the punishment our sin deserves and takes our shame taken away, He also makes us righteous:

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21)

Just as in the story of the prodigal son, when the Father meets us he covers our nakedness in a robe – that robe of righteousness is Christ:

“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal 3:26-27)

God looks at us and sees Christ.

This was foreshadowed in the sacrifice system.

When a Jew brought a lamb as a sin offering, the priest didn’t look the Jew – he looked at the lamb.
If the lamb was without blemish or defect then it was acceptable (eg Lev 22:21).

Similarly, God doesn’t look at us for perfection, He looks at His Son – the Passover Lamb (1 Cor 5:7) who was without blemish or defect (1 Pet 1:19) and so God is satisfied (Jn 1:29).

It’s not about us – it’s about Jesus.

That’s why in the story, the father stops his son just before he says “I am no longer worthy to be called your son”.

It’s true, we’re not worthy – but Jesus is worthy for “while we were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8) – in fact whilst we were his enemies (Rom 5:10).  We didn’t love him or pursue him first.  God initiated “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10).

There’s no way we can earn our salvation – that’s why it is a free gift (Eph 2:8).

The Father sees who we are in Christ as our life is now hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3).  And since Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father (Eph 1:20) we too are seated in heavenly places (Eph 2:6).

This is the reality.

Living from our new identity in Christ

That’s why we’re told to set our hearts on things above (Col 3:1-4) as that is where our life, our true identity is.

This is also why we’re told to put to death all the things that belong to our old nature (Col 3:5) and throw off the sin that easily entangles (Heb 12:1) – as it’s no longer part of us.  It isn’t who we are any more.

Danny Silk in his excellent book “Culture of Honour” says that he once stepped on a nail which went through his foot but never did he think “I’m a nail!”  Similarly as a child of light if we discover darkness inside us – we don’t then say we are darkness.  That is as silly as saying “I’m a nail!”  We were once in darkness but now we are children of the light and so we live as children of the light (Eph 5:8).  God has dealt with our sin powerfully and has made us righteous.  We live from that reality – yes we might sin but it’s no longer natural (1 Jn 5:18) – we’re going to fall into righteousness not into sin.

Human children will physically become like their parents not through their own efforts but naturally because of their DNA.

This is a shadow of the spiritual reality that because we have God’s seed in us we will naturally become like Jesus and stop sinning .

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God (1 Jn 3:9).

That’s why it is fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) – it’s something that grows naturally as we live by the Spirit not the flesh (Rom 8:5-13) and keep in step with what the Spirit is doing in our lives (Gal 5:25).

The battle for our new identity

That’s why Satan will try to get us to fix our eyes on ourselves, on our sin.

Because as soon as we take our eyes off of Christ, things in the natural will look hopeless.  So either we will mistakenly try to fix things ourselves through rules (which are powerless to bring about any change, see Col 2:20-23, and will just result in us becoming proud Pharisees or) or we will give up.  Either way we won’t be living as a loved son seated in heavenly places.

But more than that, Satan wants us to fix our eyes on our sin so that, we will stop running the race as we doubt that we can do anything.  Whereas God has made us co-workers with Him (eg 2 Cor 6:1) planned good works for us to do (Eph 2:10).

This is why we need we are told to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2 NASB).  That’s who were are and we are becoming who we truly are.  The Spirit is working in us (Phil 2:13) will finish the work Christ started in us (Phil 1:6).  We just have to keep in step with the spirit (Gal 5:25), we will be transformed from glory into glory into the likeness of Christ (2 Cor 3:18) until at last we will be like Him when we finally meet Him face to face (1 Jn 3:2).

Summary

You are not your sin.  You are a beloved son/daughter who has been forgiven and made righteous in Christ and welcomed to your true home.  Receive His love, receive His embrace that is dependent on His love not your ability.  Enter now into the party he has thrown for you (Lk 15:23), hear His songs of joy sung over you (Zeph 3:17) and draw strength from them (Neh 8:10).  Let His love transform you:

Fathers love letter soaking video

An allegorical tale about our identity in Christ

Click here to be taken to the Amazon page.

