Wifey Material

Today I saw this quote on Instagram.

"The Bible says that, 'he that finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.' It does not say he who finds a girlfriend who he begins to date, who he then gives a ring, who he then proposes to and then gets married to. You're not a wife when I marry you - you're a wife when I find you. You become MY wife when I marry you. Wife is not a ring, it's the presence of a devoted heart. Wife is not a title, it's a statement of your character. If you want a husband, carry yourself like a wife, otherwise you'll have the spirit of girlfriend and little boys will play with you." -John Gray

Not a week ago I was having breakfast with who I call my mentor and she was telling me something very similar. She said that you become a wife before you ever get married. Being married doesn't make you a wife and you can become a great wife before you ever say I do.

But how do I become a wife without a husband? You ask. Easy. MARRY JESUS CHRIST! Too many women call themselves Christians but don't understand the values of being a Godly wife. But you want a Godly man? Who loves the Lord? Who treats you well? Who loves you like Christ loves the church? But you don't even carry yourself in holiness and honor? 

You think you can submit to, respect and love unconditionally a fickle man on this earth when you aren't even fully devoted to God? Sorry, sister, that's not gonna work.

You need PRACTICE. Before you go on and ruin a marriage. You need to become as much like Christ as you possibly can, because all marriage is going to do is EXPOSE YOU in the areas you think you can hide. You think you can hide from your friends and family and church members. You think you can put on a half hearted facade that you are whole in Christ so that you can get you a man. I got news for you, honey, what's done in the dark WILL come to the light. You will not magically become this pure, pristine, faithful, submissive woman with a servant heart and hands that can cook on your wedding day. It's pretty impossible. NOW is the time to COMMIT TO CHRIST and begin to sow into your life and your future. Especially if you're called to be a wife and a mother.

The Bible simply states that God will not be mocked, you WILL reap whatever you may sow (Gal 6). If you sow the fruit of the spirit now, you will reap it in your marriage and in your children. If you sow the works of the flesh...well...there you go.

And let's not forget what they are...

¹⁹ The acts of the flesh are OBIVIOUS: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21 NIV emphasis added)

I don't know about you, but I don't have time for this trash in my marriage or my household period. You must divorce yourself from the world's ideologies. Many of these things are NORMAL in your circles and maybe even in your life. I'm telling you now, get set free from it all. You have your eyes set on marriage or on some amazing man of God who you've already dubbed your 'future husband' and you are already sowing seeds of discord and jealousy and impurity that will surely work its way into that marriage you so desire. 

And then you'll have the NERVE to turn around and say some mess like "I don't know how this is happening?! I thought I married a MAN OF GOD!" 

NEWSFLASH: Who you married is not the issue; because everywhere you go THERE YOU ARE.

If you can't love the perfect man, Father of heaven and earth who made the stars and died and rose again for you, you will never muster up the power to love a man who will fail you constantly. If you learn to draw your love from Jesus, it can truly be unconditional.

Being a woman of God is truly seeking God with all you've got for no other reason that to get as much Jesus as possible! Yes there are things in life that draw us closer to God, but be careful to not desire anything or anyone more than you desire His glory. 

LEARN while you can to submit to the perfect man so that when it comes time to submit to an amazing man that God places in your life it will be pure joy to serve Him because you've already found joy in serving your husband, Jesus.

I'm not married or even in a relationship, nor have I ever been. But I am fully devoted and the bride of Christ who gives all wisdom. You don't have to gain wisdom about marriage by going into one unprepared and learning from costly mistakes. Yes, you'll make mistakes, but make it easier on yourself. Read the Bible. It has EVERYTHING!!! Seriously.

Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what in you needs to be weeded out so that you can become the wife and mother God wants you to be. That's whether you are single or married. Let Jesus search your heart and devote yourself to being a great wife to Jesus and when it is time He will bless you with one of His sons to love, serve and respect.

