The Christian Church – Understanding the Trap of Emotional and Sexual Entanglement – Maintaining Godly Relationships – Discover 10 Practical Ways to Avoid Falling into Sexual Immorality – 15 of 15
The Christian Church – Understanding the Trap of Emotional and Sexual Entanglement – Maintaining Godly Relationships – Discover 10 Practical Ways to Avoid Falling into Sexual Immorality – 15 of 15
#Discipleship #Christianity #Immorality #Trap #Entrapment #Sex #Adultery #Fornication #Relationship #Emotions #Entanglement #Purity #SexualPurity #SexualObsession #Obsession #Addiction #vulnerability #immorality #affair #Marketplace #rejection #loneliness #dating #Couples #Marriage #divorce #separation #Emotions #Pain #intimacy #Dating #ChristianDating #GodlyDating
Subject – The Christian Church – Understanding the Trap of Emotional and Sexual Entanglement- Maintaining Godly Relationships – Discover 10 Practical Ways to Avoid Falling into Sexual Immorality- 15 of 15
Watch this two videos on additional practical ways to avoid falling into sexual immorality
- How To Stop Falling Into Sexual Sin! from Proverbs 7 in 11.11 minutes by Allen Parr
Are you struggling with sexual sin? Sexual sin has a way of destroying us unlike no other sin. If you are struggling, watch this ENTIRE video from start to finish as I provide 5 ways you can overcome sexual sin in your life.
- 3 Outside the Box Ways to Stop Sexual Sin in 9.18 minutes by Mike Ballenger
Are you still struggling with sexual sin no matter what you try? Perhaps these three odd but helpful tips can assist you as you seek to honor Christ and overcome sexual temptation.
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Sunday, 1st of December 2019
Blog link: https://www.otakada.org/practical-ways-avoid-falling-into-immorality
Nuggets of Wisdom –
“A woman came to speak to me to tell me that she had a strong attraction for me that she knew she should not have My first response was, ‘What have 1 done to make her feel like that?’ My second response was an ego’ response, which made me more interested in why she felt as she did. This could have set up the wrong set of dynamics for an ongoing relationship. Her expressing of her feelings to me created a difficulty for me to work through. In looking back, it created more of a problem for both of us than if she had not ever expressed it.”
― Christian counselor after conversation with woman in same congregation
“My pastor told me that a woman in the congregation had come to him and admitted to having fantasies about him. He, in turn, told his wife. The result was that his wife developed neurotic behavior that damaged and undermined their ministry in the church. It would have been better had he not communicated that statement to his wife”
― Christian businessman close to his pastor
Key verses for Today:
1 Corinthians 6:18 New King James Version (NKJV)
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
Ephesians 4:29-32 New King James Version (NKJV)
29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
Matthew 5:27-32 Message
Adultery and Divorce
27-28 “You know the next commandment pretty well, too: ‘Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.’ But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.
29-30 “Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.
31-32 “Remember the Scripture that says, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights’? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’ Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you’re responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you’re automatically an adulterer yourself. You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure.
Matthew 7:21-23 The Message (MSG)
21-23 “Knowing the correct password—saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance—isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’
Matthew 15:18-20 The Message (MSG)
16-20 Jesus replied, “You, too? Are you being willfully stupid? Don’t you know that anything that is swallowed works its way through the intestines and is finally defecated? But what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It’s from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing. That’s what pollutes. Eating or not eating certain foods, washing or not washing your hands—that’s neither here nor there.”
1 Corinthians 10:12-13 The Message (MSG)
11-12 These are all warning markers—danger! —in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.
13 No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.
Exodus 20:14 –17
14 No adultery.
15 No stealing.
16 No lies about your neighbor.
17 No lusting after your neighbor’s house—or wife or servant or maid or ox or donkey. Don’t set your heart on anything that is your neighbor’s.
Introduction
Dear friends, happy new last month of the year 2019. Isn’t God awesome? We also welcome to the end of our fifteen-part series on Let’s talk about Sex. We close this series by providing practical steps that will us avoid falling into immorality. We will have the full series in publication within 7 days in Paperback, e-book and audio.
