Always Grace: A Poem about Being Loved in the Midst of Our Failures.

Grover CannonI’d like to introduce you all to my friend, and our newest contributor, Grover Cannon.

Grover spent more than a decade running from God with his finger in the air, trying to find happiness through outlaw motorcycle gangs, strip clubs, and heavy drinking. He was contemplating pulling the trigger on his own life when God got ahold of him, showing him how much he was loved even in the midst of his rebellion. Today, Grover preaches the love of Christ to everyone he meets and has one of the most personal relationships with Jesus I’ve ever witnessed.

Grover processes his walk with God through some of the most raw and heart-felt poetry I’ve read. Recently, I asked him if he would be willing to share some of these poems with all of you. As you can see, he agreed.

So, each month, I will post a new poem by Grover. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. In fact, if you really enjoy a certain poem, just click the image at the bottom and you will be able to print your own PDF poster to hang up wherever you wish.

If you want to contact Grover, you can reach him at cannongc@yahoo.com.


Always Grace

Can you live with out His grace?
Can you walk with out His peace?
Can you understand one letter of His written Word
without first knowing His work on the cross?
What He has done for you…
The way He has loved you…
The freedom He has created you to walk in…

Do you know how to give it over?
Do you know how to turn to God and give in?
Can you close your eyes, take a breath, and submit?

We focus so hard on works, striving, struggling…
just trying to breathe for one more step.
We work so hard.
Constantly falling
Always stumbling
Forever failing
Letting our logic follow our pride
down the rabbit trails of struggle and strife.

We get so lost along the way.
We just can’t understand how it is possible
to even consider success.

It’s so easy to believe that we must do
We need to work
We need to strive
We need to keep pounding our heads
against the walls until we get it right.

We just can’t comprehend His love through our failures,
through our lack of success.
We feel Him slipping away.
We know His anger and doom are pending,
moving like a storm in the sky because
we never get it right.

If we could only see His grace for what it really is.
His love that gently embraces us in the night.
The way He sees our failures yet still wraps His arms around us.

He loves us so much.

We so need desperately to change our opinion of Abba God
from the angry, punishing, pissed-off father to the true view:

A God who is broken…
Weeping…
Forever saying I love you.
Because He does love you…
And will love you…
Standing by your side…

Always.


Click the image below to download a printable PDF poster of this poem:

Always Grace

Weekly Web (W)roundup

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Each week, I round up the best resources, articles, and videos I find that are relevant to finding freedom from porn addiction. Please note that by posting a link here it does not mean I agree with everything in the linked article. It just means I found it interesting enough to share.


Gospel Coalition: How to Change Your Mind

“The beginning of a New Year is an an excellent time to try something new. As you make your list of resolutions and goals I want to recommend adding a simple four step process that could transform your life by, quite literally, changing your mind.”

Garrett Kell: What Would Jesus Say to Someone Like Leelah Alcorn?

“It is heart-wrenching to know that a young person was so overwhelmed with pain that their only response was to stop living. That should mean something. Whether you’re LBGT, Christian, liberal, conservative, religious or otherwise—we are humans and a tragedy like this should lead us to stop, weep, pray, and take notice.”

CovenantEyes: Praying for My Porn Addict Husband

“Josh woke up that morning and started crying uncontrollably; he had no idea why. But the one overwhelming thought in his mind was this: Is it too late for me to come home?”

CovenantEyes: Should You Date a Man Who Struggles with Porn?

“Jessica met Brad through a young professionals group at her church and had been going out with him for several weeks. One evening while having coffee with Brad, he confessed to her that he currently struggles with pornography and is trying really hard to stop.”

Smart Quote: John Eldredge

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Thoughts on this quote? Feel free to discuss them in the comments below.

Weekly Web (W)roundup

weekly_roundup-img-640x290

Each week, I round up the best resources, articles, and videos I find that are relevant to finding freedom from porn addiction. Please note that by posting a link here it does not mean I agree with everything in the linked article. It just means I found it interesting enough to share.


CovenantEyes: 3 Secrets to Raising Porn-Proof Kids

“One of the reasons why pornography has gotten out of control is because we have accountability all wrong. We treat accountability as a last resort, not a lifestyle—and then we raise our children with the same mentality.”

