Someone came to me the other day and asked me if I had anything in my past that would come back to haunt me in ministry. I wanted to say, “Have you heard my testimony?” I’m pretty honest about my “slutty mcslut slut” days. But I didn’t. I simply answered the questions about whether I had ever had an affair or an emotional affair. I didn’t get defensive or angry at all. When people get defensive, it’s a huge red flag. I live with me. I know me. There is absolutely nothing to boast about in me except my horrible weaknesses.
Knowing my condition at salvation, it’s a miracle I could tell that person I have never had an affair; emotional or physical. When we get saved, the old us doesn’t just die a quiet death.
He or she is slowly killed, one painful day after another.
If sexual sin was a temptation before salvation, it will usually remain a temptation. If pornography was part of your life, salvation may make the desire go away at the beginning, but it will probably start to creep back in as time goes by. If we were a gossip, our tongue will probably still verbally murder other people (I practically had to ram my Bible down my throat to stop doing it).
I could go on but you get the point. Salvation doesn’t equal, “I’m fixed.” Salvation changes your destination. Sanctification changes our nature.
Salvation is awesome and exhilarating. Sanctification is blood, sweat and tears. It is humiliating. A person who is truly Christlike, has gone to war…against themselves.
Seven years after I got saved, I saw how kind God had been to me. I had my three children in a little under six years, and He graciously used them to keep me home while I was living in such a weak state. I wasn’t reading my Bible regularly and didn’t have a powerful prayer life. I was a sitting duck for the devil. With my past and my weaknesses, who knows what I would have done if I had been out of my home every day.
When I truly offered myself to God as a living sacrifice, He consumed me and set me on fire.
Even then, I wasn’t safe and neither are you. As I have studied my Bible, I have been amazed at the people who knew God intimately and still fell…hard. I was reading about Solomon one morning. My husband was in the den and I was in the living room and I said, “Solomon is worshipping idols.” My husband didn’t miss a beat. He called back, “What chance do the rest of us have?”
That’s funny but it’s the truth. Solomon was visited by God twice, he saw fire fall from heaven, and he was given wisdom straight from God beyond our wildest dreams. Yet, he worshipped idols. At best, we are weak. We fall victim to our flesh. When our flesh is tempted, it wants to be satisfied.
When I read about Ravi Zacharias on Christmas Eve, I was pretty shattered. He was one of the greatest Christian apologists of our day. The warmth and kindness that exuded from him as he traveled the world to help intellectuals understand the deep issues of life inspired me. After his death, I listened to his funeral service (it was three hours long). I cried as I listened to person after person sing his praises, especially his precious little grandson. He was a man above reproach, or so it seemed. One thing I’ve seen both in scripture and real life; few people finish well. I thought Ravi was the exception.
As I read account after account of his perversion, it felt like a gut punch. He led a double life. I can’t help but wonder where it all changed for him. When and how did he grow so sick? A person who worked for him said he learned something profound through Ravi’s fall. He said he was going to find someone to confess his sins to. He said it wasn’t comfortable but he was going to do it.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
James 5:16
Ain’t nobody loving that scripture. I don’t like to confess my sins and neither do you. That is one of the main reasons we are not healed. We like to keep our nastiness to ourselves. Notice the scripture says “to each other.” Nobody is in the position to only receive these confessions. We all need to confess to each other and then get on our faces and lift each other up.
The world would be a different place if we all actually did this. I know confessing my sins to trusted friends has been the difference in spiritual life and death to me. I hate it every time. Feeling vulnerable makes me want a needle, some thread, and a few large fig leaves.
Even though I hate it, I’m good at it. Confessing my faults and sins to a few trusted friends (mainly my sister) is the reason I have not had an affair. I wish I could say it’s because my marriage is so happy (it is now, but it wasn’t always). I wish I could say it’s because I love Jesus so much (I do now, but I didn’t always). Both my marriage and my relationship with God took many years to develop and grow into what they are today. In those very vulnerable years I learned a secret, God’s Word is true. If I act on it regardless of my feelings and fears, He will do what it says He will do.
He said if we confess our sins to another person or people, we will be healed. How will we be healed? They can pray for us. People can’t pray for our struggles if we don’t share them.
I remember a moment with a close friend of mine as we knelt on the floor in front of her couch to pray. We were fasting and praying once a week for our families. I was struggling with a temptation and had told no one. The power of temptation is this, we wouldn’t be tempted if we didn’t like it. It usually starts in our minds. We start to meditate on it and pretty soon, our actions will follow.
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
James 1:13-15
We should all take that scripture to heart. We have evil desires, period. If left unchecked and unconfessed, they will drag us away from Christ and death will enter our lives and the lives of our families. No one is above this.
Before my friend and I prayed, she read an Oswald Chambers devotion to me. She told me someone I had just spoken about needed to hear it. I’m sure I was probably gossiping and acted like it was a prayer request. As she read the devotional, conviction fell on me about my own life.
Did I speak up? Not a bit. My heart was pounding so hard, I was sure she could hear it. As we went to pray, I heard my former pastor’s voice in my head, “Big doors turn on little hinges.” What may have seemed like a small thing at the moment, had the power to completely change the trajectory of my life if I didn’t deal with it as the Bible told me to. I wanted to do anything but open my mouth. I was a spiritual giant to my friend.
As my friend opened us in prayer, she started thanking God for me, my life, my unbelievable walk with Christ, and how I loved my family. I felt God say in my heart, “I am giving you an escape route, you better take it. Stop her from saying that nonsense and tell her the truth!”
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
I stopped her immediately and completely poured out my heart and the truth. Keep in mind, I had done nothing. It was all in my mind but I couldn’t make it go away. I wanted to make it go away and yet hold onto it all at the same time. I was weak and powerless, so I confessed it. I not only confessed it to her, but another friend.
People sometimes want to make much of me because Christ’s power is in my life. I will refuse to be on a pedestal until the day I die. One of the main reasons I have Christ’s power is because I am a good confessor about how weak I am.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:9
I still hate it, but I will do it the minute I feel something going out of control in my life.
It’s one of the reasons I have not had an affair and a myriad of other things that could take me down (and much worse than that), bring shame to the wonderful Name of Jesus Christ. I have asked Him to kill me early if I am not going to finish well. I don’t want to waste His air and eat His food to stay alive if I am going to do it as a hypocrite.
