Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Fred and Brenda Stoeker
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR000003
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00:10 Welcome to Celebrating Life In Recovery
00:12 I'm Cheri your host. 00:13 Today we will look at the key to a successful recovery, 00:16 repentance, being sick and tired of being sick and tired. 00:19 Or in layman's terms, being sorry enough to quit. 00:22 Come join us this is going to be incredible. 00:52 Repentance is not a word that we hear much of anymore. 00:55 When I think about how to explain that concept of 00:58 repentance to most addicts, I try to tell them taking 01:01 responsibility for your stuff. 01:03 For once looking at your life from the perspective that maybe 01:08 it is your stuff, maybe you have sinned, maybe it is your fault. 01:12 For many of us, we think that is ridiculous. 01:15 That is ridiculous, you don't know me, this is not my 01:18 fault, and they want to explain to you why it isn't. 01:21 Before we go there are want to just say thank you for 01:23 coming to the café today. 01:25 We have Fred and Brenda Stoeker on the show today. 01:27 It's going to be amazing, but I want to tell you some things 01:32 that I learned about folks in recovery and repentance. 01:35 When I first heard that maybe this was my fault, 01:39 I thought wait a minute, I was not wanted from the day 01:44 I came out of my mother's womb. 01:46 My parents were messed up, not only were my parents 01:49 messed up, my mom was molested most of her life. 01:52 She was given up by her mom who was an alcoholic when she 01:55 was five, given to an aunt and that aunt's husband 01:58 molested her from 5 to 12. 02:00 She was trashed before she even started her family and 02:04 bringing kids into the world and all those things. 02:07 So when I think about fault and think of all that I want 02:10 to jump up and say hey wait, wait I didn't do it. 02:13 It wasn't my fault. 02:14 The more I work with people, the more I hear their 02:17 stories, I understand that. 02:19 I hear that so loud that I'm not saying fault in the same 02:23 way as the world says fault. 02:25 The Bible says, I really believe this, as Christ brought 02:28 me into place where it's says Cheri, when you walk every 02:32 day, the things that you choose today will help you to 02:36 either heal or stay in your stuff. 02:38 So repentance is understanding my stuff enough to where 02:43 I can step out of that. 02:45 I want to tell you a story about one of the guys I work 02:48 with, he came into the Ministry Center and God has given us an 02:52 international Ministry and I love it. 02:54 It's called True Step Ministries and I have this ranch 02:57 where we work with the kids of prisoners. 03:00 So we bringing kids that the parents are in prison and 03:03 try to teach them some normal stuff. 03:05 How to ride horses, do you know why we do that? 03:07 Is that we want them to learn how to take instructions. 03:11 How to trust something, how to respond to people. 03:14 So the horses are something that God blessed us with, 03:17 but there's all kinds of dynamics that happen with that. 03:19 So we have this ranch, and one day I'm standing at the 03:22 Ministry Center and I am doing some things. 03:24 This guy walks in and I thought he looked like a serial 03:27 killer, he just looked terrible. 03:31 I turned around I felt my pulse quicken. 03:35 I was homeless for 10 years, I am a street kid and not 03:40 much scares me, right! 03:42 I just want to tell you, I am not exaggerating, I don't get 03:46 scared too easy, but I turned around and this guy 03:48 had 15 facial piercings. 03:51 So Curly, just on his face, we're not going to his ears yet. 03:58 He had 15 facial piercings and they were sticking out 04:01 everywhere, he had them in his tongue, in his lip, 04:04 in his eyebrow and metal going straight through his face. 04:07 It was just crazy. 04:09 Then he had 8 or 9 earrings in each ear, huge earrings 04:12 those big gauged earrings. 04:13 He had a tattoo of a dragon starting from his head that 04:16 look like the fingernails of the Dragon were opening up 04:19 his skull and he had that all over his body. 04:23 And he came in and said someone said you could help me. 04:26 I'm like yeah. 04:29 But I don't want any of that Jesus stuff. 04:32 And I want to say that I'm being really nice because he 04:36 did not say it like that, you can use your imagination 04:39 on that, but he did not say it like that. 04:42 He was like right in my face, and I thought somebody 04:45 just as a joke at my house and because I'm a Jesus freak. 04:49 I love God more than I love anything else. 04:52 I know I have gotten life back, I have gotten hope. 04:57 Everything in me says if we could just get a sense of 05:01 who God really is, the world would be a better place. 05:04 There is a guy here saying that I want recovery but 05:07 I don't want God 05:08 I'm thinking how funny, who sent you here? 05:10 He tells me this story, and I have to tell you the story 05:12 because it cracks me up. 05:14 So he goes to Starbucks every single day, every single day 05:17 and there is this little girl that came in with her family 05:19 and she saw him sitting in Starbucks. 05:21 And she walked by and it was early in the morning. 05:25 They were going to get coffee and drop her off at preschool. 05:28 She walks in and her name is Rebecca, she is almost 5. 05:33 She walks in and she sees Jim, piercings, tattoos, 05:38 and she says mom, look at that guy. 05:42 And her mom was so embarrassed, oh hon, you don't do that. 05:47 You just don't point at people and say look at that guy. 05:51 You have to be polite especially when they look like serial 05:55 killers, don't do that. 05:57 So after they got out of Starbucks, her mom gave her the 06:01 lecture of what's polite and what's not polite. 06:05 But she's like mom, did you see him, he had things stuck 06:10 in his face, did you see the his head? 06:13 Yes, yes, yes and trying to explain to Rebecca why 06:18 people do that was really tough. 06:20 Her mom hadn't been exposed to a lot of that so she didn't 06:23 have a lot of good answers other than you don't point at 06:26 people, and you don't yell look at that guy across the room. 06:30 So the next time they came in her mom was actually 06:33 hoping that Jim wasn't there. 06:35 We call him tattooed Jim now, and Jim was there. 06:38 So Rebecca walks in and she knows she's going to get in 06:42 trouble if she looks at him. 06:43 So she wants to look to see if he is in the room. 06:46 But she also doesn't want to get in trouble, 06:49 so she walks in and she has gone her head down. 06:51 All of a sudden she's like, ahhh mom, he's there again. 06:56 And her mom said, oh stop, you cannot do that and her mom is 07:03 so embarrassed and they have to go through this whole 07:06 thing again outside of Starbucks I shouldn't say Starbucks. 07:10 Well you know coffee shop in America, so anyhow they get 07:13 through this whole thing again and she lectures her and 07:17 the next time they come in she so sure that she is not 07:20 going to look at this man. 07:22 She has got her head in her hands holding herself down. 07:25 And she's like I'm not going to look, I'm not going to 07:28 look, I'm not going to look, and all of a sudden she's 07:31 she doesn't yell she just waves to him. 07:37 And he waves back. 07:39 Her moms orders her coffee and her mom's girlfriend comes 07:42 in, and as her girlfriend comes in and they start talking. 