The Great Divorce, Pt 2

This is a song by Jimmy Needham that changed my perspective on idolatry. Take some time out of your day, get in a space where you can really listen to the Holy Spirit and listen to this song. Allow the Holy Spirit to search your heart. Crush the idols. They will suck you dry and leave you with nothing.

Be set free.

Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23, 24

The Great Divorce

So, I've been going through this divorce, right.
But I didn't realize it until today
That this whole season God set out
To divorce my idols from me

My whole life when I would go through something I would escape into my own little world. I would run to my idols. Whether that be a fantasy world, a best friend, a man, sometimes even the house of God itself. I've made a life out of running to everything and everyone except the Lord. We've all done it. We all have our idols. 

It all started in the Garden of Eden. See, you thought I'd say with the Israelites, but nope. We began to worship something other than God long before the golden calf. Idol worship is about more than statues and Buddha. An idol is ANYTHING you love more than God, go to more than God, prefer over God. An idol is anything or anyone you worship that is not Jesus Christ. But to understand that we must first understand what worship is.

Worship is not just about singing songs and lifting your hands and bowing to something. When you worship something you arrange your life around it, it becomes your priority above all else. Worship is an intense adoration of something or someone. 

How do you identify if something is an idol? Usually the first sign that you've made something or someone an idol is denial. Lol. Whatever you idolize above Jesus, it's not going to be easy to admit it. ESPECIALLY if you're a Christian. I know it was hard for me to recognize that I was running to anything but Jesus. That I loved myself more than I loved Him. That I even loved and trusted His people more than I loved and trusted Him. 

This is what Jimmy says: Anything I want with all my heart is an idol. Anything I put before my God is an idol. Anything I can't stop thinking of is an idol. ANYTHING I give all my love is an idol.

What do you schedule your days around? What makes you a tad bit angry when the preacher speaks against it? What do you spend your time thinking about? When you zone out thinking what is circling in your brain? Are you thinking about the Maker of Heaven and earth? Or your boyfriend?

This is not to say that thinking about other things than God is a sin. This is to get you to look at what you may idolize.

I have had a ROUGH time since September of last year. And it just dawned on me this morning that I've had a rough time because I'm going through a divorce! God has had to take me through this mire to divorce me from all of my own devices. He says no more. No more will I lean on my own understanding, because I don't understand anything! I DON'T KNOW NOTHING! But He knows it all. And He longs to share His heart with me. I have learned that nothing I conjure up is going to work. Nothing I try to do or say or maneuver is going to get me the money I need, the car I need, the man I need. Nothing. 

We MUST learn to not lean on our own understanding! Then and only then will our paths be made straight. That's in the Bible.

I beg of you, for your own sake, GET DIVORCED! Leave those idols in the dust where they came from and give ALL of your worship to the one true God who NEVER fails.

⁵ “With whom will you compare me or count me equal?
    To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?
⁶ Some pour out gold from their bags
    and weigh out silver on the scales;
they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god,
    and they bow down and worship it.
⁷ They lift it to their shoulders and carry it;
    they set it up in its place, and there it stands.
    From that spot IT CANNOT MOVE.
Even though someone cries out to it, IT CANNOT ANSWER;
    IT CANNOT SAVE THEM FROM THEIR TROUBLES Isaiah 46:5-7

Recovering Sex Addict

I was exposed to sex at a very early age and began to have an active fantasy life around the third grade. I reasoned from an early age that if boys didn't like me, then I would just pretend that they did. And if boys didn't want me  then I could slip into a fantasy world where they desired me. So that's what I did faithfully for twelve years and what I still fight against this very day.

I had a secret life. As soon as I was out of sight, or sometimes just out of hearing range, I would drift into my fantasy world. They ranged from imagining I had someone to cuddle with to erotic fantasies and masturbation, thought those shackles didn't come until I was around 15. First introduced to the idea by an older neighbor girl, I was chained to a world that I could control. When I hated myself, I could be someone else. When I wanted someone, they could become mine all in a world of make believe. Like an x-rated game of imaginary friends. I was addicted. I was dependent upon it. It was my life.