TLP ana and the prince cover

Other posts in this series:

Other relevant posts on this blog:

How to stop looking at women lustfully part 2 (godly desire)

godly sexuality 6 Comments
sisters and daughters

In our previous post on this topic we looked at three steps to dealing with lust:

  • Acknowledge it, but realise that the woman is a shadow of who our hearts are really looking for.
  • Realise we have a higher calling: we men are made to love women sacrificially like Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25), we are called to give (love) not take (lust).
  • Act according to our calling by praying blessing on the woman we see.  For example “Father, I thank you for this beautiful woman.  I thank you that you have made her to be loved and cherished.  I ask that you would pour out your blessing on her, that she would become aware of your presence, that she would find her value in your love and not how she looks….” 

In this second post on this topic we look at how to prevent lust entering into our relationships with women in our Church.

For three years I led an organic church which ministered to those broken by traditional church.  I had the honour of serving a number of young beautiful women.  With one woman in particular she needed much prayer, counselling and support on her journey to wholeness and I soon realised that an attraction was growing within me.

This was not surprising due to the amount of time I was spending with her and the prayer counselling process which forms a bond between spirits.  It was becoming distracting and was starting to interfere with my ability to serve her.  But yet I was praying for her like I mentioned above.  So what was I to do?

There’s this great passage in 1 Timothy that holds the key:

“Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” 
1 Tim 5:1-2 (emphasis mine)

We were family!  As someone much younger and in my care, she was my spiritual daughter and I was her father.  Once I saw this truth it started to change how I related to her.  I started relating as a father loving his daughter rather than a man relating to an attractive woman.  I started calling her my “daughter-in-Christ” to help outwork this view into our relationship and my mind.

The desire that I had felt inside me began to be transformed now I knew where it was to be focussed.  The sexual energy that God had given me as a man was now channelled to the correct godly destination.  No longer was it being hijacked by the worldly view that it must always result in physical gratification.

It was such a delight to love her as a father and seek her mature into a woman of God and the delight and pride I felt at her wedding to a godly man was overwhelming.

The phrase “brothers and sisters” occurs more than 100 times in the New Testament which speaks of the reality of our new relationships in Christ.  In addition, Paul called Timothy his son (1 Cor 4:17, 1 Tim 1:2a; 1:18, 2 Tim 1:2a; 2:1, Tit 1:4, Phile 1:10) as did Peter call Mark (1 Pet 5:13).  Paul also treated the Thessalonians as his children (1 Thess 2:11).

So may you start calling the women in your church your sisters (or if you’re much older like I was, your daughters) and see your relationships transformed as your sexual desires find their true purpose in Christ.  In Jesus’ precious name.  Amen.

How to stop looking at a woman lustfully (godly desire)

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*Content warning*
This post discusses desires in a frank but godly way.
desire

All Christian men know the passage:

“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Mt 5:28)

The problem is we don’t know is how to stop this.

Sometimes it feels like we are wired to notice the bodies of others. In fact we can often be shocked at how much we can be aroused by just looking someone. But as a Christian man, we think “I’m a new creation – I’m not meant to feel this way!”

A brief internet search shows that we are not alone when looking for help to stop lusting after women:

looking-lustfully
looking-lustfully-2

However, the advice given seems to fall into one of three camps:

  • Condemnation/shame/works – you shouldn’t do this, it doesn’t honour God or the woman. Try harder, chop off everything that causes you to sin, etc.
  • Triumphalistic – you’re a new creation, you’re free from this, shake it off as it’s the old you, repeat “I am the righteousness of Christ”, etc.
  • Liberal/humanistic – it’s natural, men are designed the polygamous, there’s nothing you can do about it, accept it as part of who you are, etc.

As well meaning as all of these are, all of them are lacking:

  • Using internet filters to cut things off is helpful but ultimately it’s external and doesn’t change our heart.  And you can’t avoid going out in summer, nor filter the first accidental glance.  Besides self-effort will ultimately fail as apart from Jesus we can do nothing (Jn 15:5).  And so the cycle of shame will begin again and the more rubbish you feel the more you will act out of that identity.
  • Realising your new identity is important – it helps renew our mind (Rom 12:2), and how we act flows out of our new identity. But it’s too easy to treat this as a formula: “I’m saying the right words but it’s not working!” and miss intimacy with the father that changes our heart.  It’s also to easy to become inward rather than outward looking.
  • Whilst we do need to recognise how God has made us as men, we are not animals subject to our biological urges. We’re made in the image of God and our sexuality means something.