07:46 Rebecca manipulates a little bit to get her hand free. 07:50 And she walks over to Jim and grabs his head 07:56 and said, did that hurt? 07:58 Let me count how many things you have on your face, 08:02 1, 2, 3, and she grabs his ear, 1, 2, 3, 4. 08:07 And she's doing all this counting, she's looking at his 08:10 tattoos, in she's looking on the back of his head and he has 08:13 this evil looking eye. 08:15 And she's like, can you see out of that? 08:17 She was wanting to know everything, did that hurt? 08:21 He said the one on the back of my head, that hurt bad. 08:24 She's talking on all of a sudden she realizes that my 08:28 mom is probably looking for me, and at the same time her 08:31 mom realizes she doesn't have a hand to Rebecca anymore. 08:35 She is panicked and she looks up at tattoo Jim and 08:41 Rebecca, her little beautiful child has got his head in 08:46 her hands and she panic's. 08:48 She says what do I do, do I run across the room and 08:51 grab my child and throw ourselves on the ground and say 08:54 God thank you so much he didn't kill her, or kidnap her, 08:58 or what ever, do I run outside, do I do whatever? 09:01 She said all of a sudden the Holy Spirit just relaxed her. 09:04 He said just wait it's okay. 09:07 So she watched what was happening and then Rebecca came 09:10 over and said mom this is tattoo Jim. 09:12 Jim this is mom. 09:13 They started having a relationship, every time 09:17 they saw each other, after that they would say Hi to each other. 09:19 It was really cool and she would leave and one day she came 09:24 in and her mom said you know tell Jim that you are going 09:28 home to your grandmother's for Christmas and you will 09:31 see him in two weeks. 09:33 She started crying, we can't do that. 09:37 Why not you love your grandmother, why not what's up? 09:41 We can't do that because who's going to spend 09:44 Christmas with Jim? 09:46 Her mom said Jim's family. 09:49 Then she said, loud in the middle of a coffee shop, 09:53 Jim doesn't have any family I don't think. 09:55 She cried, and finally they left and she said okay we 09:59 can go if we get Jim a present. 10:01 And they go to the store and get Jim a present and she 10:04 wrapped it, she doesn't know how to wrap she is just a little 10:06 kid and she crumpled some paper around and put tape 10:09 around that she runs in and runs up to Jim and says, 10:12 Jim I got you a present. 10:15 Jim said I started tearing up because not many people 10:18 have ever gotten me a present, especially lately. 10:20 I'm angry and I don't really let people in with those things. 10:23 This little girl is adorable and she handed the present 10:27 and he just took it and he held it. 10:30 She said no open it, open it. 10:32 He's saying no you should've done this. 10:34 She's like, open it, come on open it, she is so excited. 10:38 He opens it, and Jim likes to draw and it was brand-new 10:42 mechanical pencil. Brand-new, and he teared up. 10:46 He said I haven't teared up for ever, for ever. 10:50 As he teared up, he looked at her and he said the only 10:54 thing I could think of, I know her Rebecca, 10:56 she goes to my church, 10:57 She said the only thing I could think of is to ask him 11:00 if he knew who Jesus was? 11:02 So she said Jim, do you know who Jesus is? 11:06 He said if it would have been anyone else I would have 11:09 grabbed them by the face and slammed their face into 11:13 a brick wall, how dare anybody talk to me about God. 11:16 What has God done for me in my life. 11:18 He said there was so much rage and anger that welled up 11:21 in him that he could even stand it and this little girl 11:24 standing there in front of him and he said I just wanted 11:27 to bash her face in, but I realized I liked her and 11:31 I know she meant no harm. 11:33 And he said no I don't know who Jesus is. 11:35 Awh you got to meet Jesus! 11:37 She left and went to grandma's house. 11:39 She comes back, a couple weeks have passed, and she runs 11:43 and is hoping Jim is there. 11:44 He is there, hey Jim how was Christmas? 11:48 How is everything, you know what I thought about while 11:50 I was gone, I thought about my friend. 11:54 I have a friend named Cheri and she likes people like you. 11:58 So that is how he got sent to my house, she just sent him 12:03 over, and God told me, you know what, if I wasn't working 12:07 with him he would be sitting in front of you. 12:09 He wouldn't be here. 12:11 So I thought how fun is that and we took him on a mission 12:14 trip, a mission trip with us. 12:17 The next day I said, Jim do you want to go on a trip with us? 12:19 He said yeah, what kind of trip is it he said? 12:21 Well we go into a town and there's a lot of things we do 12:25 when we do Ministry and go into a town, we go to a legislative 12:28 group and talk to them, we talk to junior high schools. 12:31 High schools, we talk to the jails, and talk to juvenile 12:33 hall, and we end it by talking to the churches. 12:36 What churches I don't even care, you want us to speak call us up. 12:41 So that is our week laid out. 12:44 He said to me, I'll talk to that legislative group, 12:48 I'll talk to schools, and I want to go to juvenile hall 12:51 but I'm not talking to any crazy church. 12:53 I'm thinking what my going to do with this guy? 12:57 And he really is obnoxious and so I said, you know what 13:00 Jim if we work together, one thing you have to know is that 13:03 I am the boss, and you'll talk where ever I tell you to talk. 13:06 I thought he is either going to kill me, or he is going 13:09 to hear that, and he said okay but I won't lie to them. 13:13 I said no one not asking you to lie to anybody, but if 13:15 we are at a church gig, just tell them why you want to do 13:18 recovery, why is it you want to stop drugs? 13:20 Just tell them that, you don't have to pretend you 13:22 believe in God or any of that. 13:24 I have to tell you that within days he totally gives 13:28 his life to Christ, and I wish I could you the whole story 13:31 because it was so amazing. 13:33 But within days he is weeping, saying you know what? 13:36 I want to meet God, I don't want to be like this. 13:40 I am so full of anger, and then every time I turned around, 13:43 every single time I turned around he was crying. 13:46 I'm not very nice because I would say Jim, we have to go. 13:49 Was I too harsh, your not going to start crying are you? 13:54 He would say Cheri, shut up, just shut up. 13:57 It was so funny, but he cried about everything. 14:00 I asked him, why are you crying? He said I never cry what's this! 14:05 He said all of a sudden he would think about when he was 14:09 younger, he got beat by his father horribly, horribly. 14:13 His mother was beaten, and he was beaten and his dad was 14:16 so drunk most the time that Jim at 6, 7, 8 years old would 14:20 have to drive home for his dad. 14:22 He would stand him on the seat of the car with the 14:26 steering wheel in his hands. 14:27 He couldn't reach the pedals but his dad drunk would 14:29 press on the gas and you just keep the car or 14:34 truck in the road. 14:35 He would get to 60, 70, 80 miles an hour just to see 14:38 how much guts Jim had, and he said I was petrified all 14:42 the time, all the time. 14:43 He said when I grow up I will never be like my dad, 14:45 but he was exactly like his dad when he grew up. 14:48 He beat his wife, beat his kids and would get so drunk 14:51 and so high that he would come home to his babies. 14:54 I know Curly you have a three-week-old baby, his babies 14:58 would be crying, crying, wanted to be fed or changed. 