Video coming soon. The video teaching for Day 4 is still in production. Read the full lesson below, it will be added here as soon as it is ready.
Today I want to get personal with you. I'm going to tell you something I don't say lightly, because I know what it costs to say it out loud.
About a year and a half into pastoring my first church, I fell into pornography. I'd gotten high-speed internet for the first time. I'd been exposed to it before, on a co-worker's computer back in college, and it had chained me then. Now that chain came back. And it came back hard.
It's hard to explain how difficult that season was. Every Sunday morning, I stood up in front of my congregation. I opened the Bible. I preached the good news about Jesus Christ: about forgiveness, about freedom, about grace. And I knew exactly what I'd been doing on Saturday.
If you've ever tried to lead, tried to be a husband, tried to be a father, while losing this same battle, you know exactly what I'm describing. The moment you stand up to be something good, the enemy jumps right onto your shoulder and whispers: God has forsaken you. He'll never help you. You don't deserve to be up here. You're a fraud.
It is brutal.
What I learned in that brutal season
I mean learned it, not just in my head, but down in my bones: I learned what grace actually means.
God's undeserved kindness toward me was never dependent on whether I'd been good the day before. His willingness to use me, to work through me, to love me, none of it was on the line because of my performance. That's not what grace is. Grace isn't God looking at your record and deciding you've earned another shot. Grace is God showing up anyway.
Grace doesn't wait for a clean track record.
The full six-level program walks you through exactly what grace looks like when you fail again.
"Am I a hypocrite if I keep believing?"
Maybe you're thinking what I used to think: "That makes me a hypocrite. I can't talk about Jesus if I'm living like this. I can't believe if I'm not acting like I believe."
John Wesley (who went on to become one of the most powerful preachers in history) wrestled with exactly this early in his ministry. He wasn't even sure God had really forgiven him, not in a way he felt and knew. He wasn't sure he should keep preaching salvation by faith while he was still struggling to experience it himself.
So he asked his mentor directly: should he even keep preaching this if he wasn't sure he had it?
His mentor's answer changed his life: "Preach faith until you have it."
What that means for you today
Don't wait until you're doing good to believe in salvation by grace through faith. Believe it now.
- Tell your kids about Jesus.
- Raise your hands when you sing, even when you don't feel like it.
- Tell your wife you're grateful for her.
- Tell God thank you for His grace, and tell Him you believe Him.
You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to have a clean week behind you.
Preach faith until you have it.
This is Day 4 of Victory Over Pornography. Continue to Day 5 →