Becoming Whole: Recent Episodes

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A single word can change what someone believes about themselves. “Addiction.” “Trauma.” “Struggle.” James Craig and therapist Blake Brinkman talk honestly about why certain terms can shut people down, especially when they carry cultural baggage, and how a simpler word like struggle can sometimes open the door to truth, humility, and real support.

We also get specific about sexual brokenness and pornography addiction, including why compulsive porn use can function like a process addiction even without a substance. When you understand the cycle and what’s happening in the brain, it becomes easier to pursue the right kind of care instead of trying to white-knuckle change. From there, we move into one of the most important tensions in Christian recovery: naming reality without letting a label become your identity. We respect programs that help people confess what’s true, while also holding tight to a deeper foundation: you are not a diagnosis; you are a beloved son or daughter invited into sanctification.

If you’re a pastor trying to shepherd well, a spouse processing betrayal wounds, or someone tired of repeating the same cycle, you’ll walk away with clearer language and a more hopeful map forward. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the help they’ve been avoiding.

Resources from this episode:

Addiction Cycle Worksheet

Manna

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Anger can feel like the problem, but what if it’s actually the cover story? Aaron Tagert and James Craig pull on a thread that has reshaped their coaching conversations: sadness often starts in the gut, rises toward tears, and when we block it, it can convert into anxiety in the chest or burst out as anger from the mouth. That shift matters for anyone who feels stuck in frustration, shame, or emotional shutdown and can’t figure out why the smallest things set them off.

We get practical and personal, talking about jaw tension, tight chests, fatigue, and the subtle ways our bodies reveal what our words won’t. We also name how selective numbing shows up in real life, including patterns like pornography use, compulsive scrolling, food, sugar, fantasy, and other forms of escape. The point isn’t to moralize; it’s to understand emotional regulation and the hidden grief underneath so we can pursue real healing, deeper connection, and lasting integrity.

We keep it rooted in Christian discipleship and recovery: Jesus never bypasses emotion, Jesus wept, and Scripture makes space for lament, sorrow, and joy. You’ll hear simple questions to ask when you feel numb, anxious, or angry, plus a guided reflection you can try this week to move from reacting to responding. If you’ve ever thought, “I don’t have feelings, I just get mad,” this conversation gives you a new map.

Subscribe, share this with someone who lives on the edge of frustration, and leave a review so more people can find practical, hope-filled tools for emotional health and spiritual growth.

Resources from this episode:

• Three Percent Podcast Conversation w/ Dr/ Flanagan
• Awaken Retreat
• Sacred By Design Retreat 2026

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Calling yourself “humble” can sound spiritual while you quietly live in self-doubt, shame, and a constant need to prove you matter. In this episode of Becoming Whole, we share part of a hard truth: insecurity and humility are not the same, and mixing them up can keep you stuck in lust and unwanted sexual behaviors even when you genuinely want freedom.

We walk through the difference between love and lust, then connect it to the sexual addiction cycle: challenging life events, triggers, shame, and the pull toward quick relief. Along the way, we name why pornography can feel like a drug of choice. It doesn’t only create arousal, it hijacks the body’s deep language of dignity and value, offering a counterfeit “you are wanted” right when you feel alone, stressed, or unworthy.

If this helps, subscribe, share it with someone who feels stuck, and leave a review so more people can find the path from insecurity to love.

Resources from this Episode:

• Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You by Jim Wilder et al.
• Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla
• Growth Into Manhood by Alan Medinger
• Genesis 2:21-24 - “They were naked and unashamed.”
• Luke 15:11-32 - “You are with me always, and everything I have is yours.”
• Mathew 3:16-17 - “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Your strongest sexual desires can feel like destiny, like a permanent label that tells you who you are and what you’ll always chase. We don’t buy that. James Craig sits down with Josh Glazer to talk about a different kind of change: not behavior hacks, not sheer willpower, but the slow, hopeful formation of what we love, what we long for, and what we reach for when we’re hurting.

We dig into how culture preaches “follow your heart,” and why that message often produces despair for Christians who feel divided inside. Then we get practical and biblical. Romans 5 gives a progression from suffering to perseverance to character to hope, and we connect that directly to sexual integrity, porn recovery, and unwanted sexual behaviors. Temptation itself can be a kind of suffering, and when we carry it alone, it grows heavier. When we bring it into a safe community, it can become the very place where hope is restored, and shame loses its grip.

We also talk about trauma, attachment, and why Jesus doesn’t avoid the tender places, using the woman at the well as a picture of Christ meeting us right where we’re most exposed. To close, we read 2 Peter chapter one’s growth pathway toward love and invite you to take one next step, not a perfect leap.

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more people can find honest conversations about sexual wholeness and Christian discipleship.

Resources from this episode:

You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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A lot of people want to be compassionate and end up quietly rewriting their convictions. We start with a sharp line from Augustine that helps clear the fog: it’s one thing to be wrong about a person, but it’s another thing to call something good that God calls sin.

From there, we talk honestly about the pain underneath the LGBTQ experience and sexual brokenness, and why love doesn’t avoid that pain by changing the definition of morality. Love goes into the hard places because it cares about what happens next, emotionally, spiritually, and in real life.

I’m joined by Ken Williams, co-founder and co-president of the Change Movement, and he walks us through his recovery journey from compulsive sexual behaviors and leaving behind a gay sexual lifestyle. Ken shares the six words that became his discipleship framework: vulnerability, surrender, relationships, identity, enduring faith, and vision. We unpack why quick fixes like “just date” or “just get married” miss the real issue, and why many struggles are better described as an intimacy disorder, a broken ability to connect with God and people safely.

Ken points to resources that help Christians navigate LGBTQ questions with clarity and compassion, and he closes by praying for surrender and freedom for anyone who feels stuck. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Resources from this Episode:

• Changed Movement Navigating LGBT Resource
• Testimonies of people coming out of LGBT
• Same Sex Attraction Part 3 with Elizabeth Woning

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Your sexual desire can feel like a verdict. When you’ve gone back to porn again, crossed boundaries again, or found yourself stuck in patterns you hate, it’s easy to believe the loudest story: this is just who I am. We push against that lie with a different question, one that exposes the strategy of shame: why would the enemy want you to believe your sexual behaviors define your identity?

We stay in John 4 with Jesus and the woman at the well, not to weaponize the passage, but to hear the tenderness in it. Jesus doesn’t approach her with scolding or disgust. He speaks of the Father seeking worshipers who worship in spirit and truth, and we explore what it means to believe you were made for that kind of worship even while you’re struggling. The goal isn’t pretending sin is fine. The goal is letting God “untwist” what’s disordered from what’s deeply human and deeply holy: the ache to be known, cherished, and held without shame.

From there, we talk about sex as union. Sexual drive is intense because the longing for union is intense, but the deepest union you want is bigger than a moment, bigger than chemistry, even bigger than marriage. Marriage itself is a signpost pointing to the communion we’re designed for with God. If you’re a pastor, mentor, spouse, or friend walking with someone through sexual addiction or compulsive sexual behavior, this lens also changes how you help: less accusation, more truth, more patience, more hope.

If this brings relief or conviction, don’t keep it to yourself. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a shame-free path toward sexual integrity, and leave a review so more people can find it. What’s one line of shame you’re ready to stop agreeing with?

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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The lie that keeps so many of us stuck isn’t “you’re too weak” it’s “you’re on your own.” When we’re isolated, we learn to manage, perform, and keep it together, while the real stuff stays hidden under shame and fear. Today, we go after that hidden layer and ask a simple, unsettling question: what’s the 3% you won’t say out loud, and what is it costing you?

I’m joined by Jamie and Blake, Nashville therapists and the voices behind the Three Percent Podcast. They share how trauma, attachment wounds, and 12-step recovery shaped the way they think about vulnerability, porn addiction recovery, and honest male friendship. We talk about why vulnerability can feel unsafe in your body, how emotions are meant to give you information (not embarrassment), and why “not everyone deserves your 3%” is just as important as learning to share it.

If you’re tired of surface-level living and ready for real connection, hit play, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the way out of hiding.

Resources from this episode:

• Three Percent Podcast
• Three Percent Co

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Sex can feel like the loudest desire in the room, but what if it’s actually a signpost pointing to something deeper? James Craig, our director of projects, shares a condensed version of a church talk that maps a Christian theology of sexuality from creation to fall to redemption, with an honest look at why so many people feel fractured inside their own wants, choices, and sense of self.

If you’ve ever wondered why sex carries so much weight, or how healing can reach deeper than shame and willpower, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s wrestling, and leave a review with the line that hit you hardest.

🚨 Upcoming 🗓️

Awaken Men's Retreat

Sometimes transformation begins when we finally slow down long enough to hear what God has been trying to say beneath all the noise.

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available

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Sacred By Design Women's Retreat

A retreat for women who need space to rest, reflect, and be renewed.

Join us for a gentle, Scripture-centered day of encouragement, honest community, and time to breathe in God’s presence.

Saturday | October 17th

More Information & Registration

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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The first command in the Bible is not a rule about what to avoid. It is a commissioning to be fruitful, to multiply, and to image God together as embodied people. That single detail reframes a lot of confusion and shame around sex, the body, and marriage, so we decided to share a portion of a church talk from James Craig, our director of projects, that takes the wide-angle view.

We start with Genesis and a Christian anthropology: Imago Dei and the claim that men and women share equal dignity and a shared calling. Then we dig into nephesh, the biblical idea that you are a whole living being, not a spirit trapped in a body.
Lastly, we move into the meaning of “one flesh” in Genesis 2 and why the theology of the body matters for real life. We unpack union, self-giving love, procreation, pleasure, and how marital covenant points beyond itself toward union with God.

Subscribe for more teaching like this, share it with a friend who is rethinking faith and sexuality, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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The topic is anger, but the stories are tender, so please pause, pray, breathe, and listen as you feel ready.

Anger is often misunderstood—and often buried.

But what if anger isn’t just something to control…
What if it’s something to understand?

In this episode, we explore how anger can function as both a signal and a driver—especially in cycles of unwanted sexual behavior. Drawing from Scripture, personal stories, and practical tools, we talk about how to:

• Recognize anger as more than a surface emotion
• Understand what anger may be protecting or revealing
• Avoid the two common traps: explosion or suppression
• Bring your anger into the presence of Jesus in a healthy way
• Begin moving toward healing, clarity, and restoration

We also reflect on Psalm 139:23–24 as a pathway into honest prayer:

“Search me, God, and know my heart…”

If anger has felt confusing, overwhelming, or even shameful—this conversation will help you take a next step.

👉 Learn more about coaching and support

• Men's Coaching
• Women's Coaching

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Shame has a way of pushing us into the hottest part of the day, alone, doing life where no one can see us. That’s why John 4 hits so hard for anyone carrying sexual brokenness, porn use, compulsive fantasy, secret hookups, or a past that still stings. We walk through Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman and pay attention to the details that reveal His heart: He goes where others won’t go, He initiates conversation, and He starts with a humble request for a drink.

We talk about isolation and defensiveness as survival strategies, and the way Jesus takes the lower place in their dialogue. Instead of shaming her, he offers “living water” that speaks to the deeper thirst beneath every substitute. When Jesus asks her to call her husband, we slow down and ask why: not to mock, not to expose her publicly, but to bring her full story into the light so nothing stands between them. Love can’t fully reach a version of us that is still hiding.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more people can find hope.

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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A head turn in the park. A glance across the sanctuary. For many couples healing after infidelity, pornography, or sexual addiction, those tiny moments can feel bigger than the whole week of progress. We sit down with coaches Aaron Tagert and Anne Donahue to slow the moment down and name what’s really happening: betrayal trauma in her body, shame and helplessness in him, and the split-second choice between defensiveness and connection.

We talk about why “I wasn’t looking” usually backfires, even when it’s true, and how a betrayed spouse can experience that as being left again. Then we get practical. Aaron and Anne share simple tools for nervous system regulation, taking a pause, and moving toward your spouse with empathy. We also unpack a framework called SAVES: see, ask, validate, empathize, and provide security through your presence and your actions.

Lastly, we tackle what “realistic” healing looks like for couples in recovery. Noticing is part of being human, but seeking and fixating are different, and intent matters. We discuss the distinction between fleeting intrusive thoughts and fixating fantasy, plus guidance on getting outside support without turning it into spouse-bashing. If you want a marriage marked by honesty, tenderness, and real repair, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more couples can find the conversation.

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Addiction and unwanted sexual behaviors often feel like a mystery: “I don’t want this, but I keep doing it.” We sit down with Chris Coursey, co-founder and president of Thrive Today, to explore a different diagnosis for overcoming sexual addiction. Addiction, a maturity gap that forms when our brains never receive key relational skills. When these skills are missing, we don’t stop needing comfort, connection, or relief. We just reach for substitutes that work fast and fade faster.

We dig into the Life Model framework and the neuroscience of relational transformation, especially the difference between happiness and joy. Joy, as Chris and Dr. Jim Wilder define it, is “glad to be togetherness,” and it changes everything from fear-driven living to our ability to rest. We also discuss God’s "hessed", loyal love, and how recovery accelerates when we start to trust that God wills our good rather than demands performance.

From there, we get practical: emotional capacity, “enemy mode,” attachment pain, and how people can learn relational skills even as adults through practice and community. We connect these ideas to both sides of the healing journey, those fighting compulsive behaviors and those carrying betrayal trauma. If you want a Christian recovery conversation that blends spiritual formation, brain science, and real-world tools for change, this one will meet you where you are.

Subscribe for more, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review that tells us what topic you would like us to cover next.

Resources from this episode:

• Taking your relational temperature
• 19 relational skills
• https://thrivetoday.org/

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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“I watch porn because my wife won’t have sex with me” sounds like a blunt confession, but it’s usually a doorway into something much bigger: intimacy, rejection, power, trust, and what we believe sex is actually for. We sit with that statement pastorally and honestly, and we ask a hard question many couples avoid: when sex disappears in a Christian marriage, what is the wise, loving, God-honoring next step?

We walk through why sex is more than a physical outlet. It’s connection, “knowing,” and covenant communion. Then we slow down in 1 Corinthians 7, a passage that often gets quoted to demand sex, and we add the missing context: Paul is offering concession in a sexually broken culture, not giving a license for coercion. We also discuss the reality that a sexless marriage can signal deeper issues like pain, postpartum recovery, trauma, resentment, or relational rupture, and that healing usually requires patience and care rather than pressure.

If this conversation helps you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review so others can find it. What part of the topic do you want us to unpack next?

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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“Are you affirming?” might be the most common question churches get about sexuality and it’s also one of the easiest traps to fall into. We want to be clear on historic Christian teaching about marriage, singleness, celibacy, and chastity, but we also want to lead with the better invitation: come follow Jesus, and let him reshape every part of your life. That shift changes the entire atmosphere, especially for people who feel like their sexual struggles make them unwelcome at church.

We dig into why sexuality is not just a “hot button issue” but a doorway into some of the deepest discipleship available. Beneath behaviors are questions about desire, identity, self-mastery, wounds, relationships, and what we’re truly thirsty for. We talk about Jesus and the woman at the well as a picture of truth and grace in the same moment, and why avoiding the topic often means missing a powerful opportunity for heart transformation.

Then we get practical for church leaders and members: should a church put its stance on sexuality on the website, or keep it relational? We also explore leadership and membership decisions, from serving on teams to eldership, and why different roles require different standards. Using 1 Thessalonians 5:14, plus scriptures from Titus and 1 Timothy, we argue for holding both clear qualifications and process-based growth, including humility, truth-telling, and knowing when it’s wise to step down for the sake of care and integrity.

If you’re trying to navigate sexual discipleship with wisdom, clarity, and real compassion, listen now. Subscribe, share with a pastor or friend, and leave a review so more churches can find a better way forward.

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Send us Fan Mail

In this episode, our hosts share what they hear most from clients who love their local church yet feel stuck. Either sex is never addressed; it shows up as a quick “thou shalt not” list, or the tone implies “if you struggle, you’re bad.” We also explore the website dilemma: when clarity is loving, when vagueness backfires, and how a perceived bait-and-switch can retraumatize people who already fear rejection.

If you’re a pastor, a small group leader, or a church member who wants to help, listen and then share this with someone you trust. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what would it look like for your church to become a safer place to grow sexually whole?

Show Notes

• BWP: There’s no such thing as heterosexuality
• Luke 5:1-11 describes the miraculous catch of fish, followed by Peter’s plea, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man,” and Jesus’ invitational response, “Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men.”
• Brief synopsis of Side A, B, X, and Y beliefs:
  • Side A - God made people LGBT+ and affirms LGBT+ sexual identities, desires, behaviors, and social structures.
  • Side B - God forbids same-sex sexual expression, so LGBT+ people should abstain from LGBT+ sexual behavior. However, there are a variety of reasons that it is good for those who experience non-heteronormative feelings to embrace LGBT+ identities.
  • Side X - LGBT+ feelings and attractions are a result of childhood wounds and/or underdeveloped masculinity or femininity, so these inclinations can be changed with appropriate interventions. LGBT+ feelings and attractions should not serve as an identity marker for Christians.
  • Side Y - LGBT+ feelings and attractions may or may not be a result of wounds; they may or may not change, but they should not serve as an identity marker for Christians. Like all Christians, those with same-sex attractions are called either to faithfulness in heterosexual marriage or abstinence in singleness.
  • Regeneration’s view (which we believe more accurately aligns with orthodox Christianity through the ages):
    God’s sexual design for humanity is both biological and theological: Biologically, men and women’s bodies are oriented toward the other in design—each with one sexual organ procreatively designed through sexual union with the other sex. Theologically, men's and women’s bodies are designed to image God. One distinct part of this design is that the marital sexual union is meant to point to the ultimate spiritual union between Christ and his bride, the Church. Whether single or married, all Christians are called to Christlikeness, which requires growing in the virtues of chastity, temperance, and love.

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the way we talk about sexuality is the very thing keeping us stuck? We trace the surprising origins of “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” unpack why those categories took hold, and explore how turning desires into identity reshaped culture, conscience, and the church. We draw from Michael Hannon’s “Against Heterosexuality” and Michel Foucault’s history of sexuality to show how an invented binary promised clarity but delivered confusion, shame, and pride.

We share why language isn’t neutral—names create lenses—and how the orientation frame quietly shifted moral questions from action and virtue to inner self-analysis. For those who experience same-sex desire, we acknowledge the weight of being told a label is who you are. For those who consider themselves “straight,” we challenge the complacency that excuses lust as normal and forgets that chastity is for everyone. Together, we re-center three layers: desires that need formation, behaviors that shape us, and an identity received from the One who made us male and female with purpose.

If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for more episodes, and leave a review with the one question you still want us to tackle.

Resources from this episode:

Article reference: Against Heterosexuality - First Things by Michael W. Hannon

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Send us Fan Mail

What if your imagination isn’t a liability but a lifeline? We open a candid conversation about fantasy, romance, and the deep longings that quietly direct our relationships with ourselves, others, and God. Rather than treating desire like a problem to fix, we treat it like a compass—one that often points to unmet needs for being seen, soothed, safe, and secure.

Join us, get curious, and take the next brave step. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review.

Also, we want to hear from you. What is your longing pointing you toward?

Resources from this episode:

Unwanted Intensive

Stuck in unwanted sexual behaviors and wondering, “How did I get here—and how do I get out?”

Regeneration is launching our next Men’s Small Group Intensive, based on Unwanted, designed for men ready to go deeper in recovery.

Over 8 weeks, you’ll:

• Engage your story with curiosity and compassion
• Identify patterns that keep you stuck
• Shift from a “freedom from” mindset to a “freedom for” life
• Experience deeper healing, connection, and wholeness

🗓 April 7 – May 26
🕐 Tuesdays | 1–3 pm ET (Zoom)
👥 Limited to 6 men | High-support, high-accountability

Led by Aaron Tagert, Certified Unwanted Guide

👉Sign-up for Unwanted Intensive

Healing Through Story

Discover how your story has shaped your life and how it connects to your unwanted sexual behavior.This is an 8-week course to help you learn the structure of your story, how to share your story, and, in turn, learn the power of your story.

🗓 April 20 – June 22
🕐 Mondays | 7–8:30 pm

👉Sign-up for Healing Through Story

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Shame, Isolation, and Why Community Is the Opposite of Addiction

Join us in today’s episode as I (James Craig) sit down with Regen coach Aaron Tagert to talk about what keeps people stuck in addictive cycles—especially around porn and unwanted sexual behaviors. Aaron shares three major drivers he’ll cover in an upcoming men’s webinar: shame, isolation, and the uncomfortable truth that there can be something about porn that part of us “likes.”

We focus mainly on isolation, pulling from Marcus Warner’s "Slaying the Monster" and the idea that the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety—it’s community.

We unpack how isolation turns suffering into trauma, how many wounds happen in relationships, yet healing also comes through relationships, and why belonging matters more than accountability.

We also get practical with four simple ways to start building community—smile, validate, help, and share—, and we invite men to Regeneration's live webinar on March 5th. If this helps you, share it with someone who feels alone in the struggle.

Resources from this episode:

• BATTLE podcast
• Slaying the Monster book
• TED talk on addiction

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Repentance doesn’t have to sound like a finger wag. We explore a better way: turning as realignment with God’s character and kingdom. Especially for those worn out by “just stop it” advice or guilt-heavy apologies that never seem to change anything. Drawing on the idea of metanoia—the turning of the mind—we share how repentance becomes a process shaped by what we feed our attention, who we walk with, and how we pray with our bodies when desire runs hot, and feelings run cold.

If repentance as realignment sounds like good news you could live with, press play. Then share this episode with a friend who needs hope, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others find their way into freedom.

Resources from this episode:

• 7 Hebrew Words For Praise.pdf

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the missing piece in recovery and marriage isn’t more discipline, but deeper confidence? Not swagger. Not self-worship. A grounded assurance that you’re God’s workmanship, made very good, and called to show up with your whole self for the good of others.

We unpack how this kind of confidence breaks the cycle of lust and fantasy by replacing shortcuts with purpose and presence, and why it’s the difference between real love and people-pleasing.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who needs courage today, subscribe for more conversations like this, and leave a review with one belief about yourself you’re ready to replace.

Resources from this episode:

• Good Will Hunting (🚨 language warning)
• Genesis 1:31, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 12
• Created for Greatness: The Power of Magnanimityby Alexandre Havard

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Temptation rarely arrives out of nowhere—it rides in on pain, pressure, and old stories that never got the care they needed. In this episode, Josh checks in with coaches Aaron Tagert and James Craig to explore a kinder, braver way to face unwanted sexual behavior: trade shame for curiosity, isolation for relationship, and quick fixes for deep repair.

We start by reframing triggers as signals of emotional or physical discomfort, then show why “why” is the wrong starting question. Instead, we lean into who, what, when, where, and how—questions that ground you in your body, invite empathy, and open space for God’s presence. From there, we walk through practical tools: story work you write and read aloud to a safe person, grief work that honors losses across the years, and healing prayer that invites Jesus into the memory where the wound began. These practices create integration and reduce the power of secrecy.

If you’re tired of white-knuckle rules and want a path that blends neuroscience, spiritual formation, and practical steps, this conversation offers clarity and hope. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review telling us which question you’ll practice this week.

Resources in this episode:

• 7 Desires of Every Heart.pdf
• Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson
• Unwanted by Jay Stringer
• Email us questions! info@regenerationministries.org

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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The way we talk about sex shapes what we see—and too often, we’ve learned to see in parts. Today, we take a jackhammer to the pavement of cultural scripts and rebuild a vision where sex isn’t “a thing” to get, but a way to love a whole person. We explore how lust reduces and love restores, why the body speaks of a person’s worth, and how honoring freedom, story, and dignity transforms intimacy.

If you’ve felt trapped in the loop of demand, disappointment, and dull desire, this conversation offers a way out: strengthen the will, slow down to see, and practice love that gives rather than takes. We also address consent beyond the checkbox, the quiet pressures that bend a person’s yes, and why a richer view of union and procreation can deepen trust and joy. Listen, reflect, and share with someone who’s ready to see more. If this resonates, follow the show, leave a review, and tell us: which lens will you practice first?

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Secrets starve intimacy, and silence keeps marriages stuck at the surface. We pull back the curtain on what it really takes to move from hidden struggle to honest healing: starting real recovery, disclosing wisely, and building daily safety through empathy, boundaries, and rhythm. With coaches Ann Donahue, Aaron Tagert, and James Craig, we break down betrayal trauma in plain language so both partners can understand why the body panics, why the mind spins, and what actually restores a sense of safety after trust has been broken.

We walk through a practical framework for momentum. The three C’s—community, content, and coaching—establish personal sobriety, but sobriety is only the baseline. The heart of repair is becoming a safe, present partner whose actions speak louder than words. You’ll hear how empathy and attunement rewire connection, why boundaries protect what’s good, and how initiative from the struggler communicates care. We also share concrete tools: the FANOS check-in to structure weekly conversations around feelings, affirmation, needs, ownership, and sobriety or safety, plus guidance on setting frequency and limits that fit your home.

For couples facing years of secrecy, we explain full therapeutic disclosure and why it can reset the foundation with clarity and care. Instead of drifting on separate islands of “individual work,” we explore couple-centered recovery that brings partners together sooner, aligning healing and avoiding mixed signals.

If you’ve wondered whether telling the truth will end your marriage, this conversation shows how thoughtful disclosure, steady practices, and compassionate support can open a path to connection you didn’t think possible.

If this helped you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so others can find it. Your story might be the spark for someone else’s healing.

Resources from this episode:

5 Essential Steps for Husbands in Recovery PDF

Awaken check-in FAQs

Becoming Whole Podcast: Aaron Tagert & Lyshel Burket on check-ins

FANOS

R2M Application

Becoming Whole Podcast: Disclosures

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if telling the truth is the only way to make home feel safe again? We dive into the messy, honest reality of confession around sexual brokenness and how to navigate it when your spouse says they don’t want the details. With James hosting alongside coaches Aaron and Anne, we unpack why secrecy keeps control in place, why many betrayed spouses want truth without graphic play‑by‑play, and how to honor both integrity and nervous system safety at the same time.

We walk through five essential steps for real recovery. It starts with getting help: a community that tells the truth, content that explains the roots beneath behavior, and coaching or counseling that brings the story into the light. If your spouse knows nothing, we explain how to disclose with care and name what’s changing so the truth arrives with a plan. We emphasize support for the betrayed partner, groups, trauma‑wise guidance, and structure that restores daily stability. Then we outline how brief, scheduled check‑ins reduce dread and build credibility through consistent action rather than desperate, reactive confession.

If you’re ready to trade secrecy for integrity and fear for honest repair, this conversation is your roadmap. Listen, share it with someone who needs hope, and subscribe for part two as we unpack the remaining steps. If this helped you, leave a review and tell us what question you want answered next.

Resources:

5 Essential Steps for Husbands in Recovery

Sacred By Design Podcast

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the most important part of talking with our kids about sex isn’t a perfect script, but a different posture?

We unpack why the one-and-done model backfires, how tone silently teaches more than content, and what to do when your own fear, shame, or grief flares in the moment. You’ll hear practical language for “I don’t know yet, but I’ll get back to you,” and how that single line can keep your child coming to you rather than Google. We also tackle the tricky middle ground of vulnerability without oversharing, focusing on emotions and beliefs—shame, belonging, body image—rather than graphic details, all while making sure kids know they aren’t our support system.

Caught your teen in sexual sin? We outline a third way between withdrawal and control: affirm love first, then collaborate on next steps. Expect rupture and repair, not instant perfection. Re-narrate the story with truth about brain wiring, cultural pressure, and real hope for change, and add wise guardrails that serve the relationship rather than replace it. Along the way, we challenge purity culture’s fragile target and point to a sturdier aim: spiritual maturity and Christlikeness, whether the journey includes clean stretches, hard setbacks, or both.

If you want scripts, tone, and a long-game vision rooted in mercy and truth, this conversation will steady your steps and open new doors at home.

For more support, grab Treading Boldly by Josh Glaser and Daniel Weiss, explore our Parental Guidance workshops for churches, and look into Redefine Student Recovery for teen-focused care.

Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a parent who needs a deep breath and a fresh start.

Resources from this episode:

• Treading Boldly Book
• Theology of the Body YouTube videos
• Redefine Student Recovery with Blake

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the goal isn’t to bubble‑wrap your kids from a sexualized world, but to raise resilient, shame‑resistant disciples who know how to repair? James Craig sits down with our newest staff member and parenting resource lead, Blake Brinkman, to tackle five urgent questions parents are asking: shielding kids from porn, responding to rebellion, setting wise screen rules, navigating complexity, and leading from your own healing. Together we rethink control, anchor everything in the Incarnation, and show why exposure may be inevitable, but shame doesn’t have to be.

We dig into why porn hooks the developing brain, how rupture and repair build secure attachment, and what freedom looks like beyond fear tactics. You’ll hear practical steps—shared‑space devices, filtered networks, clear consequence ladders—and the crucial shift from one‑sided edicts to co‑created agreements that teach teens to self‑govern. We contrast healthy boundaries with rigid rules, explain how to talk about desire without panic, and point to trusted resources like Theology of the Body for connecting design, dignity, and delight.

If this helped, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with the question you want us to tackle next. Your feedback shapes future episodes and resources.

Reach out to us at info@regenerationministries.org with your questions and topics that you would like us to dive into.

Resources from this episode:

• Treading Boldly Book
• Theology of the Body YouTube videos
• Redefine Student Recovery with Blake

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Ever felt like you’re living two lives—one that prays and serves, and one that hides, aches, or acts out? We go straight at that divide and ask what Advent is really saying to our bodies: the Word became flesh. If God chose skin and bone, then your body isn’t a liability to your faith—it’s the home where Christ loves, heals, and restores.

If this met you, share it with a friend who needs hope, subscribe for more conversations on embodied faith, and leave a review with one takeaway you’ll try this week. Where does your body most long to meet Jesus?

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Start with a simple claim that changes everything: your body is not an accessory to your soul; it’s where God meets you. We explore how the incarnation—God with us in a body—reframes three charged realities shaping our lives right now: transgender ideology, AI’s growing role in sexual temptation, and a culture-wide surge of loneliness.

If this conversation helps you rethink identity, desire, or connection, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review with one practice you’ll try this week. If you have any follow-up questions, we would love to hear them.

Resources from this episode:

• Rise & Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Truman
• Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcy
• Psychology Today article
• Unwanted by Jay Stringer

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the loudest name over your life isn’t the truest one? Opening with Genesis and the image of God forming humans from the dust, declaring us very good before performance, accolades, or failure ever show up. From there, we take an honest look at the voices that compete for our identity—worldly success metrics, other people’s wounds, cultural comparison, and the enemy’s oldest tactic of questioning who we are. These voices don’t just echo; they shape thought patterns, build neural pathways, and quietly script the false self we end up wearing.

Resources from this episode:

• The Return of the Prodigal Son - Henri Nouwen
• Abba’s Child - Brennan Manning
• Jamie Winship - Identity Exchange

If this helped reorient your heart and mind, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a new name today, and leave a quick review so others can find it.

Join us for the Awaken Retreat, a weekend designed to help men step out of isolation and into deeper honesty, healing, and connection.

October 9th -11th | Early Bird Registration Available More Information & Registration

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if freedom from porn isn’t about fighting harder, but about growing deeper? We sit down with author and coach Drew Boa to reframe the struggle with clarity and compassion, exploring how porn often acts as a regulator for unprocessed emotions and unmet attachment needs. Instead of battling urges with shame, we talk about befriending the parts of us that first learned to cope this way and inviting them into real safety and connection.

Ready to trade counterfeit comfort for a real connection? Listen now, then share your biggest takeaway. If this helped, subscribe, leave a review, and pass it to someone who needs hope today.

Resources from this episode:

• Husband Material Website
• Drew Boa Website
• Outgrowing Porn Website
• Outgrow Porn Free Chapter 1
• Amazon Link for Outgrowing Porn
• Porn Free Man Conference
• The Rescue

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

• Email us questions! info@regenerationministries.org

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Safety isn’t a feeling you can force, and “good” isn’t a real update. We sit down with coach and Hope Redefined founder Lyschel Burkett to map out a better way for couples to reconnect after betrayal: structured, mutual check-ins that trade control for connection and shame for safety. If you’ve tried to talk and ended up in a spiral, this conversation gives you words, rails, and hope.

If this episode helped, follow the show, share with a friend who needs hope, and leave a rating and review so others can find it.

Resources from today's episode:

• Hope Redefined
• Hope For Wives Podcast
• Hope Redefined Couples Check-in

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

• Email us questions! info@regenerationministries.org

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the questions we ask about sex are too small? We take on role-play, masturbating while thinking about a spouse, and the habits modern culture treats as normal—and then we lay out a bigger, braver vision for intimacy that actually heals.

We start with the allure of role-play. Playfulness and communication are good, but pretending to be someone else can fracture the connection by elevating a mask over the person you vowed to love.

From there, we tackle solo sex “about” your spouse. It feels faithful, but fantasy edits reality and guarantees availability in ways a real spouse cannot. Training our bodies on images—yes, even of a spouse—forms us toward self-directed pleasure rather than mutual self-gift.

Throughout, we return to the telos of sex in the Christian story: union, openness to life, and joy woven together by self-giving love. Bodies speak a vow—all of me for all of you—and that vow matures as we’re known more deeply over time. The surprising payoff? Pleasure can grow richer when performance gives way to presence. If you’ve used role-play or fantasy, this is not a verdict; it’s an invitation to something fuller, kinder, and more durable.

If this resonates, share the episode with a friend, subscribe for more thoughtful conversations on sexuality and wholeness, and leave a review with the one question you want us to tackle next.

Resources mentioned in this Episode:

• Heart of Dating Podcast: Heart of Dating Podcast Featuring Host Kait Warman | Heart of Dating

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

• Email us questions! info@regenerationministries.org

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the pull of porn is really a hunger for connection and joy? James Craig sits down with Dr. Marcus Warner to map a route to sexual integrity—one that trades shame and isolation for belonging, identity, healing, and maturity. We unpack the BATTLE model: build community that fosters true belonging, act like your real self as a protector, tackle roots by addressing wounds, lies, vows, and strongholds, take down the enemy by revoking permission and standing in authority, live by the Spirit through a daily relational walk, and expand maturity so emotions no longer derail you.

Marcus reframes recovery with two game-changing insights. First, belonging—not mere accountability—drives transformation because we will fight for people who are glad to be with us. Second, addiction often signals stalled maturity rooted in unresolved trauma and missing skills.

If this conversation resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review. Tell us: which part of the BATTLE model do you plan to focus on this week?

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

• Email us questions! info@regenerationministries.org

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Send us a text

Two hidden habits might be quietly prolonging your struggle with sexual sin—and they often masquerade as maturity. We dig into self-hatred and self-pity: why they feel justified, how they attach to faith language and real grief, and what to do instead. Rather than piling on shame or dwelling in sorrow, we unpack a path of self-compassion that keeps dignity, responsibility, and growth at the center.

If you’re ready to trade contempt and pity for courage and compassion, join us. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with the one shift you’ll practice this week. Your voice may be the nudge someone else needs.

An Invitation for our annual women's retreat.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Culture keeps shouting two bad options for men: shrink your strength or dominate with it. We want to share something truer and more human —a third way shaped by Jesus, the one who washed feet, wept with friends, and laid down his life. This conversation explores how Christ-shaped masculinity can transform recovery from a project of behavioral control into a path of formation, where shame is faced, strength is refined, and love prevails.

If you’re ready for a path that turns shame into strength, clarifies desire, and forms a man who gives his good for others’ good, this one’s for you. Listen, share with a friend, and tell us: where do you want to grow in Christ-like strength today? And if this helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and pass it on to someone who needs hope.

Resources:

Forming Men

An Invitation for our annual women's retreat.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Do your desires feel like enemies to be conquered, or could they actually be signposts pointing toward your truest fulfillment? In this conversation with Christopher West, we discuss how our hungers—even our unwanted sexual behaviors—reveal something beautiful about our design.

Christopher shares his journey from the "starvation diet gospel" of his Catholic upbringing through the "fast food gospel" of cultural gratification to discovering what our souls truly crave. His insights on John Paul II's Theology of the Body offer a radical reframing: we're not just called away from sexual sin but toward glorifying God in our bodies.

Whether you're struggling with unwanted behaviors or simply wondering why your faith hasn't eliminated your deepest longings, this episode offers a life-changing perspective. Your hunger isn't your enemy—it's your heart's compass pointing home.

Listen in and discover how to transform your yearnings into prayer and your dissatisfactions into signposts toward genuine fulfillment.

Resources from this episode

Theology of the Body Institute:

The Ask Christopher West podcast:

Our Bodies Tell God's Story by Christopher West:

Peter Gabriel's "Blood of Eden": YouTube or Spotify

Florence and the Machine: "Hunger": YouTube or Spotify

An Invitation for our annual women's retreat.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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A simple sentence could transform your recovery journey: "I feel ___ about ___ because ___." In this conversation with Sue Moore of Forgiven Much Ministries, we dive deep into an advanced technique for processing emotions that can break cycles of unwanted behavior.

Whether you're struggling with unwanted sexual behavior, processing betrayal trauma, or simply wanting deeper emotional awareness, this conversation offers practical tools for becoming whole. For parents and caregivers, these techniques represent an opportunity to equip the next generation with emotional resilience skills that could prevent future addiction struggles.

Ready to transform how you process pain and emotion? Download the reflective listening resources mentioned and begin your journey toward authentic healing today.

Resources:

TED Talk about addiction

FMM Reflective Listening Workshop

Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend

FMM Gospel Centered Sexuality Course kicking off this fall

An Invitation for our annual women's retreat.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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On this episode of the Becoming Whole Podcast, we welcome Sue Moore, the founder and CEO of Giving Much Ministries. Sue walks us through a basic emotions reflection exercise to help us process negative emotions and overcome unwanted sexual behaviors. Learn about her personal journey and how emotional health is crucial for dealing with betrayal, parenting challenges, and personal addictions. Discover practical steps to cultivate emotional resilience by pausing to reflect on your feelings, understanding their origins, and seeking healthier ways to meet your emotional needs. Don't miss this episode filled with hope and actionable advice.