Christianity Today: How Christians Should Talk About Sex

“So if Paul serves as my example, I don’t need to get on my soapbox about sexual morality any time soon. In fact, I should probably avoid it. And I certainly should avoid any sense that I can claim any moral superiority to Miley Cyrus or the young people depicted in Rolling Stone.”

OnFaith: 10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About the Christian View of Sexuality

“While there are people of many diverse beliefs and convictions — including gay and lesbian people — who oppose same-sex marriage, here are 10 foundational truths that inform the traditional, orthodox Christian belief.”

Truefaced: Why Do I Hide?

Smart Quote: Timothy Keller

“The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” —Timothy Keller

Thoughts on this quote? Feel free to discuss them in the comments below.

10 Steps to Go a Year Free of Porn and Masturbation

10-Steps-to-go-a-year-free-of-porn-and-Masturbation-blogpostA few days ago, xxxChurch.com published an article titled: 10 Steps to Go a Year Free of Porn and Masturbation. They asked each of us contributors to submit our top-2 pieces of advice on quitting porn, and then narrowed it down to the top-10.

You can read the whole post on their site, but I thought I would share with you my two suggestions today:

  1. Learn to trust God’s unconditional love for you—even in the midst of your struggles. The truth is, no matter how badly you’ve messed up, or how far down the path into porn addiction you’ve wandered, God will always be right beside you waiting to help you back up. It’s tempting to believe He wants you to fix your junk before you come to Him, but in reality He wants you to come to Him with your junk so He can fix it for you. After all, if “God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8),” why would He turn away from you now?
  2. Find at least one person who you can trust with everything. It feels so natural to hide our struggles in order to appear like we have it all together. As long as your junk stays hidden though, it will fester. It will continue to control and torment you until you deal with it. Luckily, God has given us His plan for how to bring our junk into the light: “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed (James 5:16).” It’s a simple plan, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Be courageous though. Find at least one person who you can share your junk with so that nothing in your life remains hidden. Dig it up, talk about it, pray about it, and bless one another as you share your victories together.

These are the two pieces of wisdom that have helped me the most on my journey towards freedom. I trust they will help you as well.

So here’s to a new year, and a new opportunity to trust God, and to trust others, to come alongside you on your journey.

Read the whole post on xxxchurch.com.

Weekly Web (W)roundup

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Each week, I round up the best resources, articles, and videos I find that are relevant to finding freedom from porn addiction. Please note that by posting a link here it does not mean I agree with everything in the linked article. It just means I found it interesting enough to share.


Tim Challies: When God Doesn’t Zap Away Our Sin

“God gives that grace, but for some reason—his good reasons—it rarely comes in the form we would prefer. God gives it not in the form we want but in the form we need. We want God to zap away our sin, to instantly and permanently remove it. Those desires, those addictions, those idolatries—we want them to be lifted and to be gone that very moment.”

Public Discourse: Seven Things I Wish My Pastor Knew About My Homosexuality

“During my upbringing, I heard a few fiery sermons on homosexuality. These days, I hear declarations of love instead. They make me shout for joy. Amen! It always should have been so! At the same time, however, many pastors have begun accompanying this love with an eschewal of Biblical sexual morality as oppressive, unreasonable, or unkind. Hence, loving homosexual persons also comes to entail affirming and encouraging them in same-sex sexual relationships and behaviors.”

Matt Chandler: How do you know when you’re ready to start dating?

Smart Quote: Andrew Murray

"The cause of the weakness of your Christian life is that you want to work it out partly, and to let God help you. And that cannot be. You must come to be utterly helpless, to let God work, and God will work gloriously." —Andrew Murray

Thoughts on this quote? Feel free to discuss them in the comments below.

Reader Q/A: Is My Porn Addiction Holding Me Back from Jesus?

Editor’s Note: Please excuse the focusing issue on this video. I got a new camera and didn’t know it would do that. I plan to reshoot it soon, but I didn’t want to delay answering this question any longer.

Ask me a question
10 Lies Men Believe about Porn Preview

Transcript:

Hey guys, Steve here from Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got another reader Q&A. I got a question from a reader and they asked, “Is my pornography addiction holding me back from Jesus?”