When I started to walk with God seriously and consistently, I just got saved in m fantasy world too. Instead of random people, I would fantasize about my future husband. It wasn't until then that I saw how erotic fantasies began to tear me away from God. I tried to stop. And often times I was too busy to fantasize once I began doing ministry, but I just couldn't shake free. It was a demonic stronghold. What finally set me free in 2010 was my confession to my two best friends. It was hard. It sucked. But I knew I was free for the first time in over a decade, which was well over half my life at the age of twenty.

Once I went back to school, I was too busy to even know if my life had really changed. I was free and managed to keep myself out of compromising situations. Time went on and I struggled mostly when I would visit home. I fell a lot. I knew I was free, but my mind had not changed. I had the power to say no, but didn't have the mind to. I didn't trust God with my life. I still wanted control. And the only place I could have control was there. So that's where I went. It became my escape. I would run there when things were bad. What I had been set free from I let back in.

As time went on I would dabble in it, but I did what I could to stay pure for the most part. I didn't have a lot of alone time anymore, so that helped. I went to another school for a semester, then back to the university I was originally at. This was the roughest season I'd had concerning my issues with sexual purity. Lust was running rapid on this campus and I was overtaken as an unsuspecting victim. I was swallowed whole by my fleshly desires like I had not been since before Christ. I was a hypocrite. While in real life I was discipling women and leading an intercessory prayer meeting every week, I was being defeated every single night in my bedroom. It was an awful and draining double life. 

I would have victorious weeks. And during one of my times of victory I attended an anonymous group for women who struggled with sexual sin. Being that it was during my high time, I was kind of a damper on the party. I was the one who kept saying, "But Jesus can free you!" Which is what these women knew and what I knew. The meeting was interesting, we studied scriptures, talked about our struggles, and confessed our wrongs. But the other women were in the midst of their sin whereas I was walking in freedom at the time. 

I took home the study guide as a gift and once I was home I began to peddle through it. I felt this identity creep up on me as I searched for the root of my issue so that it wouldn't come back. Instead of focusing on God, I began to focus on my sin. Upon taking a couple of questionnaires I discovered I was a sex addict. And this is how I began to identify myself. This became who I was. I was no longer a child of Christ, but an addict who would never be healed, only recovering. 

When I began to identify myself by my sin, I saw no light at the end of the tunnel and fighting was useless. For a couple of weeks I couldn't see past the darkness of who I thought I really was. Until God broke through and said this is not who you are. You are free, new, clean and pure. Not until I allowed God to reveal to me my true identity could I truly learn to say no to sexual sin.

All of that to say, WE MUST NO LONGER REGARD PEOPLE AS IN THE FLESH! We must begin to see people as Christ sees them. When Jesus healed the sick and lame he had vision of who they really were and could therefore restore them to that. If we continue to play along with the enemy who has made the sin of this generation the core of who they are we will never see freedom. Freedom is about what Christ set us free to, not what He set us free from. If we focus on what we need to be free from we will only sink deeper. 

ONCE WE KNOW WHO WE ARE IN CHRIST A LIFESTYLE OF SIN WILL BE UNACCEPTABLE TO US.

I have never seen anyone, including myself, get set free by focusing on not sinning. But I have seen many become free and begin to walk in freedom and victory by regarding themselves the way Christ does. When I am tempted I remember that is not who I am and I trust God with my life. No, I am not a 'recovering' sex addict. I am a child of the living God who is PURE. Yes, sex addiction is something I have to say no to everyday, but that does NOT define me NOR identify me. I am PURE. And when I stand on the truth of God's word it tells me I am free because the Son has set me free.

