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Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

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Types Of Dysfunctional Families

Many people hope that once they leave home, they will leave their family and childhood problems behind. However, many find that they experience similar problems, as well as similar feelings and relationship patterns, long after they have left the family environment. Ideally, children grow up in family environments which help them feel worthwhile and valuable. They learn that their feelings and needs are important and can be expressed. Children growing up in such supportive environments are likely to form healthy, open relationships in adulthood. However, families may fail to provide for many of their children’s emotional and physical needs. In addition, the families’ communication patterns may severely limit the child’s expressions of feelings and needs. Children growing up in such families are likely to develop low self-esteem and feel that their needs are not important or perhaps should not be taken seriously by others. As a result, they may form unsatisfying relationships as adults.

Types Of Dysfunctional Families

    • One or both parents have addictions or compulsions (e.g., drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, gambling, overworking, and/or overeating) that have strong influences on family members.
    • One or both parents use the threat or application of physical violence as the primary means of control. Children may have to witness violence, may be forced to participate in punishing siblings, or may live in fear of explosive outbursts.
    • One or both parents exploit the children and treat them as possessions whose primary purpose is to respond to the physical and/or emotional needs of adults (e.g., protecting a parent or cheering up one who is depressed).
    • One or both parents are unable to provide, or threaten to withdraw, financial or basic physical care for their children. Similarly, one or both parents fail to provide their children with adequate emotional support.
    • One or both parents exert a strong authoritarian control over the children. Often these families rigidly adhere to a particular belief (religious, political, financial, personal). Compliance with role expectations and with rules is expected without any flexibility.

http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/?page_id=171

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” – George Bernard Shaw

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Just Can’t Seem To Quit Self Gratification

February 26, 2013
by Prevailing Word Ministries

Oh, heaven NO!!!!

No relapse on my part. Not on your life because we are getting too close to the finale. I know that’s it’s been a while since my last blog. However, this is not a report of me backsliding kind of blog.

The trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we that are alive and remain will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

To stay holy is my one goal. I do not plan to be fulfilling the lust of the flesh and satisfying myself when Jesus comes.

Some of you may recall the 10 virgins. Five were wise. Five were foolish. When the bridegroom came, it was time for them to go to the wedding. The five wise had enough oil for the journey in the night and the five foolish did not. The five foolish asked the five wise to spare what they had, and the wise ones declined.

The five wise told them to go and buy for themselves. So they went out to buy oil for themselves, and they found some, but by the time they got to the door, it was shut.

They knocked on the door and the bridegroom did not let them in.

It was too late.

There are many incentives to take advantage of to quit sexual immorality, however, very few will incorporate such incentives.

The pleasures of self gratification can be overwhelming because of the rewards it offers. However, the reward of heaven with Christ outweighs the pleasures of self gratification. There comes a point in your walk with the Lord where masturbation is something you do not need.

Dr. Mark Laaser, who wrote a book on Healing The Wounds Of Sexual Addiction, did a course and placed a powerful lesson on Sexual Addiction on CD. He asked a question, “Can you do without masturbation and sex with your wife?” That’s radical. Because he continued and said, “If you can’t, you do not have full control and you cannot manage your sex life.”

The release of sexual tension is powerful. However, there comes a point where these pleasure of life must come to an end one way or another. Either through self discipline or when the catching away of the people of God takes place. Even after that, people will still engage in some form of releasing sexual tension. Even then, it’s just a matter of time before it all comes to an end.

NO MORE SEX!!!!! FOREVER!!!!!!

For many people, a sense of hopelessness and shame clouds the mind. Hopelessness is the fog of war in the mind and flesh.

As long as this feeling of hopelessness lingers in the mind, the attempt to break free is the light at the end of the tunnel that is seemingly a fleeting thing. Many men and women have dashed their hopes because the urges and impulses dictates their every move.

In my studies about sexuality, I learned that many people plan their day around sex. It usually is at the expense of a marriage, their job, and ultimately, their relationship with the Lord. It was true for me too. The obsession, infatuation, day dreaming, open minded thoughts of reading a newspaper, magazine, women watching, and porn. My whole day was planned around an orgasm.