So what can we do? How can we take the good in each of these approaches?

First we recognise that God has made us men and has wired us to notice beauty – so when you notice this happening don’t try and suppress it or pretend it’s not there. That won’t solve anything.  Acknowledge it, however realise that the woman is not the goal, but merely the shadow of who our hearts are really looking for.

Second we realise that we are made in the image of God and men are meant to love women sacrificially like Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25). We have a higher calling: we are meant to give (love) not take (lust).

Thirdly, we men are made to act not just acknowledge our godly calling to give.  After all we are meant to be co-workers with Christ (1 Cor 3:9). I have found the best way to do this is to pray for the woman we see.  Something like:

“Father, I thank you for this beautiful woman.  I thank you that you created her and that you love her.  I thank you that you have made her to be loved and cherished.  Father I ask that you would pour out your blessing on her, that she would become aware of your presence, that she would find her value in your love and not how she looks….” 

This prayer is not a formula – it’s from the heart.  It’s not a inward prayer “father help me to stop lusting!” which assumes we are still bound by our old identity as a sinner.  It’s a prayer from our new identity in Christ and in line with what we are meant to do as men.

The Kingdom is advancing – and seeing a beautiful woman is an opportunity for it to forcefully advance in our lives as we step into our destiny as men.  Amen.

Speak to the desires of the heart (teach your children godly sexuality)

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So one of my boys kept lifting up the skirt of one of my girls to see their knickers.  An excellent opportunity to talk about godly sexuality with them I thought…

4

So true to form I followed the principles I give in my workshop and talked about the goodness and the holiness of sexuality with them.  How it’s a good and beautiful part of a lady made by God but it’s also a special part and so we need to treat it with honour.

However he kept on doing it, despite talking about its specialness and despite disciplining him for repeatedly doing it.

I know, I know, I should have called out to God for help sooner – but sometimes we have to get desperate before we find ourselves on our knees actually listening – but He’s so gracious that when I did he gave me the wisdom I needed:

“Speak to the desires of the heart”

You see the trouble was that I was saying all the right things but I was talking to his logical mind rather than his desires.  And if we want to see change then we need to address the desires:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

But the question is: how do we address desires in a godly way?  In the same way as we teach any other aspect of godly sexuality; we talk about the goodness and the holiness of our desires.

You see God made him a boy and so there is a godly fascination and yearning in him for to complete the whole image of God:

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mt 19:4-6 emphasis mine)

The holiness is the fact that this fulfillment occurs in a covenantal relationship and this yearning is a shadow of our yearning for Christ (Eph 5:32) who is the “desire of all nations” (Hag 2:7).

Since he was only about 5 at the time, I had to keep things a bit simple, so I began:

“There’s something really interesting about girls, isn’t there?”  He nodded.  “God made girls attractive to us so that we really want to find out more.”  I could see that I now had his full attention.

“And that means that there’s something in us that wants to see their knickers.”

“But God made seeing a girl’s knickers to be something special for marriage just like you only get presents on special days like Christmas.”

Now it’s tempting to stop here, but doing so means that we are expecting them to conquer desires by self-effort which is law not grace. So now we need to offer to pray for them:

“But in the same way it’s hard to not open presents until Christmas day, it’s hard to stop looking at knickers.  So we need Daddy God’s help.  Can I pray with you?”

He nodded and the rest is history.

You see affirming the goodness of our children’s desires speaks to their reality, only then can we begin to steer these desires towards their intended goal.

Wired for intimacy part 2 (godly sexuality)

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wired for intimacy

We saw in our previous post that babies brains are pre-wired to see faces and in particular their initial focus of their eyes is designed to see only those who hold them close, such as the mother who feeds them.  This is a shadow of the spiritual reality that we are designed to seek our Father’s face who gives us our daily bread and the affirmation of His love for us.