To be honest, that’s a question I get quite a lot, and it was a question I had myself. The truth is, kind of. Well, let me explain that.

As far as, “is my pornography addiction holding me back from Jesus?” Well it’s holding you back from experiencing the life that He offers you. You’re going to miss out on a lot of the peace and joy and just general life that He offers as long as you keep wrestling with porn.

But here’s the deal: I think typically what people are really asking when they say that isn’t, “Is my pornography addiction holding me back from Jesus?” What they’re asking is, “Is my pornography addiction keeping Jesus away from me?”

That’s the real question, and that was something that I wrestled with, frankly, my entire addiction. Because here’s the deal: I believed that I had to overcome my addiction (I had to clean myself up and fix my junk) in order for Jesus to want to hang out with me. It was up to me to clean myself up before He would accept me into his presence, and frankly, that’s just not the truth we see in Scripture.

You read Romans 8:1, it says, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” If you’ve trusted Jesus, He’s paid for all of your sins. He’s taken all of your punishment away, even for the sins you have yet to commit. There is absolutely no condemnation. He loves you unconditionally.

The other verse that really pertains to this is Romans 5:8. It says that, “God showed His great love for us in that while we were still sinners, He sent Christ to die for us.” While we were still sinners. We still had junk and God showed us how much He loved us by sending Jesus to die for us.

So if that’s the case, if God sent Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners, why would God (or Jesus, for that matter) pull away from us now when we already have a relationship with Him, because we still struggle with sin? The fact of the matter is, He won’t.

Just like the Prodigal Son, if we run off and we’re off to Vegas and just blowing our inheritance and doing all kinds of crazy stuff, is God going to reject us? Is Jesus going to pull away from us? No. They’re going to be standing there with their arms wide open, just looking over the hill waiting for us to come back. That’s how much God loves you, even in the midst of your sin.

So instead of feeling like Jesus is pulling away from you, maybe we shoulder consider the truth that we see in Hebrews 4:16, “So let us come boldly to the throne of grace, in our time of deepest need.”

You see, God wants us to run to Him, in our time of deepest need. And when is our time of deepest need? Well, for people with the same struggles we have, it’s probably right there when we’re tempted to look at porn, or if we’ve just looked at it; that’s your time of deepest need. That’s when God wants you to run to Him, not away from Him.

So back to the initial question, is your porn addiction keeping you from Jesus? No, it’s not. Jesus is right there, waiting for you to run to Him. So in reality, your porn addition isn’t keeping you from Jesus. In fact, Jesus may even be using it to draw you to Him.

Weekly Web (W)roundup

weekly_roundup-img-640x290

Each week, I round up the best resources, articles, and videos I find that are relevant to finding freedom from porn addiction. Please note that by posting a link here it does not mean I agree with everything in the linked article. It just means I found it interesting enough to share.


Experimental Theology: Everything I Know about Christmas I Learned from TV

“I was so addicted to these shows that, looking back, I can now discern that everything I know about Christmas I learned from TV. Specifically, I learned from TV three big lessons about Christmas.”

Storyline: 3 Second Chance Christmas Stories to Lift Your Bummer

“Some stories are told with claymation, puppets, and cheesy musical numbers but don’t miss their deep and abiding meaning! These stories have lasted for decades, if not centuries, because their message connects with us on a deeply human level by inviting simple truths into our souls, truths like ‘beauty comes from brokenness,’ ‘joy isn’t about what we own but who we are,’ and ‘even the worst of us deserve a second chance.'”

And Sons Magazine: Remember the Dragon

“Yes—Christmas is the glow of candlelight on golden straw, and a baby sleeping in a manger. It is starlight, shepherds in a field, and the visit of magi from the East. But Christmas is also an invasion. The kingdom of God striking at the heart of the kingdom of darkness with violent repercussions.”

FaithIt: To My Porn-Watching Dad, From Your Daughter

“I want to let you know first of all that I love you and forgive you for what this has done in my life. I also wanted to let you know exactly what your porn use has done to my life. You may think that this affects only you, or even your and mom’s relationships. But it has had a profound impact on me and all of my siblings as well.”

Pete Wilson: Jesus Isn’t Afraid of Your Mess