15:01 He said, don't you know I have to get some sleep, 15:04 I want you to shut up and he was screaming at them. 15:07 Of course they cried more, he said the only way I could 15:10 shut them up is I would put a pillow over their face 15:13 until day passed out and then I would get some sleep. 15:16 He said in his relationship with Christ he would see that. 15:22 He would hear God say and I forgive you. 15:26 I forgive you, and he would weep, he wept. 15:30 I thought how amazing, repentance is to see it, 15:34 just to see it, and not to see it and do anything yet. 15:37 It's not about doing anything, repentance doesn't mean 15:40 that I see it and change every single thing and I behave 15:44 the rest of my life. 15:45 You know what? Jim still doesn't know how to behave. 15:47 He saw it and he asked God for His blood, Jesus cover me, 15:52 cover me I want to be saved. 15:54 So he sees it, and what is really amazing to me is that 15:57 I even sent him, he wanted to be baptized so I sent him 16:00 over to my pastor's house. 16:02 He came home and he said you know what Cheri? 16:04 He came to the Ministry Center, you're lucky I didn't 16:07 just take that guy and bash his face, he is a nut. 16:11 He is a nut and I know that if you truly knew what that 16:14 guy believed, you would not have him as your pastor, He is crazy. 16:19 I thought I love my pastor, what is he talking about. 16:23 I said Jim what did he say to you, sit down and relax. 16:26 He couldn't hardly relax, he was just screaming. 16:28 He said do you know the dude I accepted into my life, Jesus. 16:32 Yeah I know that dude. 16:34 He said that dude is three dudes in one, how crazy is that? 16:40 I thought how funny is that? 16:42 God in repentance in our first walk He is not 16:45 asking us for big things. 16:46 He's saying just see who you are and give it to Me. 16:49 Acknowledge that maybe it is your fault. 16:52 Turn to Me and I will so walk you into the rest of your life. 16:58 So we are going to come back right after the break. 17:00 We are going to come back and I'm going to introduce you 17:02 to Fred and Brenda Stoeker and you are going to be 17:05 blessed, absolutely blessed because some of us really 17:08 need to know, okay I understand. 17:11 I understand repentance, I understand now being sorry 17:14 enough to quit, but were now what, I don't know what to do. 17:17 So stay with us, we'll be right back! 17:25 We want to introduce you to a beautiful book called 17:28 'Steps to Christ', each program in this series is 17:31 based on a different chapter showing you how to become 17:34 a Christian and gain victory over your addictions. 17:37 'Steps to Christ' is our gift to you, free of charge. 17:40 Just call us at: 17:44 During regular business hours or write to: 18:08 Welcome back, I love this segment where I get to 18:12 introduce the guests. 18:13 Fred and Brenda Stoeker you have been on the show before 18:15 and we were blessed by your testimony. 18:18 Before we start, I want to ask the same thing that I asked 18:22 before, Fred can you tell us a little bit, in a nutshell, 18:27 your testimony so then I want to ask Brenda, 18:29 how she dealt with all that. 18:31 In college I just got hooked on pornography pretty deeply. 18:35 Then I was chasing women and had four girlfriends and I 18:40 was sleeping with three of them. 18:41 I was essentially engaged to be married to two. 18:43 So all I would say is that I was way off the path and it 18:47 was at that point that the Lord came into my life, caught 18:51 my attention and made me realize that there were some 18:55 things about me that needed to change. 18:57 You know even on the last show we did with you, when you 19:00 talked about, there was sexual addiction and pornography 19:04 in your family that came down generations. 19:06 I thought that was interesting is that generational 19:10 stuff was passed down. 19:11 Yeah that is very common, if you look at the average age 19:15 of when a young man sees his first pornography at 11. 19:19 That means half of young men see it before that. 19:21 I saw my first pornography, it was my dad's, he had it 19:24 underneath his bed, and I saw it at the age of 6 in 19:26 first grade so that's how things pass down. 19:30 People aren't careful, a young man sees it and gets his 19:34 heart captured, and then he starts the spiral just as his 19:38 father, and just like his grandfather. 19:40 Cheri: and the devil just laughs. 19:42 Fred: oh yes he laughs pretty hard I'm sure, but God gets 19:45 the last laugh as we turn to Him. 19:46 Cheri: I like that, okay so when Fred was dealing with 19:51 all the different things, pornography, his struggle, 19:55 his meeting Christ, and then he meets you, but you don't have 19:59 the same kind of background at all. 20:00 Brenda: that's right, right, our backgrounds were as 20:03 different as night and day. 20:04 I came for a very strong Christian home background. 20:07 A wonderful family and his was considerably 20:12 different, and tougher. 20:13 Fred: as a matter of fact, when I came into her family, 20:15 it was one of those almost spacey kind of thing. 20:20 I saw this family, first of all, all the sisters and 20:24 brothers, mom and dad, uncle and aunt's all lived within 20:28 2 miles of each other. 20:30 So not only was she growing up with her brothers, 20:33 she was growing up of all her cousins and they were all 20:34 as close as brothers and sisters. 20:36 When I went in there and I saw this family, I was shocked. 20:40 I remember saying to myself, wow, I didn't know 20:43 anything like this existed because they didn't do 20:46 what my family did. 20:48 My family spent a lot of time yelling at each other. 20:50 The louder you were the more right you were, that sort 20:53 of thing and when I got into this home it was peaceful 20:56 and people loved each other, people were kind to each 20:59 other, there was not the storminess and the pain. 21:01 I didn't know how to deal with it at first, all I did know 21:04 was that I wanted to be part of this, I want to graft into this, 21:08 I want to be like this someday. 21:10 Cheri: you had met God so you already had a sense of what that 21:14 felt like with the Holy Spirit, anyway stepping into the family. 21:17 But I had never seen it played out in real life. 21:22 It's not like I grew up getting beat, I didn't get sexually 21:26 abused, but there was a lot of verbal abuse 21:29 and a lot of pressure. 21:31 I grew up not feeling really loved by my father. 21:34 He thought I was a sissy basically and he thought 21:38 I was never going to be the man he was. 21:39 He was a national wrestling champion and honestly, 21:42 I guess I never was the man he was in the area of 21:45 wrestling, but it made very difficult in growing up. 21:48 I never felt accepted and when I saw her home I 21:52 really did feel excepted. 21:53 As a matter of fact probably the key moment, in my life, 21:56 in her family, was one I asked her dad for her hand 22:00 in marriage and he was on his deathbed. 22:02 He was destined to die a few months before we actually 22:06 got married, but he knew and I knew that whatever promises 22:10 I made that day he wouldn't be around make me keep them 22:13 or hold me to them. 22:14 He said something to me that no man had ever said. 22:17 He said yes you look like the kind of man that will keep 22:24 his promises, from the moment he said that, I said okay 22:28 maybe I haven't kept promises in the past, but I will keep 22:32 this one because when I get to heaven someday and follow 22:35 him there, I am not going to have turn my eyes away 22:39 when I look him in the face. 22:40 I'm going to be able to look at Frank, and say Frank 22:43 I did what I said I'd do and he's going to grin and 22:45 pat me on the back. 22:46 You see I want that, I want to be the kind of man that 22:49 keeps his promises. 