Unlike other objects our brains process faces in a different part of the brain (the fusiform face area) which is dedicated to recognising faces.  Furthermore this part of the brain is given priority over the other image processing areas in the brain, which is why we often see faces in things (called facial pareidolia):

faces in things

Hence advertisers use faces in their images as it is an effective way of getting a viewer’s attention.  Using eye tracking software you can see below how we focus on faces and their eye gaze:

face recognition

Hence the text gets more attention from viewers when the baby’s eye gaze was in that direction.

Now the world will say that this must have developed as a survival technique – so we can spot the faces of a predator in the brush.  However, we know that we are made in the image of God:

“As the Father, Son and Spirit have always know fellowship with each other, so we in the image of God are made for fellowship”  Michael Reeves

We look into another’s face to see the meaning behind their words and discover their true self – their nature and character.  For, as we know, the eyes are the windows of the soul.  Faces are needed if there is to be any intimacy.

Unlike animals*, we make love face-to-face this speaks of the fact that sex is meant to be an expression of intimacy† and it is no surprise that the Hebrew word for sexual intimacy, יָדַע (yada’), is literally translated as “Adam knew Eve” (Gen 4:1).  And in its pure form there is “no shame” as there was complete openness, acceptance and intimacy.

Interestingly, research shows that those who have religious or paranormal beliefs are more prone to see faces in things than sceptics or unbelievers.  This is a shadow of the fact that despite the intimacy of another no human can ever meet our need to be fully known.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Cor 13:12 emphasis mine)

Jesus is “the Desire of all nations” (Hag 2:7 NKJV).  Jesus is the face that we are wired to seek.

 *After extensive research I can only find two documented cases of animals having sex face-to-face. Both were gorillas and in both cases it was commented on that this behaviour was extremely unusual.

 † It is no surprise that since the sexual revolution and the rise of pornography, where sex is seen to be just biological and devoid of meaning, there has been a corresponding rise in sex in positions that are not face-to-face. It is not about intimacy or connecting but satisfying our own urges and getting pleasure.

Wired for intimacy part 1 (godly sexuality)

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wired for intimacy 1

Before we had our first miracle baby we read the book “The Social Baby” which shows that even from birth babies are wired to seek faces over other images:

“Within minutes of birth, the baby will turn her head to the sound of someone’s voice, when another sound, even if of the same pitch and intensity, will not attract her attention…the baby is also attracted to faces…Given a choice between looking at a face-shaped pattern, and one with the arrangement of eyes nose and mouth scrambled up, the newborn baby will spend longer looking at the face”

wired for intimacy

Recent research has now identified that the part of the brain used for recognising faces is far more developed in babies and is almost equal to that of adults by even 4 months.

As Christians we don’t believe that this design is merely for survival, we believe that the things made reveal God’s divine nature (Rom 1:20a) for “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19:1).

In the same way the physical tabernacle was “a copy and shadow of what is in heaven” (Heb 8:5), this physical realm is a shadow of the spiritual realm.  A baby seeking the face of his/her parents is a shadow of the reality that we as children of God (1 Jn 3:1) are designed to seek the face of our Creator.

“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor 6:18)

In the Father’s face we are going to find the love, affirmation and protection that we need.

A baby know this – they take delight in looking at faces.  Children know this as any parent who hears a their child say “look at me!”.  This is why God instructed Aaron to bless the Israelites with the phrase “the LORD make His face shine upon you” (Num 6:23-25).

To have God’s face turn from us is to be cursed and cut off from our hearts desire (eg Ps 27:9; 2 Chr 30:9).  Babies know this – they become distressed if there is no response from a parent’s face (you can see an example in this YouTube video).

We are wired to seek the Father’s face, to have His face shine upon us and to have Him respond to us.  But not just a father’s face but the mother’s face too:

“A babies vision is a little blurry at birth but within a week a baby can focus on objects about 8 to 12 inches from his face which is the distance between a mother and baby’s face during feeding.”

One of the names for God used in the Old Testament is “El Shaddai” which is translated as “God Almighty” in places like Gen 17:1 and Gen 49:25.  Now shaddai could be come from the root “shadad” which means powerful (hence Almighty) or “shad” which means breast.  If it is the latter root then “El Shaddai” could be translated as “many breasted one” (sources: here and here).  Implying that God, like a mother, is our comfort, our sufficiency, our nourisher.