An Invitation for our annual women's retreat.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What kind of legacy are you leaving in your home? For many men, this question cuts deep. They're physically present but emotionally absent—buried in work, numbed by addiction, or simply disconnected from their own hearts. Meanwhile, their families feel the void: wives longing for connection and children navigating life without the emotional safety they desperately need.

In this powerful conversation, Aaron Tagert sits down with Joel Warneking, Executive Director of 423 Communities, who shares his journey from sexual addiction to wholeness. Joel's story follows a familiar pattern—childhood exposure to pornography that developed into a full-blown addiction lasting through Bible college and ministry positions. Living a double life of public ministry and private shame eventually led to a breaking point that became his pathway to healing.

The heart of this episode explores how men's healing transforms entire family systems. When fathers engage with their own emotional wounds and develop sexual competency, they create safe spaces where rupture and repair can happen naturally. Joel explains how understanding our physiological responses to stress—what happens in our bodies when we feel triggered—allows us to respond thoughtfully rather than reactively to our spouses and children.

Perhaps most powerful is the discussion about parenting teens through sexual development. Before parents can effectively guide their children through conversations about sexuality, they must first do their own work. Creating an emotionally safe home where children can bring their struggles without shame becomes the foundation for healing across generations.

Whether you're struggling with your own unwanted sexual behaviors, trying to build a healthier family system, or wanting to guide your children through today's hypersexualized culture, this episode offers both hope and practical wisdom. The journey begins with allowing yourself to be fully known so you can be fully loved—by God, others, and even yourself.

Resources:

• 423 Communities
• Awaken Retreat
• Sacred By Design Retreat
• Treading Boldly

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Ever feel completely exhausted despite getting enough sleep? There's a reason for that—and it goes beyond physical fatigue. In this second episode on rest, we dive deep into four often-overlooked forms of restoration that are essential for wholeness and recovery.

Continuing our exploration of Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith's seven types of rest, we move beyond the physical, mental, and emotional to discover spiritual, social, sensory, and creative rest. Each offers a unique pathway to restoration that many of us desperately need but rarely recognize.

For anyone on a recovery journey or supporting a loved one through betrayal trauma, these forms of rest aren't luxuries—they're essential practices for healing and growth. Join us as we discover God's multifaceted invitation to find rest for our weary souls.

Ready to experience deeper restoration? Subscribe now and discover which form of rest might be your missing piece.

Resources:

Sacred Rest

Rest Quiz

Healthy, Holy Alternatives from Awaken 360

Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend

Lectio Divina

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the missing piece in your recovery journey isn't more discipline or accountability, but specific kinds of rest you've been overlooking?

Dr. Sondra Dalton-Smith's concept of "sacred rest" offers a framework for understanding why many of us remain stuck in cycles of unwanted sexual behavior despite our best efforts. Kyle Bowman and I explore how three distinct types of rest—physical, mental, and emotional—directly impact our ability to heal from sexual brokenness.

This conversation challenges the subtle Gnosticism that pervades Christian thinking—the idea that physical limitations are spiritual weaknesses rather than divine design. Even Jesus slept! Your recovery journey might transform not through trying harder but through resting more intentionally in the ways your body, mind, and heart truly need.

Resources:

Sacred Rest

Rest Quiz

Healthy, Holy Alternatives from Awaken 360

Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend

Lectio Divina

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
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👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Recovery fatigue is a rarely discussed but a common experience for men trying to rebuild after betrayal. What happens when all the meetings, check-ins, and recovery work start to feel overwhelming or—worse yet—like they're not making a difference?

Dan Drake, a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified sex addiction therapist with over 20 years of experience, joins us to unpack this challenging reality. He shares insights on how recovery motivation makes all the difference: "If I'm checking boxes trying to do these things to get my wife back and stop her from pestering me, that's going to be a different motivation than 'I get to do these things to thrive and become a better human being.'"

Resources:

Awaken Retreat

The Intimacy Pyramid

Kintsugi Recovery Partners (Find a Disclosure Guide)

Books:

Surviving the Holidays

Building True Intimacy

Full Disclosure (For the Disclosing Individual)

Full Disclosure: Seeking Truth After Sexual Betrayal Vol 1 (For Partners)

Full Disclosure: Seeking Truth After Sexual Betrayal Vol 2 (For Partners)

Full Disclosure: Seeking Truth After Sexual Betrayal Vol 3 (For Partners)

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👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Caught between exploding and imploding? You're not alone. This episode uncovers the hidden connection between acting out (through behaviors like porn, alcohol, or overworking) and acting in (through withdrawal, passive-aggression, and emotional shutdown). What looks like self-control on the surface might actually be self-contempt in disguise.

Ready for transformation? Join us for the men's Awaken retreat (October 3-5) or the women's Sacred by Design retreat (November 7-8). Space is limited, so reserve your spot today through the link in our show notes.

Resources:

Retreat links

Dr. Nathanson on Shame

Minwalla Model

Brene Brown's Ted Talk on Shame

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What if your recovery from unwanted sexual behaviors could be strengthened by simple physical practices you've overlooked? In this episode, we dive into often-forgotten physical disciplines that transform spiritual recovery. From breathing techniques that calm the nervous system during moments of temptation to the profound impact of proper hydration on decision-making, we explore how our bodies are designed to function optimally through specific practices.

Whether you're just beginning your recovery journey or have been walking it for years, these physical disciplines offer practical tools for creating the optimal conditions where spiritual transformation can flourish.

This is part 2 of this podcast, and we encourage you to listen to part 1 if you haven't already.

Resources:

Harvard Prof Arthur Brooks

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Have you ever considered that your body might be your greatest ally—not your enemy—in recovery from unwanted sexual behaviors? Many of us approach healing as primarily spiritual or psychological, overlooking the role our physical existence plays in transformation.

Your body isn't just a vessel carrying your spirit through life; it's an integrated part of who God designed you to be. From the very beginning, Genesis shows humanity as formed from dust and brought to life by divine breath—we are simultaneously matter and spirit. This isn't incidental to your recovery journey—it's foundational.

In this episode, Josh Glaser and James Craig explore five physical disciplines that God has woven into our design as assets for healing: breathing, hydration, eating, sleeping, and exercise. These aren't merely biological necessities but theological realities that point to our dependence on our Creator. Each discipline, when practiced intentionally, helps regulate our bodies and minds, creating space for healthier choices and emotional stability.

Resources:

Harvard Prof Arthur Brooks

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
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What if the solution to overcoming pornography addiction isn't found in behavior modification but in healing your heart? In this episode, Sathiya Sam shares how addressing the root causes of unwanted sexual behavior leads to genuine freedom that behavior-focused approaches simply can't deliver.

Sathiya, the architect behind Deep Clean—a program that has helped thousands of men overcome pornography addiction—reveals his personal 15-year battle with porn that began at age 11. His journey from struggle to freedom led him to develop an approach combining biblical wisdom with scientific research that targets what lies beneath the surface of compulsive sexual behavior.
Ready to move beyond surface solutions? Listen now to discover how true freedom begins below the waterline.

Resources:

Man Within Podcast

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The world has a plan for your formation—are you consciously designing your counter-strategy? In this episode, we continue our conversation about developing a "rule of life" that helps us resist the powerful current of cultural formation pulling us away from Christ-likeness.

We tackle one of the most common obstacles to spiritual disciplines—the subtle belief that these practices earn God's favor rather than create space for relationship. When morning prayer becomes an obligation rather than a connection, we've missed the point entirely. Instead, we explore how disciplines function as training exercises that prepare us for lives of love.

Resources from this episode:

• Rule of Life Workbook
• Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
• Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton
• Daily examen

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Freedom doesn't happen by accident. Whether we realize it or not, our daily routines, habits, and patterns are shaping who we're becoming—either drawing us deeper into wholeness or reinforcing cycles of brokenness.

The practice of a "rule of life" offers hope and structure for those struggling with unwanted sexual behaviors.

From scripture reading and prayer to solitude, fasting, and physical exercise, we discuss practical disciplines that support recovery from sexual struggles. Rather than one-size-fits-all prescriptions, we discuss how to personalize these practices to match your unique needs, personality, and circumstances.

Jesus himself demonstrated a pattern of spiritual practices: early morning solitude, regular community worship, and intimate relationships with close disciples. His example invites us to consider what practices might create space in our busy lives to be with Him, become like Him, and do what He did.

Resources from this episode:

• Rule of Life Workbook
• Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
• Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton
• Daily examen

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What happens when a seminary-educated lesbian pastor encounters the Holy Spirit in an unexpected way? Elizabeth Woning never planned to question her gay identity or theology. As a gay-affirming Presbyterian minister, she believed the church needed to change, not her sexuality.

Then came the moment that shattered everything. During an awkward visit to a Pentecostal youth service, a teenage boy approached her with a prophetic word that answered a private prayer she'd never shared. "Does God know me specifically?" she wondered. "And if He does, I have no idea who He is."

This realization launched Elizabeth on a years-long journey of reexamining Scripture without her postmodern filters. What she discovered challenged everything she believed about identity, sexuality, and the human body. As co-founder of The Change Movement, she now offers a provocative perspective on why labels like "gay Christian" might actually limit our human experience and separate us from the full work of redemption God wants to do.

Elizabeth's story raises several questions: Can same-sex attraction be viewed more like depression - something experienced but not identity-defining? How does Christ's incarnation speak to the unity of body and spirit in ways our culture misses? What happens when we stop letting our desires define us and instead allow God's love to become our primary identity?

Episode resources:

• https://changedmovement.com/
• https://changedmovement.com/navigating-lgbtq

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What if your sexual struggles aren't merely obstacles to overcome but doorways to deeper healing? In this episode we welcome our guest Marco Casanova as he shares his story and journey of wholeness.

As Associate Director of Desert Stream Ministries and coordinator of their Living Waters program, Marco brings a fresh perspective to one of our culture's most polarizing topics. Having left the Catholic seminary after eight years when he realized his same-sex attraction made him uncertain about celibacy, Marco shares how discovering Living Waters transformed his understanding of his sexuality and ultimately his destiny.
For anyone struggling with unwanted sexual attractions, addictions, or desires—or for those who love someone who does—this conversation offers both challenge and hope. The church, Marco suggests, should be a place where people have "the freedom to struggle" without shame but with a vision of who they're becoming in Christ.

Resources:

• Desert Stream Ministries
• Living Waters
• Our Bodies Tell God's Story by Christopher West
• Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body by John Paul II
• A Meditation on Givenness by John Paul II

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What does it mean to be truly yourself while following Jesus? Kyle Bowman's transformative journey from embracing a same-sex lifestyle for eleven years to discovering her authentic identity in Christ challenges our assumptions about sexuality, spirituality, and personal transformation.

Kyle's story begins with a seemingly typical childhood where performance became her pathway to connection. As she discovered her attraction to women, she fully embraced that identity until emotional turmoil and emptiness led her to reconsider the faith of her youth. The turning point came through an unexpected friendship with a Christian who demonstrated Christ's love without judgment or condemnation.

Whether you're wrestling with same-sex attraction, pornography, or any struggle that feels deeply embedded in your identity, Kyle's testimony offers hope without empty promises. Her message is revolutionary: God isn't trying to strip you down to nothing—He wants everything that doesn't belong to fall away so your authentic self can emerge. Join us for this powerful conversation that might just change how you view your own journey toward wholeness.

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What if the very storms you're desperately trying to outrun are actually the pathway to your healing?

Sexual brokenness, unwanted desires, betrayal, and shame can feel like overwhelming tempests in our lives. Many of us respond by running—numbing out through pornography, hiding in isolation, staying in denial, or blaming others. In today's podcast, we look at the unique actions of buffalo.

Unlike cows that flee from storms (only to spend more time in them), buffalo turn and charge directly into oncoming weather. With their thick, protective coats shielding their most vulnerable areas, they instinctively understand that the fastest way through a storm is straight through it. This behavior parallels the recovery journey perfectly.

While Scripture acknowledges there are appropriate times to flee from temptation (like Joseph running from Potiphar's wife), lasting healing requires the courage to eventually face our storms head-on.

Are you ready to stop running and start facing? The freedom and wholeness you seek await on the other side of your courage. Listen now to discover how to approach your recovery journey like a buffalo rather than a cow.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What has your body been trying to tell you all along? In this profound conclusion to our three-part series, we explore how our physical bodies, specifically as male and female—communicate God's most essential nature: love that gives itself away.

Diving into Genesis, we see human beings as image-bearers of God. The first attribute mentioned about humans in scripture is that they are "male and female," suggesting our gendered bodies communicate something vital about our Creator. We examine how the Fall distorted this vision, introducing shame where there had been blessing and dignity.

Our pornographic culture has further blinded us, reducing bodies to objects of pleasure rather than carriers of God's Image. By gutting the body's message of family, commitment, and self-giving love, we've lost sight of what our bodies are trying to tell us about who God is and who we're meant to be.

Whether you're struggling with pornography, wrestling with body image, or simply longing to see yourself and others as God sees you, this episode offers a vision of human embodiment that dignifies rather than degrades. Join us in praying, "Lord, help us to see as you see."

Resources from this series:

Celebration of the Disciplines by Richard Foster

Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton

Rule of Life

Daily examen

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What if the way Jesus saw people wasn't exceptional, but exemplary? What if His vision—His ability to perceive beyond surface appearances—is actually how we're designed to see?

This episode continues in the importance to see people as whole human beings rather than objects for pleasure or obstacles to happiness. Josh opens with a powerful story about a seemingly "grumpy" waitress whose true circumstances completely transformed how he perceived her.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus consistently demonstrates this different way of seeing. When a woman touches His garment in a crowd, He doesn't just feel the touch—He stops everything to see her face-to-face. When Simon the Pharisee judges a "sinful woman," Jesus challenges him directly: "Do you see this woman?" These moments reveal Jesus not as an exception to humanity, but as our example of what true humanity looks like.

Suppose you're struggling with lust or judgment. In that case, this episode offers hope beyond "managing" these tendencies—it invites you into a transformed way of seeing that aligns with how you were actually designed to perceive the world. Join us as we learn to ask, "Lord, show me what you see."

Resources from this series:

Celebration of the Disciplines by Richard Foster

Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton

Rule of Life

Daily examen

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Have you ever wondered if freedom from sexual struggles is actually possible? This episode challenges the common belief that lust is simply "a lifelong battle" that Christians must endure.

Starting with the question—what happens when we forget what we truly are?—hosts Josh and James explore how our understanding of human sexuality has been distorted by both culture and limited gospel perspectives. They compare how differently we approach other struggles like anger or theft, where we expect real transformation, versus sexual integrity where we've normalized partial victory.

For anyone who has struggled with repeated sexual failures and wondered if real freedom is possible, this episode offers genuine hope. Not through trying harder, but through reconnecting with who you truly are in Christ. Jesus didn't just come to forgive your sexual sin—He came to restore your sexual integrity.

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👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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The digital world has transformed parenting in profound ways, creating unprecedented challenges for families navigating sexuality and technology. In this eye-opening conversation, Jacob Volk, Co-Executive Director of Into the Light Ministries, brings clarity and hope to parents feeling overwhelmed by these complex issues.

"The average child is exposed to explicit content at age eight," Volk reveals, underscoring why conversations about sexuality can't wait. But rather than approaching this reality with fear, he offers a compassionate framework balancing protection with preparation. Parents today face what he calls a "triple challenge" – the inherent difficulties of parenting, the pervasiveness of pornography, and the complexity of managing ever-evolving technology.

For parents who discover their teens are already struggling with pornography, Volk offers hope through stories of families who've navigated these challenges toward restored relationships. His message resonates with grace: it's never too late to begin these conversations, even if it requires acknowledging past hesitation or mistakes.

Perhaps most powerfully, Volk reminds us that sexuality is God's beautiful design, not the distorted version our culture presents. By reclaiming this territory from "the devil's turf," parents have the opportunity to guide their children toward a healthy, integrated understanding of sexuality as sacred rather than shameful.

Ready to better equip yourself for these crucial conversations? Visit these resources below and begin transforming how your family approaches these essential topics.

Into the Light Ministries:

Parenting and Pornography:

Tech Safe:

Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World

Covenant Eyes

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In this episode of Becoming Whole, we sit down with Matthew and Joanna RaabSmith to discuss their personal journey of recovering from marital betrayal and the work they do with other couples to rebuild intimacy. They share their unique story of whirlwind romance, struggles with sexual addiction, and the steps they took towards healing and recovery. The conversation delves into their development of the 'intimacy pyramid,' a framework to guide couples through honesty, safety, trust, vulnerability, and ultimately, intimacy. Matthew and Joanna provide insights on navigating recovery, sexual reintegration, and building a thriving marriage post-betrayal. This episode is a beacon of hope, courage, and practical guidance for married couples in recovery, as well as singles looking to understand relational dynamics.

Resources discussed in this episode:

Freebies from the Raabsmiths

Matthew & Joanna's Book

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Imagine driving past a house that looks a bit off, maybe the porch is sagging, or the house seems to lean. That’s what happens when a foundation is compromised, and you know, relationships can face the same troubles, especially after betrayal. Today's podcast talks about how full therapeutic disclosure can be a game-changer for couples dealing with betrayal. It’s like laying down a solid truth foundation. It’s not just about spilling the beans; it’s about sharing everything in a safe, guided space. While the disclosing partner might feel a sigh of relief, the betrayed partner gets the information needed to begin healing. It's quite a journey, holding each other's hearts gently and stepping into healing with honesty and care. It often leads to a relationship full of renewed trust and intimacy, stronger than before. If you or someone you know is walking this path, there’s hope and help out there to rebuild that foundation.

Intimacy Pyramid from Dan Drake and Raabsmiths

• Full Therapeutic Disclosure Links
  • https://youtu.be/ik-PG_8H_RM?si=lGQbsI7m2s2euZ5u
  • https://helpingcouplesheal.com/understanding-disclosure-with-dan-drake/

Books for couples

• Disclosing Spouse
  • https://a.co/d/eMwqvTu
• Betrayed Spouse (Three Volumes)
  • https://a.co/d/3ABcnNW
  • https://a.co/d/4xikqbt
  • https://a.co/d/aAPHRrE
• https://disclosurehope.com/

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👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Singleness often exists in the shadows of our cultural conversation, especially in faith communities where marriage is frequently celebrated as the ultimate destination. But what if your life's unexpected path includes long-term singleness? How do you navigate sexuality, loneliness, and purpose when the "happily ever after" narrative hasn't materialized as planned?

Connelly Gillum, author of "Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect," brings refreshing honesty to this conversation as she shares her journey through decades of singleness. After a relationship ended in her early 40s, Connelly faced what she believed might be the "consummate tragedy" of permanent singleness. Yet nearly twenty years later, she's discovered surprising fullness, purpose, and joy—not despite her singleness, but partially because of it.

The conversation doesn't shy away from difficult truths. Connelly candidly discusses how cultural messages about sexuality created a persistent wrestling match with God, leading her to suspect He might be "holding out" on her. The breakthrough came not through denying her sexuality or desires, but through reframing them as opportunities for self-giving rather than self-fulfillment. From supporting family during crisis to discovering the joys of hospitality, Connelly reveals how her singleness has allowed her unique ways to reflect Christ to those around her.

For singles beyond the typical ministry demographic of under-30, Connelly offers particularly valuable wisdom about grief and purpose. She emphasizes that acknowledging the genuine suffering of unsought singleness isn't wallowing—it's essential healing work that eventually leads to freedom. And her closing thoughts about how "God sets the lonely in families" provide hope for building meaningful connections beyond traditional family structures.

Whether you're single, supporting someone who is, or simply interested in a deeper understanding of singleness, this conversation will challenge assumptions and offer a fresh perspective on embracing the life you didn't expect.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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In this episode, Josh and Kyle Bowman, the Director of Coaches at Regen, dive deep into the experiences and challenges faced by singles, especially within the Christian community. They discuss the unique loneliness singles may feel, particularly in church settings, and emphasize that singleness should not be seen as merely a transitional phase.

Kyle shares invaluable insights from her personal journey as a mature single woman, highlighting the importance of community, self-acceptance, and finding joy in one's own company. They also tackle the topic of managing sexual desire in a way that honors God, providing practical advice on how to navigate these feelings with faith and resilience. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to lead a relationally and sexually whole life, whether single or married.

Resources: A Celebration of Singleness

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The episode dives into the necessity of community in personal growth and healing. We discuss how God created us for relationships and the importance of the church in supporting individual journeys.

• Understanding the connection between personal faith and community
• The role of the church in personal struggles
• Addressing isolation in spiritual growth
• The importance of honesty and vulnerability in faith communities
• Real stories of triumphs and struggles within church experiences
• Encouragement to actively engage in communal healing

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Restoring the Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul

Join James, director of projects and spiritual coach at Regeneration, in this episode of the Remember series. We discuss how Jesus knows and remembers who we were created to be and explore the transformation of our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. As we reflect on Dallas Willard's insights from Renovation of the Heart, we discuss actionable steps to heal from sexual struggles, betrayal, and more. This episode offers hope, healing, and a renewed understanding of God's love and plan for our wholeness.

00:00 Introduction: God's Memory and Our Wholeness
01:07 The Concept of Restoration
03:01 Understanding the Human Person
04:13 The Heart: Core of Our Being
09:02 The Mind: Thoughts and Feelings
17:05 The Body: Physical Restoration
21:43 The Social Dimension: Healing Through Relationships
25:00 The Soul: Integration of All Parts
27:25 Conclusion and Prayer

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👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Healing by Remembering: Overcoming Trauma and Sin

Join us today as we explore the importance of remembering our personal pain and triumphs, focusing on how past trauma and unwanted behaviors are connected. We will look at the Israelites and Peter to explore how God helps us remember and heal. A few key points for this episode include practical steps on dealing with trauma, the significance of community, and finding hope through suffering. Tune in for a journey toward deeper healing and understanding.

00:00 Introduction: Understanding Struggles
01:31 The Israelites' Journey and Forgetfulness
05:10 The Importance of Remembering Pain and Grief
09:16 Understanding Trauma and Its Impact
17:15 Healing Through Community and Faith
29:36 The Role of Sin and Redemption
33:45 Conclusion and Prayer

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
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In this episode, James, a spiritual coach, and Kyle Bowman, Director of Ministry discuss the profound impact of remembering God on growing in sexual integrity. They explore the importance of remembering one's origins, the transformational power of recalling God's presence and love, and how integrating these memories can realign our heart postures. They also delve into the significance of marking milestones, using tangible icons, and scripture to anchor our faith, and share personal anecdotes and practical tips for cultivating a habit of remembering God in our everyday lives.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Join us as we dive into a conversation about the power of remembering in faith and recovery. In this episode, James Craig and Josh Glaser introduce the story of Alan Menninger, the founder of Regeneration Ministries. Alan's journey from sexual brokenness to miraculous transformation showcases the power of God’s intervention. We'll explore how remembering God's miracles in our own lives is vital to our recovery journeys and faith walks. Hear about the unexpected ways God moves, the importance of spiritual disciplines, and how we can hold onto hope and patience through the process.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Welcome to another episode of Becoming Whole. Today our host Josh Glaser opens up the issue of idolatry, which many of us mistakenly believe to be a relic of the past or a concern only in other cultures. But idolatry is alive and rampant in our modern world, communities, and even in our churches. Tune in for an honest discussion on how turning to God can lead us to true freedom and fulfillment.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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In this episode Josh explores the tension between living in a distracted world and maintaining a close relationship with God. We discuss how our engagement with worldly systems affects our struggles with sin, particularly unwanted sexual behaviors, and explore spiritual disciplines that can guide us back to a life of thriving in faith.
• Exploring the dual meanings of 'world' in scripture
• Understanding friendship with the world as spiritual conflict
• The impact of worldly influences on sexual sin struggles
• Identifying aspects to leave behind for spiritual growth
• The value of spiritual practices like silence and fasting
• Encouragement to make firm choices for a deep relationship with God

Join us to uncover ways to break free from the world's systems and walk in friendship with God.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Welcome to the final week of the Pursuing Goodness mini-series on the Becoming Whole podcast! This episode we talk about how godly self care is essential for anyone seeking healing and wholeness from sexual and relational brokenness. Join Aaron Tagert and Kyle Bowman as they explore why many struggle with self-care, how shame and deprivation play a role, and practical ways to implement self-care in physical, mental, and spiritual aspects.

Resources discussed in this episode

• “Learning to care for our inner worlds (our thoughts, emotions, and inward experiences) in an ongoing way is the life-sustaining self-care that we need.” Janice McWilliams
• Restore My Soul: Reimagining Self-Care for a Sustainable Life Janice McWilliams
• Examen https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/how-can-i-pray/
• Unwanted by Jay Stringer

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
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👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Welcome back to the Becoming Whole podcast! Join Aaron Tagert, men's spiritual coach, and Andrea Smithberger, host of the Sacred by Design podcast, as they dive into week two of our 'Pursuing Goodness' mini-series. In this episode, we explore the idea of 'Reclaiming Our Senses' and how the enemy attempts to steal, kill, and destroy the goodness in our lives. Tune in for an enriching conversation that encourages you to slow down and embrace the inherent goodness God has placed within you.

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Welcome back to part two of our four-part series on "Pursuing Goodness" in 2025! In today's episode, hosts Aaron Tagert and James Craig dive further into the topics of grief and lament. Contrary to popular belief, these emotions can be a catalysts for healing and growth. Aaron and James discuss personal experiences, the importance of acknowledging sorrow, and share insights on how grieving well can lead to genuine comfort and maturity. Join us as we explore how to embrace these challenging emotions to start the new year with a journey toward wholeness.
Resources:
Grieving the Seasons of Our Lives - Ron Walborn
Lament Psalm 3 (from Soul Shepherding Ministries)The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly (from Awaken 360)Psalms in a Month

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Welcome to the first part of our four-part series on pursuing goodness in 2025! In today's episode, hosts Aaron Tagert and James Craig dive deep into the often-overlooked topics of grief and lament. Contrary to popular belief, these emotions can be a catalysts for healing and growth. Aaron and James discuss personal experiences, the importance of acknowledging sorrow, and share insights on how grieving well can lead to genuine comfort and maturity. Join us as we explore how to embrace these challenging emotions to start the new year with a journey toward wholeness.
Resources:
Grieving the Seasons of Our Lives - Ron Walborn
Lament Psalm 3 (from Soul Shepherding Ministries)The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly (from Awaken 360)Psalms in a Month

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Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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In this final chapter to our Advent mini-series we discuss the connection between spirituality and sexuality through the lens of the incarnation, emphasizing how Jesus' physical embodiment relates to our lives and struggles with sexual integrity. As we dive into some theology and apply some practical spiritual disciplines, listeners can begin to reconcile their sexual lives with their spiritual journeys, aiming towards wholeness and redemption in Christ.

• Discussion on the importance of Advent and the incarnation as it relates to sexuality
• The intersectionality of sexuality and spirituality
• Examination of Jesus' physicality and its implications
• How to understand sexual sin as a unique challenge to the body
• The role of biology in sexual temptation
• Differentiating between “flesh” and “body” in the New Testament
• The overarching message of hope offered through Christ’s body
• Practical applications of spiritual disciplines for sexual integrity
• The importance of embodying worship in our spiritual life
• Encouragement to engage with community as a remedy to isolation

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
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What if the essence of companionship and faith holds the key to overcoming life's most daunting challenges? This episode is an invitation through the Advent season, where we draw parallels between the biblical bond of Mary and Elizabeth and our personal battles with unwanted sexual behavior or betrayal trauma. Joined by Kyle (spiritual coach), we unravel how these stories illuminate our struggles, urging us to embrace community support and faith as vital lifelines during times of uncertainty.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the Christmas story could speak directly to your most personal struggles? Join Josh and Andrea (host of Sacred by Design Podcast) as we explore Advent through the lens of Mary's journey in the Gospel of Luke. We unpack Mary's encounter with the angel Gabriel, offering a fresh perspective on how her story can resonate with our own challenges, from unwanted sexual attractions to healing past wounds. Discover how Mary's "yes" to God can inspire us in our journey of surrender, inviting us to embrace the richness and depth that comes from trusting beyond our limitations.

We discuss the role of community support, highlighting Elizabeth's comforting presence in Mary's life, and reflect on how such relationships can bolster our own spiritual journeys. Learn creative practices to connect with Jesus, whether through a quiet walk or the simple act of coloring, and consider the power of openness in nurturing your connection with the God. Join us as we conclude with a heartfelt prayer, seeking guidance for those feeling hesitant on their spiritual journey, and inviting you to experience a life filled with unforeseen beauty and transformation.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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In this episode of 'Becoming Whole, with special guest Aaron Tagert we delve into part three in our mini-series on anger. We highlight the importance of emotional awareness and maturity in recovery, drawing from the works of Brene Brown and Dr. Jim Wilder. Additionally, we discuss practical methods for inner healing through story work, inner healing prayer, and strategies like the 'porch' metaphor. This episode emphasizes the importance of engaging past wounds with curiosity and kindness for deeper healing.

Resources mentioned in today's episode.
Adam Young how to write a storyAwaken 360Unpacking the Unique Approach of Curiosity

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
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👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Join James Craig co-host and guest Rebecca Baker as they dive into the psychology of anger and its impact on unwanted sexual behavior. Rebecca, a licensed clinical social worker, shares her expertise on different therapy approaches, naming emotions, and practical tips for managing and understanding anger. They explore how emotional awareness and maturity are crucial to personal healing and how faith is a powerful tool in this journey. Whether it's in therapy or spiritual coaching, this episode offers valuable insights and practical advice to navigate the intense emotion of anger, especially during the holiday season.

Feelings List
Rebecca Baker

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
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Join Josh Glaser, executive director, and James Craig, spiritual coach, as they dive into a mini-series on anger and its link to unwanted sexual behavior. This episode explores how unprocessed anger can drive sexual sin and how recognizing and addressing it can bring about healing. With the holidays approaching and family gatherings on the horizon, understanding and managing anger becomes even more crucial.
Our hope is that this series serves as a guide for anyone navigating the turbulent waters of family gatherings or personal struggles, offering insights and tools to manage anger healthily and embrace spiritual growth. We encourage you to reflect on your journey and consider the transformative power of understanding the anger within.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Feeling overwhelmed by shame and the burden of thinking you're uniquely flawed? You're not alone, and there's hope for healing and connection. Join me as I share my journey through the isolating grip of sexual sin and temptations, and how these struggles made me feel like an outcast. With a fresh perspective, we explore the parallels between our experiences and the story of Adam and Eve, revealing how shame can drive us into secrecy and solitude. Let's address the misconception that you're the only one facing such battles and discuss how these feelings can hinder reaching out for support.

Discover the freedom that comes from breaking the silence.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Pornography is a silent struggle for many within church congregations, yet it's often shrouded in secrecy and shame. What if addressing it head-on could transform not only individual lives but entire communities? In our latest episode, we explore the findings of Barna's eye-opening study in collaboration with Pure Desire Ministries, revealing that over half of practicing Christians have viewed pornography, and a staggering number find themselves without support.

Join us as we discuss how we can find support and be supportive of those who are struggling with unwanted sexual behavior as individuals and as a collective local body.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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Can you imagine a life where the constant struggle with unwanted sexual behaviors is met with the comfort of God's presence? We all carry a deep human longing to be seen, known, and loved, but sometimes these desires manifest in harmful ways. While our needs can be loud and demanding, God's presence offers a subtler yet far more profound fulfillment.

We also tackle the challenge of sustaining spiritual practices like prayer and journaling in a world filled with anxiety and intrusive thoughts. Emotions are not just in our minds—they are felt in our bodies, and God's presence is there with them.
Join us as we discuss how cultivating this awareness can address the root causes of unwanted behaviors and lead you toward a path of healing and wholeness.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if the real issue with pornography isn't that it shows too much, but that it reveals too little?
Through the lens of Jesus' transformative encounters with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, we'll uncover how He calls us to step out of darkness and into the light, teaching us to see others with the same love and compassion He exemplifies.

As we wrap up our summer season (2-week break), we invite you to slow down and seek the perspective of Christ in your daily life. We can nurture genuine love and deeper compassion by asking Jesus to reveal how He sees others and ourselves. We're grateful for your support throughout this season and look forward to reconnecting at our upcoming Awaken and Sacred by Design retreats. Thank you for being a part of this journey, and we wish you all grace and peace until we meet again.

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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In a replay of a popular episode, Josh and James addresses a listener's question about fantasizing about one's spouse during masturbation. While scripture does not provide a clear directive on masturbation, it suggests that acts disconnected from the procreative and unitive purposes of sex does not align with God's design. From a practical standpoint, he acknowledges that fantasizing about one's spouse is a step towards sexual integrity but doesn't fully capture the essence of marital intimacy. Josh encourages listeners to pursue a journey of mastering their desires and aligning them with self-giving love. The episode also challenges the cultural belief that sex is a need, suggesting that while relationships and connection are vital, sex is not a necessity for being whole.
Check out this blog mentioned in today's podcast, "Do you need sex?"

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👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

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What if sexual integrity wasn't an impossible goal but an ongoing journey of alignment with God's will? Join us as Josh Glaser, executive director at Regeneration, guides us through the transformative power of surrender in the face of temptation. Inspired by Mary's response to the angel in Luke 1:38, Josh introduces a compelling prayer exercise that emphasizes dedicating our bodies and desires to God.
Together, we draw a connection between Mary's act of giving her body to the Lord and the Christian call to sexual integrity. Highlighting the contrast between the self-destructive nature of lust and the life-giving essence of love, we explore how genuine heart transformation matters more to God than outward appearances. Whether you're struggling with sexual integrity or supporting a loved one who is, this episode offers hope, encouragement, and practical insights. Plus, don't miss out on our announcements for upcoming opportunities for spiritual growth, including the Awakened Men's Retreat and the Sacred by Design Women's Retreat.

Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29. Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees. ​For more information and to register click here.

Wives Betrayal Basics Webinar - For more information and to register.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?

We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday, November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.
Only 10 spots are available. ​For more information and to register click here.

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Have you ever wondered how to balance effort and grace in your spiritual recovery journey? In this episode, James Craig and Kyle Bowman unpack the concept of "doing versus receiving" as they dive into the heart of spiritual healing from unwanted sexual behavior. Kyle emphasizes the importance of divine guidance over self-driven efforts, and together, they highlight that real transformation often starts by addressing deep emotional issues rather than just managing surface behaviors. Get ready to explore how bringing your raw emotions to God can lead to true healing.

7 Desires (download mentioned in today's podcast)

Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29. Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees. ​For more information and to register click here.

Wives Betrayal Basics Webinar - For more information and to register.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?

We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday, November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.
Only 10 spots are available. ​For more information and to register click here.

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Healing from shame and trauma begins with being seen and known in a safe environment. We discuss the courage it takes to share our wounds, even when it feels uncomfortable and fearful. By drawing parallels to the Japanese art of Kintsugi, we highlight the inherent beauty in our scars and the transformative power of re-narrating our painful experiences with compassion. Discover how Jesus’ gentle, patient presence can help reframe our narratives, combat self-contempt, and bring about inner healing. Through inner healing prayer and seeking Jesus' perspective, we can begin to see our stories in a new light, filled with hope and redemption.

Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29. Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees. ​For more information and to register click here.

Wives Betrayal Basics Webinar - For more information and to register.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?

We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday, November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.
Only 10 spots are available. ​For more information and to register click here.

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Could it be that the path to true healing lies not in struggle but in embracing beauty and rest? Join us as we challenge the conventional wisdom of hard work in the healing process with our special guest, Andrea Smithberger. Andrea takes us through the transformative journey of the Sacred By Design retreat at REGEN, a sanctuary designed specifically for women. We uncover how engaging with beauty can serve as a powerful form of healing, helping to overcome shame and brokenness. Drawing inspiration from Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith's "Sacred Rest," we explore how redefining beauty and embracing rest can lead to profound spiritual and emotional transformation.

Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29. Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees. ​For more information and to register click here.

Wives Betrayal Basics Webinar - For more information and to register.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?

We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday, November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.
Only 10 spots are available. ​For more information and to register click here.

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In this episode, James Craig, Spiritual Coach at REGEN, welcomes Aaron Taggart, Spiritual Coach and leader of the upcoming Awaken retreat, to discuss overcoming unwanted sexual behavior. They delve into the importance of facing deep-rooted traumas rather than seeking quick fixes. Through examples and insights, they explore repentance and how men often resist revisiting their painful pasts. The discussion emphasizes cultivating curiosity, labeling sexual fantasies as messengers, and inviting Jesus into the healing process. Aaron also previews the transformative experiences planned for the Awaken retreat. Tune in to learn how facing your struggles head-on can lead to true healing and intimacy with Jesus.

Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?What if the key to the freedom you have been longing for begins by learning how to look at your fantasies, traumas, and attractions through a lens of curiosity? Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29.

Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees.

​For more information and to register click here.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?

We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.

Register today as this event is open to only 10 attendees. ​For more information and to register click here.

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Can God's love and holiness coexist harmoniously? Join us as we dispel the myth of a dichotomous "God of the Old Testament" versus "God of the New Testament," emphasizing the unified and consistent nature of God throughout the Bible. We break down how God's attributes—love, holiness, mercy, and judgment—are not only compatible but are perfectly integrated within Him. By understanding this holistic view of God's character, we gain critical insights into sexual morality and how this understanding should shape our approach to sexual integrity and relationships, steering us away from bad theology that breeds confusion and chaos.

Whether you're dealing with feelings for someone outside your marriage or grappling with same-sex attraction, we'll explore how true love and holiness are inseparable and mutually reinforcing. Underscoring the necessity of submitting our desires to Jesus, and embracing compassion and patience both in our journeys and when supporting loved ones.

Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?What if the key to the freedom you have been longing for begins by learning how to look at your fantasies, traumas, and attractions through a lens of curiosity? Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29.

Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees.

​For more information and to register click here.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?

We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.

Register today as this event is open to only 10 attendees. ​For more information and to register click here.

