CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

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Calling the Unqualified

Peter, Andrew, James, Nathanael. Never traveled farther than a week’s walk from home. Haven’t studied the ways of Asia or the culture of Greece. Their passports aren’t worn; their ways aren’t sophisticated. Do they have any formal education?

In fact, what do they have? Humility? They jockeyed for cabinet positions. Sound theology? Peter told Jesus to forget the cross. Sensitivity? John wanted to torch the Gentiles. Loyalty? When Jesus needed prayers, they snoozed. When Jesus was arrested, they ran.

Thanks to their cowardice, Christ had more enemies than friends at his execution.

Yet look at them six weeks later, crammed into the second floor of a Jerusalem house, abuzz as if they’d just won tickets to the World Cup Finals. High fives and wide eyes. Wondering what in the world Jesus had in mind with his final commission: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NIV).

You hillbillies will be my witnesses. You uneducated and simple folk will be my witnesses. You who once called me crazy, who shouted at me in the boat and doubted me in the Upper Room. You temperamental, parochial net casters and tax collectors. You will be my witnesses. You will spearhead a movement that will explode like a just-opened fire hydrant out of Jerusalem and spill into the ends of the earth: into the streets of Paris, the districts of Rome, and the ports of Athens, Istanbul, Shanghai, and Buenos Aires. You will be a part of something so mighty, controversial, and head spinning that two millennia from now a middle-aged, redheaded author riding in the exit row of a flight from Boston to Dallas will type this question on his laptop:

Does Jesus still do it? Does he still use simple folks like us to change the world?

God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

Don’t let Satan convince you otherwise. He will try. He will tell you that God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. That he employs only specialists and experts, governments and high-powered personalities. When Satan whispers such lies, dismiss him with this truth: God stampeded the first-century society with swaybacks, not thoroughbreds. Before Jesus came along, the disciples were loading trucks, coaching soccer, and selling Slurpee drinks at the convenience store. Their collars were blue, and their hands were calloused, and there is no evidence that Jesus chose them because they were smarter or nicer than the guy next door. The one thing they had going for them was a willingness to take a step when Jesus said, “Follow me.”

Are you more dinghy than cruise ship? More stand-in than movie star? More plumber than executive? More blue jeans than blue blood? Congratulations. God changes the world with folks like you.

Today’s devotional is drawn from Max Lucado’s Second Chances.

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Intimate Mystery Conference (Dr. Dan B. Allender)

May 4–5, 2018

Grand Parkway Baptist Church
12000 FM 1464, Richmond, TX 77407

Intimate Mystery is a conference designed to invite you to an honest exploration of who you are, how your story impacts your style of relating, and what you and your partner create together in light of your unique stories. Intimate Mystery will invite you to candidly engage the inherent joys and struggles of marriage and relationships through the categories of communication, conflict, dreams and demands, family ties, forgiveness, and sex.

Join Dr. Dan B. Allender to explore God’s design for marriage through the matrix of Genesis 2:24 (leaving, weaving, and cleaving). Be moved toward deeper intimacy as you encounter the character and purposes of God revealed through the complexities of your unique relationship.

My wife and I believe this to be the best marriage conference we’ve ever attended in 35 years of marriage and “Christian” effort to do it right.  It is serving to bring us hope through the reality of life and not the empty promises of how to do it better, try harder, or be more faithful. — Intimate Mystery attendee

Dr. Allender leads the conversation with his own vulnerability and challenges couples to lean into their vulnerability, resulting in an experience that moves the conversation on life-giving marriages and relationships beyond techniques and “how-to’s.” Instead, Dan invites you into a place of newfound awareness and ability to engage conflict and desire—as an individual and as a couple.

I am single and have never been married.  I feel like hearing this information now is so helpful.  It will help me as I work through my story and it will also change the way I’m dating. — Intimate Mystery attendee

Intimate Mystery is a conference centered on understanding and developing healthy intimacy, and is applicable to both couples and singles, to those who want to engage Scripture in a provocative, meaningful way, and to those who desire a deeper faith and deeper relationships with others and God.