Given the current environment there are parties that sit firmly on both sides, each fiercely arguing that their version is correct translation.  The complementarians will argue that it’s a powerful, strong masculine God, the egalitarians will argue it’s a nurturing, tender, feminine God.

I believe that both are incorrect.  Each side only sees one part when both parts are needed*.  You see we are made male and female in God’s image (Gen 1:27) and only both together represent the fullness of God”†:

“Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam” (Gen 5:2 KJV).

Adam was created in the image of God as one being – both male and female (Gen 2:7).  This is a shadow of the heavenly reality of the Father and the Son being intimately one (Jn 10:30) and indeed his nature of Oneness despite many opposing characteristics (eg grace/mercy vs truth/judgement).

Adam was then separated into two: male and female (Gen 2:22-23 the word rib is literally “side”) as a shadow of the plurality of the nature of God (both in the Trinity and His nature).  But designed to become one again (Gen 2:24).   Hence the fullness of the image of God on earth is male and female together as one.

So babies are wired to look into the face of their parents and receive all the love, affirmation, protection, comfort, nourishment from them.  This is the shadow of the spiritual reality of us as God’s children looking to Him (whose nature includes both masculine and feminine aspects) and receive all that we need from Him, our all-in-all:

No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” (Rev 22:3-4)

* Why then does Jesus say we should call Him father and why is Jesus the Bridegroom if God is both masculine and feminine?  This requires us to understand how sexuality reflects the relationships in the Godhead and between God and man, which will be covered in a later post.

† So does that mean that only married people image God?  Not entirely, because ultimately the one flesh union of a husband and wife is also a shadow of the union of Christ and the Church (Eph 5:31-32).  Perhaps this post might help.  And so if you’re single, you image God by being one with the Body of Christ becoming one with Christ.

An alternative ending to the Orlando shooting

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**Content warning: this will be an honest account of some of my sexual struggles during my life and may not be appropriate for minors nor for those of a sensitive nature**

How long do you need to spec a gay bar before committing an atrocity?  1 day, 1 week, 1 month…how about 3 years?

This is how long Omar Mateen had been visiting the Pulse gay nightclub before he shot and killed 49 people.

People are naturally looking for an explanation of what happened.  For some it’s about lax gun controls, for others its about hatred of gays, for some it’s simply about a mentally unstable man.  I’d like to offer a different commentary based on parallels in my life.

The Qur’an is clear that homosexuality is a sin.  Yet Omar had been attending this gay nightclub for at least 3 years and had been having conversations with gay men via a gay dating app.

I would like to suggest that Omar struggled with the issue of being attracted to men and yet knowing it was wrong.  Islam offers no grace, no help to stop sinning, only law.  You must not do this.  What do you do in this situation?  How long can you live under such condemnation before you finally flip and lash out at yourself (through cutting or suicide) or at others (through abuse up to murder).

I understand a little of Omar’s struggle.

I never felt affirmed as a man.  I felt that I was a disappointment to my father and didn’t measure up.  My father-in-law also didn’t see me as a man and whilst I remember joking in my wedding speech that “it’s not so much losing a daughter but gaining a womany-bloke” the truth is I didn’t feel like a “proper” man.  Getting married didn’t fix that.  Nor did becoming a father.  I felt the constant need for approval of a father-figure that I never received growing up.

During my early marriage I acted out by looking at pornographic images of women. I knew it was wrong and I hated myself for it.  I used to take out my anger on my wife.  Often as a defensive mechanism because if she got too close she would expose who I really was and I didn’t want that.  So I’d make out that it was her fault.

However, whilst early exposure to pornography and subsequent masturbation had hardwired my brain to women the yearning for manly approval grew and became more sexual.  I started fantasising about kissing certain men when I was talking to them.  I needed to feel loved and wanted by these men.  But I knew that this was wrong too*.  And I hated myself for it.  I tried to suppress it but it kept coming back.  Just like the way I projected my self-loathing onto my wife due to my pornographic addiction, I projected my self-loathing about my same-sex attraction onto gays.  I would see homosexuality as the unforgivable sin and loathe them in my heart.