So whatever you are struggling with, I plead with you to focus on the cross. Know who you are in Christ and saying no will become easier and easier.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:16, 17

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. Romans 6:11-13

Set Free: Rejection

I've been rejected a lot in life. As I've said in previous posts, I was hurt a lot in the area of rejection growing up. I was always throwing myself at some boy and getting rejected. Or chasing some friendship and getting turned away and left out. From the 6th grade to the 11th grade, I never had any real consistent friends. All my friends from elementary who weren't rejected by the boys in school were wrapped up in relationships, started having sex and the like. While I was alone. Starving for attention and identity after my dad left. I so wanted just a friend. Who loved me more than themselves. Sure, I had people, but I was always alone on the band bus while everyone else was coupled up. I remember sitting alone at the back and seeing someone make out who I didn't even know was a couple and not having anyone to tell the news to. It was heartbreaking.

Every boy that I had liked since the age of three didn't like me back. Maybe one, when I was in the first grade, but that was it. And I couldn't understand why.. I was 15 and I just couldn't understand what was so wrong with me that no one even wanted to give me a chance. It wasn't that I dated and got dumped over and over. I mean they wouldn't even give me a chance to love them. So much worse than experiencing my love then rejecting it. It was like I wasn't even worth the experience. I wasn't worth being given a chance.

To this day, I still don't understand it. How can you reject someone you don't even know?

Then I remembered, Jesus was rejected. By people who didn't even know Him. And He still is.

When I came to Christ I left most of my past where it was, in the past. That was the old me. I'm made new and nothing in my past matters.

I had even come to believe that all the rejection I experienced was God's will to protect me from potientially detrimental relationships that would destroy my purity that God wanted to preserve.

So naturally, I never was healed from the rejection and never thought I needed to be. I thought it was just wiped away. Until I began to notice it was blurring my vision. I was so terrified that my future husband wouldn't really want me. That he would just have to be with me because God said so. Then I was convinced he would never come for me. I was so crippled by rejection that I stayed in a way to close friendship with a guy friend hoping that God would open his eyes to me as a wife knowing he wasn't God's best for me. I KNEW IT. But I was convinced he was the best I could get. And I couldn't even confront him about the nature of our friendship because fear of rejection crippled me. Every step I took was out of fear and not faith. I lurked, waiting for the inevitable rejection. But the Holy Spirit would not allow it to be my verdict. Not until I was set free was I able to cut off that relationship.

Some of you are in the same situation I was in. Until you are set free you will continue to stay in relationships and friendships that you shouldn't be in out of fear and not out of faith.

AND WITHOUT FAITH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE GOD.

AND ANYTHING THAT IS NOT FROM FAITH IS SIN.

I didn't have faith that this guy was my future husband. None. I had FEAR that if it wasn't him, it couldn't be anyone else. I DIDN'T EVEN LIKE HIM. I couldn't name five things that I liked about him in that way. He was NOTHING I wanted in a husband. An amazing friend and brother he was and still is to me, but other than that. Nothing. But I was willing to settle out of fear.

One night our youth pastor preached at our college meeting that I regularly attend and serve in. He preached on relationships. The best sermon on relationships I've heard in a long while. Rocked us all. And he talked about rejection and purity briefly, but not too long. I knew I needed to draw lines with this guy and God told me I could talk to him as long as it was out of faith and not out of fear. After the sermon I knew I needed prayer over the rejection I was fearing.

He explained to me that those wounds were on my spirit and God wanted to heal them. And we prayed and I was set free instantly. The demons that harassed me constantly, consistently, fled at the name of Jesus. They no longer whispered lies about myself worth in my ear. I was free. And three days later God freed me from that friendship and I barely cried a tear! The heartbreak that I so anxiously awaited and tried to avoid, didn't really hurt that bad.

I knew what I was worth the whole time. I was just convinced that no one else did and they needed to see that. Once I was set free I could actually see with the eyes of Christ how many people, brothers and sisters, knew what I was worth the whole time! I was just blind to it.

God is so faithful and so perfect. And He desires for us all to live in freedom just like Eden. So I pray that God shows you what you're worth to Him. And I pray that you will move in faith and declare freedom over rejection. Go to the one who was rejected more than all of us. He knows your pain. And He knows how to heal you.

Compromise

I am so sick of compromise in my life and in the lives of those in the Body of Christ. WE are letting the world's ideologies penetrate the church and our hearts. Your emotions are a CRUEL master. If you don't learn to allow Jesus to be Lord of your life instead of how you FEEL you will END UP in a place, in a marriage, in a career that isn't God's best.

It is disheartening to see men and women in the church fall victim to the same statistics as those in the world. We are not living to our full potential. Why? Because of how we feel. We are so consumed about how we feel about each other. Or how we feel about what the Bible says than what it actually says! And it SUCKS because we live in a culture that is CONSTANTLY and CONSISTENTLY telling us to live by how we feel instead of by what we KNOW to be TRUTH.

Make a stand with me. I am from now own choosing truth in my own life. I refuse to forfeit God's best for my life on earth for trash. I refuse. NO MORE COMPROMISE.

Live above reproach.

What My Reader Response Paper Turned Into: GRACE

The grace of God is like reader response criticism. It is so simple, yet it is so complex. Within reader response we tend to lean extremely right or extremely left. Either reader response is completely open ended, do what you want, it’s all about what the reader thinks, believes and understands; or reader response can take a completely new criticism pendulum swing that is very structured and one hundred percent text defined where the reader does not matter and everything needed to interpret a text is within that text.

The grace of God is similar in that we tend to swing the pendulum too far right or too far left. Either we are all about where sin abounds, grace abounds, therefore who cares what we do, think, or say?! God’s grace will cover us! Or we are misconstrued about grace somehow thinking that we earn it in some way, though the Bible does not support that.

Here’s where I am with grace: every time I think I get it, I don’t. God is CONSTANTLY renewing my mind on what I think grace to be. And He has to, but the world is constantly working to destroy what He has made new.

When I was struggling with sex addiction, or as Dr. Hill called it, sex seduction, I fell several times in about a two week period. Two things happened to me concerning grace. First, I could not, would not believe that God could forgive me. It was not that He would not, but that He could not. Shame was all over my face, I could not stand to look at God because I just knew He wanted to forgive me, but He could not, because I could not conquer the sin in my life. As a result of my shame, I did not seek God for forgiveness and thus cut off my source of life, therefore I had to keep sinning because sex was again my source of life. Except it did not give me life. It only produced death in me. I did not deserve grace. Even if God was ready and willing to give it to me, I did not know how to receive it.

Finally, I prayed for forgiveness. Overcoming my shame, I asked God to forgive me in an odd way. I lay in bed, flowing tears, peeling layers of chipped paint off of my wall as He was pulling layers of brokenness off of my heart. I saw what was happening. The enemy was trying to destroy me, and I was playing along. I asked God to forgive me, and I believe that He did; but it was not long before my longing for intimacy hit once again and I was back in the same situation as before. As this cycle continued, God’s grace became like a credit card to me and I was just about maxed out in my head. I kept buying things that I did not need and going to Him to pay it off. Grace became overrated very quickly and I did not understand how to break the cycle.

God has healed me of my sexual issues. But grace keeps coming up. What is it? How do I understand it once and for all? Will I ever totally grasp it? Is it okay if I don’t?

All my life I have been taught to clean up my own messes. You make a mess, clean it up. It has been drilled into me because I am famed at home for not cleaning up my messes. I would cook and leave the dishes dirty. I would do some craft in the living room and leave things out everywhere. In July of 2003 I was thirteen and had my first asthma attack. I threw up all over the kitchen floor and before my mom would take me to the hospital she made me clean it up. So, it makes no sense to me as to why I could do something wrong, stupid, out of line and completely punishable but God cleans up my mess for me. Why is that okay? How am I supposed to accept that?

The grace of God empowers us to say NO to ungodliness. Once I understood this concept, I began to understand grace. Grace is not just about forgiveness. Grace gives us the power to never sin again. You are free. So stop thinking and living like a slave.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope-the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Titus 2:11-13

Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Romans 6:13-14

{ACTUALLY, just read ALL of Romans 6 =)}