REGISTER VIA LINK BELOW

Intimate Mystery – May 4, 2018

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River Oaks – Kirby Meeting Cancelled – February 14, 2018

In honor of St. Valentine’s Day, we will be cancelling tomorrow night’s meeting at the Kirby location.  Please visit a different meeting this week if needed.  The Kirby meeting will resume the following Wednesday night, February 21st. Visit the link below for other meetings. 

Texas Meetings

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Digging Up What i Threw Away

Originally posted at: http://intentionalwarriors.com/2016/05/15/digging-up-what-i-threw-away/

by james tarring cordrey

When i read the most recent post by Ethan Renoe the other day, Porn and the Doughnut Man, i got thinking about a really embarrassing event which involves picking through the trash, that happened when i was in the throes of my compulsive sexual behavior.

In Ethan’s post, he talks about offering free doughnuts to a man who is picking through the garbage looking for something to eat.  The man turns down the offer of freshly baked doughnuts and continues rummaging through the trash.

Ethan muses about the symbolism and meaning of that exchange, and how it relates to the offer of the Gospel.  How many times, Ethan wonders, has he been just like that man picking through the trash, turning down something good that is offered freely in favor of rubbish.

The picture Ethan paints immediately reminded me of a slightly different scenario from my life that involves porn and a trash can — or more specifically — a dumpster.

Back when i was regularly acting out in my addiction, i would buy porn videos. i would buy one at a time, and i would dispose of each one immediately after watching it. i was nervous that if i held on to the videos and built a stash i would get caught, so i always found a trash can or a dumpster and threw the videos out.

The visit to the trash can at the end of my acting out was just as much a part of the ritual of my addiction as the build up to the purchase was. There was a twisted poetry about it. At the end of the episode of pleasing my addiction, my physical action finally matched what the whole experience had been from the start: wasteful.

There was this one time that it had a new low, and the metaphor was all too real.

i watched a porn video and threw it in a dumpster in the alley behind my apartment. Feeling disgusted, i walked away from that experience with various promises on my lips:  That’s the last time; This is over; i can’t sink any lower, so this has to be where it all turns around; i am dead to this; now that i have gotten this out of my system, i won’t need porn anymore, and on and on.

The guilt and shame and self-reproach were thick for the rest of that day and the next. But the day after that, i was remembering parts of that video that i had really liked; parts of the video that were “so good” i wanted to see them one more time before really quitting porn for good.

And so, i climbed into that dumpster and clawed around for the video until i found it.

i found it.  Fortunately, there was not that much trash in the dumpster, so i managed to only get slightly dirty.

It would have been more fitting, perhaps, if the dumpster had been full of banana peels, coffee grounds, half-eaten fast food, dirty diapers, and all manner of nasty refuse. Nevertheless, the reality of what i had done was significant. i had been so desperate for porn that i had climbed into a large metal container of garbage to get it.

i don’t even think i debated with myself whether to do it. i just did it. There was no internal back-and-forth conversation of:

i’m going in there.

What? You’re crazy.

Before i knew it, i was in there with the trash.

i remember coming out of the dumpster and immediately what came to mind were the lyrics from Addicted by The Juliana Hatfield Three, which starts out with these lines:

i think i’m addicted / gotta have it everyday.

i think i’m addicted / i’m digging up what i threw away.

There it was; someone had written a rock song about me. The lyrics mocked me. The self-hatred kicked in all over again, this time with even more venom.

i know what it’s like to choose the garbage of porn — and the porn of the garbage —over life, freedom and sanity. What i didn’t know then, but i do now, is that what i was really looking for in that dumpster years ago wasn’t porn at all.

i was actually looking for life. But there was nobody in my life who would help me figure it out.

If Ethan Renoe had walked past with a box of doughnuts while i was fumbling through that dumpster years ago, i would have done the same thing that the guy in Ethan’s story did: refused the offer and turned back to the trash.

Truth be told, everyday some version of that scenario plays itself out, regardless of the fact that haven’t looked at porn for a long time. There is an offer of goodness and life for free that gets presented to me, and there is some form of trash that beckons me.

It’s crucial that i leave the trash in the dumpster and stop digging up what i threw away.

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Castimonia Wednesday Night River Oaks Kriby Meeting CANCELLED 01-17-2018

We are canceling the Castimonia Wednesday night meeting at this location due to freezing road conditions in and around Houston. The meeting will resume the following Wednesday night at its regular time and location.

Stay safe!