After a season of prayer and fasting in the secret place, I am prompted to begin a series focusing on equipping the saints with actionable steps to engaging the marketplace with the good news of the kingdom – We are all missionaries in the board room to the Gate house of our workplace. We will give you the tools to communicate the gospel to the marketplace naturally and with ease. We have more than enough willing laborers out there that are under-equipped and ill-prepared to translate from sleeper cells to active cells for Christ in the marketplace where we spend most of our active life. Jesus spent more time out in the marketplace mingling and witnessing to the lost than in the synagogue and we must of necessity follow in His footstep. So, Stay tuned!
In this series, we explore the following 10 practical ways to avoid falling into immorality:
- Provocative questions
- Don’t listen to complaints about the spouse
- Don’t fish for compliments.
- If you sense “electricity”
- The prolonged stare
- The lingering touch
- Letting the other person know
- Understand the way your spouse is perceived
- The gray areas of behavior
- What to do
Enjoy, apply and share —–
Discover 10 Practical Ways to Avoid Falling into Immorality
- Avoid Provocative Questions.
Any question that triggers immoral thought processes in the opposite sex is provocative. Avoid it at all cost!
- Don’t listen to complaints about spouse
Another situation that can lead to unhealthy involvement is to listen to a man complain about his wife. The one who listens to this kind of complaint can be a single or a married woman. The office often seems to be the most conducive spot for this kind of conversation. Men and Women in the working world need to have their antennae up all the time. After all, they spend about twice as much time with a man as his wife does—and relate to him on a subject very dear to him: his work.
It is tempting to be a good listener and to encourage a man or woman you respect. What happens, however, when we hear the woes of a dissatisfied husband or wife? We may not say it, but we automatically think, “1 could make this man or woman happy.” Pretty soon we start thinking about actually making him or her happy, and, depending on the situation, one thing can lead to another. If you know a man or woman who is already expressing a need for “another” woman or man, be careful you don’t start to meet that need. Refer him or her to someone who is either a committed Christian experienced to help in these matters.
- Don’t fish for compliments
Maybe you are married to a man or woman who does not pay you very many compliments. So, you go fishing. You try to solicit compliments from other men or women. This can lead to getting not only the compliments, but something else that you didn’t bargain for.
Perhaps you are single and have a poor self-image. It is dangerous to tease men or women just enough to see if you are desirable to them.
Why did Esau sell his birthright? Genesis 25:29 32 gives us the answer:
Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!”
Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”
“Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the
birthright to me?”
He sold the privilege of his birthright because he was famished! The world is filled with love-famished people. What we must recognize is that selling our birthright for mere stew is not the answer. Proverbs 27:7 says, “He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.” It is a lie to believe that our needs for intimate love that are met temporarily by someone else’s husband or wife can satisfy our deep inner longings and will somehow go unpunished.
- If you sense “electricity”
If you sense an unusual uncontrolled connection with a married man or woman, avoid meeting together without a third party. The scriptures say in 1 Corinthians 6:18 New King James Version (NKJV)18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
- The prolonged stare
In normal conversation, you meet the eyes of the other person for a certain amount of time, then one or the other glances away. This is the way of conversation. But when a special feeling is developing for the other person, this is signaled by the prolonged stare. This could be a signal telling the other person that he or she is special, and a promise of more to come.
If you have a special feeling for another person—and it does happen even with godly, married men and women—subdue it. Don’t signal it to that other person. If you keep it to yourself and ask the Lord to help you deal with it, then you are the only one involved. But as soon as you signal to the other person, then he or she is involved. This ignites a fire in many people.
- The lingering touch
The physical touch, even more than the stare, is a definite giveaway. It is when you shake hands with another person and hold hands for just a second too long. Everyone knows the social custom of how long to touch in this way. When that touch lingers, it is a definite signal.
If a man or woman comes by your desk and puts his hand on your arm or shoulder just a little bit too long, he or she is telling you something. You are telling him or her something if you do it to him or her. Don’t let the touch linger.
- Letting the other person know
It is bad enough to signal your feelings to a married person with an extended look or touch, but to tell that person outright is putting petrol or gasoline on a fire.