22:51 That kind of trust, and that kind of heart was something 22:55 I had never experienced in a family before. 22:58 I have spent all the years since then, not only trying 23:01 to please God, but making sure I was keeping my promises 23:05 to her dad because I owe him a lot. 23:07 He raised a great daughter and I had made a promise. 23:10 That is absolutely powerful when I think about how our 23:14 words mean something, his words changed things for you. 23:18 Yes they did change things, totally. 23:21 It was wonderful that is all I can say. 23:24 You know Brenda, when all this started coming out as far 23:28 as Fred's addictions, his difficulty with porn and his 23:31 history of all that, how did that come out, and what did 23:35 you think, what did you do? 23:36 As I said earlier, I was very, very, very naive about men 23:40 and sexuality at how different they are from we women. 23:44 I remember him explaining some things to me and honestly 23:48 I thought he was making it up 23:50 I laughed, and I said you have to be making this up, 23:53 it's just too weird. Cheri: because he came and told you. 23:55 He told me about the struggles that he had been having. 23:57 He was explaining to me some of the ways the men are 24:00 different from women and how they can just look at 24:03 something and have sexual gratification just through 24:06 looking, you don't have to have any intimacy from it. 24:09 I honestly with, different things he'd tell me, think that 24:13 you men are all in a conspiracy, probably just all agreed 24:17 this can't possibly be true. 24:19 It was so different from what I understood. 24:21 I had to learn quite a lot on the differences between 24:26 men and women, this type of betrayal for women 24:30 is extremely painful. 24:32 It would be like, although he did not have an affair, it still 24:36 feels the same to women because we are so relational. 24:39 Men are different, they can be involved in pornography 24:42 or other things without necessarily affecting the love 24:45 they have for their wives. 24:46 Cheri: in their mind they're not cheating on you. 24:49 Brenda: right, right, we one time met a man and was 24:52 talking to him, I thought this illustrates it. 24:55 He was telling us about a friend of his that had been 24:57 involved in pornography and his wife was going to leave 25:00 him, he said what was the matter, all he was doing was 25:02 looking at porn, what was the big deal? 25:04 I could just see, this was it, we are so far apart in 25:07 understanding of the differences. 25:11 For women to be able to heal and recover from something 25:14 like this, we have to learn how men are wired. 25:17 How they are different from us. 25:18 Many times this behavior is caused by problems in the past. 25:23 Wounds may be from a father that didn't accept them. 25:27 Their looking for intimacy some where else and this comes in 25:29 as a false type of intimacy. 25:31 When you even say to him, when Fred said earlier that 25:35 he was not sexually abused, there was a part of me 25:39 that wanted to say, that is not true because at 6 years 25:42 old, when you opened up that magazine, that was so 25:45 abusive that it changed the everyday walk of his life 25:48 for years after that. 25:49 And I think we think of sexual abuse as being molested, 25:53 touched or whatever, not as leaving a magazine somewhere 25:56 were child can see it. 25:57 The abuse was there as a child. 25:59 Brenda: I think sometimes we women are not as well 26:02 educated and we may tend to think that they have a big 26:04 choice in this, and they are choosing to do this, 26:07 without realizing that there is an addictive tendency here 26:10 It's not necessarily about me, it may be something 26:13 he was addicted into long before I ever came along, 26:16 which is what I found out. 26:17 Cheri: so you never, you didn't go, and I'm thinking 26:21 into feeling depressed, you didn't think is the marriage 26:24 going to survive or not, none of that came up for you? 26:27 Well in my case no, because when I found out about it, 26:31 he was already well working through it. 26:33 Again I was so naive that I didn't really think 26:38 onto the next step. 26:39 Fred: it was really a naive situation for her 26:42 because she had no idea how my sexual sin was 26:45 affecting our relationship. 26:48 I had mentioned in the last program about the dreams 26:51 and being chased by Satan a lot, she had no idea how 26:54 that related to this. 26:56 She had no idea it was affecting our relationship, or that it 27:00 would have some impact on our, son, so since she didn't know 27:05 that, in some ways I did get a pass on it because she never 27:09 really panicked that much. 27:11 Now it also helped that I had already started fighting the 27:14 battle, it's one thing. 27:15 Cheri: how did you come out of that, because it don't 27:17 think we ever talked about that, 27:18 how did you come out of that, and decide to just do it? 27:21 I'm going to change? 27:23 We talked a little bit about the Maury Hill moment where I was 27:26 driving the road and slammed my fist into the steering 27:29 wheel, I'm just done with this. 27:30 Well in the aftermath of that then the Lord began to 27:33 take things I had learned years ago in school and began 27:37 to show me, look what you know about male sexuality, 27:40 remember what you learned at Stanford, this applies to the 27:45 covenant of the eyes. 27:46 One of the things I learned at Stanford for instance, 27:49 even as far back as the 50s, we knew that when men 27:51 would look at pornography they could draw direct 27:54 sexual gratification into their brains. 27:56 What the Lord was telling me, this is why you need a 27:59 covenant with your eyes, because if you are going to be 28:02 looking at the sensual things in your environment, 28:04 that is a lot like sex itself. 28:08 It's pouring it into the brain the same things that 28:11 are going on chemically in your brain when we look at 28:14 something, same things that are going on when we are 28:17 in bed with a wife. 28:18 So over time I got to know the names of the chemicals 28:23 involved, the adrenaline, and the dopamine and all the 28:28 other drugs that hit the pleasure centers when 28:29 we are looking and lusting. 28:31 Cheri: a lot of people don't know that, if you actually 28:34 did a Pet Scan, your brain is lit up. 28:36 Fred: it's lit up in a big way, and the other thing 28:39 a lot of people don't know, in fact this is 28:40 just a recent discovery. 28:42 Is that the male part of the lymphatic center is tied in with 28:46 sexual pleasure, it's actually twice as large in men 28:49 as it is in women. 28:50 One thing we know that it tells us that men and women 28:53 are going to be different because there is far more part 28:56 of the brain involved with it. 28:58 The main issued to me when I think about that is, 29:01 that is probably the reason we are more visual and why 29:05 there is a difference between us by nature. 29:07 When it came back to the very beginning, all I knew is 29:10 that the Lord was telling me look, if you want to win 29:13 this battle, a covenant has to be in place where you 29:16 are not looking at the girl in the string bikini, 29:18 you are not looking at the receptionist when 29:21 she bends over at the office. 