Given the similarities between my life and Omar’s – the overbearing father, the religious upbringing I know that this could have easily been my story.

Some will interject now and say “you need to accept these desires as natural and reject this outdated religious bigotry”.  However, to quote CS Lewis:

“He (Satan) always sends errors into the world in pairs – pairs of opposites.  And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse.  You see why of course?  He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one.  But do not let us be fooled.  We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors”

My story ends differently.  Instead of denying my desires I didn’t just accept them and act on them, I expressed them to Jesus.  I honestly told him about my struggles.  As I admitted the truth, I brought these desires into the light and that was when the transformation began.  He opened my eyes to the fact that it was only men in authority that I wanted to kiss.  It was because of my feeling so unmanly, so unworthy, so useless that was the root of my desire to be accepted and loved by authority figures.  Jesus has all authority (Mt 28:18), he is above every power and authority (Eph 1:20-22; Phil 2:9-10) and he loves me (Jn 15:9,12).  As I have been receiving the approval of the ultimate authority I have become more whole.  As I have drunk deep of Christ’s masculinity I have become more manly.  As I have received the Father’s love and approval my desires for men have simply faded away.  I have become complete and whole in Him who is my all in all (1 Cor 15:28).  I know that without this grace I could have very well been Omar.

Omar, I’m sorry you didn’t discover this third way.  I’m sorry you didn’t receive this love and grace that transforms.  I’m sorry that others paid the price for your self-hatred.

Can I recommend my friends blog article on the Orlando shooting that expresses something of the heart of God here.

* It’s not the purpose of this article to defend the traditional Christian view of homosexuality.  Others have done that adequately elsewhere.  Any plain sense reading of passages such as Rom 1:26-27 and a correct understanding of hermeutics will support this.  However, we mustn’t get pushed into the false dichotomy of if I don’t agree I must hate gays.  Hopefully this article expresses this a little though I think Michael King’s post on the Orlando shooting that I recommended above expresses it beautifully.

Principle #1: Good (Teach your children godly sexuality part 5)

godly sexuality 6 Comments

Godly sexualityIn the previous three posts we talked about how we can establish firm foundations in your heart, in your marriage and with your children. We are now ready to move onto the four principles of how we communicate godly sexuality to our children.

Our first principle is that God created our sexuality and declared it to be very good.

So why is it good?  Let’s take a look in Genesis:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” … God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
(Gen 1:27-28, 31a NIV)

First we see that our sexuality (“male and female”) and sexual intimacy (“be fruitful and increase in number”) were created before the fall and therefore they were made pure, unspoilt and therefore good.

Is that the only reason it’s good?  Well we know that everything was made through Him [Jesus] and for Him (Col 1:16).  Creation is an extravagant love gift to Jesus from the Father and so it is good because the Father only gives good gifts (Lk 11:13; Jas 1:17).

But in addition we see that:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.  (Rom 1:20a)

So God’s divine nature is made known through creation or as David says “The heavens declare the glory of God…” (Ps 19:1).  Hence Creation is good because it brings glory to God as it speaks of how amazing He is.

But unlike the animals who were simply called into existence by God’s spoken word, all of our bodies were personally formed by His hands (the word “formed” in Gen 2:7 is used of a potter with clay). and declared “very good”

So why do our bodies, our sexuality and our sexual intimacy give Him such pleasure and glory?  Because unlike animals we’re made in His image and so our sexuality is theographic (not pornographic) as it reflects the glory of our Trinitarian God.

Let’s look at six ways how…

Firstly our sexuality reflects the community of the Trinity.

Since God is a community of Father, Son and Spirit and we are made in his image (Gen 1:27) this is why God said “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18a) and He says “I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Gen 2:18b).  Like man but not like man  – male and female in His image (Gen 1:27).

But we are not only male and female as God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7) and God’s breath represents the Holy Spirit (eg Job 33:4; Jn 20:22) .

So we are also a trinity (male, female and Spirit) like the God we image* .

Secondly our sexuality reflects the oneness and intimacy of the Trinity.

Jesus prayed  for us “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you…that they may be one as we are one” (Jn 17:21-22; see also Jn 14:10; 17:11) .

So there is unity, oneness and intimacy in the Godhead.  Since we are made in the image of God, man was first made one (Gen 2:7) and then from that oneness man was made two (Gen 2:21-22) but designed to become “one flesh” again (Gen 2:24; Mt 19:6a):

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (Gen 2:22-25 NIV emphasis mine)

And hence Adam wants to re-unite with the missing part of himself that the women embodies and become whole and completely himself and be the full image of God.

We’ll talk about this much more when we look at the second principle.

Thirdly, our sexuality reflects the love of the Trinity.

In Jn 17:24 we see that the Father (the lover) has been eternally loving the Son (the beloved) by the Spirit (eg Rom 15:30) and so John declares that “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 Jn 4:8).  So we are created as lovers in the image of God.  Adam (the lover) was made to love Eve (the beloved) by the Spirit.

Again we’ll talk about this much more when we look at the second principle.

Fourthly, our sexuality reflects the delight and joy found in the Trinity.

God made our sexuality and intimacy to be pleasurable as it reflects the delight and pleasure experienced within the Trinity† .

In fact the bible is the story of three marriage celebrations: Adam & Eve at the beginning, the marriage supper of the Lamb at the end and the marriage song of Solomon in the middle:

Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. … Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon.
She: Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.
(Sgs 4:5, 11-16 NIV)

Here we see them celebrate and enjoy God’s good gift without shame.  This is the way God made it and He is pleased when His children enjoy His good gifts: “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim 4:4).

Fifthly, our sexuality also reflects the joy of the Trinity in creation.

Our Three-in-One God was complete and needed nothing but he chose to create life out of love for His Son (eg Col 1:16) to share that love, and that creation was a joy and delight.  We can see this in the angels shouting for joy (Job 38:7b) during creation.  This joy and delight was also experienced in the Trinity, for example Jesus personified by wisdom at the Father’s side in Proverbs:

Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.
(Prov 8:30-31)

Since we are made in his image – a husband and wife are complete but they too desire to have children to love.  And we mirror the joy and delight in the Trinity by creating life out of our sexual intimacy.

Finally, our sexuality reflects the ultimate ecstasy of our union with Christ

Jesus is “the Desire of all nations” (Hag 2:7 NKJV) and the pleasure of our marriage consummation is meant to be a shadow of our ultimate ecstatic union with Christ:

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
 “Hallelujah!
  For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
 Let us rejoice and be glad
  and give him glory!
 For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
  and his bride has made herself ready”
(Rev 19:6-7)

Then Christ and the church will become “one flesh” (See Eph 5:31-32)‡ and our souls will be satisfied as with the richest of foods (Ps 63:5).

We will not find ultimate satisfaction in our spouse (or any other part of creation) as it is only in Jesus that we will find the end to all our deepest longings.  Amen.

* Note that the number three is also the Hebrew number of completeness.  You can see this in the Hebrew language which doesn’t have a word for more or most.  So if something was more holy you would say “holy, holy” and if it was the most holy you would say “holy, holy, holy”.  Saying it three times indicates the entirety of something.  I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this ties in with the Trinity.

†  If you’re anything like me you might struggle with this point.  God having fun – surely He’s sombre and only interested in serious things?  But we see this joy and delight throughout the bible.  God ordains celebratory feasts in His law.  David speaks of joy and pleasures at God’s righthand (Ps 16:11),  God rejoices over us (Is 62:5 or Zeph 3:17b), Jesus was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard (Lk 7:34) and was full of joy (Lk 10:21) and wants to give us life to the full (Jn 10:10) and faced the cross for the joy set before him (Heb 12:2).  The fruit of the spirit is joy (Gal 5:22), the Kingdom of heaven is righteous, peace and joy (Rom 14:17) and when Jesus returns its a wedding feast (Rev 19:7).  And in creation we just see the duck-billed platypus and we know.  And we in His image are gifted with a sense of humour.  

‡ If anyone asks you “what is heaven like?” the theologically correct answer is “better than sex”.  I recommend the excellent book “Fill these hearts” by Christopher West.  This whole area will become the subject of our future “Godly Desire” blog.