SPIRITUAL GROWTH & INNER TRANSFORMATION

• Post 1 – Peace at the Center Found in God

• Post 2 – Praying in the Right Spirit

• Post 3 – Renewal is Necessary for the Soul

• Post 4 – Emotional Wellness and a Little Girl

• Post 5 – What Defines You? A Spiritual Contemplation

• Post 6 – Take the Character Test: Are You a Person of Character?

• Post 7 – Stop! Wrong Way! Oh Well.

• Post 8 – One Way to Combat Emotional Depletion

• Post 9 – Ways to Grow Spiritually  

• Post 10 – The Spiritual and Duplicity

• Post 11 – Facing Loss in a Healthy Way

• Post 12 – When Envy Rears Its Ugly Head

• Post 13 – Helpful Tools for Living a Well-Differentiated Life

• Post 14 – Becoming a Good Neighbor

• Post 15 – Embrace Father-God

• Post 16 – A List of 8 Items that Changed My Life

• Post 17 – SEXual Encounters and the Christian

 
You could have knocked me over with a feather.

I was visiting with a friend my age when she told me her story. Nothing in her life today shows that she has a past. Her story was different than I expected from a strong woman of faith.

As a young woman she was a seeker of spirituality. She looked into New Age ideas and other appealing belief systems. By happenstance through a friend’s encouragement, she visited a church where the gospel of Jesus Christ was shared. This sort of Christianity was new to her. She knew the bible stories from her church-going childhood, but that was formal, not personal.

For the first time she heard that Jesus loved her and that He could be her Savior. Not really understanding its pull nor why she wanted to move in that direction, she found herself going forward to pray the sinner’s prayer. Her decision that night was the beginning of a new life for her. She started growing in her faith. It was both remarkable and exciting. Newness entered in and the ways of how she was living began to change. But she had a past. The past involved illicit sexual activity. It wasn’t easy to deal with nor easy to forget.

Her past relationships caused her pain.

She wanted to live free of her past but she found herself bound to its memory.

She had cared for these men and had given part of herself to them. As a successful yuppie in her thirties, as a corporate leader who people answered to, this young woman wanted to make a clean break from her former ways to live as a Christian believer. She sought counsel from a Christian counselor. The talk soon touched on her past relationships.

The counselor labeled the connecting of one person with another in a sexual union as a “soul touch” because of its level of intimacy.  Next, the counselor wisely led this woman through a session of repentance and cleansing prayer. My friend acknowledged her past sexual relationships, one by one, and gave them to God.

Even though, technically, she had already been forgiven of these sins at salvation, the walking through their hold on her was a way to let them go and to find release from their influence. My friend’s eyes glistened with tears while telling me her story, lowering her voice in a muted whisper so her teenage daughters wouldn’t hear her words. I couldn’t have been more surprised. Today her life is a reflection of Christ in word and deed.

The act of sex is a soul touch.

The counselor called past sexual encounters “soul touches.”

It is the union of body and soul that touches one person with another person through the sex act. God calls it becoming “one flesh” as in sex within a marriage relationship. I want to be honest with you. This one isn’t completely applicable to me.

By choice, I have never lived the promiscuous life style. However, I do understand it. I do know why it is alluring and fun and why it is easy to excuse it or to say that it is old fashioned to not be sexually active. There is a desire in us to do the forbidden. But it’s not God’s way. We lie to ourselves if we say it is.

The past has a way of influencing the present.

Christian believers who have sexual immorality in their pasts should come to terms with it. One must at some point. Anguish of  heart is experienced in the repenting, when one comes fully clean before God. A change takes place within the heart, soul, and mind that leads to righteous, holy living. Someone who has lived immorally can not give freely in a Godly relationship until they sufficiently deal with their past. It is an inhibitor to healthy joining.

We are to be holy people of God.

Many have something in their past they wish were not there.

Christians are called to a spiritual life style. Past indiscretions can wage war with this. Sexual temptation is rife with hormones and desires and the wish to be loved and wanted. It is not so nice if our past has robbed us of our purity, whether we were a willing participant or someone took advantage of us.

Both takes the bloom off the rose and it wilts prematurely. The act of sexual intimacy causes a joining of one soul with another soul. It remains a permanent bond of one soul touching another soul regardless of the motivation, or pleasure, or lack of pleasure.

The past must be dealt with that we might move forward. God forgives. Man and woman forgive. We can forgive ourselves. God calls us to a different sort of life.  One of holiness and of reliance on Him. It is not an easy life. The flesh and the world wage war with us and with our sensibilities. God gives us strength in the battle if only we ask Him. However, we must cling to Him throughout the daily onslaught.

Where there is immoral sexual activity, there is a need for God’s cleansing.

Indiscriminate sex where there are few if any socially-encouraged sexual limitations has made casual sex as common place as doing it on a first date or as “friends with benefits.”

It is the accepted norm. It is promoted as the natural way to live. Heterosexual or homosexual or multiple partners, the sexual joining with person after person is causing a callousness and degrading of the full meaning of sexual intimacy. It was never meant to be a wham, bam, thank you, mam, sexual act devoid of meaningful commitment.

Emotions become damaged by the joining, separating, joining, separating, and joining and separating without a care or regard for the other person. This seems less about them and more about lustful passion that’s selfish in nature. If one cares, but the other person doesn’t care so much, then it is quite destructive and causes all sorts of damage when the relationship ends. If there is an unwanted pregnancy and subsequent abortion, there is additional guilt and shame.

Casual sex causes a dehumanizing, numbing effect that encourages the idea of sex as separate from emotional intimacy. Past exploits will remain with you. You bring them into the next relationship. It has to stop somewhere if you want to be a person after God’s own heart. Yes, you are bucking society when you live for God.

I truly appreciate the counselor who helped my friend free her mind from her past indiscretions to live life within a healthier, Godly framework.

We are wise to give our pasts to God and to ask for His healing grace.

I think women are particularly susceptible and vulnerable when it comes to wanting to please someone sexually.

Women want to be loved. Women want to be desired. Women like to be held. We like to hear compliments. We may even evaluate our self-worth from the response we get sexually. But women can also be manipulative and disregarding of the partner’s feelings.

It’s a trap.

I would like to explain further. I assume some people other than Christians read my material. A casual sexual encounter is a trap. There is an illusion within the center of the casual sex encounter that makes a fool of both participants. Casual sex without commitment promises a fulfillment that it can’t possibly deliver.  It leaves people feeling a void.

It’s religious.

There is a deeply religious side to sex that is only completely fulfilled within a deeply committed and God-honoring sexually intimate relationship. It removes the fear and it centers the couple, provided they both are emotionally committed to each other.

It’s powerful.

With soul touches, we are sharing the body in a way that causes our body and soul to touch emotionally, spiritually, tenderly, and intimately. This is why sex is so powerful. What we experience in oneness with another person will always be a part of us.

Sexual intimacy becomes a beautiful expression of love when we do it God’s way.

Not everyone wants to do it God’s way.

That is unfortunate, but it need not be our choice. If we want to be healthy and whole in all areas of our lives, we will deal with our past sexual encounters and see them through the eyes of God.

God heals, forgives, and restores. His ways are best.

BIBLICAL SUPPORTIVE TEXTS

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 1 Cor. 6:18

I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged. 2 Cor. 12:21

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:24

And the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Mark 10:8,9

 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall be one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 1 Cor. 6:15-18

My story is a little different. The changes in me came as a result of a vow and a list.

Teacher pic from that year.

Both the vow and the list were promises I made to God from out of a wounded heart and after years of struggle. I decided that I would use anything God wanted to do in me or reveal to me for His glory, and to help others who suffer in silence.

I made the vow in February,a week after my mate chose to leave our marriage of twenty-one years.  This vow was the first step that essentially opened the door for my transformation to begin.         

My first journal entry:

Actual Journal Entry

Gracious Father, Work on my heart and mind. Help me to learn to listen. Help me to push past my fear and to have eyes to see. I want to see Jesus. May my reality adjust and readjust as my vision for you changes. May I see you alone. May the work you are doing in me be used outwardly to minister to others. I seek you and you alone.” 

Two months later in April, 2002: The next big step occurred when I made a commitment to change, which impacted and revolutionized my life. It was what happened after I wrote the list, which would forever change my life. The key, why it worked and impacted my life was in its intention. I made a purposed choice and surrendered my stuff, all of it with no exceptions, to God. It was radical

The list was written by me on the day I was served divorce papers. It was my forty-sixth birthday.  I submitted the list to God in a prayer, asking Him to do something I could not do on my own. I was on empty. I had done everything the best way I knew how–and it had never been enough.

The list was a declaration of what I wanted God to do in my life and with a plea for Him to change me.  For all my trying I hadn’t been able to save my marriage, now I wanted God to save me from defeat and despair and from becoming a bitter old woman.

1. God first in everything. I want His power and strength in all I do. I want to change.
2. Healing in my emotions and deep inner spirit. I want to be free. I want joy.
3. Be myself. Let go of the chains and conflicts that bind me.
4. Become more self-decisive, less worried about what others think.
5. Develop more honest “transparent-real” friendships with godly people.
6. Seek deliverance from the bondage I’ve been under.
7. Pray for repentance which brings godliness, for wellness in all areas of my being.
8. Pray for God to change me. I will pray for awareness and humbling.

I sought God for all I was worth. He initiated change in me.  Surprisingly (or not so surprising), every one of the items on the list became true in my life. I received a full, spiritual beauty make-over!         

God can take a broken person and breathe life into them. His life becomes their life. His Spirit renews and heals their spirit. These days I can not imagine living without God. He has become my breath and being, my sustenance and joy. It is hard to explain how even the simplest of common things, like a dainty wildflower, can reduce me to tears of wonderment and joy. 

When we give God access to our lives, what God gives to us is His love. We, in return, receive a beautiful heart. After the healing transformation has begun, our hearts becomes free to love in a new way. Because of its swelling abundance it must share its love. It becomes an outworking of the love God has given us which replicates through us in an a sundry of ways.

God makes something beautiful out of something ordinary. He is that way. We must trust Him for the journey. I must say, though, it rarely is easy, and we are desperate at times. Yet, He walks with us right in step … even when we can’t see him through the fog of circumstances.

It is a privilege to help a Christian sister or brother who is going through the fire, to encourage them, to tell them that they will make it and life will get better because you know it is true, you have lived it. The more real God becomes the better it gets, even through the difficulties and heartaches. He touches us where we need touching, in our deep inner places. He frees us through his love, forgiveness, and life.

Because of love, true love, God gives us the most gorgeous valentine of them all and its words say, “I LOVE YOU!” He does love you, and He is crazy about you. Believe it and embrace it.
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I’d love to hear from you. Have you had a defining moment when God did an amazing work in you?