The normal tendency when feelings begin to grow strong for another person is to tell him. In the Christian world, we spiritualize this mistake by asking the person to pray for us. After all, we are taught to be open and vulnerable with other believers.
But imagine what happens in a man’s or woman’s mind when a Christian woman or man says to him or her, “1 want you to pray for me in one particular area. I am struggling with my feelings toward you.” That could light a fire in men or the women. When you tell your feelings to someone who is unavailable to you, you are taking a step in the process toward total involvement. Discussion follows about how the feelings began, there is a fishing for compliments, there is response to the compliments, praying together, determining to be godly about it all, mentally repeating what has been shared, the desire to discuss it again, more discussion, a little touch, more prayer, determination to keep things right, mentally replaying the little touch, talking about it again, another touch—and deeper and deeper into the trap of emotional dependency that leads to immorality.
- Understand the way your spouse is perceived
Most of us, men and women, are two “images”; the one at home and the one out in public. And a degree of that is okay. The problem is that when one party in the marriage is totally unaware of the image of the other, there is room for vulnerability. A man or woman who feels unappreciated at home may well respond to feeling appreciated out of the home. It is really a matter of taking for granted what we are accustomed to. The longer we live with someone, the more we may miss the uniqueness of that person. If you want to stay in a faithful relationship with him or her, be sure that needs for acceptance are being met by you, not just others.
- The gray areas of behavior
There are some areas that may not be technically wrong, but are borderline. These gray areas often make it especially difficult to be really honest.
The key in evaluating our behavior here is to look at the motives. Ungodly actions can be somewhat easily detected because they can be seen, but we can more easily fool others and ourselves with ungodly motives. After all, no one really knows our thoughts except ourselves and God.
What guidelines can you follow to know if your behavior is consistent with a godly walk?
a. Analyze your relationships. First, take a look at all of your relationships. Is there anyone of the opposite sex who is unavailable (because of marriage or some other reason), yet who arouses feelings of flirtation, romance, and excitement within you? Since you are asking this privately of yourself, you can be absolutely honest. With out honesty, there is no way out of inappropriate behavior.
b. Change your behavioral patterns. When you admit to yourself that you are attracted to someone who is unavailable, you must change your behavior immediately. The degree of dependency you have on the other person will, to a large degree, determine the degree of change needed. You may need to simply stop seeing each other altogether, or perhaps go so far as to leave your job. If you are already emotionally involved, remember that this kind of involvement is an actual step in the process that leads to immorality.
If the other person knows about your feelings for him, tell him that you realize the relationship is wrong and that you are going to change your part of it. Inform him that you will no longer have personal or intimate conversations, that you will relate to him only in a business way (if you work with him) or only in a detached way socially (if you know him only socially).
- What to Do
Read the Word, pray, fellowship. The last thing we feel like doing when we are depressed or in the middle of a negative thought pattern is to read the Bible. After all, we know what it says. Reading wouldn’t probably make us feel any better at all. So why try? We try because the Christian life is one of obedience, not feelings. What we do out of obedience, God rewards in love. The rewards are not always felt instantly, but they will come.
Our choice is this: to do what He says even though we feel terrible, or to not do what He says and feel awful anyway. Doing what He says, over time, gives strength to fight the battle better. We may still be in the same war, but we will be advancing against the enemy. Defeat comes only when we give up. The first step in correcting our behavior in “gray areas” is to identify unmet needs in your own life. After doing this, you need to discover how you are trying to meet those needs. Are you trying to meet them in a godly manner, or are you trying according to the world’s way?
Questions for reflection, application, and distribution:
- Have you learned something new today in this study? What is it?
- What would you apply and when?
- Who would you share this information with as a mark of fellowship and equipping of the Saints of Jesus Christ to aid in their pilgrimage work here on earth? When?
Prayer:
Thank you, Lord God, for today’s message/study, help us to nail down what we have learned and the wisdom to apply as you provide the needed grace for the willing heart. Help us to think outside ourselves, to think well of others and to share what we have learned to those who need it so dearly, in Jesus name, amen
Shalom!
Monday Ogwuojo Ogbe
E – Discipleship @ Otakada.org
Originally posted on November 30, 2019 @ 4:48 pm
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