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What if your imagination could be the key to a deeper spiritual connection with God? This week, we explore how imagination can shape our faith, starting with the biblical story of Eve's temptation in Genesis 3. We dissect how deceptive imaginations can lead us astray, much like Eve's encounter with the forbidden fruit, and draw parallels to modern-day temptations such as sexual fantasies. You'll discover how recognizing these false imaginations is the first step in combating them and nurturing a faith that engages both heart and mind.

Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?What if the key to the freedom you have been longing for begins by learning how to look at your fantasies, traumas, and attractions through a lens of curiosity? Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29.

Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees.

​For more information and to register click here.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?

We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.

Register today as this event is open to only 10 attendees. ​For more information and to register click here.

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Curious about what really drives unwanted sexual behaviors? Join us as we uncover the deeper motivations behind these actions with insights from Josh Glaser. By exploring symbolic archetypes and understanding how these reflect God's attributes, we shed light on the "why" behind the behaviors, not just the "what." James Craig shares his personal journey from intern to coach at Regeneration, emphasizing the transformative power of our podcast in listeners' lives.

We delve into the emotional wounds and unmet needs fueling sexual temptations. Discover how issues like the need for nourishment, comfort, and connection can manifest in harmful ways. Through practical tools like creating a timeline of life events, we guide you to uncover and address these root causes. The importance of spiritual coaching, therapy, and support from trusted individuals is highlighted as we aim to foster genuine healing and growth.

Awaken Mens' Retreat - Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?What if the key to the freedom you have been longing for begins by learning how to look at your fantasies, traumas, and attractions through a lens of curiosity? Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29.

Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees.

​For more information and to register click here.

Sacred By Design Women's Retreat - Are you a woman who loves Jesus & and you're doing the hard work to break free from unwanted sexual behaviors?

We would be honored for you to join us for our first Sacred by Design Retreat to be held on Saturday November 2, 2024. This special time has been crafted for you to receive and relax, to create and connect. We pray you’ll join us as we slow down long enough to be caught up by our Creator.

Register today as this event is open to only 10 attendees. ​For more information and to register click here.

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What happens when you confront a decade-long struggle with pornography and turn it into a pathway for transformation? Join us as James Craig, spiritual coach and member of our team, courageously shares his journey to healing.

This episode explores the delicate balance between biblical teachings and therapeutic practices, stressing the importance of historical and communal insights and biblical foundation when tackling habitual unwanted sexual behavior. From soul care within the church to the transformative power of spirit-led activities, this episode is packed with wisdom and practical advice.

Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?What if the key to the freedom you have been longing for begins by learning how to look at your fantasies, traumas, and attractions through a lens of curiosity? Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29.

Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees.

​For more information and to register click here.

👉 Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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How do you navigate the complex terrain of identity and labels within the Christian community, especially during Pride Month? This episode is an insightful exploration of the debate between using terms like "same-sex attracted" and "gay Christian." We tackle the pastoral implications and the deeper questions of identity that arise, highlighting how language can shape self-perception and connection within the LGBT community. We hope you'll gain an understanding of the arguments for and against each term, and learn the importance of compassionate pastoral care in supporting individuals through these challenges.

Moving on to the modern ideology of expressive individualism, we scrutinize its stark contrast with Christian beliefs. This episode uncovers the risks of syncretism and how blending differing religious beliefs can impact the purity of the Christian faith. We delve into the anthropological, sociological, ecclesiological, and theological levels to discuss the far-reaching implications of expressive individualism. Wrapping up, we invite you to embrace Christlikeness and discover what it means to see yourself as a holy creation of God. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that challenges you to grow in your identity in Christ.

Are you ready to take your recovery to the next level?What if the key to the freedom you have been longing for begins by learning how to look at your fantasies, traumas, and attractions through a lens of curiosity? Regeneration is Excited to announce our First-Ever Awaken Men’s Retreat. We have crafted a two-day retreat at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center in Marriottsville, Maryland from Saturday, September 28 to Sunday, September 29.

Secure your spot today! We are currently offering an early-bird sale price and this event is open to just 20 attendees.

​For more information and to register click here.

👉 Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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As we gather to honor a significant landmark, our 300th episode, I'm filled with gratitude for you, our loyal listeners, whose footsteps have journeyed alongside mine in this quest of faith and healing.

Today's episode centers on the inspiring account of Jairus from Luke 8, a narrative that resonates deeply for those entwined in the arduous struggle for sexual integrity.

Through his story, we find the strength to envision a life untethered from the chains of our battles, and we celebrate the triumph of belief over the shadows of fear. I am humbled to share this episode with you as we peer into the intimate struggles that shape our identity and the courageous steps we can take toward freedom and wholeness.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Have you ever felt like your past is a maze that complicates your journey toward love?

We understand that sharing the deepest corners of your heart, marked by trauma and past missteps, can be a treacherous path to tread in the world of dating.
Today, we address a question from a listener about when and how to unveil your history to someone you’re dating.

It's a fine line between guarding your heart and being transparent with a potential partner and pacing this disclosure is key to building trust and fostering a healthy relationship.

We shed light on the wisdom of seeking counsel from a trusted third party, emphasizing that your heart and the heart of your partner are precious gifts that deserve careful handling. With encouragement and resources from our team at Regeneration, I shared insights into finding solace in support groups, the benefit of confiding in a circle of trusted friends, and the steps to re-enter the dating scene with confidence and support.

It is through this process of connecting and sharing within a community that we find our way back to love, free from the weight of our previous burdens.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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In this episode of Becoming Whole Audio, host Josh Glaser discusses the importance of holding onto hope in the journey toward sexual integrity. He explores the questions of whether our hopes will be realized and if the journey will be worth it. By anchoring our hope in Christ and his kingdom, we can navigate the challenges with sobriety and trust in God's faithfulness. Join us in placing our hope in the secure promise of the kingdom to come, as we are cheered on by a great cloud of witnesses. Remember, it is worth it, and He is faithful.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Embark on a profound journey with us to understand how our deepest physical desires mirror an intrinsic longing for spiritual union. Our latest conversation unravels the mystery behind our sexuality, guiding you to discover how the yearning for intimacy transcends mere human connection and points toward communion with God. Throughout this episode, we discuss the sacredness of our bodies and the divine intention in our design. This isn't just about understanding our physical impulses—it's about aligning them with a higher purpose and walking the path towards sexual integrity and ultimately, a life that glorifies God.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Embark with us on an intimate expedition into the dynamics of healing after the storm of sexual addiction and betrayal trauma. As we unravel the threads of recovery dialogue between partners, we'll equip you with the strategies for conducting meaningful check-ins charting a course through the rough waters of rebuilding trust.

In a space set apart from the every day, you’ll discover how to foster transparency without oversharing, balance reassurance with accountability, and navigate the delicate dance of communication that is both honest and compassionate.
Let this episode be a beacon of hope, illuminating the path to a renewed partnership grounded in understanding and shared growth.

S.A.V.E.S Exercise

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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In the previous episode, we delved into the delicate topic of how to address disclosing sexual sins to your spouse when fear and relational brokenness come into play. We discussed the importance of working through your own fears and the impact of relational brokenness on your perception.

Today, we'll explore the trauma experienced by the spouse on the receiving end of such revelations. We'll address the concept of betrayal trauma and its profound impact on a spouse's sense of reality and trust. We'll also touch on the process of disclosure and the vital role of being an ally in each other's healing journeys.

Join us as we navigate the complexities of honesty, trust, and healing within marriages affected by sexual brokenness.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Welcome to Becoming Whole Audio, where we provide insight and guidance on sexual integrity and wholeness. In this episode, host Josh Glaser delves into the delicate topic of disclosing unwanted sexual behavior to a spouse.

He responds to a listener's question about how much should be shared with a spouse, particularly when they have already disclosed some details and encountered negative reactions. Josh explores the importance of trust, the impact of secrets on recovery, and the role of truth in healing relationships.

The episode is the first of a three-part series, offering a compassionate and practical perspective on navigating this challenging aspect of recovery. Join us as we delve into difficult but crucial conversations for the journey towards wholeness.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Growing up in the shadow of my parents' divorce, I found myself seeking validation in all the wrong places. As we unravel the threads of childhood wounds and their influence on adult behaviors, particularly sexual integrity, this episode is a candid reflection on the often unconscious quest for self-worth.

We discuss the intricate process of healing memories and the profound impact this journey can have on our lives, looking closely at how negative experiences and familial relationships can lead to sexual compulsions. I open up about my personal battles and how the false comfort of pornography briefly masked a deeper need for love and acceptance, emphasizing the importance of addressing these underlying issues for a healthier, more authentic self.

This series culminates with a powerful invitation to bless our past hurts with the Lord's presence. We talk about the importance of replacing the harmful voices of yesterday with the truth and blessing of our Creator, and how this shift can lead to a revolutionary change in the way we see ourselves and our relationship with God.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Could the path to true sexual integrity be less about prohibition and more about understanding our design as beings created to give?

Join us as we unravel a fresh perspective on sexual purity—one that aligns with our innermost nature and calls us to live as selfless gifts to others. This episode is a journey into the essence of sexual integrity, challenging the common notion that it's just about rule adherence. Instead, it's about mirroring the selfless love of Jesus and transforming our desires into blessings for those around us. We're not simply avoiding temptation; we're learning to offer ourselves in service, following the ultimate model set by Christ.

Engage with us as we delve into the complementary roles of men and women within the divine blueprint of relationships, and how recognizing oneself as a 'good gift' is essential to fostering selfless connections.

We discuss how our self-worth intertwines with sexual integrity and the way we see our value, and the value we offer to others. We are called not just to resist sin but to actively embody love and service, with the Holy Spirit guiding our transformation.

This episode is an invitation to view sexual purity as an opportunity to live out our true calling and be a blessing in a world hungry for authentic love.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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In this episode Josh delves into the concept of apocalypse, not as the end of the world, but as a revelation and unveiling of deeper truths. Relating the concept to ancient literary genres and pop culture references, Josh explores the idea that our current world is concealing important realities, particularly in the realm of sexuality.

Drawing parallels between spiritual apocalypses and societal patterns, he emphasizes the need for a revelation to break free from distorted views on sex, procreation, and gender. This exploration is not merely academic; it's a quest that deepens our recognition of Jesus Christ's transformative work within us, empowering us to confront the challenges that distort our self-perception and the way we view those around us.

Join us in this insightful and thought-provoking discussion on why we need apocalypse and its significance in reclaiming sexual integrity.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Do you ever feel that parts of your life are too dirty or shameful to reveal? If we are honest there are challenging aspects of our sexual stories that we often prefer to keep in the shadows.
We all carry struggles and pains, but what if we could turn them towards Jesus for healing and restoration?

As we reflect upon the story of the leper, a man considered unclean and cast out, we are reminded of Jesus's willingness to touch and cleanse him. This calls us to bring all parts of our stories into the light, embracing the promise of healing and freedom.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Does becoming a Christian mean you've unlocked the key to full satisfaction in life? Let's explore that myth together.

Our longing for God is infinite, and we won't find full satisfaction in this fallen world until we meet Jesus face to face.

In this episode, we uncover a common error that may be holding you back from becoming whole. Recognizing your hunger for God can lead to true freedom and sexual integrity. We discuss how accepting our infinite thirst can keep us on course towards God and His kingdom, instead of being misled by fleeting earthly desires.

Remember, we're in a season of 'now and not yet', and our ultimate satisfaction will come when we meet Jesus face to face. So join us on this journey of faith, pursuit, and anticipation. Let's lean into our hunger for more and see how it can lead us to a deeper connection with God.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Are you tired of the chains of sexual sin and yearning for wholeness?

It’s time to step off the beaten path and confront the pain and suffering that often accompany the pursuit of sexual integrity. Drawing inspiration from the teachings of Bishop Robert Barron, we engage in a poignant conversation about the realities of life in a fallen world. It's not easy, but as followers of Christ, we are reminded that enduring suffering is part of our journey. This is not about dwelling in pain, but about attaining integrity, wholeness, and ultimately, freedom.

As we delve deeper, we begin to understand the impact of our past wounds on our current struggles. Our childhood experiences and the messages we received during that time often shape our behaviors and influence our journey towards sexual integrity.
But it's not all bleak - there's hope and healing. We open up about our personal experiences and the challenges of breaking free from sexual addiction.

We encourage you to not shy away from the pain, but to lean into it and allow God to heal and guide you. Remember, you are made for more than your past hardships.
Join us for this honest, enlightening, and ultimately hopeful discussion.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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How often do we truly examine the 'bad fruit' in our lives?

In an honest and revealing conversation, we venture deep into this concept, drawing inspiration from Brother Lawrence's book "The Practice of the Presence of God". We discuss the temptation to quickly discard these imperfections, instead of tracing them back to their roots. We encourage you to invite Jesus into your life to not only confront these sins but to help bear good fruit.

We then transition to the transformative power of partnership with Jesus, exploring the importance of sanctification. Referencing the profound verses of Romans 12:1-2, we discuss the significance of offering ourselves as living sacrifices and letting our minds be renewed. As we address the 'bad fruit' in our lives, we explore how this process leads to a more vibrant and fulfilled existence.

Join us as we journey together towards sanctification, ending in a collective prayer for guidance along this path. Tune in and let's cultivate and harvest the fruits of a life in partnership with Jesus, together.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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What does it mean to feel stuck in unwanted sexual behavior, and how does our personal anger factor into the equation?

This very question is what we are unpacking in this episode with our guest Aaron Tagert. We walk with you through the profound insights of Jay Stringer, aiming to shed light on the six core experiences that characterize these struggles: deprivation, dissociation, unconscious arousal, futility, lust, and anger.

In the midst of these conversations, Aaron urges us to gently examine our own experiences, inviting us to engage with our patterns through a lens of curiosity and compassion.

Furthermore, Aaron introduces an exciting upcoming resource, a tailored coaching group for men on the journey toward understanding their sexual struggles. Over the course of eight intensive weeks, participants are guided to explore their stories within a faith-filled and supportive community. This group is not just about identifying participants' struggles, but about climbing out of them and discovering fascinating prospects of freedom.

Together, we hope that this exploration leads us to a deeper self-understanding and a more intimate connection with God. Tune in and join us as we uncover the mysteries of unwanted sexual behavior and the paths toward overcoming them.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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What if we told you that exploring your past could be the key to unlocking your sexual wholeness and integrity?

This episode is a powerful exploration of understanding sexual brokenness and the path toward healing. Join our riveting conversation with Aaron Tagert, a seasoned coach at Regeneration, as we dissect the insights from Jay Stringer's thought-provoking book, Unwanted. We'll confront our family dynamics, the effects of abandonment and enmeshment, and the pivotal role curiosity plays in this journey.

Story work, as you'll discover, can offer profound insights into our lives, habits, and patterns of brokenness.

Ever wondered why we remain stuck in patterns of sexual brokenness and how we can liberate ourselves? Our guest, Aaron Tagert, brings his expertise to the table, illustrating God's care for our past and His invitation to participate in our healing process.
Together, we'll probe into addressing sexual temptation and the significance of curiosity in decoding the reasons behind our actions. This isn't just another episode; it's an invitation to embark on a journey towards sexual wholeness.

So, tune in, and let's discover the path to freedom together.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Are you ready to step up and take control of your sexual integrity?
This episode will equip you with a blueprint to do just that.

We journey into the first leg of this process - managing patterns and creating boundaries to shield ourselves from behaviors that lead us astray. From identifying your triggers to setting up filters, blocks, and time limits, we’ll guide you through creating yellow line and guardrail boundaries - a potent double barrier to ward off temptation.

Then we take a deep dive into the art of engaging in healthy relationships, the second leg of your journey to sexual integrity. We share invaluable insights on regulating your emotions and addressing pain in healthier ways instead of retreating to old sexual behaviors.

This conversation is more than just about sexual integrity; it's a call to engage life as an adult, leaving behind the wounded child within. This episode is a transformative exploration into creating healthy boundaries, understanding behavioral patterns, and achieving sexual integrity.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Imagine a cunning enemy, a cloaked figure weaving a grand illusion, promising sweet pleasures and enticing favors. But beneath the guise, he's a true enslaver, pulling you into a web spun from deceptions and false promises.

That's Satan for you – not the fun uncle he pretends to be but a true master of disguise. Through an exciting exploration of biblical stories and fairy tales, we unmask his cunning strategies, drawing parallels from Jesus's temptation in the desert and the Little Mermaid's tale. It's an opportunity to gaze through the looking glass, to see beyond the allure of temporary pleasure, and to recognize the chains that come with it.

As we step into the second part of our journey, we encounter a liberating alternative - Jesus, the essence of true freedom and the power to resist temptation. Serving Him doesn't lead to enslavement but to authentic liberty. And so, we arrive at the crucial crossroads: whom will you serve? Will it be Satan, the master illusionist promising delights but shackling you in the process, or Jesus, who invites us to serve Him with our whole heart, mind, and body, promising real freedom?

Withstanding temptation, leaning into Jesus's power, and choosing to follow Him can lead us to a life of freedom and wholeness.
Let this episode spark that choice within you.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Picture you're a 14-year-old growing up in the digital age, with a universe of information at your fingertips - thrilling, isn't it?

That's the world my son and I explore in this honest chat, scrutinizing the marvels and the perils of the internet era. We dive into the advantages, like the ease of satisfying curiosity or troubleshooting issues, and the pitfalls, like the danger of sliding into a rabbit hole of misinformation. We even share personal anecdotes about treading the thin line between leveraging this tool and getting consumed by it.

Consider this: have you ever sought the assistance of the internet to satisfy your deepest desires?
We also discuss this sensitive subject, debating the temptation to utilize the internet as the ultimate problem solver for our soul's longings.

We navigate this complex landscape together, underlining the peril of using the internet for something only God can truly offer - eternal satisfaction.
Towards the end, we pray for our listeners, hoping for divine guidance in maintaining the delicate balance between using the internet as a tool and becoming its slave.

Enjoy this journey of reflection and learning with us!

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Have you ever wondered why we keep producing 'bad fruit' in our lives?

What if the key to addressing these issues is not just to pluck them away, but to trace them back to their roots? Let's journey together through an exploration of life's root issues, inspired by Jesus' saying that a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit.

We'll discuss how to acknowledge our condition without shame or isolation, and how to seek guidance from Jesus.

In our deep dive, we'll also reflect on how Jesus promises liberation from the corruption that taints our world. Together, we'll learn how to identify the bad fruit in our lives and lean on Jesus for healing and transformation.

Echoing Brother Lawrence's wisdom in 'Practicing the Presence of God', we'll learn to trust Jesus, embrace our shortcomings, and seek His help to change. This is a powerful reminder that we're not alone in this journey.

So, tune in, and let's navigate through our life issues by tracing them back to the roots.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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What if there's more to our bodies than what meets the eye in the world of pornography?

Engage with us in this eye-opening conversation as we expose the profound distortions in the portrayal of human bodies and sexuality in pornography.

We dig into the theological implications, examining the chasm between the demeaning images presented in adult content and the divine design of our bodies.

We've discovered a troubling narrative, where male strength and genitalia are associated with power, control, and selfish pleasure, while a woman's body is reduced to an object of arousal, devoid of its divine essence.

Witness as we unravel the dark underbelly of pornography, where God's beautiful design for the human body is twisted and distorted for superficial satisfaction.

We dissect the stark contrasts between this distortion and the tenderness, nourishment, and nurturing associated with God's love.

Pornography may promise thrill and satisfaction, but we challenge you to join us in a different narrative, one where we honor the divine in our bodies, celebrate the life-giving nature of sexuality, and turn our hearts towards a God who loves us and gave himself for us.

Tune in and allow us to guide you on a journey of discovery and self-reflection.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Prepare to be enlightened about the intriguing interplay between theology, our bodies, and sexuality.

Ever wondered how our bodies reflect the divine image?

Strap in and get set to unlock the enigmas behind theology of the body.

We journey together, investigating the divine design of male and female, the sacredness in our roles as parents, and our destiny as human beings.

We delve into the profound symbolism embedded in marital union, pregnancy, and even a woman's labor pain as a mirror of Christ's suffering on the Cross.

Hold onto your seats as we take an unexpected turn and venture into the theology of pornography. Gasp at the stark contrast it poses against the divine blueprint of our bodies. We scrutinize the messages pornography conveys about God and his creation.

Stay tuned for our next episode as we continue this captivating conversation and strive to reconcile these contrasting ideologies.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Language wields more power than we often consider, particularly when it comes to sexuality.

As we've noticed, the words we use to discuss topics like abortion - 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' - carry substantial weight and can reveal underlying worldviews.

We've also seen a fascinating evolution in how society talks about gender transitioning, shifting from 'sex change operation' to 'gender reassignment surgery', and now, 'gender confirmation surgery'.

So, we're going to delve into these linguistic nuances and explore how changing terms reflect changing societal attitudes.

But it's not just about linguistics.

The conversation takes a deeper turn as we consider the very foundation of our understanding of gender and sexuality. In a world that has seemingly redefined these terms without concrete scientific proof, it's important to approach this discussion with compassion and grace.

For those who are caught up in this societal shift, and for those who have undergone extreme body alterations, we extend our deepest empathy. Remember, it is only through God's words that we find the truth.

Tune in as we navigate these complex waters, seeking truth and understanding in every conversation.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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Ever wondered how the words we whisper, speak, or shout can shape our reality, particularly in our pursuit of sexual integrity?

Prepare to expand your understanding as we delve into the astounding power of language - both God's and our own. Drawing from scripture, we explore how words can either propel us towards or pull us away from our quest.

Ready to use this powerful tool to move forward on your journey to sexual integrity? Join us as we unravel this intriguing concept.

Ever stopped to consider the transformative effect of God's mercy and forgiveness in your life, especially in the context of sexual integrity?

Let's make sense of it together.

By precisely identifying our sins and acknowledging the need for God's mercy, we reveal a path for profound change. We'll also discuss the purpose of God's commands, shifting focus from restriction to protection, and emphasizing the immense love behind them.

By naming our sins and accepting God's mercy, we step into a space of love and forgiveness, guiding us towards a healthier and more wholesome sexuality.

Listen in, learn, and let the power of words positively steer your journey towards sexual integrity.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

If you are in the Baltimore Area, Regeneration is happy to invite you to our 2024 Dessert Fundraiser, Spark: One Small Thing Leads to So Much More. This annual gathering is a highlight for so many as we gather for tasty desserts, heartfelt worship, vulnerable and powerful stories, and an opportunity to partner with what Jesus is doing through Regeneration. Click Here for more info or to register.

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This episode is not just a guide, it is an invitation to transformation, to becoming more like God in every aspect of your life.

Imagine giving up unwanted sexual behavior, not just in the sense of refraining from certain acts, but in the transformative way that helps you align closer with God's design for your sexuality.

This episode takes you on that enlightening journey, shedding light on how to not just become a non-entity, but how to recognize the goodness within yourself.

We discuss how our sexuality is a good gift to God, to others, and especially to our spouses and children.

We tackle the challenges of sexual sin and how the enemy exploits our vulnerabilities, prompting us to look beyond the act of leaving something behind and instead becoming someone fuller and more in tune with God's plan.

Venture with us as we discuss the concept of self-giving love and how it plays a crucial role in our journey to wholeness. We discuss how our bodies, eyes, and thoughts can be used to love others with self-giving love.

We call upon God to guide us to become more like Him in our everyday life, friendships, and relationships.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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Let's pulls back the curtain on pornography and explore the truth about the men and women involved in the industry. 

We often see these individuals as people who simply love money and sex, but the reality is far more complex.

Through real-life testimonies and research, we discover that those in the porn industry may be dealing with addiction, desperation, past abuse, and various other factors.

Josh encourages us to see beyond the facade and recognize these individuals as whole people with hearts, souls, and families.

By shifting our perspective, we can resist the harmful allure of viewing others as sex objects and find true joy in relating to one another.

Join us as we uncover the truth about pornography and how it impacts our perception of those involved.

The importance of seeing people instead of sex objects

• Lust vs love
• Recognizing people as individuals
• Changing perception and treatment of others

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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Are you hiding parts of yourself out of fear or shame, most notably in relation to sexual sins and insecurities?

You're not alone.

We'll venture back to the Garden of Eden, exploring the original concept of being 'naked and unashamed', and how our perception of vulnerability has been distorted since sin became part of our world.

This episode serves as a sanctuary to inspect our fears, acknowledging that it's normal to feel endangered as we expose our truest selves, and how experiences of shame often amplify this apprehension.

Trusting in societal norms that equate strength with solitude can lead us astray. In fact, we challenge the misconception that the 'better' you are, the less you need others.

Instead, we promote interdependence and community, asserting that the healthiest, most attractive, and godly among us are those integrated individuals who are not afraid to reveal their true selves to reliable friends or spouses.

For those wrestling with sexual integrity and recovery from unwanted sexual behavior, this discussion highlights the importance of unearthing the parts of ourselves we've often buried.

Join us, as we confront the falsehood that has kept us prisoners and embrace the liberation of being wholly known and loved.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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Have you ever paused to consider that our sexual desires are essentially a longing for God's presence?

In our enlightening conversation, we unearth the profound connection between our physical desires and our spiritual hunger.

We discuss the concept that temptations, such as pornography and other sexual behaviors, are not mere urges but indicators of a deeper yearning for God.

What if our sexual integrity is intertwined with understanding these signals and aligning them with God's design for sexuality?

Shame plays a significant role in our lives, shaping our actions and choices. But instead of labeling ourselves negatively, we shift our perspective.

We unveil how our temptations are born from a thirst for God's goodness. We delve into our human needs for comfort, power, tenderness, and pleasure, and discuss how to harmonize them with our spiritual needs.

Our discussion aims to guide you through this sensitive topic with empathy, helping you uncover actual cravings beneath the surface. Join us as we help illuminate your journey towards sexual integrity, resonating with God's vision for sexuality.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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Can calling oneself a 'sex addict' serve as a stepping stone toward healing, or does it become a stumbling block on the path to sexual wholeness?

Join me, Josh Glazer, in an intense exploration of this provocative subject, where we dissect the benefits and potential downsides of adopting this potentially loaded label.

Through the lens of my personal journey from sexual addiction towards sexual integrity, we address the humbling effect of acknowledging the addictive nature of sin and recognizing our own inability to conquer it alone.

Yet, we also highlight why our ministry prefers to avoid this tag, citing its capacity to hamper recovery and growth.

Venture further with me as we probe the dark side of the 'sex addict' label and its capacity to snuff out hope and deter us from taking healthy risks. As we peel back the layers, we'll unmask the divine intent behind our sexuality, revealing its purpose as a mirror reflecting God's magnificent design.

You'll gain a fresh perspective on how our sexuality and spirituality should be intertwined, driving us to point others towards God.

Brace yourself for an eye-opening discussion on the power of embracing risks, remembering that growth requires stepping out of our comfort zones and learning to view the world through the lens of love.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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What if we've been interpreting Jesus' view of sexuality all wrong?

Join me as we explore a fresh perspective on this topic: how Jesus saw people as sexual beings without objectifying them.

We'll unpack how Jesus saw whole people, highlighting the divine difference between being sexual and being sexualized.

Drawing from the ancient wisdom of Scripture, let's redefine how we view and value what it means to be sexual, applying it to our own interactions and personal perspectives.

The media, with its relentless spotlight on physicality apart from personhood, often distorts our understanding of sexuality.

Together, we'll uncover the media's impact on the sexualization of individuals, revealing how it often disconnects sexual parts from their procreative power, reducing people to mere objects of desire.

Jesus offers a way out of this narrative. .

Get ready to embark on a transformative journey towards understanding and embracing a more holistic view of human sexuality.

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In this week's podcast, Josh replies to questions from a listener who feels his same-sex attractions are getting in the way of forming new friendships.

Perhaps you, too, have same-sex attractions and wrestle with fears of rejection or judgement as you try to build new friendships with other men or women. Or maybe you wonder how to tell if you're truly desiring friendship or unconsciously hoping to get closer to someone you find attractive.

You're not alone, and in this podcast, Josh unpacks these emotions and the complexities they bring to developing male relationships.

Listen in as we explore questions like these alongside the thoughtful listener who wrote in.

Josh shares insights and experiences and most importantly, he offers hope.

Undeniably, fear, shame, and insecurities can be major roadblocks when trying to foster healthy same-sex friendships. But what if we told you that it's both possible and important to navigate through these barriers?

It's crucial to not let the possibility of rejection or falling overshadow your need for genuine connection with other men or women.

If you experience same-sex attractions and you're struggling with developing healthy same-sex friendships, or looking to understand the unique challenges faced by those who do, this episode is for you.

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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Join us for this heart-felt episode where we explore the arduous journey of rebuilding marital faithfulness after infidelity.

This is a must-hear for those eager to regain a spouse's trust after being unfaithful.

In this episode, we discuss the importance of focusing first on strengthening your character, rather than prioritizing winning back your spouse's trust.

In the second half of today's show, Josh shares a story from Clinton and Charity Munoz, creators of Restored 2 More, about navigating moments when a betrayed spouse is triggered and feeling unsafe.

Clinton's ability to validate Charity's feelings of fear and insecurity was pivotal, underscoring the importance of honesty, vulnerability, and empathy in repairing a marriage.

If you are on the road to sexual integrity and seeking to heal a marriage in the process, you'll find valuable insights to help you progress towards becoming more whole.

Tune in and embark on an empathy journey with us.

Transcription: Rebuilding Trust After Infidelity.

Episode Resources:

Regen on YouTube
What We Do

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Do you find yourself fleeing or distracting yourself when faced with temptation?

This approach may actually be doing more harm than good in your journey towards sexual integrity, wholeness, and maturity.

In today's episode, we explore the importance of acknowledging the underlying distress that often accompanies temptation and offer three steps to navigate through it more effectively.

Listen in as we discuss strategies for feeling the distress, seeking help from friends and family, and moving towards sexual wholeness.

By becoming more aware of our thoughts and feelings when experiencing temptation, we can better understand our struggles and address them head-on.

Don't miss this insightful and practical conversation on managing temptation and fostering sexual wholeness in our lives.

Ready? Let's dive in!

-- What We Discuss:

00:04 - How to deal with temptation?
02:25 - How to deal with temptation and distress.
04:09 - Learn different ways to deal with temptation.
05:54 - Flee sexual immorality and temptation.
07:48 - Where do you feel distress in your body?
09:14 - How to invite the holy spirit into your distress.

Transcription: Facing Temptation: Fostering Sexual Wholeness and Growth

Episode Resources:

Regen on YouTube
What We Do

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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What does it truly mean to walk in sexual integrity, and how can confidence play a vital role in this journey?

Discover how our own sense of goodness and value can greatly impact our ability to love and be loved. In our conversation, we unpack the connection between our desire for goodness, the attractiveness of others, and the importance of cultivating a deep-rooted confidence that is essential for walking in sexual integrity.

Embracing Jesus and recognizing His infinite goodness is key to becoming whole.

In this episode, we explore the importance of receiving Jesus as a gift, praising Him, and striving to become more like Him.

Tune in as we share valuable insights and resources from Regeneration Ministries that can help guide you on your journey towards a more whole and confident self.

With these tools and the support of a like-minded community, you can learn to walk in sexual integrity with confidence.

Ready? Let's dive in!

-- What We Discuss:

00:16 - If you want to walk in sexual integrity.
02:29 - Do you see yourself as a good gift?
04:09 - Love is confident and love requires confidence.
05:43 - Why are we so drawn to attractive people?
07:59 - The desire to be good and good gifts.
09:15 - Confident love is confident.
10:18 - We reach for and meditate on the good.

-- Transcription: The Connection Between Confidence and Sexual Integrity

-- Episode Resources:

Regen on YouTube
What We Do

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Are you struggling with the magnetic pull of an idealized lover? Wondering how to break free from comparing your significant other to this seemingly perfect person?

Fear not, as we reveal a powerful two-step process that will not only help you tear down that pedestal but also reclaim control over your thoughts and feelings.

Together, we'll explore the childlike part of ourselves that's stunted, and dig deep into our past influences on attraction.

We'll uncover the reasons for this enticing vortex by asking crucial questions about your idealized lover and understanding the connection points between them and significant people from your past.

Learn how to open yourself to Jesus with kindness, and see your idealized lover as a normal human being, regaining control over your life.

Don't let the illusion of perfection hold you back – join us in this eye-opening episode!

Ready? Let's dive in!

-- What We Discuss:

00:02 - Tearing down the idealized lover.
01:14 - How to unplug yourself from the vortex.
03:18 - We all have ways that we do this in ourselves.
04:27 - How to unplug the magnetism of romantic attraction?
05:55 - Who does this person remind me of from my past?
06:25 - What are the characteristics that you’re filling in about that person?
10:38 - Look at who they remind you of.

-- Transcription: A Journey to Understanding the Roots of Attraction

-- Episode Resources:
Regen on YouTube
What We Do

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here

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What if our deepest sexual fantasies were actually signposts toward healing and connection?

Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Drew Boa as we uncover the transformative power hidden within our desires.

We discuss how our fantasies can point us toward safety, glory, and connection while providing the keys to unlock intimacy and healing in our lives.

In this journey of self-discovery, we learn to face our fears, undo shame, and grieve our losses, bringing about personal growth and deeper connections with those around us.

Drew Boa shares his wisdom in navigating the often misunderstood world of sexual desires and fantasies, guiding us toward a place of love and understanding.

Listen in and embrace the life-changing potential of exploring your own desires and stories, and let this powerful episode inspire you to find safety, glory, and connection with God and your loved ones.

More Online here.

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What if the secrets to unlocking our hidden qualities and traits lie in our deepest sexual fantasies?

This episode invites you to join our captivating conversation on how interpreting these desires can help us reclaim our identity and discover the glory God has put in us.

We delve into the power of the particularity of fantasies and discuss how they provide us with data that needs interpretation.

With our guest, we explore how to tap into the original glory within us and seek safety and glory in healthy ways. By understanding trauma, addiction, and embracing a story-centered approach, we discuss how our fantasies can point to something good within us and how God is restoring what was already there.

Get ready to deepen your understanding of yourself and your fantasies in this insightful and thought-provoking discussion.

More online here.

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Have you ever found yourself struggling with unwanted sexual fantasies, attractions, or fetishes, and wondered how to overcome them?

Our conversation with Drew Boa, founder of Husband Material, offers powerful insights and practical steps to help you heal and understand these complex issues.

Join us as we discuss befriending our sexual thoughts and feelings instead of trying to get rid of them, and how God can speak to us through these different parts of us.

We'll also explore the intriguing connection between fear and sexuality, including the physical effects of fear on our bodies and how arousal and pleasure pathways can shed light on the development of our sexual preferences.

Don't miss this transformative and thought-provoking conversation with Drew Boa as he shares his personal journey of healing and freedom from the shame associated with his own sexual fantasies, offering hope and guidance for those struggling with their own unwanted attractions.

More online at The Fantasy Framework

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Do you know how to resist temptation and protect yourself from the enemy's lies?

Join us as we explore the patterns of temptation and reveal valuable tools to strengthen your relationship with God.

We dive into the story of Adam and Eve, uncovering how the enemy tries to divide us, exaggerate God's prohibitions, and downplay God's generosity.Learn how Sun Tzu's quote, "if you know your enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles," applies to our spiritual battles against temptation.

We also discuss the dangers of isolation and how to break free from the enemy's traps.

Through the story of Adam and Eve, we see how the enemy attacks God's character and our belief in Him.

Discover how temptation led to sin and death entering the world, and how the enemy whispers that it's God's fault when bad things happen. Empower yourself with the tools to resist temptation and shield yourself from these destructive lies, as we delve into this insightful conversation on understanding temptation patterns and fortifying your faith in God.

Join us in this eye-opening discussion and strengthen your spiritual armor against the enemy's attacks.

Ready? Let's dive in!

-- What We Discuss:

02:30 - The enemy divides us and wants to isolate us.
04:08 - The enemy exaggerates God’s prohibitions.
06:32 - Attack God’s character.
08:46 - What does god say about human beings?
11:10 - Why does the enemy do this?
13:12 - Connect with others and pray.
14:53 - Practice gratitude and practice gratitude.
16:45 - Focus on God instead of the law.
19:08 - Where the enemy attacks God's character.

-- Transcription: Understanding and Overcoming Temptation

-- Episode Resources:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Regen on YouTube
What We Do

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Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the countless voices discussing topics like sex, gender, and marriage, and unsure of who to trust?

You're not alone!

In this episode, we dive into the wisdom of fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nazianus, who faced similar challenges in his time. Listen in as we share some of Gregory's insights on how to navigate these complex and controversial subjects, and how his approach can help us today.

We discuss how Gregory believed that being a theologian meant not only knowing about God but truly knowing and seeking God.

In this episode, we explore how we can apply Gregory's wisdom to our own journey by examining our motivations and submitting our hearts to the truth of God.

Additionally, we delve into the importance of virtue in the life of a theologian and how it can help us discern who to trust when it comes to discussions about sex, gender, and marriage.

Join us as we learn from the wisdom of the past to better understand the present and draw closer to God in the process.

Ready? Let's dive in!

-- What We Discuss:

01:10 - How can a loving god say no to same-sex marriage?
02:37 - He didn’t want to be a priest.
03:35 - Defending the truth of Christianity.
05:20 - What does it mean to be a good theologian?
07:17 - The theologian has to be truly invested in God.
08:44 - Have you tamed your tongue and thought life?
10:11 - Why virtuous people help draw people closer to god?

-- Transcription: Walking through the Minefield of Modern Conversations on Sexuality and Marriage - https://www.regenerationministries.org/conversations-on-sexuality-and-marriage/

-- Episode Resources:

On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius - https://amzn.to/43fi2lY
Regen on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@RegenerationMinistries
What We Do - https://www.regenerationministries.org/what-we-do/

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here - https://forms.reform.app/RBaGBz/bw-feedback/hXcNMH

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Do you ever feel like lust and pornography are taking over your life, and you can't break free from their grasp?

What if I told you that lust isn't the real issue at hand, but rather our inability to truly see the world and the people around us?

In this eye-opening episode, I share a powerful story from the memoir "The Glass Castle" that illustrates this concept and how it's not lust that we need to overcome, but our clouded vision.

Join me as I discuss how God doesn't want us to simply look away from temptation, but rather to open our eyes and truly see the person in front of us, beholding them with awe and reverence.

This transformation of our vision can lead us to a place where we no longer want to degrade others by treating them like sex objects. Our ultimate goal should be to honor one another and elevate our consciousness to recognize the reality of God's beauty in each other.

So, let's embark on this journey together to gain clarity and rediscover the real world through our newly opened eyes.

Ready? Let's dive in!

What We Discuss:
0:03 - Lust is not your problem. It’s the problem.
3:34 - Our problem isn’t lost pornography.
5:51 - The last thing you want to do is degrade people.
6:45 - God’s heart for us.
8:23 - God wants to restore sight to the blind.
10:49 - The Blind Bartimaeus.

Transcription: From Lustful Gaze to Awe and Reverence -

Episode Resources:
The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Regen on YouTube
What We Do

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What does Jesus teach us about sex and gender, and how can we apply that to the complex and controversial topic of transgenderism?

With humble hearts and minds, we turn to Scripture and the historic teachings of the church to understand how to respond as Christians.

Join us as we examine the original plan for creation in Genesis 1 and 2, and explore Jesus's teachings in Matthew 19 to navigate this important conversation.

We also contemplate the hope found in the Incarnation, discussing the implications of God becoming flesh.

Jesus's care for the physical bodies of men and women illustrates his love and compassion, ultimately leading him to the cross for our sake. His death and resurrection offer hope for those who have a transgender experience or have irreversibly altered their body.

Learn how we can walk alongside those in that space with grace, understanding, and a compassionate heart.

Ready? Let's dive in!

-- What We Discuss:

2:16 - The pharisees that tried to trap Jesus.
4:33 - Transgenderism and God’s will.
6:46 - God’s original design for our sexuality.
8:01 - What is a sex change operation?
9:21 - How we think about compassion in our culture.
10:49 - Why is the body so important to Christians?
12:49 - He literally became flesh for our sake.

-- Transcription: Christ's Compassion in the Transgender Conversation -

-- Episode Resources:

Regen on YouTube
What We Do

Want us to talk about a specific topic? Change up the format, or just tell us the podcast rocks! We want your feedback on Becoming Whole. You can leave your feedback here.

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What if we told you that you have the power to redefine beauty and truly appreciate your spouse's appearance, imperfections and all?

Join us in this eye-opening episode as we uncover powerful insights on how to retrain our minds, heavily influenced by media and pornography, to recognize and delight in our partner's beauty, even as they age or change.

Together, we'll challenge society's expectations of beauty and aim to cultivate a healthier, more loving perspective of our relationships.

Discover how to view your spouse's body as a map in marriage, where we can learn to view our spouse's body as a map of their life, finding beauty in wrinkles, gray hair, and other "imperfections."

We'll discuss the importance of self-giving love in relationships and share practical tips for embracing a deep and meaningful connection with your partner by focusing on the good and beauty within them.

Learn to see your partner as the whole, beautiful human being God sees them as, and move towards a more fulfilling, loving relationship.

Ready? Let's dive in!

-- What We Discuss:

00:04 - How to deal with imperfections in your spouse?
01:55 - The idealized models of the 50s.
03:16 - Training your brain to find beauty in your spouse.
05:27 - What we find in imperfections in our spouses.
07:04 - How to delight in your spouse’s imperfections.
09:03 - View your spouse’s body as a map.
10:27 - The deeper beauty of wrinkles and wrinkles.
12:08 - Seeing a person as a map of who they are.

-- Transcription: Embracing Imperfections & Deepening Connections in Marriage - https://www.regenerationministries.org/deepening-connections-in-marriage/

-- Episode Resources:

Regen on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@RegenerationMinistries
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Do you need to look at your past? If you want freedom from unwanted sexual behavior? Do you need to go back there?

Do you need to think about mom and dad and kids at school and wounds you experienced if you want to be free?

We're going to talk about that in today's podcast.

Now, when we talk about looking at our pasts, we are not talking about blaming wounds we've experienced on our sin, we are responsible for our behaviors.

Nonetheless, at Regeneration, we do spend time helping people unpack their stories, and by stories we mean their lives in the past, up to the present, and looking forward into the future.

And we do that because we believe it's incredibly beneficial, and illuminating and powerful, as we want to draw nearer to Jesus, and heal from those things that have hurt us.

So we can walk in greater sexual integrity.

Show Notes and More at https://www.regenerationministries.org/do-i-need-to-look-at-my-past/

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When you find yourself lacking desire for your spouse, I would invite you to look somewhere else.

I want to invite you to look at how you feel about yourself. How good I feel about yourself is usually more of the underlying reason why you lack desire for your spouse, then your spouse's. It really has to do with you.

So let me unpack that a little bit.

When you look in the mirror, are you free from shame? Or maybe when you stand in front of a group of people? Do you feel free from shame with your clothes on for example?

Do you feel free from shame, when you buy that great new outfit, and you get that great new haircut, and you've been working out and you feel like you look great?

The fact that we spend so much time in front of the mirror, or so much time at the gym are often indicators that we actually feel a great amount of shame.

We're trying to do things to cover up our shame, but if we live long enough, you find you're not really covering shame by working on how you look on the outside.

If you find yourself pursuing sexual integrity, and you're lacking sexual desire for your spouse, stop focusing on them, criticizing them thinking If only they would look better. If only they would treat me better, if only they would…

Take your focus off of that.

Start focusing on having Jesus restore your own sense of dignity and your own sense of goodness.

That your shame was put on the body of Jesus, so that he could restore to you your sense of worth, as one who is made in the image of God, and who is in fact, designed by God to be and become more and more of a good gift for your spouse.

As you embody that and carry that in the interior of who you are more and more, you will find that your desire for your spouse grows.

Highlights:

• When you find yourself lacking desire for your spouse. 0:04
  • Lack of sexual desire for a spouse.
  • Two reasons why a spouse might lack desire.
• Shame and the interior of you. 1:49
  • Adam and Eve and feeling free from shame.
  • The importance of self-improvement.
• How they felt good. 3:49
  • They felt interiorly that they were a good gift to each other.
  • Adam sees her as a help.
• The interior sense of goodness in ourselves. 5:20
  • Freedom from shame comes from an interior sense of goodness.
  • Husband's attraction to porn.
• The illusion of attraction is the illusion of goodness. 6:37
  • Attraction is the illusion of goodness.
  • Being a good gift in the world.
• Stop focusing on your spouse's appearance. 8:27
  • Lack of sexual desire for your spouse.
  • Focus on yourself, not them.
• Start focusing on restoring your own sense of dignity. 8:52
  • Restore dignity and sense of goodness.
  • Bring yourself as a good gift to your spouse.

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In this podcast, we are talking about your imagination.

We who are seeking sexual integrity know the problem of how our mind can get us into trouble with sexual thoughts, sexual fantasies, and sexual imaginings that lead us down a path. It can start with just a small thought that seems to kind of drift into our brain.

Then something inside grabs a hold of it. And we muse on it. And it grows and grows, until we're doing things that we promised ourselves and others that we wouldn't do.

So the imagination has been taken captive, and we're doing it again.

What we want to remember in this podcast is that the imagination initially was not Satan's idea. It's something that he seeks to use to draw us away from God, but it wasn't his invention.

The imagination is God's invention.

But what did he design it for, and how can we utilize the way that God intended our imagination to be: to help us grow into the kind of people who are people of sexual integrity, sexual wholeness, and sexual maturity?

Can you think about ways to engage your imagination to fill your life with the good of your imagination as opposed to allowing it to continue to move towards vices. I'm gonna give you four or five different ideas to help you answer these questions.

• Where are you using your imagination and creativity?
• Where can you use your imagination towards moving towards that brighter future?
• Where are you using your imagination for relationships?
• Where are you using your imagination to help you grow in faith?

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So many people have ceilings on how far they can go in life.

Some ceilings come from what people say is or isn’t possible as it pertains to change and transformation.

In our culture many believe there is a ceiling with those who wrestle with same sex attraction or men in general, that they will always struggle with lust and have no possibility of change.

On the other side there are those that resist all ceilings, you can be absolutely healed of everything with no struggle ever again count on it, depend on it, just believe. I believe there is error on both sides of that debate.

Let’s dig into what these ceilings are and how to move past them.

Highlights:
The reality of the ceilings on transformation.

• Many people have ceilings on how far they can go.
• Men struggle with lust.

The error on both sides of this debate.

• People who resist and reject all ceilings.
• The error on both sides of the debate.

The kingdom of god has come.

• Living in the now and not yet eschatology.
• The promise of Christ to make things new.

Letting go of pornography.

• A season of change in his life.
• A taste of heaven in him.

How do you live with same sex sexual orientation?

• How to live with same sex sexual orientation.
• The most powerful ceilings in culture.

The hope of the lord.

• God does not promise an end to temptation.
• Encouraging yourself to pray for it.

Set our eyes on Jesus.

• Set eyes on Jesus and follow him.
• Remove the ceiling in your name.

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I want to talk today about a little bit of a dichotomy that a lot of people experience in their journey towards sexual integrity.

If you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, or been involved in our coaching, groups, or events, I hope that you've picked up on the reality that we seek to bring the love and grace of God into all things.

We believe that real life change happens through the kindness of God.

It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. Where sin increases, Paul writes in Romans, Grace increases all the more. We really are transformed by God's movement in our lives.

The more we can do to open ourselves to the kindness, the goodness, the love, the gift that God is, the gifts that God offers, the better off we'll be. And in general, Legalism, being hard on ourselves beating ourselves up, doesn't work, it actually can be counterproductive towards growing in virtue and growing in sexual integrity. And so you won't experience that here.

I think there's often a mistake that people make along the way, in believing that somehow temptation is just going to evaporate, that they're just going to one day just stop sinning.

Now, I do believe that can happen. And I do believe it can happen over time.

That's beautiful, wonderful, I think it's going to happen for you as you continue to go.

But the journey to get there does include times of having to fight sexual temptation. It does include times where you will have a desire to act out sexually, a desire to go back to that same old well, and you will have to resist, you will have to work hard not to do it.

You will have to say NO to that temptation, I'm not going down this route, in Jesus name!

Tune in as we talk about ways to fight, without being hard on yourself or legalistic. Ways that aren’t a sexual integrity bootcamp.

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If you are tuning into this podcast you are either wrestling with or striving for sexual integrity or love someone who is struggling with sexual integrity, or you just care about this topic. I believe as we take a look at a small part in Jesus' life we find a very big revelation.

God had a design for human beings. They were designed to reflect the image of the invisible God. That image of God is a self giving, self donating loving God who rules over His creation in a loving way. And their male and female complementary physical design, was meant to image that as they lovingly give themselves to each other. Not using each other, not lusting after each other, but giving of themselves lovingly. This is God’s beautiful Design.

But Adam and Eve both rebelled and every single person after them did as well. All humanity has, until Jesus. Jesus lovingly gives himself, His body, His life for us.

When Jesus is arrested and in the custody of Pilot at this point the crowds are calling for Jesus to be crucified. Pilot, without truly understanding why, tells the onlookers to “behold the man.” From his perspective he is like, here is the guy, look at this guy. But when you look a bit closer, a little deeper there is something very profound.

Look at Him, this is what humanity should be, this is the image of God. This is selfless love. This is what it means to give your body for another. Behold the Man!

Why does that matter for you and me?

1. In all the ways we have failed, Jesus has been victorious. So we don’t look to ourselves, but look unto Him.
2. He is showing us not just an exception to the rule, but the image we too are made in.

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When we are pursuing sexual integrity, we all experience this mental combat between sexual sin and our desire for sexual integrity.

It’s not just an experience we have in our thought life alone.

We feel it in our bodies when they become aroused by things we see, the thoughts we have, and by the longings we have.

One of the ways we try to combat and move away from our sexual orientations is by thinking about good things.

And so we take our sexually sinful thoughts, we try to train them out for pure thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts about beauty, thoughts about truth. But I think a lot of us when we do that, we forget that there are good, pure, true thoughts about sex.

And so we go from thinking sexual thoughts that are sinful to thinking about anything else besides sex.

We try to get our thoughts in other places. And that’s good, because sex is not everything in life. But there’s so much good about God’s design for sex, that can actually help us to grow in sexual integrity. And so as we think and allow our minds to be transformed by God’s good, true Holy design, beautiful design for sexuality, you can actually ramp up our journey towards sexual integrity.

But, what do we mean?

Like, what does the sexual relationship between husband and wife in a lifelong loving marriage convey about the image of God?

How does the wife convey God’s image? How does the husband convey God’s image? What can we find about his beauty, his goodness there?

Let’s answer these questions together today in this podcast.

Outline:

• The battle between sexual sin and desire for sexual integrity.
• There is so much good about god’s design for sex.
• How to define sexual integrity?
• Why did you choose for sex to be like this?
• A picture of god’s heart for us.
• Our bodies tell god’s story.
• The mystery of God’s heart conveyed through sex.

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In today's podcast, I have three simple mental shifts for you. These three simple changes you can make will help you in your journey toward sexual integrity. It is my aim that these small mental adjustments will help you see how you should approach your journey for sexual integrity in a fresh light.

Mental Shifts
1. From this as an opportunity to sin to this as an opportunity to grow.

1. Every time you hear the word I or me in your thoughts, shift to asking the question, “Is it really me talking or the enemy?”

2. Recognize when you're thinking about temptation, that you are really thinking about people.

Outline:

• Simple mental shifts to help with sexual integrity.
• Shifting from opportunity to sin to opportunity to grow.
• Simple mental shift number 2.
• The malevolent voice in your head.
• Mental shift number three.
• Mental shifts to overcome temptation.

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Have you ever wanted to stop something so badly, yet couldn’t figure out how to stop. Or even why? Have you tried to stop lusting?

In this weeks podcast, just speaks to the importance of learning to love in recovery from unwanted sexual behavior, rather than just focusing on stopping the behavior.

Key takeaways:

1. The goal of recovery should be to learn to love in a self-giving way, rather than just stopping the unwanted behavior.
2. God’s mercy flows to the lowest places, and His grace is for those places. He is there right alongside us in those place. Let Him in.

Counter arguments:

1. It may feel wrong to receive God’s mercy in places where we feel like we know better and keep doing it anyway.
2. It may be difficult to open up those places to another person and ask for their help. When you are able to though, Regeneration is here.

Resources:

The Definition of Lust

How to Stop Lusting in One Step

Outline:

• The problem with trying to stop certain behaviors.
• A better goal than stopping your lust.
• We need to first be loved by god.
• Consider for yourself how not receiving God’s love works for you.
• Forgiveness cannot be earned.
• How can we experience God’s love in the face of sexual sin?
• Use your imagination open your mind.
• The first step to love like god.

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Living in a digital age, we are faced with the reality that we have tough competition. That the internet is competing for our attention, our affection, for our questions, and our devotion.

Today we will talk about this competition and what it provides; especially in the area of sexual integrity.

Whether it's a struggle with pornography, or looking for hookups. So often, we are turning to our devices for things that are really, really good. And our devices offer pretty tough competition.

So let me just give you five examples.

• The Internet provides all the things your looking for
• The internet never shames you
• The Internet never makes you feel like an outsider
• The Internet rewards curiosity.
• The Internet is always available

But does it really, are these statements true? Join us today as we expose the online god and reveal what it actually does for us and to us.

Discover the truth of what we are really looking for and how to find it.

Resources:Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field Guide for Parents

Outline:

• The tough competition of the internet.
• The internet never shames you.
• Why the internet is always available.
• The internet never shames but it always shames.
• Has the internet ever invited you to look deeper?
• The internet is always available to you.
• Jesus has everything you're looking for.
• God rewards curiosity and always available.

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To start I want to let you know this podcast will be a little different. One that I hope will be helpful for you.

I am going to talk about the difference between arousal and desire.

The reason that’s so important for us to recognize is that when we feel arousal towards something that we know we don’t want, it can produce an amount of shame for us.

If you’re pursuing sexual integrity, if you’re trying to walk away from unwanted sexual behaviors, the fact that those behaviors are unwanted means you desire something more for yourself, your family and for your life than the sexual sin that’s entangled you.

Today is not going to be very prescriptive in the sense of offering you three steps to this or that. But I'd like to share with you what happened to me recently and how I dealt with it in the hopes that it will be useful for you and help you see things that you might want to do differently.

Outline:

• The difference between arousal and desire.
• I want people to be free from pornography.
• Slow down your thinking and not rush.
• Breathing deep breaths.
• The importance of picturing Jesus in different scenes.
• Fleeing sexual temptation.

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In today’s podcast I’m going to be answering a question that was emailed to us. Is it okay for a man to masturbate while fantasizing about his wife?

We encourage you to send us your questions as I really love to answer some of things that you all are experiencing and facing.

So the question I got this week was from a guy who's involved in an accountability group. The guys in the group are making good progress.

They're leaving their unwanted sexual behaviors behind including masturbation and fantasy, but one of the questions that's come up in the group is, “Is it okay for a man to masturbate while fantasizing about his wife?” Is it okay for a man to fantasize or a woman to fantasize?

If the man is fantasizing about his wife, if the woman is fantasizing about her husband?

There's actually a lot in that question.

So I want to address this question by asking two questions:

• what does scripture say?
• What is helpful?

Join us today, as I believe this will bring clarity, wisdom and healing on our journey towards sexual integrity.

Outline:

• Introduction to this episode.
• What does scripture say about masturbation?
• God’s design for marriage.
• Scripture on masturbation and sexual integrity.
• It’s not a landing spot.
• Are you really being faithful to your spouse?
• Lift up your eyes to the greater calling.

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How free can you be? How free? Can you be?

In some version or another, this is a question that we get a lot, especially for people who are just starting their journey towards sexual integrity.

They've wrestled with their specific attractions and temptations and are wondering, is this going to be a part of my life forever? Can I actually be free? Can real change happen for me?

Can I Really Change!?!

In some ways, they're asking three different questions.

• How much change is possible for me?
• How much change can I expect; specifically? And that's a slightly different question.
• Has God actually promised me change?

So there's three different kinds of versions of the same question of can I ever really be free?

And the answer is yes, yes you can be free!Join me in this episode as we walk through those three questions as I answer both from my experience in 20 years in this ministry and in God’s Word.
Outline:

• How free can you be in sexual integrity?
• Can I ever really be free?
• All things are possible according to scripture.
• What we can't promise you.
• How to be conformed to the image of Christ.
• Sanctification and salvation happens by God’s grace.
• We all want to get back to Eden.
• Learning to open your desires.
• What is possible in this life?

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In Genesis when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and there was a
delight to the eyes, and the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate.

What did she see?

The enemy when he tempts us wants us to see something. But the truth is, what he wants us to see is not reality.

She saw something that wasn’t actually there. And the enemy does the same thing to us.

He gets us pointed at pornography, at an extramarital relationship, masturbation, fantasy, a hookup, or a same sex relationship.

And he tells us all that will be there for us and all that it’s going to do for us. And it feels on some level like it will. And it never does.

Join us as we talk about the power of our imagination and how to take hold of it for His glory.
Outline:

• Your imagination is a part of the struggle you have with sexual sin.
• What the enemy wants us to see is not reality.
• Your imagination is important to your journey of obedience to God.
• The enemy wants to hijack the gift of our imagination and use it for his purposes.
• How do we renew our minds? How do we think about the truth?
• What is a tempting thought? How do we take it captive?
• The enemy’s got a hold of my imagination.
• The enemy is using your imagination to draw your attention to a smaller vision.
• What is faith? It’s the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

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At the core of every sexual integrity problem is relational brokenness.

Because God created sex to be relational, it is relational down to its core. And so if you are dealing with a sexual issue, you are dealing with a relational issue.

What is a partner or group for accountability?

It's a certain kind of connection. As a result, if you have a relational brokenness in your life, you may have similar relational issues.

Could they prevent you from achieving the level of sexual integrity you desire?

Listen in as we identify some of those tendencies and those broken relationship pieces.

Also a few ideas about how you can even beginning today, improve your accountability relationships.

Outline:

• Do you have an accountability partner?
• We are human beings, not human doings.
• The tendency to avoid pain.
• Don’t focus on behavior and focus on sin.
• Let’s bring kindness.
• How to be with someone in their pain?
• What do you want to do differently?

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If you are wrestling with unwanted sexual behaviors or recurring sexual behaviors, and want to get free, you have to know the why behind the what? What is the why, behind your specific what?

So for example, if you struggle with pornography, and you're typically looking for a certain kind or genre, types of people, gender, or specific sexual acts in the pornography? What's the why behind those specifics that you're looking for? Or if you're acting out with other people physically, and you're typically doing certain behaviors, or looking for certain types of people, what's the why behind the specific kinds of people or activities you're, you're typically drawn to.

You can't stop the behaviors by just knowing the what. If I know that I'm typically looking at pornography, I can get filters on my computer, I can set up accountability software, I can get rid of my smartphone and have a dumb phone. If I know I'm acting out with people through this app, I can get rid of the app.

There is merit in that, you should do that. But when you get to the why underneath it, you can actually get to the heart issue.

Today we will address Symbolism and Emotional and mental imprints that cause our sexual actions. As well as answer these questions.

• What triggers sexual desire and attraction?
• How to deal with sexual temptation?
• How can I untwist my emotional and mental imprint?

Resources mentioned in this podcast:
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing by Jay Stringer

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There are just things you don't talk about at church, right?

Absolutely not!

I think the church is meant to be a place where we talk about the things that are really the most difficult to talk about in life. If we can't do that in our church community, where will we do it?

Certainly, one of those topics is sex.

Both in its beautiful, glorious holy intention that God designed sex to be between husband and wife in marriage, and also in the fallen expressions of sex that pervade our culture.

So if you're a Pastor, layperson, or Elder at a church, maybe you're a parent or a leader in some other fashion, or perhaps you lead a youth group or a small group, I want to talk to you on this podcast about how important it is to talk about sex in some way or another. And share some light ideas about how you might begin to go there with the people who are in your care.

Sex is a very sensitive topic. Bringing it up on Sunday morning can be difficult and raise many questions.

Questions like…

• What if a lot of people are struggling, what do I do?
• How do I care for them?

These questions, in addition to the ones mentioned in this podcast, are very difficult for leaders. But I want to emphasize how important and meaningful it is when people who are in church or Christian leadership, in their home or a small group, youth group, or from the main pulpit in a church, speak up about these topics.

Here are a few helpful ideas that can help start or strengthen the conversations about sex.

Share stories of Sexual redemption. Making use of books and resources for sexual redemption.

Borrow from other people (listen to others' sermon notes, borrow liberally without plagiarizing)

Reach out to us at Regeneration Ministries (for consultations, an interview, resources, hosting a parent group or workshop)

Resources to have available in your church:
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing by Jay Stringer

Is God Anti-Gay? by Sam Allberry

Born Again that Way: Coming Out, Coming to Faith, and What Comes Next by Rachel Gilson

Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field Guide for Parents by Daniel Weiss and Josh Glaser

Great sermons on sexuality: Holy Sexuality - series by Bay Area Community Church

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This week we will talk about breaking the allure of temptation. We will unpack it through the pattern that the enemy uses to tempt us. We can look at our sexual experiences and think that it’s just something that’s before us.

But it is actually tempting us. It looks so appealing and harmless. Yet it has this magnetic pull that draws us in. So by talking about the patterns the enemy uses to pull us in, it will provide us the tools to get out of his tractor beam. It will expose the reality of what’s happening.

Hopefully this podcast will illuminate some things and draw you towards God in ways that will bring help and healing.

Scripture reference: Genesis 3

Know your enemy’s tactics

1. He divides and isolates

2. He exaggerates God's prohibitions

3. He attacks God's character, attacks God's character

Does this sound familiar?

Your divided, you feel isolated. He exaggerates God's prohibitions. Gets you focused away from God's blessings and focus instead on the things that you're not allowed to do. He attacks God's character, making you believe you can't trust God, he attacks your value making you think that you're less than everybody else.

What's left for you to do, when he puts that temptation in front of you? That object that looks like it satisfies that sexual temptation. It makes it look like you're experiencing a little bit of bliss, a little bit of attention, a little bit of love or pleasure from somebody. Maybe a little bit of joy in a moment?

Well, why does it look so good? What else are you supposed to do? You can't trust God, you have no value and you're all by yourself. You're surrounded by these heavy burdens of moralistic thinking that you need to obey. There's no hope for you, so you might as well just grab at the fruit.

In the moment of temptation, first I want you to begin practicing, “this is not God against you, this is the enemy.” He is trying to get you to believe all of this stuff around you, so that you increasingly feel shame and despair. And so you are more tempted to grasp of that fruit.

What do we do from here.

1. Connect with others. Have some people on speed dial that you can reach out to in the moment when your tempted or the moment you start hearing the accusations about yourself and God.

2. Practice gratitude and count your blessings. Secondly, practice gratitude. This is not just another moralistic thing to do. Those who are serious about counting their blessings don't struggle to believe that God gives more than the enemy gives. Count your blessings, you'll find out who gives more between the enemy and God. You'll find every time it's God.

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This week we will be responding to a question from one our listeners. “How does someone deal with doubts about identity in Christ while struggling with sexual addiction?”

There is something about sin in general when it’s habitual and repetitive. When we experience in our bodies that conflict that we do what we don’t want to do, and we keep on doing it.

It’s hard to believe that we have a new identity in Jesus. Or in my case, there were worse sexual behaviors that I engaged in after I had a conversion and really started to follow Jesus.

So how could I trust that my conversion was real?

How can I trust that I have a new identity in Christ.

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You know, it's just interesting, isn't it? That so many women wrestle with self esteem issues around their bodies. And so many men wrestle with lust.

And it seems like the enemy just has a hay day there. Because put those two together and it just seems like a recipe for couples really to struggle.

Pornography impacts both husband and wife and it certainly impacts their sexual intimacy. Here's what happens. He recognizes that when he looks at porn she feels hurt by him.

From that hurt, all sorts of questions arise in her, like, am I not valuable enough for you? Am I not pretty enough? Do you find them sexier than me? Am I not pleasing you in our bed?

When he recognizes that she feels those things, he's tempted to to keep his sin from her. To not let her know because he doesn't want to hurt her in that way. It's wired into him to want to be her hero, not the villain who hurts her.

On her side of things, she feels all those those questions. And now any insecurity she has is now highlighted. Any insecurity she has about her body, or what she feels are imperfections in her personality or in her physique. Those become highlighted for her and she feels even less desirable.

And so what happens in turn, they both end up pulling away from each other. He is keeping things from her and feeling more shame about what he's doing. She is is keeping herself from him. Because to be naked and unashamed to open herself to him, both emotionally and literally physically in the act of sex is such a vulnerable thing to do. And when a man looks elsewhere, it's very, very difficult for for a wife to believe.

Why should she? That's not to point a finger and be extra mean to the guy. But it is to highlight the complexity between husband and wife.

How there's this chemical reaction that gets tricky and really difficult and painful for both husband and wife in this situation.

God's original plan was that husband and wife would be naked and without shame. And instead, the marriage becomes a place of fear and shame. Where both feel like they need to hide themselves and wear fig leaves in front of each other in order to be accepted and loved by the other.

So what are those fig leaves?

What are those things that we keep from each other that keep us from each other?

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Is lust a problem for you that you've been trying to overcome? If so, my guess is that at some point in your life, you've made promises to change. You've promised yourself you would change, you've promised God you would change, and you've promised others that you will change.

The problem with making promises to change is that making promises to change is actually a part of the problem. Say that five times fast. I want to explain in this podcast why that is and give you three reasons why making promises to change actually is a part of the problem.

And if you are ready, I want to offer you a better way forward.

Highlights:*Do you wrestle with lust? How does it feel?

Can you relate to this? Does it resonate with you?

When our children are born, everything changes.

The problem with pornography is not that it shows too much, but too little.

What does God do in response to our lusts?

Love incarnate vs. lust incarnate.

“If you wrestle with lust, you find your eyes, looking at people and using what you see, for selfish gratification are tempted to do so. Failing to see a whole human person, but instead of seeing body parts, objects, obstacles, then would you sit with me a while kneel with me a while at the manger."*Help the show:

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Today, I invite you into the healing connection between our wrestling with lust, and the face of Jesus; his visible face.

As a parent, especially a mom, you intimately knew your child when you were pregnant. You carried the child in your womb. Even dads know their kids while they are in the womb.

And then they were born. We saw their face for the first time, and everything changed. Everything deepened.

And of course, that only continues as they grow. As we see new aspects of their personality, their heart, and their mind. There's something about this understanding that matters for us in the realm of lust. How Jesus, the Word who is the invisible God, became the visible God for us. There's something about this that offers us an antidote, a cure, a healing balm for our lust.

Highlights:*Do you wrestle with lust? How does it feel?

Can you relate to this? Does it resonate with you?

When our children are born, everything changes.

The problem with pornography is not that it shows too much, but too little.

What does God do in response to our lusts?

Love incarnate vs. lust incarnate.

“If you wrestle with lust, you find your eyes, looking at people and using what you see, for selfish gratification are tempted to do so. Failing to see a whole human person, but instead of seeing body parts, objects, obstacles, then would you sit with me a while kneel with me a while at the manger."*Help the show:

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Are you ready to be free?

Are you ready for life in the area of sexual integrity?

Are you ready for your relationships to be healed, and working the way God intended them?

Together we will walk through 8 phases in the journey to sexual wholeness. Through this process, you will know where you are and how to take the next steps.

Highlights:Phase 0 – Ground zero

In this phase, there is an awareness of sexual addiction. You are living in denial and still enjoying your sin. There is a tendency to be distracted from your deeper felt needs and to often blame others or circumstances for the things not going right in your life.

Phase 1 - Uncertain but curious

There is some acknowledgment of the pain of the problem but otherwise, you feel you're okay.

You may begin looking for recovery options at this point, but no real commitment.

Phase 2 - Interested

At this point, your pain points have intensified; and you're feeling more of the weight of your actions. Maybe you have been discovered, or it's beginning to affect your family or career.

You're looking for "no risk" content; something that fits neatly into your lifestyle.

Phase 3 - Testing the waters

You have become wearier from carrying this weight and are aware that you need help.

Who can I talk to, where can I go?

Can I afford it?

You have not made any direct interaction, yet are aware you need to change.

Phase 4 - Stepping In

Ready, but still skeptical.

I need help now; I need a community!

But how do I fit in with a recovery group? Am I like them, will I be excepted?

Phase 5 - Walking forward

At this phase, you are convinced you need help but in denial about the commitment needed. Maybe you think you don't need as much help as others do.

Perhaps you're doing the work but not ready to let your spouse know.

Phase 6 - All in

You are aware that you need help and are willing to do whatever it takes. Here you're ready to give what's necessary for however long it takes.

This is the most open and honest you have been through this process.

Phase 7 - Integration

This is the point you recognize recovery is healthy living. You are open with your weaknesses and struggles. You are aware that living a healthy life requires attention and attunement.

You were still a part of a local community however you may begin teaching or leading others into sexual wholeness.

The integration phase highlights the important fact that recovery is just a process of sanctification. It opens up more and more of our lives into the light of Christ so that we may heal, grow, and be all the men and women God has designed us to be.

Wherever you are in this process, be encouraged God is with you! Trust Him and take the next step.

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As the garland and the lights and the holiday specials and the festivities ramp up, where are you?

If you’re feeling temptation take over, you’re not alone.

There’s a lot more of just about everything during the holidays. Let’s try to recapture what Jesus has given us. Together, we’ll name 5 things that can distract us from Immanuel.

And, we’ll unpack 5 ways to recenter our focus back on our Savior’s birth.

**Highlights:

FACING TEMPTATIONS
1.** Busyness Increases

Sexual sin is offering you an answer to your pain, discomfort, faulty views of yourself and others at a deeper level.

The answers though, are not truly satisfying.

1. Expectations Increases

Images of happy people, loving families, wealthy displays and spreads of food lead us to feel more expectations.

We’ll also feel increased inadequacy, inferiority, futility in our lives.

When the comparison game is squashing you, the message of pornography is “you are enough.”

1. Family Dysfunction Increases

Whether you’re spending more time with family of origin/extended family or you’re alone because you have no family; the loneliness and brokenness increase.

Sexual sin offers a false sense of intimacy, a sense of belonging and a false sense of connection.

1. Habits Increase

Your brain and body may remember this time of year as the time when you binge on porn more.

1. Spiritual Warfare Increases

Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation of the Word of God. Our temptation wants to distract us from the true meaning of Christmas.

FIGHTING TEMPTATIONS

1. Fight for Peace - The Peace which Jesus has given you, which surpasses all understanding, which He gives not as the world gives. Fight to maintain that peace.

2. Slow Down - Your breathing, eating, walking, working, slow it all down. Slow down in defiance of the spiritual warfare.

3. Simplify your Christmas - Clear away and make room for you to be at peace. Does it look like simplifying your calendar? Not putting up all the decorations?

4. Connect with people who love you - In the midst of the holidays, make time to be with the people who love you most (including people from your recovery community).

5. Create New Traditions - Be intentional and creative about nurturing yourself well to cultivate and commemorate walking with Jesus. Find an Advent devotional to work through, schedule time to serve the poor, write a letter of thanks to someone who has meant a lot to you.

If you have a sexual fall this Christmas, don’t spend time beating yourself up. Instead, turn to the One who came for you, confess what you’ve done, acknowledge it was wrong and then walk in peace with Him.

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Is your view of God getting in the way of your pursuit of sexual integrity? God isn’t blocking your healing.

But your view of Him, your assumption about God could be an obstacle standing between you and your freedom.

Let’s try to understand the theology working in the background of your heart, that may be limiting your progress.

Let’s blaze a trail to Jesus when you need Him most.

Highlights:*Functional belief = what you believe in the moment of pressure

When you’re tempted to sin sexually, what do you think about God in that moment? How is god seeing you in that moment?

How do you feel in that moment as God sees you?

When you fall into sexual sin, how do you feel God sees you then?

How does He feel about you then?

The next time you go to an adult book store or knock on the door of your next hookup; bring Jesus with you. He’s already there.

Pay attention to the reality Jesus is with you everywhere you go.

Images to work into your Functional Theology:

Jesus reaching for you.

Jesus stretching his nail pierced hand to you.

Jesus rushing toward you to embrace you, carrying you, holding you up.

Read through & take note of how Peter’s Functional Theology changes in John 18:15-27 and John 21:1-17*Help the show

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Struggling with unwanted habits can feel isolating.

Your journey to sexual integrity isn’t a common or easy topic of conversation which can leave you feeling alone.

Satan seizes your isolation as a perfect opportunity to tell you you’re different, dirty. This belief stacks a wall between you and your healing.

Let’s tear down the wall that says you’re chronically unique so you can keep moving towards becoming whole.

Highlights:*There are so many men and women, who struggle with sexual sin, believing that their struggle is different from everybody else.

If that feels like you, you need to know that belief is part of your problem and part of what keeps you stuck

When you view your problem as that which makes you chronically unique, then you actually damage your own ability to be free.

The separation from other people, from ourselves, from God is what makes us feel chronically unique. We were never intended to live apart from ourselves, others and God the way that we do in this fallen world.

Take the risk to move out of this space.*

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Pitfalls, betrayal, pride, shame, cycles - While you do the work of becoming whole, these are some of the things that will pull you from your calling.

You are made for greatness.

And God gave you a vision for what that looks like in Jesus: “We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in Him.” (Romans 8:29 MSG)

Keep doing the hard work.

You were made for greatness. Don’t you forget it.

Highlights:*Do we no longer do the hard work of pressing into the subtle, sinister places in us that keep grasping and holding onto sexual immorality?

We can be transformed in the innermost person.

Transformation is more than setting up legalistic boundaries. It’s actually about heart transformation that exudes through how we act with one another physically.

If we’ve lost that vision, then we’ve stopped believing in the power of the Gospel, we’ve stopped believing in the power of the Resurrection, we’ve stopped believing in the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and changing us.

“We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” -*Romans 8:28-29

*Jesus is not meant to be the exception of who can be trusted in a situation to do the right thing, act honorably with someone. He is meant to be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters who can be trusted to act honorably in situations like that.

If we stop aspiring to that then we settle for less than the greatness for which God has saved us.*Help the show

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Let’s isolate the moment of temptation: Maybe it looks like your fingertips hovering to type in a string of words you know will lead you to that site.

Or maybe it looks like driving home a different route so you find yourself rolling slowly past that street.

Every bit of you pulses with energy in that moment of temptation.

The world is encouraging you to say “Yes” to the urge. Giving in can leave you alone with shame and regret. So, let’s pivot to a different “yes.”

This is hard work but shift your heart, mind and body in that moment to a different option. God is inviting you to a bigger YES.

Let’s listen in for more.

Highlights:*The world tells you, “You can’t be yourself in holiness. You can only be yourself in sinfulness.” What if that is a lie from the pit of hell?

Christianity understands that human beings are not just disembodied spirits. Human beings are embodied creatures, embodied spirits.

We are each an individual, human person, hybrid spirit/body creature. So, in order to live-giving life, we need to live in accordance with that truth.

The world, with all its sexual promiscuity and permissiveness, ignores we are created as one individual person. Our bodies are designed for sexual union with one person.

To be a human person, to have sex with them is to become ONE flesh with that person.*

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A jumble of frayed ends - consider the raw, exposed mess of a jumble of frayed ends.

Keep this image in mind as we consider our current cultural belief system.

Josh is about to carefully look at each broken strand of thinking and tie them back into one, whole, intentional, truth.

God has a good, holy, beautiful design for our sexuality. So, why is sex today a jumble of frayed ends?

Let’s find out.

Highlights:*God could have made the method to produce babies anyway He wanted and He chose to connect sex and pregnancy.

What happens if we no longer connect sex with pregnancy?

Pregnancy moves from unexpected to unplanned to unwanted.

Notice the difference between God’s design for pregnancy and our current cultural concept around pregnancy: Pregnancy is a risk, a threat, a danger.

What happens to a cultural psyche when we think of children as unwanted.

Believing that anyone is unwanted is evidence of a demonic move against humanity.*

Homework:PRAYER CHALLENGE: Pray that God will reconnect for us the disconnect between marriage, sex and pregnancy.

Link to more on Christopher West https://tobinstitute.org

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Let’s go beyond reading words about God’s kindness.

If you are wrestling ongoing sexual sin, if you are battling shame, if you are facing past traumas; God is inviting you to experience His kindness.

Right now, what if you could hear Jesus saying to you, “I’m right here and I love you.” (be sure to look in the Homework Section for more questions)

Highlights:God is near and He loves you.

It’s hard to accept God’s love for you in the difficult areas of wrestling with sexual sin.

We carry deep within us a fear that if anyone knew the full scope of that part of our lives they would pull away.

Shame and fear are heavy burdens to carry.

It’s so important to receive God’s nearness, His kindness. It is His kindness that leads us to repentance, it is His kindness that heals us. (Romans 2:4)

Homework:PAUSE with these Questions

• Where are you most anxious right now?
• What are you most angry about now?
• What are the places in your life that are the most difficult to share?
• What are the secrets that you’re wrestling with?
• What are the areas that you’re struggling to let go of?
• What are the things you don’t want to talk to God about?

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We’re going deeper in Part 2. Paying attention to the symbols and story-lines in your sexual fantasies often point towards a treasure within you.

Sound twisted?

Look to the “Homework” section below for key questions to help you untwist your temptation from your truest desires.

Let's dive in.

Highlights:

Your imagination is given to you by God as a creative force.

When your brain stirs up a sexual story line or sexual scenes, even though it’s directing you towards something sinful, it’s also intended to create something.

Begin to pay attention to the storyline or the theme of the fantasy.

Temptation taps into a God given desire that you are made for however it points you in a direction that it won’t be fulfilled.

Untwist the fantasies to better understand what they’re trying to reveal about what we are made for.

So often, our sexual fantasies are trying to resolve something about the story that we have lived or the story that we are living.

The sexual fantasy, in a way, is trying to rewrite the story with a different ending.

Jay Stringer, author of “Unwanted,” refers to sexual fantasy as a way to reverse some damage that’s been done or to repeat what’s been done but change the power dynamic of it.

So often, the sexual things we struggle with are not at the core about sex but more about human relational experiences that become sexualized.

Imagination is being hijacked by temptation but deeper down it’s trying to communicate a problem that needs resolution.

Homework:(This is spiritually mature work. We’re here to help you process and do this work.)

Why is my brain trying to create something like this?

Why is my mind or my heart trying to point me in the direction of that story?

Look at your fantasies through these two questions to get a better picture of what they’re going after:

What’s the storyline of our fantasy?

What’s symbolic in our fantasies?

In my fantasy, who has the power? Me or the other person? Why?

Consider the typical things you’re aroused to in your fantasy: is there a specific type of person? Or a specific body part? Size or shape?

What does that body part symbolize?

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Fantasy looks like the scene you work up in your head from time to time. It seems innocent enough. 

You may tell yourself the fantasy is just a fleeting thought. But as you add details, you add emotions. 

Soon enough, your sexual fantasy works itself from your brain to your body amping those thoughts to feelings. 

In this short series, we want to urge you to take fantasy seriously. 

This Part One can be your Step One to breaking free from your unwanted sexual habits. (Stay tuned for Part 2 next week)

Highlights:

Sexual Fantasy is when you have a thought or image and you begin to work a storyline in your brain.

Sexual Fantasy engages your will.

Recognize that it looks kinder, gentler but it’s part of the same beast.

Sexual fantasy is where you start to dissociate or unplug from the the real you in the real world with real relationships with real responsibilities where there are real consequences (positive or negative) for the things that you do.

God gives you imagination as a creative force.

When your imagination is hijacked by sin it moves to sexual fantasy, wanting to become flesh.Homework:Ask yourself: Is sexual fantasy part of the ritual leading me to my unwanted sexual behavior?

How can you take action then?

Make no compromises.

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Something in your story made pornography enticing. You didn’t just stumble on it.

Have you ever wondered what was happening in your life that made porn seem like a safe place to run?

Decades of work in healing from unwanted sexual behaviors lead us to this episode.

You are meant to do this work alone and here’s why.

Highlights

5 Reasons You Think You CAN Heal on Your Own:

1. Fear asks, “What happens if I get found out? What will I lose? What will people think?”
2. Shame says, “If people know the real truth, they’ll reject me.”
3. Pride believes, “I’m not that bad. I can stop on my own.”
4. Ignorance moves unaware of how addiction has affected you neuro-biologically, spiritually, emotionally.
5. Not Ready because maybe “You don’t want to give it up.”

Romans 7

Some people have to lose a lot before they realize the addiction was more destructive.

Proverbs 6:27-28

One Reason You CANNOT Heal on Your Own:

1. In order to overcome relational issues, you need to do the work in the context of relationship.

The root of your sexual sin problem is relational. Something relational happened in your life that you responded to by moving into unwanted sexual behavior.

Relational wounds cannot be healed in isolation.

Your brain needs to experience relationships in a loving, healthy, attuned way in order to heal.

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Let’s start with Adam. God went into the garden and asked him a question. Adam pointed to Eve in shame.

Are you pointing fingers when it comes to your lust? Are you pointing to the pop up ad? To the woman at the bar?

As you are trying to break free from lust, consider what it could look like for you to stop accusing others around you and start acknowledging what’s within you.

You are designed out of love and for love, not lust.

While you’re working towards sexual wholeness, remember this: God went into the garden looking for Adam and Eve in His love not because of their lust.

Highlights

Jesus takes lust seriously. And, there’s no where in His words that a man is not responsible for his own adultery.

God made our eyes for love not lust. The God-given design of our eyes is to love, to see others and love them.

Why do you blame others for your lost? Shame. Shame that we can not control ourselves, that we are so powerless in the face of beauty, that we are so weak when it comes to seeing the beauty of another’s body.

If we want to be people who begin to recognize and live with the reality that our eyes are made for love and not for lust, we have to reckon with the reality of how much shame we experience at the fact that we are so out of control, that we are so weak.

Extras

“Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life and Relationships

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Beauty carries a powerful tension. Seeing beauty isn’t enough.

C.S. Lewis writes that “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”

Beauty leads us to wanting more of it.

A recent email we received asks, “What place does beauty have in the observance of another human being? Is there an ability to recognize physical beauty without assigning value or taking something from a person?

Is it possible to view the human form, clothed or not, without lusting or coveting while still admiring the physical beauty God created?” So glad you asked.

Let’s begin.

Highlights

There is a difference between noticing beauty, observing beauty and lusting after beauty.

Lust wants to take beauty and make it my own - it’s a grasping, greedy thing without concern for the other.

Beauty not only fulfills desire but it also incites desire. This tension makes human beauty different from the beauty we see in other parts of creation.

We are created in God’s image so there is more opportunity to sin in how we respond to human physical beauty than how we respond to physical beauty in the world around us.

Can we see physical beauty and be drawn to it without sin? Yes we can.

When your heart is pure, you see God everywhere.

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Before even stepping into the deeper waters of whether a filter shows wisdom or weakness; you can’t ignore the tsunami coming at you. Do I Need a Filter?

Listen in as Josh describes the unique age we’re living in as two powerful waves of sexual immorality and digital connectivity crashing on us 24/7.

They create floodwaters rushing through your living room, bedroom, locker room, office space, car. Is a filter enough?

Let’s find out.

HIGHLIGHTS

Common Objections to Filters:

1. A filter is an obstacle on my computer getting in the way of work, school, and everyday tasks.
2. My device is given to me and I can’t put a filter on it because it will expose my addiction.
3. A filter will expose me to my spouse or family on the home computer.
4. I want to engage in more than “ behavior management.”

We are living in an incredibly unique time in the history of humankind. This is a unique moment. There are two powerful waves that have converged in the same direction. One of those waves is the sexual immorality of our culture. In addition, the immense digital connectivity of everyone and everything in our culture.

Remember pornography actually changes the wiring of your brain. It creates new neural networks that learn to run automatically.

A filter creates some space, some barriers so your brain (over time), will begin to rewire in a different way and stop recognizing the screen as a conduit to sexual pleasure.

You want to get after heart issues. But in order to do so, you need some space from pornography because pornography has a way of numbing your senses to what your heart is really looking for. Pornography has a way of distracting you, leading you down a path away from the things that matter most to your heart.

The ultimate goal is not just abstinence from pornography, not just abstinence from sexually explicit material, the ultimate goal is that our hearts would be transformed into Christ’s likeness.

Our heart begins to beat for the things that Christ’s heart beats for.

Our hearts would begin to love where we in the past have just lusted.

Our hearts would begin to receive the love of God instead of seeking out false loves through unwanted sexual behaviors.

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If you have a hard time believing God wants to forgive you; again and again - This episode is for you.

If you notice you’re trying to raise yourself up, reducing what you’ve done to receive mercy – This episode is for you.

Let’s appreciate God’s gift of mercy as a GIFT, freely and generously given, for you right where you are.

Highlights:
It can feel difficult to separate the anger you feel with yourself about your own condition and how God feels about you.

1 Corinthians 6:18 “Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”

We have two responses when we feel frustrated with ourselves and/or the cycle we battle:

1. Start to downplay the seriousness of what we’ve done by justifying it or spiritualize it. This avoids the significance of what we’ve done and to avoid our own fears and difficulties accepting God’s forgiveness.

2. Turn on grace. We approach God for grace but in such a way that tries to lift us up and make us worthy in some way of receiving Gods mercy.

When you begin to pay attention to the deeper waters of your soul; acting out sexually, moving towards any kind of sin is really seeking to repair something, seeking to medicate something, seeking to reverse something that we’ve experienced.

Gods gifts of grace and mercy and forgiveness and love are gifts.

When we try to lower our need or elevate our worth; we are trying to earn those gifts.

A gift cannot be earned.

Ephesians 2:8 “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.”

Do you trust the gift? Do you trust the gift giver?

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

“Mercy flows to the lowest places.”

- Andrew Comiskey

Homework

Open yourself to the reality of where you are and what you’ve done. Be clear in your confession then ask God to give you mercy there.

Shift your posture from you to God. Remember, the measure of mercy you’re able to receive is not dependent on you or from you.

Transcription of this episode.

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Read this sentence a few times:

Human beings are the crown of creation.

What a glorious declaration! Now consider the fact that sexual sin contorts that truth. A building block to sexual integrity is the understanding and appreciation of the inherent value within you and the people around you.

Recognize God’s ideal representation of Himself is the man you are, is the woman you are because you are sacred by design.

Also, today we are launching “Sacred by Design” a new addition to the Regeneration Ministries podcast family! “Sacred by Design” is hosted by the women on our team for women covering topics like unwanted sexual behaviors, shame, relational healing and more.

Make sure to Subscribe and Share and Join us every other week as we unwrap the gift of understanding we are Sacred by Design.

Highlights:
It was not good that Adam was alone. It wasn’t enough companionship for Him. It wasn’t accurate representation of God that Adam alone would image Him on the earth. We needed both Adam and Eve, both man and woman. And we need both man and woman today.

Being made in God’s image, humankind can be considered an icon expressing what Yahweh is like, expressing what the One Creator God is like. Man and woman are the expression of that; not man alone or woman alone. Together, both man and woman are the expression of God on the earth.

Step back and consider with awe the beauty of male and female, the beauty of man and woman and what it means to be man and woman. And the value of both.

Men, when a woman walks into a room, we’re not to idolize her. But there is a sense that if we understood her correctly, if we saw her correctly, if we had eyes to see her as she is designed by God to be that we would want to kneel down in front of her in respect and glory because of how she embodies in this living creature the aspect of the one true God. And vice versa, when a man walks into a room, there ought to be some sense of that.

Sexual sin contorts that we are meant to be the crown of creation by idolizing the body and sex.

http://www.theologyofthebody.net

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Considering all the tools you’re working with for sexual wholeness- group work, reading, one on one counseling, software filters - how are your eyes?

A key component to your becoming whole is how you are seeing other people. Hashtags, movies, social media scrolls and commercials are at war with the important work you’re doing. Open your eyes to acknowledge the battle for your vision.

Then open your heart to pray, “Lord, help me see.”

Highlights:

We strive in our culture to become attractive because we want others to see us as “good.”

Goodness is not found in other people being drawn to us. Goodness is found by virtue of being created by God.

It is up to the beholder to see the good God has sown into other people.

There is something wrong with our eyes, with our hearts, when we are perceiving people as either objects or obstacles.

How do we see people differently? This is a process of growing in the virtue of love. It is a lifelong process, and it comes with suffering and with trial and with effort and by grace.

The process begins when we acknowledge where & how we are wrongly seeing people, where we are competing or comparing, weighing or measuring their worth with our eyes. We confess the wrongness of that before the Lord. We ask the Lord to search our hearts.

We pray - asking God to give us eyes to see.

When you recognize you don’t see others with decency, pray the words of the blind man, “Lord, I want to see.”

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As your sexual fantasy starts playing out in your head, you might shrug it off as “just my imagination.” But sexual fantasy carries more power than you know. It’s the gateway that leads to everything else you’re battling.

So, let’s consider taking a different point of view of your sexual fantasy and taking back some of the power it holds on you. What if you tried more than just putting it out of your mind?

What if you could connect the storylines of your fantasy to the storyline of your life? There is power in understanding the where and why and who your imagination invites in.

In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” Josh offers 3 simple steps to get you started.

Let’s begin.

Highlights:A lot of us who have wrestled with unwanted sexual behaviors, tend to think that fantasy is kind of the light end of things.

Sexual fantasy is the gateway that leads to everything else.

There are common threads for people in the kind of pornography they view and the kinds of things they’ve experienced in their lives.

Men who experienced a sense of meaninglessness in their lives, a lack of meaning were 7 times more likely to increase their porn use.

If we are serious about becoming people of sexual integrity, if we are serious about leaving sexual sin in the past; then there are actually deeper issues, deeper matters of the heart, deeper relational patterns, deeper emotional issues that we have to address in order to leave them behind because our fantasies, the kind of porn we’re pursuing, the kind of sexual sin we’re pursuing is actually looking for something that’s not there.

Homework:1. Find someone to walk this journey with you.

1. Approach this process with Kindness & Curiosity: Ask questions without condemnation

2. Be sober about the work. (Being sober means to recognize and be aware your unwanted sexual behaviors have created neural pathways in your brain that you’re accustomed to. And so, your body and your brain are going to move easily in that direction.)

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You are created to be loved by God. You are created to be part of a grand, triumphant story. Your sexual sin doesn’t subtract you from the story.

Throughout scripture, we see God choosing and inviting all sorts of characters with all sorts of issues into THE bigger story. Don’t let shame make you believe otherwise. God still wants you. God still chooses you.

Your sexual sin doesn’t disqualify you from being chosen, it doesn’t cross you off God’s invite list.

Highlights:Our bodies play a significant part in sexual sin.

In a unique way, those of us wrestling with sexual sin are prone towards a greater amount of shame.

We are more prone to believing something really negative about ourselves, not just about what we’re doing but about our very essence, because of sexual sin.

This area of struggle does not mean that there’s something really awful, perverse, weird, unusual about you.

What you’re being drawn to, in some ways, more adequately addresses what you’re really looking for than a lot of other vices do.

If you wrestle with sexual sin, you’ve taken your desire to be a grand character in a grand story and you’ve traded it for something lesser.We would love your questions and feedback. If you need help or even want us to speak to a certain topic on Becoming Whole, email us at podcast@regenerationministries.org.

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Battling sexual sin does not mean going to war against your body.

Your eyes, hands, feet, your genitals are not the enemy. The Enemy is the enemy.

Understanding God loves your body is key in your fight to becoming whole. At the most precious point in the creation story, God created the human body.

Your body is not the enemy.

Highlights:Your body matters immensely to God. When God sees your body, He sees you.

Your body is not an accessory to who you are, it is a fundamental part of who you are.

You are a fusion of body and soul. This is at the core of what Christianity believes about human anthropology.

At the core of Christian theology is that God himself, who is spirit, became flesh.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” John 1:14

For those of you wrestling with sexual sin; you sin sexually with your body. We feel temptation in our bodies, it’s a physical experience. This can be confusing.

In the process, we can be tempted to blame our bodies, to vilify our bodies, to look down on our bodies. When we do that, we are more likely to want to leave our bodies behind.

At the pinnacle of creation, God created humankind in his image and in his likeness.

This is important to remember as we seek to be men and women of integrity, as we seek to take good care of our bodies, as we seek to steward well the physical aspect of who we are, and as we seek to love other people.Homework:AFTER FALLING INTO SIN:

Confess to the Lord and your allies.

Apologize to your body - “Eyes, you were made for God. You were made to see like God sees. And I just mistreated you, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

Feet, you were made to pursue God and to move towards others in love and I used you to walk towards my computer, to carry me somewhere I shouldn’t have been. Please forgive me.

Genitals, you were not made for sexual immorality; you were made for the Lord.

Please forgive me.”

WHILE IN TEMPTATION:

“I’m feeling arousal, but I am made for the Lord. I am made for love not for lust. I’m going to pursue the Lord with my body.”

Ask yourself: What am I looking for?

We value your feedback on our podcast, or if you want us to speak on a specific topic. You can email your feedback to podcast@regenerationministries.org

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God’s word tells you, “your name is written on the palm of His hand,” and that “He knows the number of hairs on your head,” and that “It was for you He died.”

Consider this - The same is true for the porn actress and the man you just swiped left for. God designed you and lives in you. God designed and lives in them. We encounter God when we encounter other people.

There’s a lot packed in this short episode, let’s begin.

Highlights:

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8

“Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” Romans 1:19

Because of God’s goodness and love for everyone; we encounter God when we encounter other people.

We are meant to honor others because God has made them in His image and likeness. There is something about them that God sees and honors and loves and delights in. And He sees them as children.

What does this have to do with our struggles with pornography or lust? The answer is not just for you to look away.

Seek to cooperate with God’s gracious work in our hearts and in our eyes and in our minds so that we begin to participate with the idea that what we are looking at, who we are looking at, is someone who bears the image of God and who He delights in.

Homework:

On a practical level, begin to pray for people you see, be intentional to engage with people and treat them as people.

Use your imagination to remember truths about the persons you encounter - they have a mother and a father, they have hopes and dreams, they go home at the end of the day.

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“In this world you will have troubles, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” Temptation is trouble.

In fact, temptation is multi-layered trouble because it wants you to believe there’s something bad about you that leads you to be tempted at all.

Jesus knows temptation and He knows you.

In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” we’re reframing temptation through God’s word and Jesus’ grace.

Highlights:

Jesus taught us to pray in the Lords Prayer - “And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” Matthew 6:1"

John 16:1-4 Jesus prepares comforts and prepares his Disciples for His crucifixion with these words: “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

John 16:33 “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Temptation is trouble you experience in this world.

1 Corinthians 6:13 “But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. “

Matthew 4:1 “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.”

Temptation is something that comes to us because there’s a tempter moving throughout the world.

Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”

Jesus was tempted for you, for us. He knew temptation would be a part of our lives.

Don’t fall to the temptation beneath your temptation to believe there’s something wrong with you.

Jesus experienced temptation because He wants to be with you in that space.

Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Our “time of need” is when we’re tempted.

Jesus will delight in you drawing near.

Hebrews 11:37 “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword.”

When you’re enduring temptation, count yourself among the faithful Saints who have suffered in the name of Christ.

Temptation doesn’t mean something bad about you. Temptation is what saints everywhere go through.

We have an enemy who comes to tempt us because he wants to draw us away from God. Jesus expected that we would be tempted and He meets us in the midst of our temptation. When we endure through temptation, we place ourselves with mighty, holy men and women of God. This is you.

If you have been impacted by Regen or Becoming Whole, would you consider giving? You can do that here.

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You’re here now, listening for a reason.

Maybe you’re hoping to find a new way, break a habit.

Understanding the motivation behind your goal is key to healthy change. In this episode, we’ll explain how shame works. Learning to recognize the sneak and bully Shame is in your work towards wholeness is important.

From the outside, your eagerness to volunteer and motivation to serve can look godly and impressive. But, if shame is driving you; that eagerness and motivation can push you towards internal chaos. For now, try to take a breath and relax your shoulders.

As you’re becoming whole, learn to look for shame and listen for Jesus.

Highlights:

Shame masquerading as godly zeal is going to do internal damage inside a person.

The outside might look like motivation but inside shame drives you to damaging ways.

Shame communicates the message that you are a bad, unworthy person; that there’s something uniquely deficient, detective, dirty about you.

Shame projects successful images in order to cover up its presence.

Jesus, the true shepherd, draws his people towards becoming fully and wholly who they are designed to be.

He draws them to confession and repentance and humility. He draws them towards godliness.

He goes first.

He doesn’t drive us with shame, Jesus draws us with His love.

We need to recognize and get with people who can help us uncover the shame that we carry and be healed by the love of God in those areas.

Psalm 23 (NLT)

The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.

He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.

He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

Romans 2:4

Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

If you have been impacted by Regen or Becoming Whole, would you consider giving? You can do that here.

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Tenacious. That’s the kind of grip your sexual addiction can have on you- no matter if it’s porn, masturbation, or hooking up. So, here’s a tough question.

While your sexual sin is holding on to you, what are you holding onto?

The reality is we are living in an on-demand kind of world. As a Christian battling for sexual freedom, it’s important to recognize if you’re holding onto the hope of instant results or the hope of God.

In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” we’ll confront the struggle together and then show you how to consecrate the process. True sexual freedom embraces God’s plan, design, and timing, not results.

Highlights:If your unwanted sexual sin never goes away, what will you do? If the temptations persist and you continue to fall, what will you do?

Confront yourself with the possibility that you may not be as free as you had hoped to be free.

Confront yourself with the possibility that you may not make the progress you want to.

But, don’t give up. Continue to follow Jesus. Don’t abandon the journey.

Ask yourself: What else is driving you forward beside your results?

For so many Christians pursuing freedom from unwanted behaviors, we find that deep down is an insistence that God do it “our way,” when we want it. This is in contradiction to what it means to follow Jesus.

We all are living in a culture that demands results. If we don’t see the results we name, in the timeframe we expect; we can question God’s goodness, the truth of scripture, God’s design.

While many think, “If I have to struggle in the area of my sexuality, then I can’t trust God with my sexuality.” That thinking limits you to two choices: 1. To forget God 2. To keep suffering.

But, the other option is to open our sexuality to God and consecrate our sexuality to God.

Homework:

Consecrating your struggle to God can begin with a prayer like this:

“Lord, enter into my suffering. Enter my temptation. I consecrate to Your will and Your purposes. I trust You to bring good out of it - whether it means freedom from the temptation or freedom through the temptation.”

If you have been impacted by Regen or Becoming Whole, would you consider giving? You can do that here.

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What if you could watch footage of yourself just as you’re caught in a moment of temptation?

No one else knows what’s about to happen, but you: Your finger might be lingering above the “play” button. You might be walking down the specific hallway where you might see her. You might be standing in front of your bedroom door.

Hitting pause at that moment would hold a lot of meaning for you in battling your unwanted sexual behavior. And the pattern is deep, the temptation is painfully intense and you can barely catch your breath.

Stretch out your hands, take a deep breath and let’s hit pause together. In today’s episode of “Becoming Whole,” we offer you 3 Steps to Navigating Temptation.

We hope these three simple steps can become part of your new routine so you can begin pursuing your truest desires.

Highlights:

1. Admit to yourself that you’re tempted. Even when the temptation is a small nudge, admit to yourself then that you’re tempted.

2. Reach out to an ally and admit temptation. Text your ally (someone who knows your struggle), get on the phone and then connect with them.

3. Figure out what you’re really looking for.

Self-Mastery takes time. Give yourself grace.

Sex is never just about sex. It is deeply embedded in our identity as both male and female.

Sex is always meant to be unitive, highly relational.

What is it that you’re really looking for in the areas of intimacy and identity?

There are patterns to when you are tempted. And, there’s a “why” behind your temptation.If you have been impacted by Regen or Becoming Whole, would you consider giving? You can do that here.

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Dieting, Parenting, Working - these are just a few of the arenas in our lives in which boundaries are not only necessary but good.

These guidelines establish our limits, communicate our comfort levels and set expectations. When it comes to sexuality today, it seems the lines are blurred.

Remember, your body is significant to what it means to be a human being.

Your body is significant to the story of salvation.

We hope you’ll consider this episode of “Becoming Whole” as a reset, realigning your identity in grace and truth.

Highlights:

Christians, in the name of love, are refusing truth, turning away from truth. We are bending the knee to lies and deception and darkness.

Jesus came with Grace and Truth, not one or the other, but both.

“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” 1 John 1:6

The body is a sexed body; it is either male or female. God created the body that way. And so, to act contrary to that is discordant with who God created us to be.

I have an identity. It was given to me in the material creation of my body, made by God.

Our very faith teaches us that our bodies are significant to what it means to be a human being and significant to what salvation is all about.

Salvation comes through the death and resurrection and ascension of the God of the universe who became flesh. So, if we discard our bodies; are we discarding our way of salvation?

If our bodies don’t matter, then does Christ’s body matter?If you have been impacted by Regen or Becoming Whole, would you consider giving? You can do that here.

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We believe God is omniscient. And yet, from Genesis 1:1 all the way to Revelation 22:21, there are more than 3,000 questions logged in the Bible.

Why?

Why would our All-Knowing God shape so much of His Word into questions?

Consider how questions serve as a powerful tool to connect, dig and uncover. Perhaps God is asking you questions to connect, dig, and uncover your truest desires with you.

Let’s take some time to consider the questions God may be asking.

Highlights:

Why does God ask questions? Part of the answer is that He wants you to pay attention to what is happening you or in your life.

“After this, many of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. Then Jesus gave the Twelve their chance: ‘Do you also want to leave?’ Peter replied, ‘Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life.’” - John 6:66-68 MSG

What we desire has a capacity to inform our sense about who we are.

Desires can say, “This is what people like you want and what people like you do.”

Desires don’t have the authority to tell us who we are.

When we’re not clear on what we truly desire, we are more likely to act in accordance with who our desires tell us we are.

God wants you to search your heart to understand what you really want.

We are made by God to desire God and we truly aren’t satisfied until we find our satisfaction in Him.

Having a truer vision of who you are and the kind of person you are, of what you’re made for and what you’re made of, that empowers us to say no to temptation and yes to God.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” St Augustine of Hippo.

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The enemy is hard at work weaving lies about who you are, hoping to trap you under a suffocating blanket of who you are NOT.

Don’t fall in the trap.

The fabric of your being is more intricate and intentional than you can imagine. But the world and the enemy are diligent to get you to believe that what you struggle with is you, is your fault, is because of what you’ve done.

As you listen, allow the Lord to tug at a few threads with you to discover the lies you might be living under. Consider letting the masterful hands that created you be the ones to uncover the larger identity you are made for.

Highlights:

An abuser tries to get their victim to believe they wanted the abuse, they invited it, caused it to happen. The enemy is using the same tactic on you.

When you believe something false about yourself you are more likely to live into the faulty narrative the enemy wants you to believe.

The enemy tries to get those that are addicted to sexual behaviors or those who experience certain types of sexual attractions to believe the lie is about their identity, about who they are.

If the enemy can get you to believe that you are wired this way; then there’s no hope to overcome the struggle and live differently. This is a lie in our culture.

It’s so important to not get trapped under a lie about your identity; or even under a smaller identity than God has created for you.

There are lots of ways the enemy will try to back you into a destructive impression of you; limiting your relationships, your capacity to live fully alive as a man or a woman, your ability to walk in freedom and sexual integrity.

Questions & a Prayer for You

What are the lies you believe about yourself telling you that you want this habit, you invited it, or that you caused it to happen?

What do you believe about yourself that holds you captive to sin, making it more difficult to walk in freedom from that sin?

“Lord, I have believed that I’m less than I am. I suspect I believe that I’m less than I am. I’ve become entrapped in a story that’s not working for me to walk in integrity and wholeness and freedom.

Lord, I want to know who you say I am. So, would you expose the lies that I’ve believed about myself and would you help me embrace who you say I am even before I know and can see all the fruit of that in my life.

Lord, I choose to believe you more than my experience, more that what others have said, more than what I’ve declared about myself and more than what the enemy has told me about myself.

Lord, you are my creator. And who you say I am is who I am. Jesus, you are my Redeemer. And, who you’ve redeemed me to be is who I am.

I say “yes” to the identity you’ve given me and “no” to every other faulty identity.

Lord, Help me to walk in the newness of the life you’ve given me.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

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“Why Can’t I stop watching porn?” This question deserves a 2 part answer, at least.

In last week’s episode, we offered a high-level understanding of our neurological mapping. Learning the intricacy and purpose of serotonin, norepinephrine, oxytocin, and dopamine are important to appreciating God’s design for you.

We know porn rewires our God-given desires. The on-demand, accessible nature of porn shuts down the detailed work of your Heavenly Father.

It’s time to treat yourself as someone who is worth the time and effort it takes to be free.

Listen in.

HIGHLIGHTS

The human body is not designed for the flood of chemicals produced by on-demand pornography.

For the person habitually accessing on demand porn, two things begin to happen:

1. Thrill and exhilaration are harder to reach. So, whatever porn you’ve been viewing can cease to bring the same high it once did. As a result, you may increase the frequency of porn use. You may also increase intensity of type of porn used. Some may leave porn and seek interaction with a physical person trying to get back to level of high from before.

2. Normal, healthy activities (like being outside, hanging with friends, creating something, etc) cease to be life-giving. The rest of life begins to gray and dull as our neuro-receptors shut down. The elicit sexual behavior takes priority over life.

When you cease to feel those things and you don’t have normal ways to feel them, it’s more likely you will seek out more porn to feel something again.

You’re created for connection and peace and joy and exhilaration.

True connection requires something of you on the front end.

It takes work, vulnerability, and risk to connect with someone else.

It takes energy to get out and exercise, to plan healthy meals and eat well.

Porn doesn’t require anything of you on the front end so, it can feel that porn is the best way. But, over time it takes much more from you than it’s given.

It may be time to consider Sexual Abstinence:

It’s going to take a while for neuro-receptors to heal and operate as they were intended. Sexual abstinence can help curb the behavior. Don’t be surprised if you feel apathy, lose your appetite, feel agitated or more lonely during this time.Support Becoming Whole

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Simply put, pornography jumbles up the delicate, powerful wiring of your brain. Neurology is anything but simple. But, let’s try to our look at our neurological mapping for enough understanding to unpack and move forward in our walk towards sexual integrity.

Porn rewires our God given desires. Let’s try re-wiring to what God intended for us. “The process of sanctification is an addiction to holiness, a compulsive fixation on Christ and an impulsive pattern of compassion, virtue and love.

This is what we are wired for. This is what we are meant for.” (Dr William Struthers)

Highlights:

God wired us neuro-chemically in a way that plays into His beautiful design for us as human beings.

When we use pornography on a regular basis; our wiring gets hijacked.

God has designed us with intentionality and that’s true for our sexuality.

4 Neuro-Chemicals

1. Serotonin (The Happy Chemical) – produces a sense of well-being or calm, a release from stress. Can be increased through exercise, exposure to sunlight, healthy diet and medication. Serotonin shows us God designed sex between husband and wife to bring relief from anxiety, a sense of well-being, health, calm.
2. Norepinephrine- In the body, it gives an experience of being awake & alive, with increased energy. In the brain, it increases attention helping to focus on a task. In the marriage embrace, there’s a release of feeling alive, exhilaration and increased focus. The effect can increase faithfulness between husband and wife. Also, helps to store significant experiences.
3. Oxytocin – (The Bonding Chemical) A neurotransmitter that bonds spouses during and after sex. Released in women during foreplay and in men more after sexual climax. Lowers blood pressure, induces better sleep. Can also be fostered through meaningful conversations, meal with friends, a good cry, when a mother nurses her baby. Part of developing closeness with other people.
4. Dopamine – (The Pleasure Chemical) Increases focus. Helps to direct your craving towards that which satisfies. In sex between husband and wife, it helps a person create a craving towards his/her spouse. If we’re taking our sexual desires to other places or people, dopamine is going to remember that and direct you there.

Homework:

Take note of when and where you are in your day as you look for porn. Then, ask yourself what you were looking for in that moment. Be curious and patient. Looking to your patterns can help you realize what you’re needing and then how to move differently. Nurture those parts of your life – look for ways to get calm, get connected, ways to let your body feel alive and awake.

Recall Jesus’ question “What are you looking for?” Let His words speak to you today. Hear the tenderness in His voice and let Him work with you to unpack what it is you’re really looking for.

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The journey to sexual integrity is loaded with potholes and detours. Road Hazards to Sexual Integrity.

Let’s be honest - It’s easy to come out of one ditch and end up stumbling into another. You’ve been doing such important work walking towards sexual wholeness.

When it comes to your lusts, we hope this episode serves to alert you to two pitfalls. As you move forward, be aware of them and be listening for Jesus invitation in it all.

Let’s begin.

Highlights:

Two pitfalls we can fall into:

1. We focus on a body part, reducing a person to an OBJECT.

2. We focus on the person as an OBSTACLE to our sexual integrity.

In both cases, we’re only concerned with ourselves and not the other person.

“There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.” -Pope John Paul II

Lust doesn’t see a human person. It just sees body parts.

Jesus invites us on the road with Him, so we see the other person as a human.

Practice thinking about the person as a whole, human being.
Learn more about Awaken here!

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Sex is more than an act. It’s more than a bandaid, more than a habit, more than an excuse.

Consider this - one of your deepest needs and desires is to be fully seen, fully known, and fully loved.

A bandaid or habit can’t fulfill that kind of need. There is more to sex.  In this episode, we’ll hear how to appreciate God’s design for the relational dynamic sex offers a husband and wife. 
As you’re doing the work towards sexual integrity, it’s important to also understand the integrity of sex.

Highlights:*We tend to treat sex as a separate entity. God’s heart for sex is that it is part of a relationship between husband and wife.

Through sex, husbands and wives can give themselves as a self-gift for the good of the other.

One of our deepest needs, one of our deepest desires is to be seen; to be completely seen and completely loved.*

Homework:

• Instead of seeking to feel good, can you seek to have really great connection with your wife or with your husband?

• Try asking your spouse these questions and then let them ask you:
When we are together physical, do you feel seen by me?
Are there parts of you that are hard to bring to our intimacy?

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When it comes to your story, God is the Author. And, you should be aware the enemy is eager to weave lies into every single chapter. So how do we break unholy agreements?

When you hear those whispers and believe them to be true; you’re making an unholy agreement. The lies we agree to change our perception, even our experience, of reality. 

We hope this episode motivates you to ask the Lord to highlight the Truth so you can spot the lies and move through this chapter in true freedom. 

Let’s begin.

Highlights:When you make an unholy agreement, you come under the lordship of a competing authority.

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We destroy every argument and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Homework:

BREAKING UNHOLY AGREEMENTS:

1. Ask God to reveal the unholy agreements in your life.
2. Renounce your agreement with the lies. “I break agreement with the lie that…… It is not true. It has never been true. I renounce my commitment to it in the authority of Jesus.”
3. Repeat to break the pattern. Keep asking God to reveal the lie and keep renouncing them.
4. Gather with people who know the Truth and believe it and live it.
5. Look at Jesus.

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The age old question, Who am I? is important and fundamental to each of us.

Who are you trusting with the answer?

Consider your sources: An internet search will give you more than 11 BILLION ideas to sift through.

Social media offers you thousands of hashtags. And libraries are spilling with books full of answers.

The world is loud with expressive individualism.

Scientific language applied to social theory has trickled its way into some churches.

As you do the work of uncovering and healing, we hope this episode encourages you to look to the One who created you as the source to define you.

Highlights:Widely speaking, there is a general acceptance that who you experience yourself to be inwardly is the most important thing about who you are.

These streams of thinking that have flowed into the Church have actually infected some of the way that the Church understands what it means to be a human being.

Christianity believes that on a primal level, we are not self-defining but we have been defined by the One who created us.

God’s limits are designed to help direct you towards Him and towards you we are meant to be.

Homework:

Where have I been pursuing my subjective self?

Where have I been pursuing an idea of who I might be when I need to submit myself to Jesus and say, “I am who you say I am. And, I want to find myself in You, and You alone. Where I’ve taken that pursuit into my own hands or bowed down before other idols or images, Lord, I repent of that. And I say, “I need you.”

Extras:

“The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.” By Carl R. Trueman

Homework:

Prayer: “Lord, I see this in me. I see that I want to hold onto this. And I need your help with it. I do surrender this to you. I want to see people as people.”

Read John 21:15-19 as Jesus sees the break between he and Peter, and heals the rupture. Read Jesus’ questions again, recalling that Peter had denied Jesus three times and was now being asked three times if he loved Jesus. Read the story as an invitation for you.

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Within the realm of sexual sins, maybe you tend to look past Lust as “not so bad.” But, looking past Lust gives this quiet sin even more destructive power.

In your journey to sexual integrity, you’re working towards becoming whole. And part of that work means considering yourself and others as whole persons.

Lust dismantles that work one body part at a time. It quietly splits us from ourselves and from others.

Please consider taking some time to work through the Gospel Meditation in the Homework section.

Highlights:Lust can be defined as looking at another person as a sexual object for my own selfish, sexual desire rather than seeing a person who’s created in God’s image to be loved.

When we objectify another person, it elicits a sense of pleasure and as we hold onto the parts that make us feel good; we are discarding the rest.

Lust says, “I want the parts that arouse me but not the parts that require something from me, that would cost me something.”

Marriage says, “I know that there are parts of you that will cost me something and I’m all in because you’re worth all of me.”

Check out Awaken

Homework:

Prayer: “Lord, I see this in me. I see that I want to hold onto this. And I need your help with it. I do surrender this to you. I want to see people as people.”

Read John 21:15-19 as Jesus sees the break between he and Peter, and heals the rupture. Read Jesus’ questions again, recalling that Peter had denied Jesus three times and was now being asked three times if he loved Jesus. Read the story as an invitation for you.

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Journaling, Fasting, Denying, Confessing, Releasing, Praying – Becoming Whole is a process. 

For Jesus, because of you, it is a process worth dying for. 

Friends, we have arrived at the end of Lent, which brings the beginning of a new Hope. While the world is grabbing at your sexuality to pull it away from your spirituality, Jesus is breaking through the grave to make you whole again. 

You are worth it. 

Jesus’ arrival on this earth declared God’s value on both your spirit and your body as a treasure.  Jesus’ death and resurrection promises redemption of the rupture. 

This Easter, absorb the declaration of hope for the union of your body and your spirit in complete wholeness through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Highlights:Christianity is a religion, a faith, a worldview that sees the union of spirit and body as essential to what it means to be a human being.

We live in a culture that separates spirit from body in so many ways.

His Resurrection is an authoritative declaration that He overcomes the powers of this world.

1 Corinthians 6 “Our bodies are made for the Lord.”

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It’s striking to consider Jesus’ will being apart or different than God the Father’s will.

After all, He came to do the will of the Father. That’s how Jesus lived His life on earth to the end. And yet, in the last days, Jesus exposes a gap.

He exposes it through a desperate cry out to his Abba - “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Consider Jesus’ heart and his vulnerability.

Exposing that His will might be different from God’s makes space for us to pull in closer to King Jesus and learn. His final days on Earth offer us more than an example.

He leads us to a deeper relationship where we can acknowledge our choice, seek God’s heart, cry out and say, “Not my will but yours be done.”

Let's dive in.

Highlights:Your choice to echo his words comes out of union with Jesus and fosters union with Him.

Obedience can cause suffering, can make things hard, involves a cost; it helps to know Jesus is in it with us.

Jesus said “yes” to the Father’s will when He didn’t want to. As Jesus decided, His decision became a gift for you now.

In the moments, big or small, where you find your will is not aligned with what God is asking you to do: recognize it, don’t beat yourself up, take comfort and look for Jesus in the midst of it.

Homework:

And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” -Matthew 26:39

“Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” -Mark 14:36

“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” -Luke 22:42

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Have you noticed? There are invitations for each distinct part of you in these recent episodes of “Becoming Whole.”

Our hope is you’ll say yes to the invitations and incorporate all of you into this meaningful season of Lent: Whether it’s through Confession widening awareness for your heart or Meditation as it transforms your mind.

Now, as you listen, allow your body to move through a prayerful exercise. This is simple yet powerful.

As you sense your body communicating needs and desires; consider Jesus’ words. Jesus goes first. He gives us the words and so much more.

Let’s begin.

Highlights:“And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19

Jesus gives us His body, His death and His Resurrected body too.

In the face of our temptations, our unmet longings, our bodily desires, those things we wish we didn’t want but we still want, the attractions or orientations we say no to, the habits we fight; Jesus says “This is my body given for you.”

If you want to learn more, check out Josh’s latest writing on this topic at, Giving Your Body

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Lent invites you to take a longer look at Jesus on the Cross.

This season, we invite you take time to consider Confession as a way to fully understand the choices you are making.

Naming and owning your sin is uncomfortable (and that’s putting it lightly). But as you’ll hear, confessing sin plays a vital role to your relationship with God.

Before we get started, let’s pray: “Lord, I confess I can’t fully see the death and destruction that come from my sin. Many times, I don’t want to see it. Have mercy on my body and on my impulses. Change me through the resurrection of Jesus. Make me a new creation.”

Let’s begin.

Highlights:

Sin is a violation of who we are and who we are in relationship with God.

By avoiding our sin, we have forgotten the reality of what sin does to us, how quickly it moves into us and through us.

“Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.” -James 4:4

Act of Contrition (Inspired by the Gospels, from the Vatican)

Father of mercy, like the prodigal son I return to you and say: “I have sinned against you and am no longer worthy to be called your child.”

Christ Jesus, Savior of the world, I pray with the repentant thief to whom you promised Paradise: “Lord, remember me in your kingdom.”

Holy Spirit, fountain of love, I call on you with trust: “Purify my heart, and help me to walk as a child of light.”

If you want to learn more, check out Josh’s latest writing on this topic at, If You Don’t Need Mercy

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Friends, this is our 200th episode!

That’s 200 conversations and teachings we hope have accompanied, encouraged, and equipped you on your journey to Becoming Whole.

At Regeneration Ministries, we believe the trial you’re struggling with can serve as a holy invitation from God to know Him more deeply.  While these episodes aren’t meant to be substitutes for coaching, they can certainly be a first step to understanding the invitation more fully. 

Often, we go wide together here, covering a multitude of topics on sexual integrity. 

Today, we are going deep together through a prayerful meditation. Ask the Holy Spirit to open and guide your imagination. Allow yourself to hit pause on the activity around you so you can shift more fully into a posture of prayer. 

Together, let’s take a deep breath as we enter more deeply into the mystery of choice and suffering and Jesus. 

Let’s begin.

(We humbly ask that you take a moment to Review, Rate and Subscribe to let others know what you think of the podcast.)

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If you accept the invitation, Lent can be so much more than a countdown to Easter. It is a season steeped in rich tradition.

Fasting is one way to observe Jesus’ walk to the cross. But this tradition goes beyond depriving yourself of food or alcohol.

Specifically, for you, as you journey to sexual integrity, fasting can be a powerful way to grow in self-control. What initially feels like denying yourself can become, with diligence and dedication, a chance to free yourself.

In this episode, we’ll turn to the Gospel to hear how Matthew gives voice to our hunger and how Jesus gives voice to our satisfaction.

Highlights:

Fasting helps you grow in self-control. Strengthens you to say ‘no’ to what you don’t need.

Matthew 9:9 “As Jesus walked on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me and be my disciple.’ And Matthew got up and followed him.”

In this verse, as the author, Matthew is acknowledging he is sick. He identifies himself as the one Jesus came to seek and to save.

Our hunger is not the problem, it is part of the solution. Once we recognize that we are hungry for something more than food, more than sin, more than likes, more than distraction and comfort - then we’ll be able to recognize who we are and whose we are. And we, like Matthew, can stand up and say, that’s me. I’m one of the hungry ones and I need the bridegroom.

Homework:

As you practice Fasting, when you feel the lack, pray these defiant words “Lord, I feel hunger in my body, but I am more hungry and more thirsty for you.”Transcription:Full Transcription Available here
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As we step into the season of Lent, maybe you’re feeling a sense of somberness.

That’s understandable considering Lent walks us through Jesus’ journey to the cross. It also walks us to a confrontation with our own sin.

On this episode of “Becoming Whole”, listen in as Josh juxtaposes Simon’s first meeting with Jesus and his last. There’s an invitation within this season and the two stories of Simon Peter to understand who we are and who God is.

Maybe your unwanted sexual habit or past trauma drops you to your knees making you want to push the Lord away.

We pray you’ll allow this Lent to be a season where you spend time acknowledging your sinful nature while making time with your savior Jesus.

Let’s jump in.

Highlights:

In Luke 5:7 “Simon said, ‘Depart from me because I am a sinful man.’”

This Lent we are invited to a space of facing two realities: First, that Jesus is God in the flesh. And that Jesus came to earth and suffered for us on the cross. Second, we face the reality of our depravity.

Give us hearts that would jump out of the boat and scramble to you Lord. Amen.

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, Could You Be Avoiding God?

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We’re taking your battle with sexual addiction deep into a familiar story and see The Father's Response!

While you may have heard the parable of the Prodigal Son before, this time try listening with your eyes closed and heart open to see where you fit in.

As the story highlights the different paths two sons will take, allow it to draw a picture of how you may be relating to God the Father in your battle against sexual sin. Where do you see yourself? Are you the one pushing away or the one pressing in to earn approval?

Listen for your role in your own story and listen for how God’s heart is revealed in the father’s voice.

Highlights:

Younger Brother - Posture of Rebellion:

Believes truest satisfaction found in sin.

Older brother - Posture of Earning:

Believes working hard to do the right thing, abstaining from desires almost acting like this is what I need to do in order to have God’s blessings.

Father’s Response:

The father’s first focus is not on what the son has done but that the son has been with him.

Not in response to what the son has done, the father responds, “all that is mine is yours.”

Bask in these words and actions of the father:

Welcome & Celebration

v20 “He was filled with compassion and ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

Grace & Love

v31 “My Son (My Daughter) You are always with me and everything I have is yours.”

Be Aware:

The enemy wants us to leave, to believe God is a kill joy.

The enemy wants to convince you that you need to work harder for your Father to notice.

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, What If You Forget You Have an Enemy?

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When you hear the word “imagination,” chances are you’ll put it in one of two boxes- it’s either child’s play or a path to deviance.

For a moment, let’s re-imagine imagination. There is great power in this tool.

What if we view our mind’s ability to be creative as a positive not a negative? This episode will challenge you to push past the idea that your imagination is a mere tool for daydreaming and that it is much more than an avenue to unwanted sexual behaviors.

By inviting the Holy Spirit into your imagination, you can begin to bring the Jesus of the Gospels alive in your day to day. This will take time and practice. Make sure you check out Josh’s blog for more ideas and practices.

Begin challenging yourself to use this gift as a way to connect to a Hope beyond your imagination.

Highlights:

The power of our imaginations is God given. And God wants to use our imaginations to move us away from the domain of darkness and toward the kingdom of light.

Satan wants you to believe your imagination only leads to what’s imaginary as opposed to what’s true and real and hidden.

J.R.R. Tolkien “At its best the fairy story or fantasy is far from being a flight from reality; it is rather a flight to reality.”

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, How Imagination Helps Break the Grip of Porn

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We’re weighing in on a continuing conversation of language because the words matter.

Join us as Josh unpacks the terms “Gay Christian” and “Christian with Same Sex Attraction.”

Followers of Jesus who hold a traditional view of God’s design for sexuality, can split when it comes to the wording. We’ll explore how language elevates orientation to the same status as belief in Jesus.

We are beloved, image-bearers of God and need to be aware of labels that can limit our core identity.

While this may not be a personal issue for you, we encourage you to stay as this is a “person” issue. And we want to care for the full body of Christ together with dignity and honor.

Highlights:

Our bodies, our maleness and femaleness make VISIBLE something of God’s invisible attributes.

Wording can de-emphasize the biological, heterosexual design of your body.

Be aware of how language elevates orientation to the same status as belief in Jesus.

If you want to learn more, check out Josh’s latest musing on this topic at, Gay Christian or Same-Sex Attracted?

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You’ve probably heard it said here before that breaking a habit of unwanted sexual behaviors goes beyond “Behavior Management.”

Setting up filters or throwing away devices might eliminate the cues to your addiction, but it still leaves you exposed. There’s deeper work to be done.

Ultimately, to change your behavior you need to understand the why’s to your behavior. The actions you choose are connected to your emotions, to your thoughts and to your beliefs.

You are wonderfully complex. In this episode, we’ll be looking at the design of a Tree to illustrate how you work and why you need to go deeper. (Be sure to look to the Homework section for ways to make the Tree model work for you.)

Highlights:

FRUIT (Our Behavior)

The fruit of the tree, the leaves of the tree represent the behavior, the outward sign.

BRANCHES (Our Emotions)

When we experience some type of emotional pain or discomfort in our bodies, that serves as a trigger to move us towards these other behaviors to either medicate the pain or to get away from it.

TRUNK (Our Thoughts)

Your thoughts are more expansive than just a sentence, it holds with it some sort of image that connects to an idea.

ROOTS (Our Story)

This is where our Core beliefs lie. For example: What we learned about family based on our experience, about ourselves as kids, what God is like, about the world around us, what men are like, what women are like.

SOIL (Our Influences)

Things that influence our beliefs: Family of Origin, Abuses we’ve experienced, great disappointments, losses, etc.

The things we choose to think can be soil around our beliefs. What we choose to do can also serve as soil that nourishes the soil of what we believe.

Homework:

We are praying you choose to do the harder work of uncovering. You hold a powerful opportunity to change the trajectory of your life. If, along the way you find yourself needing extra help, consider reaching out to us and we will set you up with a Spiritual Coach to come alongside you in your important work.

Branch Questions:

When you struggle with an unwanted behavior, begin by asking yourself, “What was I feeling before I started moving in that direction?”

If you’re feeling tempted right now, begin to notice and understand “What am I feeling in my body right now? What are the emotions I’m experiencing in my body right now?”

Trunk Questions:

What am I thinking that’s producing the kinds of emotions I’m experiencing now?

Take some guesses: What was going on for you that day? What’s coming up for you?

Root Work:

Take some time to write out what you think about the idea of Family (for example). Write the word Family on a piece of paper and then start brainstorming all that comes to mind about what a family looks like, who’s there, what they do, what does a week look like, what happens on the weekends, what does home look like to you, what role do you play. Taking time to write out the construct of what Family looks like to you can deconstruct some of the feelings you have attached to it.

Soil Work:

Nourish your beliefs through things like - exercise, scripture memorization, silence, simplicity, worship, communion, confession.

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, If You Keep Repeating Your Sin

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The term “Accountability Partner” can carry a high cringe factor. Yes, they are meant for good - offering space to confess to one another, to pray with one another, to hope for the best for each other.

But, if not handled well, Accountability Partners can cause more harm than good.

The enemy would love nothing more than for you and your partner to focus on your behavior, smother you in shame and isolate you.

Brothers and sisters, moving towards sexual wholeness begs for more than behavior management.

Follow along as we work through some tips on how not to have an effective partnership. And then, get your pen and paper ready for 5 tips to a powerful partnership.

Highlights:

Making Accountability Partnerships Work:

1. Frame up thinking with these questions: What do you want to do? What are you looking for? What do you desire?

2. Focus on the positive so you can begin to see your progress.

3. Celebrate, discuss, spend time on BOTH the good and the bad.

4. Dive into the deep matters: What were you feeling? What was happening under the surface? What were you really looking for? Were you lonely? Feeling ashamed?

5. Invite the Cross of Jesus into the center of your journey.

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Your life tells a story. And you are the main character. But what if you’re battling an ongoing porn addiction, unwanted same sex attraction or can’t stop hooking up?

This is where an understanding of who you are meant to be and the story your life can tell is powerful. If Satan has taken over as the role of co-author, you are believing a false storyline.

Don’t let his whispers sabotage the purpose you are meant to live out.

Dig deep into the story you’ve been living to discover where the lies are. God wrote your story with love and friendship and honor and dignity in the details.

Begin your next chapter with the truth as “it is written.”

Highlights:

Growing in sexual integrity includes: 1. Unearthing those subtle stories we are living. 2. Unearthing the faulty role we believe we have in that story.

A person who sees themself living a bigger story, playing a more important character sees alone time as different kind of opportunity. Alone time becomes an opportunity for advancement, for rest, for self-nurturing, for connection with others, for aspiring to reflect God.

Scripture pulls down the veil to reveal a reveal a bigger story of what God has for us. The choice for us is whether we’ll dare to believe this narrative, that we have a better part to play and that we are actually in a better, bigger story than what we’ve been living.

Homework:

Where you have sexual sin in your life, is it possible you’ve allowed the serpent to rewrite your story and the role you play? What is the story you are living? What is your role? What does your Heart say about you in your challenging moments?

After reflection, try using scripture to combat Satan’s whispers and affirm God’s design for you:

• 1 Corinthians 3:16 I, myself, am God’s temple and God’s Spirit dwells in my midst.
• Ephesians 2:10 I am God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for me to do.
• 2 Corinthians 10:5 I demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and I take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
• 2 Timothy 1:7 The Spirit God gave me does not make me timid, but gives me power, love and self-discipline.

Resources:

“A Million Miles in A Thousand Years: How I learned to live a better story.” By Donald Miller

Make sure you check out Becoming a Woman of Sexual Integrity and Becoming a Man of Sexual Integrity. These quick video series are an introduction to becoming more whole in the area of Sexual Integrity!

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As you do the work of pursuing sexual integrity, cultural messages keep watering down God’s heart for you as His creation.

So, let’s pause for a deeper sense of what it means to be a man or to be a woman.

Both the mystery and the glory of being man or being woman have been lost in our society. Christ is inviting you to stop and consider the creation story, the very beginning. You and I were created to be image bearers of God.

Have you considered how your body’s sexuality images God?

Let’s start now.

Highlights:

Sexual integrity means trusting that your body is made for God and not for sexual immorality.

If we’re to become people of sexual integrity then we need to become more emotionally whole.

Your body is designed for God. Whatever it feels in the moment of sexual pleasure, you still can always acknowledge that your body is designed first and foremost for God and for His will, not for sexual immorality.

Homework:

Questions for Reflection:

• How at home do you feel in your biological sex?
• How at home do you feel with others of the same sex – are you self-conscious, comfortable, etc?
• How at home do you feel with people of the opposite sex?
• Are you experiencing joy as a man, as a woman?

Resources:

Make sure you check out Becoming a Woman of Sexual Integrity and Becoming a Man of Sexual Integrity. These quick video series are an introduction to becoming more whole in the area of Sexual Integrity!

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, Sexual Integrity Is Sexed Integrity

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Sexual integrity is about you becoming whole.

You are made up of many parts – mind, body and soul. And in your journey to becoming whole, it is key to address all the parts that make you, YOU. In the last episode, we examined the role of the body.

This week, we’ll learn more about the role of emotions. There is a direct link between your unwanted sexual behavior and your emotional life. And, if you’re willing to pay attention to your feelings, they can serve as clues into something inside you that needs your attention.

This is not easy work. It takes courage and vulnerability. Facing your feelings connects you to who you are at a deeper level. Don’t be afraid.

Let’s move beyond regulating an unwanted sexual behavior boundaries and protocols into living a life of freedom and wholeness.

Highlights:

If you want to be a person of sexual integrity, there is no way to do that without becoming an emotionally healthy person.

A lot of us run to unwanted sexual behaviors as an attempt to regulate our emotions.

Our emotions are not always correct barometers of what is real or true but they’re an important part of who we are.

Homework:

In Luke 18, Jesus asks the blind man: “What do you want me to do for you?”

Why did Jesus ask the blind man that? Jesus desires us to be in touch with our desires. He wants to engage with us on that level. Emotions are a gateway to what we really desire and Jesus knows that.

He’s inviting you into a place where you examine and explore with Him all the hopes in your heart.

Resources:

Dr Patrick Carnes says unwanted sexual behaviors are a way to medicate pain.

Dr Harry W. Schaumburg talked about acting out as a way to gain a false sense of intimacy.

Russell Willingham explains, we run to unwanted sexual behaviors when we don’t know how to deal with certain types of emotions.

Dr Mark Laaser

Make sure you check out Becoming a Woman of Sexual Integrity and Becoming a Man of Sexual Integrity. These quick video series are an introduction to becoming more whole in the area of Sexual Integrity!

If you want to learn more, check out Josh’s latest musing on this topic at, Sexual Integrity and Emotional Health

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Sexual Integrity Starts Here. Integration is a big word describing the large task of becoming whole. Over the next couple of episodes, we’ll dedicate time to understanding the mechanics of sexual integrity.

You are a complex, marvelous being with many layers and even more moving parts.

When it comes to sexual integrity, you may assume your body is the enemy, the source of sexual sin. That is just one sign of the dis-integration we’ll identify.

You are worthy of and designed for wholeness.

The journey to sexual integrity starts here, with your body.

Highlights:

To be a person of sexual integrity means all these parts are healthy and they are working together that you might live out your life physically, relationally, sexually, with integrity.

Your body is not the enemy.

Honor your body because you are designed bodily for God not for sexual immorality.

Homework:

Talk to your body prayerfully and with honor. Apologize to the part of your body involved in sexual sin.

If it was your eyes, then pray: “Lord, forgive me for using my eyes in a way they’re not designed for. Eyes, forgive me. You were made not for lust. You were made for love.”

Resources:

Make sure you check out Becoming a Woman of Sexual Integrity and Becoming a Man of Sexual Integrity. These quick video series are an introduction to becoming more whole in the area of Sexual Integrity!

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, Sexual Integrity Starts with Who You Are

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God’s design for sex includes your questions and desires and hopes. But, if pornography was your sex-ed teacher, you absorbed imagery and ideas that changed your brain.

On top of that, your heart is probably holding onto shame too.

We live in a world where pornography is literally at our fingertips. If you started watching it as a kid, we hope the message is clear for you to stop blaming yourself for that early exposure. Those visuals should never play the role of teacher.

In fact, trusted adults are meant to be God’s provision to help kids begin to understand what sex is all about.

We hope this episode encourages you to ask God to untangle the good from the bad so you can walk more fully as the man or woman God designed you to be today.

Highlights:

Far too many of us have been shaped by porn in such a way that it’s changed our sexual templates.

Porn is highly addictive for adults. So, it’s all the more so for kids whose brains are still forming.

Parents need to own that giving a kid digital device is too heavy a responsibility because pornography can be so easily accessed on it.

Extras:

Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field guide for Parents by Josh Glaser and Daniel Weiss

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, What Billie Eilish Didn’t Say

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We’re moving closer to Christmas. Ironically, this is about the time when ads and expectations and schedules pull us further from Christ.

For sure, there is an abundance to this season but not in the commercial way you may be thinking.

Strip away the fussy garland and the must-have linens and the coordinated outfits.

Let’s listen for the call to you and me; inviting us to a more Christ-like Christmas.

Highlights:

How much of the way we expect to make Christmas meaningful, how much we pursue has more to do with the culture and media have put in front of us than what God has put in front of us

When we seek to make Christmas about Christ in a way that moves us, draws us, reorients us, helps connect us with the truth of who God is and why we worship him in the first place. Do we do so around a liturgy of commercialism or around a truly Christian liturgy?

The commercial liturgy in the U.S. is powerful and embedded in us.

Homework:

How can we reorient our hearts around Christ himself this Christmas?

• Seek out Christ in the lowly, the lost, the widow, the orphan - seek out those who cannot pay you back this Christmas.
• Is there step, a little sacrifice you can make so you can experience a Christ-centered Christmas?
• Invite him into our home through the least and the lost.

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, Laying Down the Ideal Christmas (for Something Better)

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We are in a season of waiting for the arrival of Jesus. And, while we count down the days of Advent by eating chocolate or reading devotions, the anticipation builds.

In the area of sex and relationships, waiting can lead us to a place where we are really tempted to compromise.

As a culture, we are too short-sighted and impatient. Where are your sights set this season? Experiencing Advent side by side means we can wait with each other.

There’s community and power and beauty when we share in each other’s suffering.

Listen in as we learn to wait together.

Highlights:

The church of Jesus is suffering on a big scale. We struggle with waiting.

When it comes to sexual integrity, relational wholeness, health in our sense of identity; I believe that one of the reasons the church is really faltering in the West is because we don’t know how to wait.

In the area of sex and relationships, waiting can be very hard work and become an area where we are really tempted to compromise.

Homework:

Some questions to put before God this season: Where are you placing your desires? Where are you placing the “finish line”? What are you waiting for God to provide for you?

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, What Are You Waiting For? (And Why It Matters.)

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Mary, the mother of Jesus, is an important figure in every way. After all, it was her body that ushered in the tiny body of our Savior, Jesus, into this world.

Still there is controversy among us, as believers, on the amount of time we should dedicate to her.

For now, let’s spend a few moments meditating on Mary. Because, if we make too little of Mary, we miss out on more of God.

Looking at Mary and seeing how God sees her gives us a window to see how God sees us. Her role then is significant to you now.

This week in Advent, join us as we explore the mystery of our Savior’s birth through a young girl named Mary.

Let's dive in!

Highlights:

We take the humanity out of Jesus when we make his birth too abstract because we think of it as something that is surreal, that is beyond the physical world.

Jesus becoming flesh dignifies our flesh.

Part of Jesus’ story is that his body came into this world through Mary’s body.

Extras:

Mary’s Song in Luke 1:46-55

(Mary chooses words to magnify the Lord from Psalm 22, 44, 103, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, etc. showing us that she held Scripture close)

“And Mary said: ‘My soul glorifies the Lordand my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.From now on all generations will call me blessed,for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.’”

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, Why Mary Matters to Your Body

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“And the Word became flesh.” Let's discuss An Embodied Advent!

As the holiday hustle and bustle begins, let’s consider how the season of Advent highlights the relationship between God and your body.

Your flesh is so important to God that He became flesh. Your body is central to who you are and God cares deeply about it.

So, this season allow the Light of the world to reveal something new to you about your addiction to pornography, your struggle with infidelity, your flesh.

The Hope of Advent begs to help you in your walk towards sexual wholeness. Let’s unwrap this gift together.

Highlights:

Our bodies are not an accessory that we wear. We are our bodies. We are embodied creatures. You take away the body and you lose who you are.

Advent is the declaration that God cares for your body. Advent is the declaration that your body matters deeply to God.

If there’s ever any question about the dignity, the importance of the human body; that question is answered completely, fully, forever in the Incarnation.

Seek to treat other people’s bodies with dignity this Advent.

Homework:

Meditate on the reality that God became embodied- Use that truth to guide you while you practice honoring your body. This Advent, try treating your body with dignity as God would.

The holidays can bring an increase in anxiety & anticipation; recognize it and treat your body with dignity. If you cross a line, honor your body and reflect on your choice.

Try to treat the embodied people around you as worthy. Let their presence be a form of meditation not irritation.

Extras:

John 9:1-12 Jesus Heals the Man born Blind

“You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.” ― Athanasius of Alexandria, On The Incarnation

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, Look at All the Bodies

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When temptation comes knocking, you have more options than slamming the door and running away. In fact, fleeing can actually contribute to the cycle of sexual sin. Here are 5 Steps to Shutting Down Temptation.

So, let’s face temptation head on with feet firmly planted. In this episode, Josh offers 5 steps to help you shut down temptation.

While the enticement can be loud and dizzying, you have options.

If your body is charged with the bait of temptation, let’s begin with a simple prayer: “Lord, bring your Holy Order to this disorder.”

Let's dive in!

Highlights:

When you’re tempted take notice of your breathing and slow it down.

God has put you in a physical body and in the body of Christ

As you slow down, be curious why you’re feeling temptation.

Homework:

Take some time to write out the 5 steps on an index card.

1. BREATHE in through your nose (count to 4) and out through your mouth (count to 8).
2. CALL A FRIEND write down their name and number here
3. OPEN YOURSELF TO GOD “Lord, bring your Holy Order to this disorder.”
4. BE CURIOUS: What am I feeling - angry, lonely, rejected, anxious, stuck? Name it.
5. TEND TO THAT PART OF YOU: now that you’ve named the feeling, how can you care for yourself?

A Prayer: “Lord, I need Your help right now. I’m really tempted. Lord you are here and I open myself to you. Enter in. Slow my heart down. As I breathe and try to slow down; I acknowledge that you are present with me and know all that’s happening inside of me - my thoughts, my mind, the thoughts of my heart. You are here. You are present and know what my body feels like right now. I open myself to you Jesus.”

Extras:

“Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing” Jay Stringer

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, When Temptation Comes Knocking

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Seen, Soothed, Safe and Secure -these are key elements for a healthy relationship and 4 Reasons to Open Up about your Sexual Past.

But when it comes to your unwanted sexual behavior; it might feel like a secret you should just keep hidden. Is your relationship secure enough for you to tell your boyfriend or husband about your sexual history?

Do you really want your girlfriend to know about your addiction to pornography? The dangerous truth is while we keep back the darker parts of our lives, we deny ourselves real intimacy and continue bringing that deep need to illegitimate sources.

As you’re moving closer to relational intimacy and marriage, opening up about your sexual history or sexual habits is important. Every person longs to have someone see the full scope of who they are and be loved.

You and your loved one deserve each other fully and wholly.

Here are 4 Reasons to open up about your sexual past.

Highlights:

Bringing yourself means bringing your whole self not just the best parts.

You can not walk in sexual integrity if you’re not willing, with safe people, to open yourself and let them see the truth about what’s been going on.

“I love you. I love what I see and I want to come closer.” That’s the cry of our hearts. It longs for real intimacy.

Extras:

“Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain” by William M Struthers

More on Oxytocin with Dr. Struthers

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest musing on this topic at, When Do I Tell My Significant Other?

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Talking about sex - yikes - Nobody really wants to talk about sex. 

It’s private. It’s personal. It’s painful. It’s none of your business. 

As awkward as it may feel, we need to be talking about sex. Together let’s better understand why we don’t talk about sex and consider why we should. 

In this episode, Josh will be exploring two reasons you avoid the topic. 

For more reasons, head to the blog.

Highlights:

How do we talk about sex in a way that honors the goodness and sacredness of sex?

We want to be honest, but we don’t need to be graphic. The world says otherwise.

Sex is not just an activity. It’s a God-given, faithful relationship that has the capacity to impart new life into the world.

Extras:

“Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field Guide for Parents” by Daniel Weiss and Josh Glaser

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From the beginning, our story reveals we were created by God’s love. God’s immense love is moving, it is powerful and it is good BUT… and that’s where we pick up in this episode, with the weighty ‘however.’ Does God’s Love Save You?

Because reducing God’s love for us to a mere feeling subtracts the power and freedom and consequences we have been given the ability to choose.

Also, from the beginning, scripture reveals the cost of our sin. Our society is softening that part of our story, saying Sin is covered by God’s all-encompassing love.

We can’t gloss over the very real consequences when we choose our own way. God’s love is more than sentimentality. It is a commitment.

Allow this episode to challenge you you to a better understanding of God’s love for you.

Highlights:
God’s love is not just a feeling that He has towards us. God’s love is something that moves Him toward action, moves Him in a direction
There’s authority and power in what we do. And, either we are aligning ourselves and saying ‘yes’ to God’s kingdom or we are saying ‘no’ to God’s kingdom.
The modern message is undermining our ability and authority to bring destruction to ourselves and to the universe and the magnitude of the destruction sin has wrought on the Earth.
Extras:
Hebrews 9:22 “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

In Genesis 3 God lays out the consequences for the Sin of man and woman and how their Sin introduces a new universe because of what they’ve done.

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done. CS LEWIS

John 14:21 “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

If you want to learn more, check out Josh's latest writings on this very topic at, Why You Need More than God’s Grandfatherly Love

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There’s a story, a set of rules and ideas that you’ve accepted as truth for your body and your sexuality. You might not even be aware. It’s ok, we’ve all done it.

But, what if we were to UN-do the story?

Authors Linda Noble and Linda Stewart join Josh on the podcast to pull apart the narrative and present you with an invitation to The Body and Personhood.

There are no rules here, just God’s heart for the human person you are meant to be.

There is an unrepeatable value about each person.

There is an unrepeatable value to you.

Let’s dive in.

Highlights:

We need to rewrite the paradigm. We need to go back to the very beginning and start over.

Actually, we are embodied persons. Our body expresses who we are and the things that we do with our body affects who we are and our person. So, we really need to change the message.

There’s a difference between our body being an expression of who we are versus an accessory.

Homework:

Prayer for your body: “God thank you for this strong body that enables me to love and live and serve, to see that my body is not about my appearance but about how it expresses the love from God through my person. I pray those parts of my body that I feel ashamed of or wish were different, that I can see them now as the way I express God’s love to others and also to Him.”

Practice for your body to recognize others as whole persons: Retrain yourself talk to say, I see the whole person when I see my best friend. I see the whole person when I see my family members.

Practical exercise for your body: Model whole seeing by making EYE CONTACT, which acknowledges the person. Also, TALK about others as whole people when complimenting. We are more than the pimple on our forehead, or our stature or shape. Try using language for yourself and others that reflects what you see about the whole person (i.e. their kindness, patience or generosity).

Extras:

Before The Sex Talk: A Theology of the Body Approach for Parents and Mentorsby Linda Beth Noble and Linda Marie Stewart

Linda Noble, Ministry Director at Journey Community Church in La Mesa, CA

Linda Stewart, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Supervisor at Safe Haven Relationship Center in Carlsbad, CA

Theology of the Body

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There are times in this journey towards sexual integrity for teaching through a lesson and maybe even assigning homework. And yet, sometimes the most powerful lesson can come from a voice saying, “I understand. Me too.”

If you find yourself wrestling with lust, we hope you’ll allow this episode to come alongside you.

Lust is blinding.

Let’s unpack a vision for seeing the way God intended.

Highlights:

We live in a culture of entertainment. We live in a culture of lust. We live in a culture of consumerism. And we live in a fallen world -All of these things conspire against our eyes capacity to see.

We are designed to see people and to hold them in esteem and value.

Lust can make people objects or obstacles but not human beings

Extras:

Genesis 1 and 2

Romans 1:18-32

“There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.” -Pope John Paul II

For more on this topic, check our latest article Where Eyes Don’t See

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Maybe you’ve heard or you’ve said these words: “If you don’t have sex with me, I’m going to be tempted to stray.” Either way, we encourage you to stay and listen. Let’s, together, start Moving Beyond Marital Manipulation.

On this journey to sexual wholeness, the world is eager to bombard you with “facts” and “studies say” and “research shows.”

The world discredits who God made you and is calling you to be.

Let’s understand five ways marital manipulation short cuts the courageous work you’re doing.

Highlights:

5 Reasons Marital Manipulation Fails

1. Places the husbands’ sexual integrity on the woman
2. Removes the Cross of Jesus from the equation
3. Degrading to women
4. Degrading to men
5. Mars the image of God

Your heart is to cherish your wife. She is designed by God to be a woman to be loved, cherished, honored.

That on demandIn all the ways that Jesus demonstrated integrity and self-control and self-restraint, he was willing to suffer to go against what his flesh desired in the moment to love his bride, pour out his life for his bride. sexual experience gives you what you want, how you want, when you want it. What relationship in life is like that? None.

Extras:

For more on this topic, check our latest article Do You Need Sex?

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Do you want to look at porn?

The pull of pornography is devilishly strong. Whatever your reason is for seeking it out, let us offer you 5 reasons to NOT look this time.

Don’t let the cycle continue to dull your senses in this life.

You are created and meant for living fully alive, fully loved and loving, and fully whole.

We hope this episode spurs you towards conviction without condemnation. There is no shame here, only encouragement for better understanding.

Don’t waste any more time feeling bad about your pornography use.

Rather, let the conviction become an action point to end your addiction.

Regeneration Ministries is here to help you towards becoming whole.

Highlights:Pornography provides you with “sex” on demand and your brain doesn’t know what to do with it. Your brain isn’t wired for that.

What happens over time as you use pornography is that the neuron-receptors in your brain begin to shut down, they begin to atrophy.

That on demand sexual experience gives you what you want, how you want, when you want it. What relationship in life is like that? None.

Homework:

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I ask that you would free me from the grip of pornography. Lord, I want my brain to be healthy and free. I want to be self giving not selfish. I want to see people not objects. I want to heal where I have wounds from my past. I don’t want them to fester. Lord, I don’t want to be immature. I want to grow up in full stature to be a full, loving Christ-like adult. Lord would you help me on this path. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Extras:

You have to want what you want but you have to want where your wants lead…

G.K. Chesterton: “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.”

Drew Boa: “Porn is a pacifier.”

For more on this topic, check our latest article 5 Reasons You Don’t Want Porn

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If you find yourself here, you are battling more than sexual sin. You are fighting to become whole. And that is why, at Regeneration Ministries, our mission is to help you face your issues and break free from patterns holding you captive.

Together, we are doing more than just kicking a habit.

Satan is loud and thick with shame, grabbing at you to keep you from breaking your habit. God, on the other hand, loves you so much He is both willing to let you walk away and wait until you return. We need to be sober about our choices.

In this episode, let’s unpack the what and why of “unwanted sexual behaviors.” There is intention and an invitation waiting just for you.

Highlights:Unwanted Sexual Behaviors - on one hand, we want it. On the other hand, we want to stop.

“The man who is lost in his passions is less lost than the man who has lost his passion.” - St. Augustine

The phrase “Unwanted Sexual Behavior” begins to acknowledge and recognize your own alignment with what God says is right and what God says is wrong.

Extras:

Romans 8:18-30

Luke 15:11-32 Parable of the Prodigal son - notice how the father let his son go. God says, we are free to go. The father also welcomed his son back when he returned. God, also, anxiously and lovingly waits on us to return to Him.

Romans 5:20 “So then, the law was introduced into God’s plan to bring the reality of human sinfulness out of hiding. And yet, wherever sin increased, there was more than enough of God’s grace to triumph all the more! (TPT)

John 4:1-30 Samaritan woman

For more on this topic, check our latest article Was It When You Don’t Want to Quit

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The habit loop, for good or bad, goes something like this: Trigger. Craving. Response. Reward. Let's get Practical About Recovery.

When it comes to unwanted sexual behaviors, that loop slides shame in just after the reward. That’s why you’re here now. You’re doing the work to break the cycle. But sometimes, the work feels annoying, unnecessary, and even boring.

If you wish you could stop with the steps and just “lean into Jesus,” you’re in the right place.

Friend, there is a battle for your heart. And Jesus, as both God and man, wants you whole. The battle plan must include the heart work and the homework.

Listen in as Josh lays out your battle plan using both spiritual and the practical.

Highlights:“The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow our minds to dwell upon. It is in our thoughts that the first movements toward the renovation of the heart occur.”-Dallas Willard

You are free to choose what you do, brothers and sisters, but these things have consequences for you and for others.

When we put up practical boundaries it creates space again. It slows the process down so we don’t find ourselves too far in.

Homework:

Consider Jesus asking you this question, “What are you looking for?” Let’s try doing a Heart Map. In the center of a piece of paper, write out in a word or two the thing that you’re struggling with - porn, lust, affair, etc. draw a circle around it.

Around it, write the feeling you get from it, write the feeling you experience after, write the experience or person that led you to this moment. Draw a circle around each of those and then connect those circles to the center one. What are the details of those feelings? Is there something in common that you see on that piece of paper? A heart map can slow your brain down long enough for your eyes and heart to catch up with the “thing beneath the thing” - your motivation.

Let Jesus ask you the question, do the practical homework and listen long enough for Him to guide you through the answers.

Extras:

1 Corinthians 6:12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything"—but I will not be mastered by anything.”

1 Corinthians 10

Romans 6:16 “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”

For more on this topic, check our latest article Was It Do I Need a Filter to Overcome Porn?

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There’s an exclusivity in the topic of sexual abuse and rape as something that only happens to women. That is simply false.

Men, let this episode invite you in, giving you space to consider what may have felt “weird” or called “lucky” as perhaps, abuse.

Allow this time to clearly define your understanding of what sexual abuse and rape can mean for men. You are not meant to be left out.

Let’s begin with affirming that what happened to you was wrong, that it was a violation, it was abuse.

Don’t carry it alone anymore.

Highlights:A sexual violation is a violation because it is a failure to respect the body of another person.

God wants to restore the truth of who you are.

There are so many men who were sexually abused as children, or as young adults, or who were sexually violated as men, including adult men who had been raped and did not know that’s what they could call it.

Homework:

You are worthy of Healing. What does that look like?

1. Making space to acknowledge that what happened to you was a violation, was abuse.
2. Finding A trusted person in your life that you can talk about it.
3. Taking time to grieve.
4. Setting up boundaries within relationships and your own memories.
5. Moving towards forgiveness in sexual and relational health.

Extras:

Andrew Comiskey – Living Waters

“Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field Guide for Parents” by Josh Glaser and Daniel Weiss

For more on this topic, check our latest article Was It “Weird” or Was It Abuse?

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Most of us battling unwanted sexual behaviors teeter between Option A- Resist or Option B-Give In. Which option do you choose?

If you’re wrestling with issues of pornography, lust or masturbation; this episode explores another Option.

Jesus is inviting you to see more, not to see less.

As St. John Paul II put it “there is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person.”

Let’s unpack the options together to understand them better.

Then, moving towards integrity, let’s pray to see.

Highlights:First reaction is to look, to indulge. The second reaction is to look away, to avert our eyes in some way.

There’s a problem with both reactions in the moment of temptation

“There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.” - St. John Paul II

Homework:

We need our hearts purified and our eyes opened. Rather than praying to stop your unwanted behavior, pray “Lord I want to see.”

Extras:

Facebook Group for “Men Who See”

St. John Paul II “There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.”

Luke 7 Sinful Woman Anoints Jesus

Jesus asks, “Simon, do you see this woman?”

Luke 18 A Blind Beggar Receives his sight - “When he came near, Jesus asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’

“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.”

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" Matthew 5:8

Matthew 6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.”

Romans 1 The truth about God is evident all around us in Creation

Genesis 1 God created man and woman in his image

For more on this topic, check our latest article Why Avoiding Lust Can Be a Trap Transcription:Full Transcription Available here
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In your journey towards sexual integrity, it matters what you’re looking at, it matters what you’re looking for. Focus on the Cross!

In this episode, we hope to encourage you to fix your focus on the Cross.

As you’re doing the work to become whole, to break old patterns, to make new choices; set your eyes on Jesus on the Cross.

Don’t let shame or hopelessness take your eyes off the Salvation Jesus is offering you from the Cross.

Focusing on the Cross with you!

Highlights:It matters what we’re looking at. It matters what we’re looking for, and that’s absolutely true in our journey towards sexual integrity.

If you’re a person who struggles with sexual sin, or you know somebody who does, I want to commend to you the importance of focusing your life around Jesus on the Cross.

Keeping the Cross in front of us always acknowledges for us and reveals to us that we are not done yet, that there is forgiveness for us, that there is a place where our sin and failure goes. There’s a place where our shame belongs.

Extras:

Ephesians 5, Song of Solomon, Genesis 2 and 3 - For more on Jesus giving his body to his bride, the Church.

Fleming Rutledge “The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ ”

For more on this topic, check our latest article Failing or Thriving, Eyes on the Cross

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Let’s continue the conversation on Identity and Sexual Orientation.

This matters because becoming whole includes radical change for our sexual orientation. But, we live in a sexually confused world, one that has decided on its own words and definitions.

In this episode, Josh offers more on the topic through a Christian lens. We’re diving deeper into Sexual Orientation, the concept of Change and Happiness.

The bottom line is we all need to change our sexual orientation.

You read that right.

We all need for Jesus to come in and realign our desire to be more in line with His intent.

Listen in.

Highlights:Because we’re all living in a very sexually confused world, we all have a need for our sexual orientation to change. For Jesus to come in and realign, reorient our desires to more align with His intent.

The world suggests happiness now, death later. But the way of the Christian is death now, happiness later.

Can we support one another in our journey to being redeemed in this area of our lives, not separating ourselves as those who feel homosexual attractions and those who feel heterosexual attractions?

Homework:

Luke 7:36-50 “Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman” Notice what changed in her own sexual orientation. She was now orienting her passions, her desires, her heart, her loves towards Christ.

For more on this topic, check our latest article The Not-So-Subtle Indicator of Sexual Orientation

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We’re looking at Sexual Orientation in a special two-part series. If this feels personal, that’s okay.

It’s important to recognize that sexual orientation is quite personal. But, the world has laid out it’s terms and it’s ideals for what sexual orientation means.

Our culture tells us who we’re attracted to in fact, defines us.

In this series, we’ll be discussing the cultural conversation set up with cultural standards and comparing it to what Jesus has to say about you. The world is feeding you a narrative.

Jesus is inviting you into your identity.

Highlights:A Definition: Sexual orientation is the direction of your sexual or romantic attractions.

Culturally, we talk about sexual orientation not as something people experience, not just as a feeling that they’ve got but as a matter of identity, a matter of who a person is

Christianity would teach that people are much, much more than the direction that their sexual, romantic desires point them.

We have to recognize Christ’s perspective about sexual orientation is that every single one of us has a sexual orientation that needs His redemption. Every single one of us.

Homework:

Matthew 5:27-28

John 4 Woman at the Well

For more on this topic, check our latest article Did Jesus Talk about Sexual Orientation?

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Your body is a glimpse of God himself, a Theology of the Body.

“The human body includes right from the beginning... the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift – and by means of this gift – fulfills the meaning of his being and existence.”

That being said, where are you headed sexually?

Together, let’s cast a clear vision for our sexuality the way God intended it. The theology of the body is larger than just a freedom from lust. The vision God has for you is to be sexually whole, as man or woman.

Lord, give our bodies vision to reflect your glory.

Highlights:What’s your vision of what it means for you to be a sexually whole person?

“The body is not just biological, it’s theological.” - Christopher West

Sex between a husband and wife is meant to communicate something about God’s love for his people.

In God’s economy, wholeness means that person is becoming more of who they’re meant or designed to be, including to be as a male or female.

Extras:

"…the body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus to be a sign of it.” Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West

Genesis 1 God creates Man and Woman

“The human body includes right from the beginning... the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift – and by means of this gift – fulfills the meaning of his being and existence.” – St. John Paull II

For more on this topic, check our latest article What’s Your Vision of Sexuality?

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Looking up pornography, arranging an affair or hookup; these things cut you off from you. Unwanted sexual behaviors are an escape mechanism and their gift is dissociation.

When you don’t know how to deal with the hardships in your life, dissociating through distraction can feel like an easy way out. But the further deep you are in your sexual sin, the farther you are walking away from you.

This leaves you operating in this world with mere fragments of you.

God made you body, mind, heart and soul. You can start reconnecting the fragments. This is key in having a healthy sexual relationship with your spouse or future spouse.

Learning how and why to face patterns of dissociation is an important first step towards becoming whole.

Let’s get started.

Highlights:“Dissociation seduces us out of the present moment and into the meaningless world of distraction.” - Jay Stringer

We learn to run to sexual activity to dissociate from the difficult things in life.

Sex within marriage is meant to be a time of deep, intimacy and connection not a time of dissociation.

Homework:

Let’s practice being present to the emotions we feel. Grounding is a way to bridge the gap between brain and body and heart. Practice Grounding in good feelings and bad feelings. Allow your body to feel the emotions as opposed to shutting them down.

• Practice belly breathing--place one hand on your stomach, and the other on your chest. Breathe slowly and deeply into your belly, trying to raise your hand like you are filling up a balloon or beach ball with air. Try to keep the hand on your chest still, breathing only into your stomach. Slowly breathe out, feeling the hand on your stomach lower like the balloon or ball is deflating. Notice how your breathing changes with the emotion.
• 5 Senses - What do you see? What do you feel? What do you smell? What do you hear? What do you taste? Slow down and take notice of your senses during a time when you feel panic, fear or sadness.

Extras:

“Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing” by Jay Stringer

For more on this topic, check our latest article Be Curious About What You Feel

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Parents, we are living in a digitally connected, sexually saturated world. Being a mom or dad in this day and age can feel more like Pioneer Parenting.

We are the first generation to raise kids in a world that is globally connected, 24/7. And the internet can be tough competition, especially when it comes to talking to our kids about sex. When you’re too tired or too uncomfortable to have “The Talk” with your son or daughter; the internet is always ready and willing to answer any question. No filter.

The internet is never going to be stumped by their questions. In fact, our kids have access to words and ideas we’ve never heard of.

So Parenting Pioneers, how do we handle this?

As your kids wonder, don’t let them wander. Questions about sex come from natural, normal curiosity. Your kids need you, not a search engine.

Listen in for encouragement and look to the Homework section for practical tips to equip you as you navigate the world alongside your child.

Highlights:We are the first generation to raise kids in world that is both digitally connected, sexually saturated.

We as moms or dads, in this digital age, have to step up or game in regards to parenting kids in this generation.

The internet’s never going to say “You’re too young to be asking that question.”

Homework:

Start having important, age-appropriate conversations with your kids while they’re young.

More conversations, more comfort. While it may feel awkward and awful at first, don’t limit you or your child to just one intense conversation. Keep the dialogue open and ongoing. The more conversations you have with your child, the more relaxed you’ll both feel about them.

Find adults in your community to help bear your insecurities and burdens, to practice conversations with them.

Extras:

Check out Josh's new book - Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field Guide for Parents

For more on this topic, check our latest article Why Parents Are Better Than the Internet

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The power to see and be seen is more than just opening our eyes.

We easily diminish that power with our human tendencies towards lust or comparison or judgment.

What is it like to see how Jesus sees?

In this episode, we’ll examine our human vision versus Jesus’ all-powerful, all-knowing, loving vision. Jesus knows you through and through and loves you.

Before hitting play, pray the words of a blind beggar and open your heart to learning how to see and be seen; “Lord I want to see.”

Let's become whole together by seeing as He sees.

Highlights:When we look at one another we have a tendency to compare each other.

When we look at one another we evaluate - we’re either raising someone or lowering someone on some kind of scale.

We consume one another with our eyes.

Jesus sees it all and yet he doesn’t compare us, doesn’t evaluate us, doesn’t consume us.

Homework:

The prescription to see like Jesus is to take and eat. In order to become a person who sees like Jesus sees (who doesn’t compare, evaluate or consume others), let’s start by praying like Bartimaeus, “Lord, we want to see. Open our eyes to see.”

Extras:

Galatians 5:15 “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

For more on this topic, check our latest article Why Being Seen Is Scary Business.

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Reality check friends, you have an enemy. An Enemy on the Prowl. The message in this episode isn’t meant to scare you.

Our purpose is to issue a loud wake-up call for your heart, mind, soul, and body.

More often than not, we don’t believe we have to deal with an actual enemy. But he is alive and active, taking shape in issues from our past and battles in our present.

There’s only one creature made in the image and likeness of God- that’s you. Satan can’t stand that. He’s been on the prowl since Adam and Eve.

Listen in to learn more about the enemy and prepare a battle plan. Because you, friend, are designed with an authority and an invitation to fight him.

Highlights:The enemy’s goal is to isolate us, to split us off from ourselves, from other people, and from God.

It is helpful to recognize this is the enemy of my soul trying to steal my joy, my attention, and all the good and perfect gifts from the Father of Lights.

If we are trying to grow in whatever area in our life and we are unaware or naively believing that the enemy is primarily going to leave us alone, sometimes we’ll end up vilifying ourselves or another person.

The accuser is lying and telling you that your sexual sin defines you.

Homework:

Questions to consider: Where in your life do you experience the sense that God is doing something mean to you? Or maybe that He’s holding out on you or not changing you in the way that you want or He’s leaving you alone? Could it be that the enemy is both attacking you in that area and then blaming God for it?

1. BE ON THE ALERT: The devil is on the prowl.
2. TAKE NOTICE: Ask yourself - Is this accusation? Is it temptation? Is it confusion? These can be the enemy trying to work in your life.
3. COME AGAINST HIM. Pray; “In the name of Jesus, I silence this voice. I belong to Jesus. I don’t belong to you. In the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. I silence you in the name of Jesus.”

Extras:

James 1:17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

1 Peter 5:8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

For more on this topic, check our latest article Can Pain Help You Quit Porn?

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You’re doing good work to break the patterns. But what happens when your unwanted sexual behavior steps into the room, in the flesh, or comes up on the screen in full color? Alarms go off. Does your alarm scream “Danger” or yell “Go For it!”? Disarm the Alarm.

Listen in as Josh explains these alarms; their distinctions, their source, and your response. Your response to those alarms matters a great deal.

We’ll also explore the concept of walking in the flesh versus walking in the Spirit.

When you find yourself falling in temptation and the alarms are sounding; we hope this episode gives you pause to say, “This time lord, I want to walk in Your spirit.”

Join us as we Disarm the Alarms.

Highlights:The alarm sounds very different but they’re both coming from the same source. And they’re both telling you to respond according to the flesh.

“The Holy Spirit has the power to renew and breakthrough generational patterns of unhealthy and destructive behavior.” - Kelly Minter referencing 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Be vigilant, not hyper-vigilant. Be sober, not scrupulous.

Turn the volume down on the fleshly alarms and tune our ears into the calm, still voice of the Father.

Homework:

When you hear the Alarm:

• Take deep breaths
• Treat yourself with kindness
• Be honest with the Lord “Lord You know the way I’ve done this before, I don’t want to go that way this time. Would you come?”
• Seek to open yourself to the power and presence of His spirit.

Read John 7:53-8:11 “The Woman Caught in Adultery”

Notice: Jesus doesn’t match their urgency. He bends down and writes in the dirt.

In the urgency of the flesh, Jesus models the power of pause.

The threat is diminished, there’s restoration, there’s dignity.

Hear Jesus’ words: “I did not condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

For more on this topic, check our latest article What to Do When Lust Sounds the Alarm

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Light is powerful. It can rise, grow, reflect, change, dim. Light can be intimidating, scary even when we consider it in the same breath of our secrets.

Jesus, the light of the world, offers His light to you.

We invite you to listen to this episode to consider Jesus’ light for you in the dark, painful, scary things in your life. We’ll focus on John 3 and 4 comparing Jesus’ meetings with Nicodemus vs the Samaritan woman at the well.

Let’s remember the promise when Jesus said He came into the world not to condemn it but to save it.

The light Jesus offers is not a spotlight to glaringly expose your shame.

We have a good God offering good light meant to heal you and make you whole.

Let’s listen in.

Highlights:When we have sin in our lives, things that have been done to us by others, or things that we have done, it can be really scary to be in the light with those things.

Jesus doesn’t call us into the light because he wants to harm us. He calls us into the light, as painful as it can be to be there because He wants to heal us.

Homework:

What do you want to bring into the light? What do you have hiding?

What if Jesus is inviting you into the light so you can be healed?

For more on this topic, check our latest article Why You Are Meant to Brave the Dangerous Light

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Your body was created by God and it is very good. If that doesn’t feel true to you, this episode is for you.

We’re challenging the lie that says your body is to blame. And that’s harder than it sounds.

What would it look like to allow the words in this podcast to make their way from your ears to your brain, to your heart all the way to your fingertips? Be willing to believe your body is not the enemy.

This shift in mindset matters so much as you find yourself wrestling with temptation and sin. Your body is an ally, fight for it not against it.

Jesus himself saw fit to move into the human body. God is not against your body. He is for it.

Are you?

Highlights:God is not against our bodies. God is for our bodies.

If our bodies are bad then the incarnation of Christ ceases to make sense.

Jesus became flesh - fully God and fully human. The incarnation of Jesus is affirmation of the goodness of the body.

Homework:

Whether you’re wrestling against pornography, food, alcohol - Consider your battle to be not against your body but FOR your body. How does that change your approach? Your choices?

Resources:

Romans 8 We are waiting the redemption of our bodies.

Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship.1 Corinthians 6 *“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

"That which He has not assumed He has not healed.”* Saint Gregory of Nazianzus

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To “tread” means to walk in a specified way. Tread Boldly.

As a parent, especially of teens, you may consider treading carefully as the best way to handle hormones and cold shoulders and uncomfortable conversations. But, as you’ll hear Josh explain; you are called to tread boldly.

This is a special episode as our very own Josh Glaser releases his first book today - “Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field Guide for Parents.”

Josh and co-author, Daniel Weiss, lay out the groundwork for you to be better equipped in our digitally saturated culture. Don’t shy away from this one.

This is a unique opportunity to hear Josh’s heart and advice before reading the book. What’s one way to tread boldly today? “Focus on what you are FOR, not against.”

Listen in.

Highlights:

Backward Vision: “Don’t have sex until you’re married. Don’t look at pornography.” That’s backward vision. Look forward.

Don’t focus on the sin. Focus on the goal.

Kids who have had premarital sex need a vision that is more robust than how they did sexually in one given moment or season.

Homework:

Forming a Family Vision:

1. Mark your Starting Point as right here, right now. Understand it can and will travel with you.
2. Consider falls or setbacks as opportunities to grow NOT failures of the goal.
3. Let the focus be on what you are FOR versus what you are against.
4. Focus on Jesus, not your sin or performance.

Resources:

Read more about this topic at Self-Giving, Self-Sacrificing Love - Treading Boldly
treadingboldly.com
“Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field Guide for Parents” by Daniel Weiss & Joshua Glaser

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We all long to be known, to be seen, and to be loved for who we are. Jesus aches for this very thing, and this is why Jesus Wants to Wash Our Feet.

Are you willing to be cleansed by Jesus? For him to stoop down and to wash your dirty feet? For him to come near to the parts of you that perhaps even you don't want to look at yourself? This week Josh humbly speaks about Pride Month, LGBTQ+ loved ones, about pride in general, and about the humility of Jesus. He speaks deeply about the longing that Jesus has to cleanse us all of our dirt, our past, our hurts, our pride. He wants to enter into our pain and sin, and wash us clean.

Let us put aside everything that keeps us from allowing Jesus to cleanse us and let us wash the feet of others just as Jesus does. Are you ready to Become more Whole?

Highlights:

...want to just honor the the reality that every single one of us, every single one of us longs to be known longs to belong, longs to be accepted longs to be affirmed, as the people we are...

So my question for you today, and one of the reason I think this comes up in my prayer last week, is one of the reasons that we would say no to Jesus washing us.

He actually desires to cleanse us from those things.

Resources:

Read more about this topic at Jesus Will Wash Your Feet If…
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Discovering your young son or daughter has been exposed to pornography is upsetting. You can’t make your children un-see what they saw, but you can help turn a bad thing into an opportunity for good conversation and a deeper connection with you around a very important topic.

This week Josh jumps into 7 very important things not to do when you as a Parent find out your son or daughter has been looking at porn.

Let us equip ourselves and one another as we continue towards “Becoming Whole.”

Highlights:

So many of us when we find out a son or daughter's been viewing porn, we feel paralyzed, we feel concerned we don't know what to do, we feel inadequate, we don't feel prepared for this. Temptation is a normal human experience for men and women living in a fallen world, including saved men and women, Christian men, and women who have a new identity in Christ.

...if your son or daughter has been exposed to pornography, they've been exposed to something that has troubled the waters of their soul, that it is disruptive stuff that they've seen.

Don't ignore those things in your heart, this is actually an opportunity for you to grow closer to Jesus.

7 Things Not to do:

• Don’t freak out
• Don’t shame your kids
• Don’t do nothing
• Don’t let your own failures disqualify you
• Don’t lecture
• Don’t go it alone
• Don’t make your children your god

H

Resources:

Read more about this topic at 7 Things Not to Do When Your Child’s Exposed to Porn
Read Josh's new book Treading Boldly through a Pornographic World: A Field Guide for Parents

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Temptation and Accusation are some of the strongest and most used tools of the devil(s) in making us feel like we are not worth it, we are weak, we will never heal and so many other lies he whispers to us. Temptation's One-Two Punch hurts!

In this episode, we’re diving into the whys of temptation and the ways in which this deceiving intruder tries to get at us.

A left jab gets us on our heels, and the right cross comes in fast and knocks us off our feet. This is right where the devil wants us.

The truth is, that God is in the ring with us. He is beside us as we continue to fight and even when we fall against this sneaky enemy we have. When it comes to sexuality and the lies we believe, we must equip ourselves with truth.

Let us equip ourselves and one another as our next step to “Becoming Whole.”

Highlights:

Temptation is a normal human experience for men and women living in a fallen world, including saved men and women, Christian men, and women who have a new identity in Christ.

...the real power of the accusation is when we when you bite on it when you start agreeing with the accuser and saying, you know what, you're right. You're right.

Freedom does not necessarily mean that you are free from the feeling of temptation. Freedom means you have the power to say no to that temptation.

Homework:

Questions for Reflection:

• Where is he attacking you?
• What are you believing about yourself because of what he whispers?
• Where do you feel shame? (Identify it and maybe seek Healing or Listening Prayer for it)

You can read even more about this from Josh at Is This One-Two Punch From the Enemy Taking You Out?

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Porn, voyeurism, extramarital affairs - We do what we do based on what we believe about ourselves. Let's start examining the roots.

In this episode, we’re going beyond behaviors to examine roots.

Understanding what you believe to be the truth about who you are deep down is key to making real change. And you are worthy.

True change is more than a shift in behavior. Examining your deep-down beliefs about yourself determines how you’re growing, or not. Lord, open our hearts and show us what we are believing about ourselves.

Give us the courage to examine our roots as our next step to “Becoming Whole.”

Highlights:

This is not about a bad habit. This is about an issue with your sense of identity.

If you’re doing something you feel ashamed about its because you are reinforcing the shame you already feel about yourself.

Our new identity isn’t meant to be a mask that we wear over our identity, that false identity comes off and we are reborn.

Homework:

H.A.L.T.S. These basic needs can become triggers unless we identify them and move in a healthy direction with them.

H - Hungry

A- Angry

L - Lonely

T - Tired

S - Stressed

The next time you feel one of these basic needs: Identify it and Challenge yourself to eat a good snack, reach out to a friend, take a 20-minute nap, take long, deep breaths, etc. THEN make a decision.

Questions for Reflection:

• Where are you wrestling with habitual sin?
• What are you believing about yourself that might contribute to that habit?
• Where do you believe you are shameful in your identity? (Identify it and maybe seek Healing or Listening Prayer for it)

You can read even more about this from Josh at One Sign You Don't Believe Who You Really Are

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Is lust okay in marriage? That’s a loaded question.

Dan Keefer joins the podcast to unpack the answer.

Stopping to consider lust in your marriage may be new to you. We’ll take the first step to define and understand what lust means. There are so many layers. And this conversation is careful to help you understand them. Picking and choosing parts of your spouse to focus on deconstructs the person you married.

We’re going to look at your spouse and lust more thoughtfully. We’ll go beyond fantasy so sexual intercourse becomes an expression of connection versus selfish wants. This look at lust points out it’s what we do with it; using phrases like “If Only…Then” can take our good, God-given desire and steer it somewhere it doesn’t belong.

So, is lust okay in marriage? Let’s listen and find out.

Highlights:

Lust is using another person or using their image for selfish, sexual gratification

Sexual Intimacy: Something that is born out of the relationship, born out of the connection. out of seeing one another

Lust: comes from a heart of dissatisfaction, taking an aspect of another person and believing that IF ONLY this were different, THEN I would be in a better spot

Homework:

• “An act of selflessness has the potential to build desire.” What do selfless acts look like in your marriage day to day? (Setting the coffee machine the night before, doing the dishes, filling up the gas tank, scheduling a date night)
• Rather than acting with the end goal of having sex; shift to consider what would it look like to build desire in the moment.
• HOLD HANDS with your spouse: allow yourself to be saturated in the oxytocin that’s released from intertwining your fingers & saturated in the oneness of that intimacy.

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Recovery from unwanted sexual behavior is up to you. And only you can know how much of “you” is going into the work. It's about postures of recovery.

In this episode, Josh and Kit examine a few postures toward recovery and how to readjust for lasting impact.

This important journey is about more than trying to quit a bad habit. True healing hinges on your posture. How vulnerable are you? Who are you doing this for?

We are digging deep into these questions with you. We pray you feel brave enough to recognize your motivation, honest enough to acknowledge your true level of commitment, and willing to stretch into a posture for true recovery.

God is inviting you to more.

Highlights:

Postures of Recovery: If I’m really doing the work of recovery, it means that I am literally walking places, looking at parts of my life, talking about things that I may have never looked at, talked about or walked through before and that takes courage.

Shallow recovery is like weeding, whereas real recovery is more like excavation

The reality of recovery is it extends beneath the ground in all sorts of directions and so, in recovery, we’re looking for roots. It isn’t about going in and plucking a weed.

Reflection:

What am I learning that I need to do for my sake to become the whole person that I was meant to become?

Why are you in recovery, because you don’t want to repeat that behavior anymore? Or are you in recovery to get more out of life?

EXTRAS

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives; vulnerability is the path.”

Brené Brown “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead.”

Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

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Desire is one of those touchy subjects no one really wants to touch. But we’re going there.

Depending on the way you were raised; you might consider desire to be mysterious or dirty or something to be quiet about.

In this audio snippet from our latest video, Kit and Rebecca are putting the subject of desire front and center. That deep down longing is part of your special wiring and it is worth exploring.

Desire is spiritual, emotional, and physical - that means facing it is a vital part of your spiritual journey. If you’re battling unwanted sexual behavior, let this conversation guide you into your own conversation with God about how your desire feels distorted. If you’re a parent, listen in for ways to understand your own desire and guide your children with more compassion.

Have you considered bringing your desires before your Heavenly Father? God knows your deepest longings because He instilled them in you.

Let’s reframe how we look at Desire. Press Play.

Highlights:

It takes a lot of work to connect what you need with what your body is telling you.

What we really need is to feel safe, to feel comfort, to not feel alone - acknowledging that can feel really vulnerable and we have to slow down to get there.

Naming the deeper longings we have can lead to deeper intimacy with God. And can be a very healing and spiritual part of our journey.

Reflection:

Desire is pointing you towards something. Take time to ask God these questions:

What am I searching for? What are my unmet needs?

What are my deeper longings?

What did I learn as a child about desire? How did it impact my desire today?

Who is the person God created me to be?

EXTRAS

Where Do I Start? Becoming a Woman of Sexual Integrity Free video series

Where Do I Start? Becoming a Man of Sexual Integrity Free video series

“The Glory of God is man fully alive.” Saint Irenaeus

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Infidelity can feel as crushing and disorienting as an earthquake. Sexual Betrayal is trauma. To help us navigate the aftershocks of discovery and pain; we’ve invited Dr. Barbara Steffens to the podcast. The Earthquake of Sexual Betrayal.

As the founder of the APSATS, the Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists, Dr. Steffens points out this is more than relationship counseling. She walks us through sexual betrayal with both the expertise of a trained clinician and the heart of a woman who has been betrayed. The earthquake of infidelity is unexpected.

In the midst of your disorientation; we hope you’ll take this unique and deep offering as a first step to understanding your pain in a new way. And then, use it as a launching point to move you in your next steps to “Becoming Whole.”

If you want to read more on this topic, you can at Why You’re Still Angry at Your Recovering Spouse.

Highlights:

If we don’t understand it as trauma, what had been happening is that the focus goes onto the betrayed partner that says, “What was wrong with you that you would choose someone who would do this to you?”If Christians begin to practice thinking and talking about sex as a form of self-giving love, that’s what sex is designed to be.

Once we understand that this is trauma it provides hope because we know how to heal. This is my body given for you - given is the operative word

The aftershocks are usually finding out more information and the partner will ask questions. What does it lookIf Sex is an act of self-giving love, then tonight we didn’t reach climax but I’m going to love you where you are tonight. I’m going to love you in this space.

Homework:

Here are some professional options to explore:

• “Therapeutic Disclosure “ – a process facilitated by a trained professional for your spouse (if willing) to offer a planned, intentional way to disclose the truth.
• Couples Crisis Intervention
• Group Therapy

Resources:“Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal” by Dr Barbara Steffens, Ph.D., LPCC

https://www.drbarbarasteffens.com

Other resources we recommended for Marriage Recovery.

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Calling all husbands and wives - “Does Your Marriage Need a Different Sexual Lens?”

Josh recently shared this question through a thoughtful article on the Regeneration Ministries website. And today, Josh and Kit are unpacking what it means so you can experience sex in a better way with your spouse.

Our culture tends to put expectations sex - what it should look like, what you should look like, how you should feel, when it should happen, even how often it should happen. Sex is all about what you get out of it.

In this conversation, we’re hoping to shift our gaze from what the world tells us about sex and ask our Creator what He means it to be instead.

That’s where the shift comes in.

The different lens we’re exploring transfers sex from self-serving opportunity to an opportunity to give of yourself. When you strip away the societal constructs to allow yourself to be naked in more than a physical way; you are then able to gift yourself to your spouse in a way that brings freedom and love and appreciation. The world entangles insecurity into sex.

Allow the challenge in this episode to invite depth and vulnerability and delight for you and your spouse.

Highlights:

If Christians begin to practice thinking and talking about sex as a form of self-giving love, that’s what sex is designed to be.

This is my body given for you - given is the operative word

What does it lookIf Sex is an act of self-giving love, then tonight we didn’t reach climax but I’m going to love you where you are tonight. I’m going to love you in this space.

Homework:

Lay down the comparison of friends’ marriages or sex lives.

Pray and practice against Coveting. The words “If Only” can be like flags warning that you are wanting what others have; be aware and take notice of what you have in your spouse and in your marriage.

Take notice and ask yourself: What is our marriage like? How are we uniquely ourselves in this marriage?

Practice delighting in your spouse (laying aside criticism and comparison); what about your spouse first attracted you? What attracts you now? Be aware of parts of him/her, things about their voice and personality. Then share it with him/her.

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If you are saying “I can’t handle this. I can’t control this. I don’t have answers.” It sounds like you may be at the end of you. How do you get from there to admitting, “It’s okay that I’m not okay.” There’s a lot of work involved.

That “at the end of you” feeling coupled with ongoing recovery work towards sexual integrity or for saving your marriage can feel overwhelming.

We pray this episode comes alongside you. Listen in as we turn to Psalm 131 and find an invitation to go beyond the practical day-to-day work towards recovery and go beyond the end of you. Your Heavenly Father wants more than recovery for you. He also wants wholeness for you and with you.

Josh and Kit point out the invitation to be small in the midst of big anxiety and temptation. We need to be willing to understand some of the ways we haven’t been able to humble ourselves, then surrender to God and trust Him with these big things. This is deep, inner work - releasing your ability to fix it and your grip on a fixed outcome to a God you may not trust in this moment.

Your Heavenly Father wants more for you; becoming whole means going beyond existing, peace does not come from an outcome and when you find yourself at the end of you, if you’re heart is willing; you will find God.

Highlights:

At some point in time, in any given tragic situation in life we come to the end of ourselves. And we have to admit that.

Pain and our ability to feel pain is a gift from God because it alerts us that there is a problem.

What does it look like to be at the end of yourself? I can’t manage this. I can’t control this. I don’t have answers.

Homework:

Quiet yourself now. Invite God’s presence in & pray this invitation to be small.

Psalm 131

A song of ascents.

My heart is not proud, Lord,

my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters

or things too wonderful for me.

But I have calmed and quieted myself,

I am like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord

both now and forevermore.

A Prayer: “Lord what do I need? How do I need to understand who I am and how I respond? How do I learn to trust you and believe you and your promises more than I want this circumstance or outcome?

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We Are All Searching For Meaning.

Right now, let’s take notice. For this next half hour together, let’s be aware of that need deep inside you. And this time, let’s promise to not look away but to be present and understanding because you are a person of great worth.

Your habit of turning to pornography or hooking up is more than an unwanted sexual behavior. That pattern in your life is connected to a desire for worth. But searching for a sense of calling is not limited to just you.

Googling “How do I find purpose,” comes in with more than 10,880,000,000 results. We are all searching for meaning.

Sometimes, that lack of mission can become a trigger for unwanted sexual behaviors. On this episode, Josh and Kit ask important questions while coaching you through taking time to listen for your own answers. Fruitfulness is attached to our sexuality. Futility can take that sideways into things like porn and more.

Beloved one, there is a tension between the fruitful and futile. Let’s explore and learn together on this episode of “Becoming Whole.”

Highlights:

When we’re struggling with sin, we’re searching for something. We’re searching for some foundation, some meaning.

It’s built into us to be pursuing meaning and fruitfulness in our lives

Going to pornography, maybe even the type of pornography you choose can create a sense of having power

Homework:

• Rather than vilify the unwanted sexual behaviors you’re looking to; Let’s stop and figure out the WHY. Ask yourself: What is my fantasy pointing me to? Now that you’ve named it, what do you do with it?
• Can you receive this message from God today: I value you so much as a beloved son or as a beloved daughter. You are free to take risks, to experience, to try, to fall to get back up. Because I want your life to have meaning. I’ve created you for meaning, with meaning.
• Today, think of one way You can live with purpose. Think simple - a phone call, a written note, etc.

Resources/Extras:

Jay Stringer Unwanted: How sexual brokenness reveals our way to healing

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Is lust truly every man’s battle? Generally speaking, lust gets put in a “Men Only” category. Maybe that’s because of the idea that men are more visual than women and thus more prone to this disordered desire.

On this episode of “Becoming Whole,” Josh and Dan distinguish desire from lust imploring accountability and honesty. The world tells us men are bound to fall into lust but this conversation hopes to refute that toxic message and help you break free.

This is not about condemnation.

Consider this episode more of an ongoing invitation to becoming whole, looking beyond your disordered desire to connect with the freedom and honor God has for you.

Highlights:

Lust dehumanizes the person. It reduces them to be an object of desire, an object to be consumed. It also dehumanizes the person who is doing the lusting, it reduces who he is as a man.

Love always sees the whole person. Love does not use another person. Love actually tries to be self giving.

When a man lusts, even though it might feel natural, it might feel like this is what men do; he’s actually sinning against his own eyes, his own heart, his own mind, his own body.

Homework:

• Questions for Reflection: Does your picture of this other person include reality: that he or she wakes up in the morning with messy hair and bad breath? that sometimes they get sick? Does it include that they have a heart, that they have longings? Does it include that they have a past? And they have a mother and a father?
• Be Aware of the two words: IF ONLY. Jesus invites us to be present where we are. The words “If only” take us and the person we’re lusting OUT of the present.
• Pray, “I want to be the kind of man Jesus was.”

Resources/Extras:

Proverbs 27:20 “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.”

1 Corinthians 6:12 “’I have the right to do anything,’ you say—but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’—but I will not be mastered by anything. You say, ‘Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.’ The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore,honor God with your bodies.”

Matthew 6:22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.”

Luke 7:44 “Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman?’”

Job 31:1-4 “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. For what is our lot from God above, our heritage from the Almighty on high? Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong? Does he not see my ways and count my every step?

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We are designed for hugs and holding hands and more. Touch IS a good gift from God. Healthy touch!

Maybe this truth has you clenching your jaw but don’t be too quick to run away from this conversation. Your current sexual addiction or your past sexual trauma may have twisted the idea of touch into dark confusion and shame.

If so, please stay. Perhaps you’re one of the many people during this pandemic going long stretches of time without an embrace, please stay. Touch and longing are not easy topics to bring up in conversation.

So, let this episode with Josh, Kit and Kyle be a starting point for you. We pray you won’t stay stuck in the messages about sexual desire from the world or how your family of origin framed it. We pray you will learn to understand basic desire as good and avoid the dangerous turns of shame.

For now, quiet the other messages on desire and invite God to tell you His truth for you and your body.

Highlights:

God created us for touch. Touch is actually really important and very good.

We paint people as the danger. What we want to do is untwist the misdirected desire away.

There’s a narrative in our culture that limits us in our thinking on sexual arousal. The cultural narrative on sexual arousal tells us, limiting us to “This is who you are. This is who you want. This is pointing you towards utmost satisfaction.”

Homework:

1. Inviting God into your moments of longing creates an ongoing conversation. So, when you do need Him, He can say; “Oh we know what that is. We’ve talked about that before. I’m here for you. I’m in this. Remember, here’s how we think about it.”

Here are some prayers:

• Lord, I’m sensing something that in my heart I know is not appropriate for this moment. Lord, help me to redirect. Help me to see this person through your eyes and not my own. Help me to recognize this is one of your image bearers and to see them as You see them.

• Lord, I know that at the heart of this is my desire to experience beauty and so this is the reaction I get when I see your beauty but Lord I want to be able to see beauty in a way that doesn’t defile.

• You’ve heard our conversation on Healthy Touch. Now, we encourage you to find safe places to keep talking about these things- mentor, spiritual director or spiritual coach.

Resources/Extras:

John 13:25 tells us the apostle John was resting on the breast of Jesus. That was a place he went to for comfort. God gave us imaginations. He allows us to insert ourselves into Scripture so maybe that’s a means of comfort in times of longing.

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An anonymous question came in through the Regeneration Ministries blog setting the stage for this conversation “…Why does God set one free from sin and stronghold immediately and not another?“ Why are we waiting for healing and other's aren't?

If you keep struggling with sexual sin and have watched others gain freedom; that can feel hard.

On this episode of “Becoming Whole,” Josh and Kit tackle the mystery of healing and the ‘why’s’ that can come with it. Listen in as they navigate the touchy questions like “Is it something you earn? Why don’t I deserve it?”

It can feel like there’s an unevenness in healing. But, witnessing someone else’s freedom from sexual sin while you keep struggling shouldn’t lead to condemning God or you.

God has a different experience for you.

If you are longing to find freedom, we pray this conversation softens your heart to see the Hope available for you.

Highlights:

When we start interpreting our experience of not being set free from something with an angle that either accuses us or accuses God; that’s an indicator that the enemy is getting his own opinion in there that’s unhelpful.

The way God heals one person is not the way, necessarily He heals every person.

There are different layers of what needs to be sanctified, what needs healing, what needs transformation in our lives.

Homework:

Self Reflection: Are you speaking failure over your habits and patterns?

Try using different language around your sins and habits.

Practice saying: “Today, I’ve struggled this way” instead of “This is my struggle.”

Find people to remind you of God’s kindness.

Pick any two or three of these verses and pay attention to the details (who was asking for healing, what their condition was, the method Jesus used) - John 2:1-11, John 4:46-47, Luke 5:1-11, Mark 1:23-28, 30-31,40-45, Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:11-18, Matthew 8:23-27, Matthew 8:28-34, Matthew 9:1-8, 18-26, Luke 8:43-48, Matthew 9:27-31, 32-33, John 5:1-9, Matthew 12:10-13, 22, Matthew 14:15-21, Matthew 15:22-28, Mark 7:31-37, Matthew 15:32-39, Mark 8:22-26, Matthew 17:14-21, John 9:1-38, Luke 13: 10-17, Luke 14:1-4, Luke 17:11-19, John 11:1-46, Matthew 20:30-34, Matthew 21:18-22, Luke 22:50-51, Luke 24:5-6, John 21:1-14

Jesus healed a lot of people from a multitude of ailments, at varying stages of sickness, using a lot of different methods. Considering all the details of these stories is a way to appreciate the mystery of Jesus’ healing.

Resources/Extras:

Romans 2:4 “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

It’s the kindness of God that leaves us to repentance. You can’t outrun God’s grace.

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Abuse is a powerful weapon; destroying its victim's sense of value and robbing their voice. Years of ongoing physical, emotional, and sexual abuse had reduced Bonnie’s voice to a mere whisper.

In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” we are honored to let Bonnie use her voice to tell her story.

The fact that Bonnie would sit at a microphone to share with you reveals the triumph of her healing. Her words are transparent revealing a beautiful honesty with God even through the details of her abuse.

And while she’s experienced healing, Bonnie is still doing the work with her Regeneration Ministries counselor, Anne Donahue.

This conversation is a unique opportunity to hear from both counselor and client; how their partnership of Spiritual Coaching and prayer operates.

Hearing Bonnie tell her story, Anne affirm and encourage Bonnie, and hearing the Lord through it all is tender and powerful.

Light a candle. Invite Jesus to listen to Bonnie’s story with you. And, let Him tell you what He wants for you on this journey to “Becoming Whole.”

Highlights:

“Abuse is an invasion of our boundaries. It is an attack of our personhood. It usually happens when someone stronger than we are overpowers us physically, emotionally or sexually. It affects our value.”

I was told on a daily basis that I was never wanted

We don’t always realize we’re in such a hard situation until we share it with others or until we are freed from that situation

Homework:

Retreat vs Repeat - do you see this coping mechanism in your life? Are you running away from pain and trauma? Or do you find yourself repeating the narrative you grew up with?

Journal - Try using this daily practice to record gratitude and to ask God the hard questions

Extras:

Path through the Wilderness: Becoming Who You Were Meant to Be by Rev. Bob Ragan

Exodus 23:30 Little by little I will drive them out before you until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

Juanita Ryan - Guided Prayers to promote healing from childhood trauma

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Life with Jesus does not mean a life without suffering. So, how do we learn How to suffer well?

Now, maybe that’s what you were taught or maybe you just assumed it to be true. Let’s face it, the typical American dream version of Christianity can paint a pain-free picture. But as you know, suffering is a reality.

The world’s message about pain doesn’t set us up well either.

We hope you’ll take time to listen as Josh, Kit Elmer, and Dan Keefer discuss the hard truth about suffering and constructive ways to suffer well. The ripple effects of avoiding or numbing out affect the most important relationships in our lives.

You owe it to you and to those around you to learn to suffer well. Listen in.

Highlights:

Our sexuality is deeply impacted by suffering. Our relationships are deeply impacted by suffering and if we don’t learn to suffer well then, these parts of our lives are going to continue to suffer.

So often we try to bring our painful parts of life and we try to medicate those by running to those sexual behaviors

When we accept our weaknesses, our suffering; we accept Christ’s strength.

Homework:

Typical messages around suffering that aren’t helpful:

• You must have done something wrong to have brought this suffering upon yourself.
• If you had enough faith, you’d be able to get out of this
• Pain is bad, avoid it, get away from it, dismiss it. There is nothing good that can come from embracing it.

When someone shares their suffering with you, your first step is to LISTEN. Resist trying to share a verse or a remedy. Let your listening be the gift.

Extras:

Saul’s Conversion Acts 9:18

Isaiah 30:20 “Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.” NIV

OR “Though the Lord gave you adversity for food and suffering for drink, he will still be with you to teach you. You will see your teacher with your own eyes.” NLT

Philippians 4:10-13 “I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it.

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

John 11:17-30 Jesus wept at Lazarus death

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

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Your Bro’s, Your Girls, Your Tribe, Your Squad - No matter what you call it, you need a deeper kind of friendship.

You and I are wired for connection. Friendship is a special kind of relationship that builds intimacy and brings fun while giving us some footing in this world.

Rebecca Baker joins Josh and Kit on the podcast today to unwrap the gift of friendship. You’ll hear how true friends don’t just happen. Intentionality and vulnerability and risk are worth the gain.

We hope this conversation blesses you, encouraging you to ask good questions, share your stories, listen & laugh well, standing shoulder to shoulder with the friend God has for you.

Highlights:

In a deeper kind of friendship, you are inviting someone into your life to take a different kind of role in your life-giving them a place where they can speak into your life, they can hold you accountable, they can get to know you in a deeper way which is beautiful and scary.

We trust that a friend will tell us the truth about what they see, because they care about us, not because they want to wound us.

Friends have a unique way of loving us and supporting us and challenging us and calling us to better versions of ourselves in a way that’s unique from other types of relationships

Homework:

Praying for Friendship: Bring your need for deeper connections to God, ask Him for good friends and then pay attention to who else is on the journey alongside you.

Extras:C.S. Lewis “The Four Loves” - “To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it.”

Proverbs 27:17 “Iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

Proverbs 27:6 “Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.”

Plato “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”

BW Podcasts you will enjoy - “Band of Brothers - Men need Each other” & “The Art of Human Relationships”

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“I want what I want.” There it is; Temptation is calling.

You’re in deep and need an escape. But, you’ve made a commitment to stop.

Desire can flip the switch on commitment, detouring your willpower and ushering shame in like a tidal wave. It’s powerful that way but in moments of temptation, you may forget you have power too.

In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” Josh and Kit offer you a pro-active approach to temptation with practical ways to use your power. Be sure to scroll down to the Homework and Extras sections for ways to maximize your resistance before temptation gets loud.

Highlights:

Guilt says what I did was wrong. Shame says You are bad.

Temptations lead to a moment of escape. It’s a drug in that moment of difficulty.

Because God is kind and compassionate with us, we can be kind and compassionate with ourselves.

Homework:

Step 1: INVITE GOD IN. You may have pushed God out of this scenario for any number of reasons. Now push back on that shame or guilt and invite Him back in. Step 2: ASK GOD how He sees you, to fight alongside you. Be specific and ask what ideas He would offer in times of temptation. Satan sees these moments and starts trying to fan the flame, then accuses you for having them.

Step 2: PREPARE. You’ve asked God, now be prepared for Him to answer. Keep a journal of this conversation, being aware of how He may answer. If there’s a specific verse, write it out and keep it handy for times of need. Maybe there’s a song or two that speaks to you, make a playlist to put on repeat for times when you struggle. Preparing for these weak moments with God is a powerful way to speak to yourself when you’re tempted.

IN THE MOMENT of temptation, acknowledge it. Be kind to yourself and be curious. Self-compassion and insight give you choices, agency, power. So, ask yourself: What’s going on with you? Comfort yourself at the moment. Self-empathy and understanding are very powerful in the recovery process.

Extras:Podcast Episode: “Self-Kindness Heals”

Romans 2:4 “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence

“Do not be discouraged by the resistance you will encounter from your human nature; you must go against your human inclinations. Often, in the beginning, you will think that you are wasting time, but you must go on, be determined, and persevere in it until death, despite all the difficulties.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Matthew 17:20 “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

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On this episode of “Becoming Whole,” Josh and Kit unpack a spirituality tool for you that may seem tiny but has huge benefits.

“The Examen” is a way to hit pause on your schedule to sift the day out. It’s a powerful habit developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola more than 500 years ago. Now more than ever, while our world glorifies busy-ness, hurriedness, loudness; the quiet slow of The Examen feels more than necessary.

It may also feel counter-cultural and uncomfortable at times. And yet, the value of opening your eyes and your heart to being truly aware of the life before you can not be denied.

We hope you’ll consider the structured quiet time to reflect and see the good and hard spots in your day to day. In the show notes, you’ll find different ways to incorporate The Examen as an intentional process in your precious life.

Highlights:

The Examen: It’s slowing down long enough to pay attention to those things and bring them to God and say, ‘What do I learn about myself from that?”

The Examen: It’s a way to get at what’s going on in our lives in an intentional way and to reflect on it and to learn from it

The Examen reveals some of those moments are actually invitations from the Holy Spirit. It shows us God remembers the wounds of our lives, the patterns, the traumas, the disappointments; and wants to bring them to the surface to heal them.

Homework:

The EXAMEN: Pick a time of day, Set aside 5 minutes, Breathe, Pray, Ask the Holy Spirit to help you notice.

The Examen Prayer Card from Ignatian Spirituality

Lunchtime Examen

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Rewind to a time in your past that was full of hurt, pain, wounding.

Release, if you can, any feelings of shame and grief. As hard as it may be to believe; there is more to be found in your past wounding.

In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” Josh and Kit explore the practice of rewinding to reveal the glory waiting in the wounding.

This is not a practice of glossing over our pasts looking for the positives. We are loved by a God of redemption who has, yes, written glory even in your wounding. We hope you’ll accept this as an invitation to begin exploring the glory that is yours to claim, to take notice of the elements you never noticed before.

Satan wants you to stay stuck, to be lost in rejection and shame.

But God is waiting to give you more through the little version of you who endured so much.

That version of you, who was hurt so long ago, deserves another look back to discover the way forward in healing and strength and God-given glory.

Highlights:

We’re opening ourselves to the glory that was ours in our past including in our wound stories.

We need to see the glory and the strength of who we are, who we were, even in those moments.

God is present in all the good and the negative. And the enemy wants us just to focus on, even in our healing, he wants us to focus on just the bad things that happened.

Homework:

Think back to a painful memory: What was the enemy going after in that moment? What does it say about you that you were able to endure all you walked through?

Consider the story of The Woman at the well John 4:1-42. Who was the woman? What was her sin? How must she have felt getting water everyday apart from everyone else? Why would Jesus choose her? What did Jesus see in her? Where was the glory in her story?

Extras:
Find Jay StringerOnline

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Can you recognize a destructive relationship?

No relationship is perfect. But, we’re talking about more than just feeling disappointed. Can you tell the difference between a difficult relationship and one that is tearing you down?

In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” Josh and Kit identify patterns to look for and unpack what they mean.

Our deepest desire is to be known and loved. At a deep level then, you must be aware that something is not right. We hope this message puts some light on the truth about your relationships, the good and the bad.

We hope you’ll learn what is healthy versus unhealthy.

We hope you’ll be empowered to make change and move forward in health and reclaim your hope. (This conversation is inspired by “The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope” by Leslie Vernick. Please see the Homework and Extras section below for more)

Highlights:

Ask God for the truth, begin to switch them out, begin to change the narrative

When our spouse has a chronic indifference about who we are and what we need, that eats away at the very core of how we’re wired to be loved and known.

Where there are lies or denial in a relationship, there’s really no foundation to build on.

Homework:

Five Patterns (repetitive, characterized by a lack of remorse)

1. Reactive Abuse: Physical, Sexual, Spiritual, Economical, or Verbal
2. Gross imbalance of power and control with an attitude of entitlement
3. Chronic deceit
4. Chronic dependency
5. Chronic indifference

Ways to Embrace Change (begin with what’s my part and owning it). And then:

1. Refuse to keep secrets
2. Reach out and Get Support
3. Prayer - talk to God about what’s going on
4. Name what scares you
5. Identify lies and replace them with corresponding truth

EXTRAS
“The Emotionally Destructive Marriage: How to Find Your Voice and Reclaim Your Hope” By Leslie Vernick

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The Power Stance - feet apart, chest out, arms at your side.

The pose is meant to inspire your own sense of confidence while giving others the idea you are powerful.

The issue goes deeper than a perception though. And in this episode, Josh and Dan take a look at the past for where the Power Issues lie.

When it comes to men and their unwanted sexual behaviors, power, or lack thereof, can point to the patterns we want to overcome.

Listen in for a better understanding of what power is all about.

If we’re hoping to recover from an addiction, the affair, cycles of abuse; we have to identify our the power issue in our story. Let’s take a step back in order to move towards becoming the empowered man with purpose and intentionality you are meant to be.

Highlights:

Any power that Jesus wielded, he wielded for the sake of others. He used his power, recognized his power was a tool for the sake of love. That’s our goal.

We need others that are on this journey with us to give us the courage to move towards another and to speak into something to have Christ like influence or power in a situation

Jesus is the picture of someone who has power, who could use power but willingly lays it down - That’s a place we’re invited to come from.

Homework:

Gateway Questions to Understanding Power:

• What have your experiences with power been?
• Who had power in your life and how did they yield that power? Was it a gift to you? Was it a threat to you?
• What is it a harm to you?
• What kind of influence do I have over my environment?

Realms of Power:

1. The Over-Powering Man: misuses/abuses power
2. The Dis-Empowered Man: has issues with exerting whatever strength, influence, voice he’s supposed to have in his world.
3. Being Empowered Men with voice, substance, agency in the world.

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Expectations for how the holidays should be were even more upside down this year because 2020. The usual anticipation we all feel leading up to Christmas has come and gone.

Now what?

Hope.

Beyond expectation and anticipation, there is Hope. The very virtue of Hope is living in the present moment with the validation of a close, attentive God covering your life. Listen in for how and why you need to invite God into your hopes and then take notice.
We pray you’ll be encouraged to train your eyes to be aware of the ways God is moving, train your heart to share all your hopes with God and train your mind to release your cares to Him.

It’s hard work.

When you can see the ways God is moving and revealing himself to you; that leads to a life filled with Hope.

Join us.

Highlights:

His goodness is bigger than this present moment.

Are we willing to release our grip on the specifics of what we’re hoping for?

We hold so tightly to the specific thing, this is what I want for Christmas. This is what I want for the new year. That we can miss the gifts God is giving and the deeper longings that he wants to tend to in us.

Homework:

“Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God (Spiritual Journey)” by Ruth Haley Barton

“The Treasury of David” by Charles Spurgeon

Psalm 91
“It is not because we are perfect or highly esteemed among men that we can hope for shelter in the day of evil but because our refuge is the eternal God, and our faith has learned to hide beneath His sheltering wing.”
“It is impossible that any evil should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord. The most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward. Ill to him is no ill but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honor, death is his gain. No evil, in the strict sense of the word, can happen to him, for everything is over-ruled for good. Happy is he who is in such a case. He is secure when others are in peril. He lives where others die.”

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It's the reason for the season. Is it though?

Feels more like ’tis the season for unmet expectations. Combine those unmet expectations with Covid restrictions and it feels even more difficult to find reason for our weary world to rejoice.

Whatever hurt you’re facing - loss, grief, financial struggles or isolation - it hurts even deeper around this tender part of the year. Without the usual bustle of holiday parties and traditions; it may feel easier to numb out.

Rather than running away from the pain, hit play and listen in.

This Christmas episode of “Becoming Whole” offers a deeper way to understand the reason for the season.

Highlights:

And yet, I think this year offers us a real opportunity especially as we’re all in this together to face the reality, to wrestle with the reality, to be mindful of the reality that this is precisely why Jesus came.

You who are suffering, you are the reason for the season.
You who are sinning, and wrestling to get free; you are the reason for the season.
You who are lonely; you are the reason for the season.
You are why I came. -Jesus

There is great cause for celebration. Even in our soberness and sadness and loss and whatever else is going on; there is light.
He came for me for this loneliness, for this sadness.

Homework:

Willingness versus Willfulness: Willfulness fixates on the expected outcome, circumstance or person. Willingness focuses on Jesus.

Try praying: “Help me to fix my eyes on you Jesus and not on an outcome or expectation. Help me bring myself fully to you. Give me eyes to see what you’ll show me. I accept your invitation in love.”

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This short episode is packed.

We encourage you to listen, then let it all settle in and listen again. Josh and Kit unpack a lot on the big topic of Expectation vs Hope in a little amount of time.

There’s a lot to process here on the definitions of both concepts. When you were little, you were probably taught a happiness equation suggesting “Life’s going to be great as long as you (fill in the blank).” But, that equation subtracts the realistic bumps (or worse) in the road.

This conversation challenges that idea while exploring Expectations and Hope in relation to your contentment.

Change the narrative and invite God into life, whatever it brings.

Highlights:

Things are going to be challenging and things are going to go in ways you don’t expect. God will meet you there. What if you were told that as a young person?

Hope in God is not in the specific end that I might expect or anticipate or be working towards; but it’s in a Sovereign God.

HOPE: I surrender the control of the specifics that have to be so in order for me to be satisfied.

Homework:

Pray and LISTEN for what God has for your life. Pray with these questions:

What does Hope look like in my life?

How do You want me to be thinking about the expectations I have in my life?

How do You want me to be thinking about Hope?

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Abuse, Divorce, Loss, this Pandemic; Trauma comes in many shapes.

You may still be figuring out all the ways trauma has left its mark. Trauma may have impacted your ability to build healthy relationships. The memory of your past trauma may still haunt your present day.

The common denominator in all this is YOU.

Our offering, in this podcast, is a look at how you can help you.

Josh and Kit dive into the topic of Self-Kindness and Attachment Repair. Being kind to yourself plays a significant role in how you heal - heart, mind and body.

You’ll hear how important it is for you to pay attention to your emotions and how to lean into them with God. You feel emotions in your body. And, you have a God who knows what a hurting heart, a stabbing headache and that pit in your stomach feels like - you have Jesus.

We’ve provided a list of valuable resources below. Also, look in the “Homework” section and consider printing out or writing out the Affirmations on note cards and placing them around your home.

You are powerful. Right now, your power rests in being kind to you.

Listen in.

Highlights:

The concept of Self-Compassion is a vital part of healing.

There are physiological, emotional and spiritual things that happen as we learn to be self-compassionate in our places of wounding.

Taking care of yourself is not selfish. When you take care of yourself and receive the love that God has for you, you become a person who cares and loves better.

Homework:

AFFIRMATIONS OF SELF-KINDNESS

• I am capable
• It’s okay to disappoint people
• I have choices
• I can set boundaries
• I am loved no matter what
• I am valuable
• I can ask for support
• It’s okay to need help
• My emotions give me information
• My body supports me
• I’m responsible for only myself
• It’s okay to take care of myself
• This emotion is temporary
• I am beloved

Resources/Extras:

Jay Stringer

Why Emotions Matter by Jon and Tristen Collins

Dr. Patrick Carnes

“Try Softer:A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode--and into a Life of Connection and Joy” by Aundi Kolber

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The practice of Solitude is...

A. Not possible
B. Scary
C. Inviting
D. All of the Above

In the busy-ness of life right now, this is the episode for you. Josh and Kit are exploring how the practice of hitting pause is vital to living your life. We’re going to define the spiritual discipline of Solitude and ways you can move towards it.

We hope you’ll understand how to set realistic expectations for yourself so you can begin where you are with what you have.

Rather than wait until you’ve got it all together; show up with what you’ve got.

God, ever-present and always patient, is waiting in the stillness as you take this step towards “Becoming Whole.”

Highlights:

Solitude is a meaningful time, an intimate time to be honest and vulnerable with yourself and with God about the things that are going on in your life.

It is an intentional way to move away from the front lines of life and to just be with God.

It is a comfort. It is a power. It is learning how to be present with yourself and with God.

Homework:

Remember, the way you practice Solitude is between you and God. Pick a time of day, an amount of time and a place that work for you. Release expectations of how it should feel and just invite God in.

Simple Invitational Prayer: “Come Lord Jesus” Revelation 22:20

Extras:

“In one of the very earliest training workshops led by Father Thomas Keating himself, a nun tried out her first twenty-minute taste of Centering Prayer and then lamented, ‘Oh, Father Thomas, I’m such a failure at this prayer. In twenty minutes I’ve had ten thousand thoughts!’

“How lovely,” responded Keating, without missing a beat. “Ten thousand opportunities to return to God.”

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Where are you experiencing fear right now?

What scares you most? Maybe it’s something that haunts you from your past. Maybe it’s the idea of a potential outcome in the future.

Josh and Kit are exploring a new approach. Instead of trying to escape fear, numb fear or minimize fear - today, we’re going to face fear. You can do this.

Facing your fear is a power move to pull back some of that control you normally give it. The rabbit hole of “what if’s” pulls your brain down a long, dark drop of doom. Your past can sneak up on you, trapping you.

The present - right here and right now - We’re talking about trying something very different. Don’t deny fear. Don’t drown in fear.

Today, your next step to becoming whole is Facing your Fear. Listen in.

Highlights:

Our fears want to be held

It’s a present moment experience of instead of panicking and focusing on what if or if only’s you’re present.

You’re present. You’re inviting God in in that moment. You’re trusting that God is with you and that He’s present and that He’s going to hold this fear with you.

Homework:

In the moment you’re feeling fear, try GROUNDING: stay still, feet on the ground, pay attention your breath and notice what you are smelling, seeing, hearing, feeling.

Pray this prayer: “Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.
~Charles de Foucauld

Extras:

“The thing that frightens us just wants to be held” - Mark Nepo

“The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present — either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.” The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis Transcription:Full Transcription Available here

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Shame is a powerful influencer. And if we let it get loud enough, it convinces us that we are walking report cards. Shame gives us a capital F saying our behavior is who we are.

Let’s turn down the volume on shame.

You may be struggling with your behavior but you are not your sin. Your identity is not wrapped in your performance alone.

If that statement can’t find it’s way into your heart; listen in on this conversation.

Josh invites Regeneration Ministries, Dan Keeffer, to dig deeper into the shame cycle and how to stop it. Because destructive behavior, greased with shame, can move quickly into more destructive behavior.

You are meant for more. Stop wrecking yourself with shame and start reconciling yourself to the truth of God your Father.

You are loved and welcomed and invited to “Becoming Whole.”

Listen in.

Highlights:

need to be careful about determining who I am or how I’m doing based on any given moment and the behavior at any given moment.

Shame piled on top of shame has a way of exacerbating our own self loathing and how we see ourselves before God and our relationships with others.

God sees me, not as my sin but as His son.

Homework:

Mentally Cluttered: Do you find yourself unable to be attentive to your yourself, to God? Your family friend or coworkers? Sin creates clutter in how we interact with others. Ask God to reveal your sin, reveal your shame and then ask Him to reveal His love.

Does this sound familiar to you? The Shame Cycle: I feel shame so I act out sexually and feel even more shame. Listen back to the episode. How can you stop the cycle?

The distinction between these two statements so you can identify shame, name it and stop the cycle. 1. Guilt is I did something wrong. 2. Shame is there’s something about me that is wrong.

Remember: YOU ARE NOT YOUR BEHAVIOR. Behavior is not a measure of who you are as a person and it is not all of you.

Resources/Extras:

Jay Stringer

But even there we have to remember that the devil doesn't have his own clay. All he can do is take God's clay (which is always “very good”) and twist it up. ... Purity of heart enables us to see the good that got twisted up. - Christopher West “Art and the New Evangelization: How Beauty Will Save the World”

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You are a sexual creature, created by a Holy God. Your sex drive has an ebb and flow. You have unique factors that contribute to the rise and fall of your libido. There’s a peace and confidence in that awareness.

If you’re married, remember the same holds true for your spouse - EXCEPT that their ebb and flow and drive and triggers may be completely different. It’s no wonder that 1 in every 3 couples struggle with problems associated with different sexual desires.

Couples are made up of two people with two different minds, hearts, and yes, different sexual patterns. Sexual compatibility is such a common issue but we don’t talk about it with the person who matters most.

Listen in as Josh and Kit carefully set you and your spouse up for a meaningful conversation. They’ll examine the role past wounds, comparison and other factors play in the bedroom.

Learning how to attain full sexual intimacy with your spouse is the goal on this next episode of “Becoming Whole.”

Highlights:

Letting another person see, embrace, touch and feel your body when you feel deep shame about the form of your body can be a deep wound that you have to work through in your marriage

to be sexual between husband and wife is to lower your boundaries the most profound way.

In a marriage, husbands and wives are different sexually. Just like they’re different in so many other areas of life but we don’t want to talk about it.

Homework:

Take some time to examine when and how you first learned about sex. Did it leave you with positive or negative feelings?

If Body Shame is an issue for you (as it is for so many people), try talking to your partner about the shame. “This is something that I’m dealing with…”

Recommendations: Find a good therapist with experience in sexual abuse trauma or maybe seek out Healing Prayer.

Resources/Extras:

Genesis Chapter 2

Books by Christopher West Transcription:Full Transcription Available here

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If you’re married, you can attest to the fact that Holy Matrimony don’t necessarily mean holy harmony.

Marriage involves the sometimes tough work of learning, adjusting, confronting, putting up with, and blessing your spouse's differences. When those differences hit the bedroom, couples tend to avoid the necessary work.

If that sounds uncomfortably familiar, you aren’t alone.

In fact, 1 out of 3 couples struggle with differing sexual desires.

Josh and Kit invite you into a two part series covering the beautiful and sacred topic of Sex. When love and libido for a husband and wife don’t magically align, it can be disappointing, frustrating and confusing.

This challenge can lead some couples to drift apart. Others believe the answer will be found by exploring different sexual techniques or preferences. Both these miss an important truth to building sexual compatibility: The foundation of a good sex life is love--love for one another right there in that place of difference. Let this podcast be a first step for you and your spouse to love each other better in the bedroom.

Listen in for Part 1 and then make sure to come back for Part 2 next week.

The goal through this series is to set you and your spouse on the same path to loving each other in a free, faithful, full and fruitful sex life.

Highlights:

the foundation of a good sex life is love

Love in its purest form has 4 different elements: It’s Free, Faithful, Full and Fruitful

just because we’re talking about the seriousness of love and the sacredness of sexual intimacy doesn’t mean it’s not playful. But it’s playful with the person you’re with in that moment.

Homework:

FAITHFUL: Sex within marriage reinforces the promise saying, ‘I forsake all others and I choose you.’

FREE: Sex within marriage is not owed or demanded, but given freely.

FULL: All of me with all of you

FRUITFUL: Sex is the method through which new life is created.

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“My experience indicates that most people become infatuated or fall in love with others an average of six times in the course of a long marriage.” Six times - Does that make sense to you or does it offend you?

This is the statement Gary Thomas used to share an honest blog post admitting his own attractions while offering advice on how to handle them. Thomas is a best selling author and international speaker whose ministry works to bring people closer to Christ through marriage, parenting and spiritual formation. His heart and career center on the sanctity of marriage.

As you can imagine, Thomas’ words unlocked a flood of raw, revealing comments. And those readers’ comments became a launching point for this episode of “Becoming Whole.”
Josh and Kit pick up where the comments left off.

Listen is as we take a longer look at the statement, the blog post and the comments to carry on the conversation with just as much honesty and care.

If you are single, we hope this conversation sets up reasonable expectations about what marriage is and what it looks like.

And if you are married, our hope is this equips you to move forward with wisdom and awareness rather than fear or denial.

Be sure to look to the Homework section for practical ways you can guard your heart and your marriage from infatuation confusion.

Highlights:

Infatuation is something that different people will experience in different times, in different ways

This is a common experience. Take a deep breath. Don’t overreact but pay attention.

You’re noticing the ways your spouse ISN’T in the way you’d like them to be, more attentive to your emotions is getting to you a little bit more and so you’re more vulnerable

Homework:

If you notice an Unhealthy Attraction, here are some Guidelines:

• DON’T assume something is wrong with your marriage, in the sense that you need a new marriage.
• DON’T be caught by surprise.
• DON’T feed the attraction or the infatuation.

When you notice an infatuation with someone other than your spouse; let it be a signpost pointing you towards something deeper going on in you.

Good Guardrails during Vulnerable Times:

1. Time
2. Talk
3. Touch
4. Text
5. Thoughts

Try to Actively Invest the 5 T’s in Your Spouse

Find Space for Fun

Resources/Extras:
Gary Thomas - Best Selling author, International Speaker

https://garythomas.com/2020/08/05/help-im-infatuated-with-someone-other-than-my-spouse/

“My experience indicates that most people become infatuated or fall in love with others an average of six times in the course of a long marriage.” - Avodah Offit in “The Sexual Self”

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With no tools, no teams or projects, three men sit down on this episode to talk Friendship.

Connection can typically be filed into a “Women Only” category.

But, as you’ll hear from Josh, Matthew and Dan; men don’t just need but actually long for deep connection with each other.

We hope you’ll listen to this honest conversation between men about men and come away with a better understating of this deep need.

For our male listeners, hearing words put to buried feelings can help serve as a model of guys needing guys.

For women, hearing men discuss connection and acknowledge a desire for brotherhood can help take the weight off your own relationship.

Both men and women were made for community.

The idea that men don’t need anyone leaves our husbands, fathers, sons, brothers feeling isolated and alone.

Maybe this conversation will make you cringe. That’s ok. We hope you don’t just shrug it off because building community among men is a vulnerable, courageous, necessary step to “Becoming Whole.”

Highlights:

I want to be seen I want to be known not based on what I do but who I am.

That’s a huge ache and that’s in all of us, whether or not we can say it or not.

Often times when someone is sharing their pain and you feel an instinct to help, to correct, to encourage; just check yourself there because what might be going on for them

Questions:

When was the last time you Initiated with a guy friend?

Resources/Extras:

Jesus's closest friends

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Porn - this little word carries a heavy load of shame for some or maybe guilt for others. What about when you find out your child has been viewing porn?

Our offering for you is today is 10 Tips to help you navigate the path forward when you discover your child has been viewing porn.

Michelle Dunn - a Regeneration Team member and Therapist - joins Josh on the podcast to help us walk with our kids, not just as moms and dads, but also as allies in the world of sexuality.

Everything we’re talking about on this episode HINGES on the relationship you have with your teen. Our hope is that we can take shame out of the conversation around porn. Don’t let the accusing voices in your head be louder than your child's voice. Pay attention, a pornography problem is usually a symptom of a deeper problem rather than the core problem itself.

Listen in as Michelle and Josh coach us through adjusting our posture to be less fearful and more approachable.

We pray this episode serves you as a guide so you can have difficult conversations in love and peace.

Highlight:

when somebody’s feeling shame it is not going to make the problem go away. In fact, it will almost draw the individual to the problematic behavior as a way of coping.

It’s helpful for parents to accept reality, adjust your expectations, and not be afraid to be where you are

Get curious. How did we end up here? And again, it’s not for the purpose of shaming. That’s not the reason we want to do it but we want to be curious.

Homework:

10 TIPS FOR PARENTS:
1. ASK FOR HELP for yourself! Reach out to allies, friends, counselors, your pastor, so you can release.
2. ACKNOWLEDGE the current relationship you have with your teen - great trust? Solid bond? Distant?
3. ADDRESS the porn directly.
4. AFFIRM honesty even when it feels like bad news.
5. AVOID shame at all costs.
6. ASK QUESTIONS and teach your kid to get curious too.
7. ADJUST your lifestyle to respond to what you find out.
8. ADDRESS your son's or daughter's overall health.
9. ASSUME that even kids who want to stop may still struggle.
10. ASK FOR HELP FOR YOUR CHILD

Find a moment of privacy and with confidence directly address your child and the issue - be direct, tell them what you know.

Be Aware: When or where are you tempted to look? What time of day? - the questions create boundaries to help your son or daughter to relieve temptation

Treat the situation like a Fact-finding Mission or a Private investigation - be looking for clues NOT evidence to indict your son or daughter.

If you and your child discover there’s a pattern or trigger, what can you adjust together?
Where might your child need to learn to take better care of themselves emotionally, physically, spiritually, schedule?

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There’s a simple call for all of us who claim to be followers of Jesus: Love others.

But when it comes to LGBTQ+ people, we can let fear and misunderstanding get in the way of that call.

Do you feel clear about what the Bible says about homosexuality? What does discipleship look like for Christians who experience same-sex orientation? What are we calling them to?

Today we talk with Dr. Preston Sprinkle, a biblical scholar and NY Times best-selling author with a ministry centered on faith, sexuality, and gender. He tells us 83% of LGBTQ people were raised in the Christian Church and 51% leave by the time they turn 18. Why? They were alone and scared. Bad church experiences can push LGBTQ people out of churches. We can change that with love and kindness and grace.

Everyone deserves dignity because they’re made in the image and likeness of God.
That truth holds true for every LGBTQ+ person.

Jesus came with grace and truth, and He surprised us all with how astonishingly kind he was…even when facing death. Will we follow?

Join us for this important conversation.

Guests:

Dr. Preston Sprinkle is a biblical scholar, an international speaker, and a New York Times bestselling author. He earned a Ph.D. in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland (2007), and he's been a professor of theology at Cedarville University (OH), has taught at Nottingham University (England), and Eternity Bible College (CA and ID).

Highlights:

We should be able to dignify the humanity of another person and be kind to them while holding true to our convictions, holding onto the Bible

83% of LGBTQ people were raised in the Christian church. 51% leave by the time they turn 18.

By avoiding the conversation, doesn’t mean the conversation isn’t happening

Resources/Extras:

“People to be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue” by Dr. Preston Sprinkle

“Us versus Us: The Untold Story of Religion and the LGBT Community” by Andrew Marin

Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. -Mark 10:29-30

https://www.centerforfaith.com

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Single: More than Un-Married

Within the church, it may feel like being married is the goal. While being single is reduced to being un-married. Checking one box and not another can lead to resentment. Within the church, there can and should be a way to bring all of our gifts together.

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12)

This episode is a deep dive between two people who have a lot in common as “members of the body”- both men, both in their 40’s, both love Jesus.

Laurence Koo, our guest, is single. And Josh Glaser, our host, is married.

We hope this conversation challenges you to challenge the misconceptions and encourages you to learn from each other’s unique roles. There is intimacy and fulfillment to be found in the community around us, regardless of which box you check.

Let’s tear down the idols of marital status and start inviting people in.

Highlights:

We each have our own gift, even if we don’t want it. It’s a matter of state, not desire. I think that’s the first mistake that we made in church.

We both have a prophetic calling in this culture in who we are as human beings. In both gifts, there is so much Christ's portrayal.

Living in a fallen world means we will live with some level of unfulfillment

Homework:

Ask yourself: How can I be more of a gift to my married friends? Single Friends?

Take stock of Your Relational Health: Examine your Routines and Relationships to see how you are giving and receiving in your relationship.

Extras/Resources:

https://www.gardenofgods.com

“7 Myths about Singleness” Sam Allberry

"But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. Yet each person has a special gift from God, of one kind or another.” - 1 Corinthians 7:7 NLT

1 Corinthians 12 – Unity of the Members of Christ in One Body

Five Levels of Intimacy:

Spiritual intimacy – sharing deep, safe conversations

Emotional - being vulnerable with my hurt and pain

Social – enjoying the same activities, hobbies

Physical – experiencing non-sexual touch

Sexual – sexual closeness within a marriage

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Power Parenting is possible!

It IS possible to have an actual conversation with your kids, even your teenagers.

Michelle Dunn, a Counselor & coordinator of the Regeneration Ministries PG series for parents, is on the podcast offering tips on powerful parenting through topics such as school, sports, and even sex.

Parents need to push past the anticipated eye roll or angsty attitude to keep connecting. As much as they pull away, moms and dads need to lean into their teen’s life, learn their interests, and ask questions. The big kids are not the only ones who need to learn how to do things differently.

Parents need to shift and grow too.

As you’ll learn in this episode, there’s more power in parenting from a place of relationship versus a place of dictatorship. Learn how to develop a real connection with your teenager. Listen for words like margin and agenda and comparison.

Take it all in. You’ve got this.

Highlights:

Our kids are going to hear and get information from sources other than us

If we don’t have that relationship with them we miss out on the opportunity to influence

If we’re only coming to our kids where we want to mold, shape, change their thinking and their behaviors; they’re going to be fatigued by that

Homework:

Make Margin (room) in your day to talk with your teen about the difficult things. Don’t let fatigue keep you from engaging with your teen.

Try having a conversation without an Agenda.

Deal with your past: address your own sexual dysfunction, get help, don’t panic/freeze/avoid

How am I wired? How is my kid wired? What are we good at? Use that as your framework to move forward in building a relationship FREE of comparison. Be you and let your kid be him/herself.

Outsource: Encourage them to connect with other people

Ideal v reality: media, peers, family give us a picture of what it looks like to interact with our teens. Try not to be tricked into thinking that it’s always good and it’s supposed to look a certain way.

Extras/Resources:

https://www.regenerationministries.org/pg/

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Abandoned & Shattered: these are the two words we hear most from those who’ve learned their spouse has been unfaithful. Vows that were spoken in front of friends and family are now shattered. And the shrapnel, the disorientation is hitting everyone you love.

Where are you in the story?

Are you feeling abandoned? Or Are you the one who did the shattering? We are here for you now.

Join Regeneration Ministries Team Members - Josh, Kit, and Anne - for a wider look at infidelity and how to recover.

The ground beneath you has been cracked open. Learning your marriage isn’t what you thought it was, is catastrophic. But, your marriage isn’t necessarily over. It will take work on both sides to rebuild from the trauma.

We hope this conversation equips and encourages you with two more words as you heal- Empathy and Hope.

Highlights:

there’s a greater recognition that what has happened here literally is a trauma because reality has been shaken

Empathy, as we’ve learned, is almost a game-changer in relationships. Empathy is like a window into somebody’s pain

It’s hard to talk about with other people because it can compound that shame. Are they going to think that about me too?

Homework:

Use good eye contact, tone, body language - hold your spouse's pain.