All these things and the true worship of God takes a back seat. In most cases, a relationship with God in hypocrisy is better than no relationship at all. As ridiculous as this sounds, this is where many of God’s people are. I can identify with this because when you refuse to equate the sin of self gratification as part of the religious ritual of false penance, it is easy to think that you are just as close to God as if you never sinned.

Like John, the apostle of the Lamb said, “If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

I know you are not going to let me off the hook about calling masturbation a sin because there is no specific chapter and verse that declares that masturbation is a sin. However, where the Bible is silent, it is never to be assumed that it is safe to commit an act. Besides, not many people will agree that since Jesus didn’t do it, neither should I.

This stops all of the pretense.

I mean, we are to be like Christ in every way? Right?

If this is so according to, Romans 8:29, and if we are to prove that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, to yield our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service according to Romans 12:1, then we should be able, at least consider the fact that the Lord desires for sin to not have dominion over us according to Romans 6:12.

The majority of the time, we are always looking for a reason to “continue in sin that grace may abound” according to Romans 6:1. When we get to the place where we desire to please the Lord, we find ourselves looking for reasons to continue in righteousness so that grace may abound. We look to cut our hands and our eyes, we look to strive against sin even to the shedding of our own blood to stop sin.

No, put the Rambo knife down.

Jesus and the writer of Hebrews spoke of entering a place of radical cutting off of the instruments and members so that we would stop sinning.

Paul said, by the Spirit of God, “The body is not made for sexual immorality.” 

The physical body was made to be indwelled by the Lord. The Lord desired to inhabit man and the body is not for fornication (pornea).

As long as we make provision to fulfill the desires of the flesh and mind, we will never break its cycle.

Millions of men and women throughout the world masturbate every day. For reasons that range from sexual perversion to fulfill lust, to releasing sexual tension is a major problem. It seems like marriage, which is the answer to stop masturbation is no longer the answer that man wants to accept. Additionally, self control, a fruit of the Spirit according to Galatians 5:22, is cast to the side.

The parable of the sower is the most powerful parable that Jesus ever spoke. In that parable is the answer to handle the problems we face in life. It also serves as the gauge or measuring tool to locate where you are in your relationship with the Lord. Producing fruit is the thing that most concerns the Father. Galatians 5:22. John 15:1-5 confirms this and Jesus further confirms this when He said that we are known by our fruit.

Man will stand in four places. Good ground, wayside, stony ground, and thorny ground.

The last ground, thorny ground speaks of people that are trapped in cares, riches, and pleasures of life. 

The pleasures of this life come with a price. If we are unable to cast aside the pleasures of this life, we may never be free. But thank God your failure is not final. While there is still time, you can enjoy freedom in Christ from the powerful urge to masturbate. You can return to experience a healthy sexual life with your wife or husband if you are married.

Most importantly, you can be restored in your relationship with the Lord in righteousness and true holiness, laying aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset you, to lay aside every filthiness and overflow of wickedness, to cleanse ourselves from the filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Hopelessness is coming to an end for you. New life in Christ is at hand for you.

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The Power of Community

Posted on February 20, 2013 at 5:31 pm.
http://purehope.net/the-power-of-community/
by Dave Brown

BarsThe encouragement and accountability provided by a Christian community or support group is indispensable in the road to breaking free of addiction or struggle.  Sexual integrity groups, Faithful and True Groups (Mark Laaser),  Pure Desire Groups (Ted & Diane Roberts),  Samson Society Groups (Nate Larkin), or others provide a safe place for individuals to bring their wounds, sin, and shame into a caring and compassionate community. Such groups eliminate the isolation and secrecy that are the lifeblood of addiction, and provide the acceptance, understanding, structure, and truthfulness the addicted individual requires.  “We’re only as sick as our secrets,” as it has been said, and converting secrecy into transparency is fundamental to the journey out of bondage.

Counselor Doug Weiss says “I have never met anyone who has experienced sexual addiction recovery alone.  When you are accountable, sobriety is a much greater goal than just being abstinent.”

Dr. Mark Laaser believes in the power of an authentic community group that focuses on heart issues, wounds, and behaviors. “One guy (one accountability partner) is not enough. What if that guy is sick, or not at home, or not in a good mood that day? Plus, it’s tough to fool 10 guys.”  The same principle would hold for women’s or teen support.