29:23 You need to begin to live the way I tell you to live 29:26 and that is to keep your eyes straight ahead where 29:29 they are supposed to be. 29:30 Cheri: and you know what I like because I have heard you 29:33 say this before is that if I, and you guys always talk 29:36 about men in their addictions, women have some stuff so. 29:39 As you look at something and it starts to draw you, 29:43 pull your eyes away from that. 29:46 We call that in the book, bouncing the eyes, it's in the 29:48 book, 'Every Man's Battle' my first book. 29:50 It's natural for a man's eyes to turn and look towards 29:54 the sensual woman walking into the room. 29:57 That is the natural thing. 29:58 I remember my son, a few years ago, went to a mall with 30:01 Brenda and his sisters. 30:04 Brenda: he was nine or 10. 30:06 Fred: I think he was 11 at the time, as I recall anyway. 30:09 Anyway, one thing we know it was before puberty and he 30:13 would have known a girl from a bale of hay. 30:14 I mean he just wasn't, but when they came back from the 30:19 mall an interesting thing happened. 30:21 He gave Brenda a hug and then he asked her a question. 30:24 He said, mom how do you get pictures of women in their 30:28 underwear out of your brain? 30:30 Brenda: I said go ask your dad. 30:32 Everyone's laughing! 30:34 I back-peddled fast. 30:36 Before she sent him down, she said what kinds of pictures 30:40 are you talking about? 30:41 He said well we were walking down the mall today and we 30:45 went by the secret store, which is that's the Victoria's 30:49 Secret lingerie store. 30:50 He said I looked into the window and from the moment 30:52 I looked into the window I have not been able to get 30:55 those pictures out of my mind all day. 30:57 And if you look at how the male brain is wired, 30:59 and actually the female brain can be trained this way. 31:03 There is a chemical release and Mary Anne Layden, 31:07 who is one of the foremost psychiatrist, psychologist 31:11 that are studying male sexuality in America. 31:13 She is from the University of Pennsylvania. 31:15 She made this statement recently that once that happens 31:19 in the chemicals hit the brain it locks that image into the 31:22 brain for ever, and that was Michael's first experience 31:26 of that maleness of his sexuality. 31:29 We need to understand that that is a very real issue. 31:32 One of the things that Brenda is saying, when women 31:34 to learn these things is that you can imagine that has a 31:38 big impact, if you have a young man that is growing up. 31:42 He was 11 at the time and now he is 15, he's been through 31:45 puberty, if there was no one around teaching him what to 31:48 do, no one around to ask that question, what's going to 31:52 happen to that young man in a sensual culture like ours? 31:54 It's almost guaranteed he is going to get hooked because 31:57 there is so much sexuality around. 31:59 What I say is not only do the women need to learn these 32:02 differences, but even the church needs to begin speaking 32:06 about this more because otherwise a young Christian man, 32:10 or any kind of man Christian, Jewish, any kind of man is 32:15 going to fall off that cliff into the pit before he even 32:19 knows what he is doing. 32:21 I would like your guys because you have spent so much 32:24 time in your healing, first of all talk about, 32:28 the show is about repentance and taking responsibility 32:31 for yourself and bringing this to Christ. 32:34 So talk a little bit about repentance and then talk about 32:37 what are some things you learned and maybe even that you 32:40 put in your book, Brenda, 'Every Heart Restored', 32:43 as far as what women can do and learn when you talk about 32:47 whether sex chillers. 32:50 I want to hear about all the because 32:52 I don't know anything. 32:54 Brenda: I would say just quickly and then give it back to 32:57 you here, that one of the main things that I have learned 33:01 about women being able to be restored and set free in 33:04 a problem like this, is number one what we have been 33:07 talking about, educate yourself on the differences 33:10 because then you can maybe begin to have mercy and 33:13 understanding that this is not just simply a deliberate 33:16 choice, there is addiction here. 33:18 The other thing is the spiritual aspect of it. 33:21 There has to be more transformation in your heart 33:25 because your emotions and self-esteem are shattered 33:29 with something like this. 33:31 You have to be able to rebuild yourself in a healthy way, 33:35 as God sees you, so often we feel worthless after this 33:40 type of thing and what I found was really good. 33:44 Was to begin to pour Scripture into my life. 33:47 I would take Psalms 139 and begin to just read that 33:52 a couple of times a day, pick it apart and see what it means to 33:55 me in a drastic, painful, hard time that Scripture talks 33:59 all the way through about how well God knows you. 34:01 How you are never out of His sight. 34:03 There is no darkness that is dark to Him. 34:05 You talk about darkness, you know that it's a dark place. 34:11 Cheri: it's interesting to me when you are in this spot 34:15 Scripture becomes more real. 34:17 Brenda: you must have it, it's the only thing 34:19 because it transforms your mind, it transforms 34:22 how you feel about yourself, and it transforms 34:24 how you relate to your husband. 34:26 Verses like Hebrews 12:7 through 11, James 1:2-4 34:31 2 Corinthians 12:9, they talk about enduring hardship 34:34 as disciplined, and the Lord is treating you to hope 34:38 that in hard times the Lord is still there. 34:40 He can use this time, if you are not transforming your 34:43 mind and having Scripture steadying you all day long, 34:46 you're going to fly off the handle and be so upset that 34:49 you can't even respond very well. 34:51 It strengthens you, the word, the Holy Spirit strengthens 34:56 and allows me to be able to look at him with God's motives 35:00 in mind more than my own. 35:02 Cheri: then say and I'm not going to let you do this, 35:05 I'm not going to be throwing anything on you right now, 35:09 I'm actually going to be your wife. 35:10 Fred: there's a couple things I would say to about the 35:14 word, a lot times we look at the word and we say okay, 35:17 this is how we are supposed to act so I'm going to conform 35:21 to the word and live according to what it says. 35:23 But the word also does something that transforms us, 35:27 it is the power of the word that does that. 35:29 Transformation is better than conforming because what it 35:32 does is it comes into your life and gives you the mind of 35:35 Christ so that you start thinking about your sexuality, 35:38 like Christ thought about His for instance, when He was 35:42 on earth, and even the temptations that are involved, 35:46 for instance for me start to dissipate. 35:48 A lot of people say you always so have these temptations 35:52 as long as you are alive because you're a guy. 35:54 Well I have not found that to be so. 35:55 What I have found is that as the word comes into my life 35:59 and transforms me, I begin to see my sexuality, 36:05 it is actually in its proper place and I own my sexuality 36:09 rather than it owning me. 36:11 That is a dramatic difference but that only happens 36:13 through that transformation. 36:14 The other thing I would say is that, when Brenda was 36:17 going through the death of her mother a while back, 36:19 we talked a lot about how pain is pain, whether it's from 36:23 the grief of that death, or grief from sexual sin 36:26 throughout the marriage, it's really a mess. 36:29 One of the things I saw in her was the discipline she had, 36:33 she would put these Scriptures on Post-it notes and she would 36:36 actually carry those Scriptures with her during the day 36:39 where if she is in her car it would be on her steering 36:41 wheel, she was in the kitchen it would be on the window 36:43 in front of her so that she would be reading it all day 36:45 long and she would not forget what she read this morning 36:47 by two this afternoon. 36:49 Cheri: you know I work with this guy that was lost in 36:53 pornography, just lost. 36:54 He said I prayed and in my prayer God said, memorize 36:58 some Scripture and it will wash your mind as if 37:03 you were washing out a garment. 37:05 He said I started to and even the visual images that 37:08 have plagued him most of his life, started to leave. 37:12 Fred: I have experienced the same thing and people will 37:15 say, can you remember those images? 37:18 Well there are some images I can still remember, 37:21 they were very vivid back then and if I tell myself to, 37:24 I can make myself pull them up. 37:26 But I choose not to, I don't have those things 37:31 washing up all the time. 37:33 You see if those images are in there and washing up all 37:36 the time, they can serve the same purpose as actually 37:38 looking at a new magazine. 37:40 You can't have that, and God does not want that, and He 37:42 will want to wash that clean. 37:44 Cheri: what is amazing to me is that a lot people do not 37:46 understand the process of addiction. 37:47 We end up in our various addictions, we end up getting so 37:52 caught up with an object, or an event, that is not real 37:56 and we are looking to meet intimacy, or spiritual needs 37:59 with this object, or event, with porn or whatever. 38:02 God is saying let me teach you to do that in a real sense 38:06 and you will be blessed, I mean you will be blessed. 38:09 I will teach you how to laugh with a woman that you love 38:13 and have all those connections within you and be blessed. 38:16 You will be able to trust that God really does know what He is 38:19 doing, and I actually will be better off as He walks 38:22 me into recovery. 38:24 You said that earlier in the sense that this whole 38:28 recovery process is tied that way, the intimacy thing 38:32 is very interesting to me. 38:34 You were talking about drug addictions as well as I am 38:37 talking about sexual addictions, well there is a man that 38:40 I know, his name is Bill and he is the head of a drug 38:43 addiction center in Nebraska. 38:46 He told me once that just getting genuine intimacy into 38:52 his life is the thing that broke his addiction. 38:54 Because we know addictions are tied to false intimacy. 38:57 What he said was this, he noticed as he got stronger 39:00 and stronger into pornography, he was spending less and 39:03 less time with people, actual people. 39:05 He was drawing all his intimacy from those false spots. 39:08 He said he simply made one rule in his life that whenever 39:12 anybody asked him to do anything he would say yes. 39:15 So over the period of a month, whenever somebody asked 39:18 them to do anything, to go out and eat, go to the 39:20 convenience store, let's jump over there a need to get 39:23 something, he would just say yes. 39:24 The thing is that the last 10 days of that month he said, 39:28 suddenly he realized he had looked at porn for 10 days. 39:32 He realized it was because he was making those connections. 39:35 I don't think people understand the power of intimacy. 39:40 What I found in my own life is the greatest power is not the 39:44 power saying yes to go out to eat, or having relationships 39:48 with their brothers and sisters in Christ, but it's the intimacy 39:51 with God, and when that gets stronger it also helps to create 39:55 the transformation that keeps you from sin. 39:57 Listen to this study which I think is the most amazing thing. 40:01 I was working in the prison and a lot of times in prison 40:03 there are perpetrators, sexual addicts that are way out there. 40:09 There was a study that said, if a perpetrator, a hard-core 40:14 sexual perpetrator, child molester can connect in a real 40:18 sense with two or three people, the percentage rate of their 40:23 acting out is cut down by 95%. 40:25 It's that connection and then I went back to the Bible, 40:29 and the Bible says love one another, love one another. 40:33 I thought, wow God has always know we have to 40:37 connect with each other. 40:40 You know there is a basketball coach at one of the 40:43 universities in Iowa, that had to go to prison not long 40:47 ago for child pornography, and he said to me, I had went 40:51 out eat with him, he's out now. 40:52 I had went to eat with him a couple weeks ago and he said 40:56 that the hard part about coming back out is that while he 41:01 was in prison he had met a total of a hundred guys in 41:05 there in the sexual programs to help them get over it. 41:09 But he said if he really made connections with 3 or 4 41:12 that were really tight connections where they shared 41:15 everything and it really helped him to get stronger but 41:18 the moment you get out of prison and you are not allowed 41:21 to contact those people again for the next 3 or 4 years. 41:24 But what we're not understanding what's below that is we 41:27 are actually shooting ourselves in the foot, I think we 41:31 can get more these men on the right path by making those 41:34 connections, and of course in his case these men were 41:38 also Christian, it has the God factor. 41:42 The God factor is everything. 41:44 I'm going to ask if there's anybody here that wants to 41:47 ask a question of Brenda or Fred? Can I ask you? 41:53 Fred, what about women and their sexual addictions? 41:58 That is a great question, the thing about women and their 42:01 sexual addictions is that it is changing dramatically 42:04 over time, I mean men they have had this problem for a 42:08 long time, but if you look back into history, back in 42:12 the 70s when Hugh Hefner brought out Playgirl magazine 42:15 eventually it went defunct and belly up because there wasn't 42:19 that much interest for the women to look guys that way. 42:22 But what has happen with the MTV generation and then heavy 42:26 sensuality in Prime Time and movies is that we are seeing 42:30 a dramatic increase in women getting hooked 42:33 on porn for instance. 42:34 I know Christianity today, not too long ago had a 42:38 survey of their raters and 37% of them were regularly 42:41 looking at porn. 42:43 And when you look at the 30 and under most of the 42:46 statistics I've seen are generally somewhere around 50 42:50 to even 80% of women are regularly visiting porn sites. 42:54 Things are changing in the sense, with heavy sensuality 42:57 in our culture it is starting to help to rewire women, 43:01 or train them to use their visuality in the sexuality 43:05 process in ways that they really haven't in the past. 43:08 In terms of getting free from it, really a lot of the 43:11 principles are the same for women as they are for men. 43:14 First of all, you would certainly have to stop looking 43:17 at porn and stop bringing that sensuality into the eyes. 43:20 You would also do some of the same things, 43:24 get connected deeper with God so there is a more genuine 43:27 intimacy in your life. 43:29 Also with friends so there's more genuine intimacy that 43:32 way, when I talk to women they are saying the same things, 43:36 I'm lonely, there is no man in my life, I go to even things 43:39 like self stimulation because it makes me feel better, 43:42 and even for a moment anyway it feels like I'm 43:45 connecting with a guy. 43:47 And that's still an addiction, and I'm connecting with 43:49 an event or an object, nothing that is real. 43:52 Also what I find is not just visual for them. 43:55 They will read a romance novel that are pretty hot and 43:59 racy and they are being attracted by relationship, 44:02 they are being attracted by the relationships and the 44:05 longing for the relationship and that's what gets their 44:08 engines going, which we would expect from women because 44:11 that is how they're built. 44:13 Being able to say that the bottom line is we have to 44:15 connect with each other and go back to love one another 44:18 and those needs will be met, if we honestly did that. 44:21 Any other questions, Marcia did you have a question? 44:25 Yes, is there any books or advice you have four young 44:28 girls to understand what the young boys are going through? 44:32 Yeah, one book that they are reading of course is 44:34 'Every Young Man's Battle' because in that book I talk 44:37 to the young guys about how they are built, how their 44:41 sexual makeup is, and I get a lot of e-mails from young 44:44 women that are saying thank you for writing this book. 44:48 Now I understand the pressures they're going through. 44:51 I have had lots of e-mails from teenage girls who are 44:54 saying, I have just thrown out all my wardrobe, 44:56 I realize now the things I wear was blowing them out. 45:00 So they start all over and I think that is really good. 45:03 The other thing is that Shannon Ethridge has written a book 45:06 called 'Every Young Woman's Battle' and that is a book 45:10 that talks about the female side of it. 45:11 I've interviewed Shannon and she's also written 45:14 'Every Woman's Battle' which is amazing, so all of 45:17 her material is absolutely amazing that we do have to 45:20 educate ourselves and that is what you were saying Brenda. 45:23 I would say to, with 'Every Heart Restored' the one thing 45:26 I have been so pleased to hear from people that have read it, 45:30 it's helped wives to understand how their men are different. 45:34 It has really helped give the men a better picture of 45:36 how wives are built, so they are understanding better 45:39 what kind of pain it is causing in their lives. 45:41 A lot of times they will write to us say, I wasn't able to 45:44 explain well enough how I felt, but the book explains it 45:48 so well that they read it together. 45:50 They are both getting a good picture from each 45:53 other of their differences and how that sin 45:56 is affecting each other. 45:57 'Every Heart Restored' I first wrote it with Brenda and 46:03 guess the publisher at first was wondering, 46:05 why you have nine chapters on male sexuality in the middle 46:08 of this book for women? 46:10 Really it is the key healing factor. 46:14 If they do not understand how men are built, they are 46:17 never going to be able to understand it is not their 46:19 problem is actually the guys problem and they can 46:21 actually step up next to them and help. 46:23 I love the fact that they are reading it as couples. 46:27 That is really how you have to approach this battle as 46:31 couples, at least that is the most effective way. 46:35 What you are trying to achieve is a match made in heaven, this 46:39 powerful unit, a man and wife living holy together, that is 46:43 what you are aiming at, and that is what God 46:45 intended from the beginning. 46:46 You know what I would like to ask is, I would like to ask 46:50 you, what are some really healthy things that you have 46:53 learned to incorporate into your marriage that has helped 46:56 you in your recovery? 46:57 Well I think one of the best things is for me to walk 47:03 in Ephesians 5:3 which is don't even have a hint of 47:08 sexual immorality in your life. 47:10 That means I need to really guard my eyes. 47:13 Cheri: that's movies, commercials, books, 47:17 Fred: one of the nice things is that Brenda has always 47:21 believed that anyway, but she has been, and as a unit 47:25 we have done this strongly so in our home, my boys for 47:29 instance, learn how to bounce their eyes without me 47:32 actually ever explaining it to them. 47:33 They would see me watching a game, a commercial with some 47:36 of those babes would come on, I would bounce my eyes away 47:39 and groan and they learned to bounce their eyes away and 47:43 groan too, and so over time they began to learn from the 47:48 example, so the first thing is to walk in it. 47:51 Fred and I have taught pre-marriage classes for years, 47:54 one of the most important things we tell those young 47:57 couples is, if you will guard all that you watch, get rid 48:01 of some of its primetime TV, get rid of a lot of the 48:04 movies that have inappropriate, get rid of all that stuff, 48:07 you will find yourself to have a very healthy, happy, 48:10 intimate relationship with your spouse. 48:13 It is very simple but very fulfilling and is everything 48:17 God gave it to be, it requires nothing except getting rid 48:21 of that and you'll be happy with each other. 48:23 Fred: that's praise right there because most people see 48:26 that is a big sacrifice, but in the end there is no 48:29 sacrifice to it because we find all sorts of things to do anyway 48:33 It's not like you have to be watching those things. 48:36 The best part though from a relational standpoint, 48:40 is that you begin to start meeting in bed spiritually, 48:44 not just physically. 48:45 You know what I was stuck in sexual sin, it's sin and 48:48 even though I couldn't see the wall between us, even 48:51 though it was not noticeable to Brenda, there was a wall 48:54 between us and the Spirit realm. 48:55 One of the first things I noticed on the other side 48:58 of purity, our times in the marriage bed 49:02 were dramatically different and it was because, I believe, 49:06 that our spirits were meeting in ways they weren't meeting 49:09 before and so what happened was I started to be focusing 49:13 less on things like how it does it feel, and what the 49:16 intensity levels were, whatever you might say and I was 49:19 entirely focused on the passage of the intimacy between 49:23 us, and how we were connecting one on one on more of a 49:26 one of emotional and spiritual level. 49:29 Cheri: don't you think that, I really picture, sometimes, 49:32 God up there saying, I can't wait for you guys to trust Me 49:36 enough that I can teach you this. 49:38 You will not believe how cool your sexual life or your 49:42 intimacy is going to be, but you have to let Me 49:44 teach you how to do it. 49:46 Fred: we grow up learning about sex in locker rooms. 49:49 From friends at slumber parties and all these sorts of 49:53 things, so we buy into all the lies that the American culture 49:57 or any other culture might paint for us which is that 50:01 we are, the more we take part in porn or we take part 50:06 in these racy movies, but more hot things are for us, 50:10 the more smooth things go for us, 50:13 in my experience it's the opposite, once you dump all 50:17 those things out, everything about the sexual process between 50:21 a husband and wife smoothes out. 50:24 I find it has been one of the great gifts and one of the 50:27 great blessings when you asked the question, 50:30 what things have you put in place, that is one thing we 50:34 put into place by taking only sensuality out of our home 50:38 and then that makes our intimate life stronger, which then 50:42 makes our relationship stronger, and makes me less likely 50:46 to want to act out or do something silly like that. 50:49 So it starts to strengthen you and starts to spiral you in 50:52 a good direction instead of a bad direction. 50:54 We have a couple minutes and there was a term that I saw, 50:57 I think it was in your book Brenda. 50:59 About sex chillers, what is that? What does that mean? 51:03 It refers about the differences between men and women 51:07 and some of the things in men that chills the whole sexual 51:10 deal for the wife. 51:12 Some of the things we are that chills our women would be, 51:16 first of all we're very rebellious by nature. 51:21 Men tend to like to go their own way, and they tend 51:24 to go the easy way instead of God's way. 51:27 Because women are so global in their thinking, 51:30 and relationship is so involved with their sexuality, 51:34 that hurts the relationship so that hurts the sex life. 51:38 There are some other chillers, for instance less romantic 51:43 once marriage happens, where romantic as were moving towards 51:46 marriage but on the other side it's we get in the back of 51:50 the wagon for a nap so you drive. 51:53 The whole love relationship thing is not our focus anymore. 51:59 There are other ones, there are two but the point we 52:03 are making with the whole sex chillers section, is there 52:08 are differences that a man needs to understand. 52:12 You see one understand those chillers, I can stop doing 52:16 them, I don't have to be rebellious. 52:19 I don't have to be cold romantically. 52:22 I can start to work on those things, but the best thing 52:25 for Brenda is that when she sees those things are a 52:28 natural part of who we are, she can understand those to 52:32 work with me as well. 52:33 We have a couple minutes, in a couple minutes talk about 52:38 talk to somebody that is struggling, I don't know how to 52:43 get out of this, I don't how to change. 52:45 A wife maybe that is saying this is killing me, 52:49 I don't know if I could trust him again. 52:55 Brenda: I think for wives one of the hardest things is 52:57 that sometimes you have a husband that is very committed 53:01 to wanting to change, by then you are fighting a different 53:05 battle and it's not his battle to be clean, so to speak, 53:08 it's her battle to trust him again. 53:11 That is a real tough thing because he is feeling like, 53:13 oh boy I've never valued my marriage more, and she's 53:16 saying, oh boy! you've been living a lie forever. 53:18 Their seeing from totally opposite, he's saying, oh gee! 53:21 it's going to take three years to recover but I think 53:24 I can do it a little faster. 53:25 She is saying, well that sounds like forever. 53:29 So learning to trust is very difficult, your having to 53:32 watch your husband to see if he is having trustworthy 53:35 acts, is he doing things, is he asking me things of what 53:38 to do to prove to you that I am trustworthy again. 53:41 One of the main things that we look for as wives is 53:44 his patience as we heal and recover. 53:46 His patience is a deep indicator of his understanding of 53:51 the hurt and pain that he has caused. 53:53 Another indicator is actual repentance. 53:56 If he is impatient with her healing, he hasn't really 54:01 seen what he has done. 54:03 I just want to say that I have been blessed, I've been 54:05 so blessed and I thank you for joining us. 54:07 Thank you for sharing with us on your whole journey. 54:10 This is a really touchy subject, but I'm just blessed, and 54:14 I know that anybody watching this has been blessed too. 54:18 Stay with us, will be right back! 54:25 Amazing stories of real people in real situations 54:28 discussing issues that really matter. 54:30 The complete first season of Celebrating Life In Recovery 54:34 is now available on DVD and can be ordered by calling 3ABN: 54:37 Or order online at: 54:40 Hosted by Cheri Peters this season follows principles 54:43 from the book 'Steps to Christ'. 54:45 See for yourself, how God changed the lives of the 54:47 convicted, the accused, and victims of terrible crimes. 54:50 You won't want to miss a moment of these powerful interviews. 55:00 God is good to us. 55:01 I finally had to see that I have a choice to continue in my sin, 55:06 hurt, anger, addiction, or to repent, a gift from God 55:09 that brings with it life. 55:11 How can a man be just with God? 55:12 How can those lost in an addiction be made right? 55:15 The Bible says it is only through Christ that we can be 55:18 brought into harmony with God to holiness. 55:20 But how, let's look at Acts on the day of Pentecost when 55:24 convictions of their sins came out on the folks, they 55:27 said what do I have to do? 55:29 Peter said to them repent and another time in Acts 55:32 he said, repent and be converted that your 55:34 sins may be blotted out. 55:35 The book of Acts as people started to see their need, 55:39 the most incredible gift God offers us is the ability 55:42 to see ourselves, as we truly are, and without that we 55:45 would not even seek healing, so it is an important part 55:48 of recovery, regardless of your stuff. 55:50 Look at it, don't be afraid to fully look at it. 55:53 It is painful for sure, and I know it's painful. 55:56 Everything in me wants to rebel against that. 55:58 I don't want to see my character defects. 56:00 I don't want to see the fact that I'm lost in this or that 56:03 or that I have workaholism or perfectionism, or like 56:07 Fred and Brenda are talking about how their life was being 56:09 destroyed, about sexual sins that had been with him since 56:12 he was 6 years old. 56:13 I don't want to see any of that, but it is a necessary 56:16 part of healing, would you go to the doctor if there was 56:18 nothing wrong? No! But if you have a little pain in 56:20 your chest and Heh, I'm there. 56:22 If this is emotional pain, and God is a great physician, repent 56:27 it includes sorrow for sin and turning away from it. 56:30 We will not stop our addictions no matter what they are 56:33 unless we see the ugliness of them. 56:35 It's sinfulness, until we turn away from it in our heart, 56:38 and there will be no real change in our life. 56:40 There are so many who don't understand the nature of 56:44 repentance, so many feel sorrow that they have sin, 56:47 and even made an outward change because they feared that 56:51 they might get caught or in trouble or what ever. 56:53 If anyone knew about this it becomes scary as their 56:56 addiction takes over, but this is not repentance. 56:59 In the Bible sense they fear the suffering not the addiction 57:02 as sin, in fact many protect their addiction as if 57:06 it were their friend. 57:07 Even their lover, something that could bring comfort 57:10 for an escape, not realizing it brings slavery and death. 57:14 When an addict, rageaholic, sex offender, what ever fears 57:17 the loss, their spouse is going, leave them, they face 57:20 jail time and all that stuff. 57:23 They settled back into a normal thing as soon as that 57:26 repentance feeling ends, that is not repentance. 57:29 Repentance is when I look at it and I understand what God 57:33 says, I understand that this is not right. 57:36 I understand that: 57:43 and when you get there and surrender it to God, 57:47 God will fill you up and your life will never be the same. 57:50 It will never be the same, He wants to give us joy and 57:53 life abundantly and I just ask you to please trust Him. 57:56 Please trust Him. 57:58 Next time we will be talking about confession, 58:00 now that is fun, you know what? 58:02 It will be good stuff, so next time 58:04 Celebrating Life In Recovery, join us. 58:06 We'll be talking about confession and you will meet 58:08 some great folks, bye-bye! |
Revised 2014-12-17