There has to be a ruthlessness about truly facing core issues of heart level attractions and severing those by the Grace of God.  We need community both in a small group and with your local congregation.  We are to live lives in confession, contrition, and community as believers in Christ who seek His transforming power. The Christian life will always have themes of genuine faith and authentic repentance at the core. That will then be worked out in imperfect but growing lives of individual purity (I John 3:3) and a deep concern for the hurts, afflictions, and injustices done to others (sexually, and in other areas – Isaiah 42:3).

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8

Dave

Dave Brown serves as pureHOPE’s Director of Counseling and Support.  He is a licensed social worker, and earned his M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and his MSW from Loyola University in Chicago.  Dave can be reached directly at dbrown@purehope.net.

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How Should Affairs End Part II

Posted by James Browning on February 22, 2013

coupleloveweddingbwbeautyblackandwhiteUnfaithful spouses usually don’t want their marriages to end, and yet they want emotional needs met that the spouse does not meet. Discovery of the affair, in most cases, would ruin the “solution” to their problem. But there comes a time in almost every affair that an unfaithful spouse realizes that it has run its course, or it wasn’t a good idea to begin with. In some cases, it’s the lover who ends the relationship, finding that the spouse isn’t living up to expectations. And in other cases, it’s the spouse that ends it when the disadvantages of the affair begin to outweigh the advantages. In most cases, affairs end peacefully and in secret. By their very nature, there is not much of a commitment to hold them together, and a desire to do the “right thing” is usually the excuse an unfaithful spouse uses to end it. But the real reason is usually that the affair has become more trouble than it’s worth. Occasionally, a scorned lover will go berserk, call the spouse all hours of the day and night, file lawsuits and create all kinds of trouble. But that’s very rare. Affairs usually end quietly. In the vast majority of cases, affairs are never revealed to spouses. They are usually kept so secret that even when children are born of an affair, the victimized husband is usually not told that the child he is raising is not really his. I know of over 20 instances where a father is unknowingly raising another man’s child. From “Coping With Infidelity Part II” by Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5060_qa.html

“Marriage is not a simple love affair, it’s an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one.” –   Joseph Campbell

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We Are All Wired For Affairs Part II

I do not necessarily believe that we are “all wired for affairs” but found this information interesting.

older-couple-angry-in-bedThe unsuspecting jilted spouse usually senses a problem when an affair begins. For one thing, an affair usually takes up quite a bit of time, and all sorts of excuses are given to be away from home — having to work late, impulsive trips to the store and unexplained absences from work — they all become more and more difficult to believe. Telephone records and credit card receipts are carefully hidden, for if they are found, they will often reveal the scope of the affair. When the spouses are together, an emotional distance usually prevails. Sex is almost always a problem for women who are having an affair, and many men having an affair find they cannot make love to their wives, either. In many cases, intimacy in marriage becomes so bad that a separation is requested to “sort things out.” An affair is often suspected by the jilted spouse, but almost always vigorously denied by the offending spouse. It usually takes solid evidence… to get an unfaithful spouse to admit the truth. I’ve seen so many spouses lie about affairs, that when one spouse wants a separation, my best guess is that he or she is having an affair. I’m right almost every time. Why would anyone need to be alone to sort things out? It makes much more sense to think that being separated makes it easier to be with their lover. Granted, there are many good reasons for a separation, such as physical or extreme mental abuse. But of all those I’ve seen separate, most have had lovers in the wings. Since an affair usually creates emotional distance between spouses, lovers describe their increasing dissatisfaction with their marriages. They talk about how incompatible they are in marriage and how compatible they are with each other. The addiction they have for each other turns the relationship into a passion that makes an eternal relationship with each other an absolute necessity. Many would rather commit suicide together than to return to their horrible spouses. “Coping With Infidelity” by Willard F. Harley, Jr., Ph.D http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5059_qa.html

“A love affair is like a short story– it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning was easy, the middle might drag, invaded by commonplace, but the end, instead of being decisive and well-knit with that element of revelatory surprise as a well-written story should be, it usually dissipated in a succession of messy and humiliating anticlimaxes.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald