Thankfulness and Sexual Sin

June 24, 2018June 25, 2018 / thinkfulkarin / 2 Comments

Connection Between Sexual Sin and Thanksgiving

Studying what the Bible has to say about thanksgiving over the past couple of years has yielded some fascinating truths. I knew that being thankful was a good thing and that God was honored by it, but I am learning that thankfulness is, at the same time, a comfort and a powerful weapon.

There are strategic placements of contrast throughout the Scriptures. Romans 12:21 says “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Using this same replacement principle in another letter, the apostle Paul contrasts sexual sin and thanksgiving.

Watchman Nee once summarized Ephesians as “Sit, Walk, Stand.” In Ephesians 4 and 5, Paul is helping believers understanding the contrast between the sinful patterns of the old life and the new walk of faith and love as a regenerate Jesus-follower. Then, he says something eye-opening.

“Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” Ephesians 5:3-5

Instead of engaging in sexual sins, obscenity, sexual talk, and sexual humor – wholly improper and out of place for believers – there is to be thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the replacement, or can we say cure, for sexual sin.

Sexual sin is rooted in a heart that is discontent with God’s ways and what God has provided and seizes control to get its “deserved” comforts and pleasures. Rebel willfulness ignores the commands of Christ, and even what is healthy in the long run, and runs off into pornography, adulterous relationships, fornication, sexual abuse, and the list goes on. The 180 degree opposite is a th(i)nkful person, learning to be content, celebrating what God has provided rather than chafing and brooding over what is missing. Dr. John Street writes:

“Giving thanks to God is an integral part of being a Christian – a child of God. This is particularly true in the life of the believer as it relates to sexuality. Those who are discontent and unthankful for how God has made them will often be greatly tempted to indulge in sexual deviancy.” Dr. John Street, The Biblical Counseling Guide for Women, p. 305

Learning to Be Content

In life you can almost always boil down your struggles to whether you serve Self or God. God doesn’t hate our bodies and cravings. He designed them. He wants us to enjoy our bodies to the fullest. He even uses the picture of how we love ourselves in showing how we are to love others because it is a given that we love ourselves.

Thinking thanks about your situations will help you be content. There is a peace that comes from filling your mind with gratitude. God is in control. He knows what is so hard for you right now. He also has given us His Word to help us. Rather, let there be thanksgiving, He says, to combat sexual sin and temptation.

“Gratitude is the opposite of every sin we commit.”

Freedom

Breaking free from sexual sin is a huge battle. The doom may scream at you – “You are a slave! A prisoner! You’ve been in this too far and too long to ever get out!” You need hope and a powerful weapon! Heath Lambert, author of Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace, said something in a lecture that grabbed my attention. He said that “gratitude is the opposite to every sin we commit.”

There is hope. It could start with thanksgiving. In I Corinthians 10:13, Paul wrote that with temptation there is also a way of escape so that you are able to bear it. I strongly believe that one of the great ways of escape is th(i)nkfulness.

Hey, it’s always good to get a little feedback. I received this note from a person who reads my blog:

Dear Karin, I just want to thank you for your teaching on thinkfulness. We are in a really difficult place right now but God is good and He is ever-present and His hand is at work. The unknown is always so scary though, but as I was journaling this morning I was just considering how powerful thinkfulness is, and how thankful I am to be able to use it in being victorious. So I just wanted to thank you for being willing to share this concept that the Lord put on your heart, it is a huge blessing to me!

3 Benefits of Being Th(i)nkful

June 19, 2018June 19, 2018 / thinkfulkarin / 2 Comments

1. Being Th(i)nkful Helps Us Process Life

Here’s a processing tool. This is a picture of an IBM computer lab taken in 1957. The computer does its primary work in a part of the machine we cannot see, a control center that converts data input into information output. The computer is able to process information that has been entered into its memory bank. How far we have come from these huge machines to our I-phones processing info right in our hands.

Th(i)nkful is a processing adjective. It describes a person who is processing things happening around them, in them, and to them, taking the input and converting it to gratitude.

Th(i)nkful (adj): choosing to download grace/strength from the Lord to think thanks about every circumstance in my life and to express that thanks orally or in written form.

We process all the time. Mostly it happens automatically, the brain repeating the same neural pathway that we have taught it to do over and over again. Being th(i)nkful is choosing to process life differently. That takes effort; it moves us out of our comfort zone. It is hardest at first, just like blazing a new trail through the woods or forming any good habit, but with repetition, it becomes easier.

2. Being Th(i)nkful Breeds Inspiration

Inspiration has to do with being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. I have received inspiration from hearing how other people did something. I have a friend who is always reaching out to her neighbors with brownies, building relationships. When I hear about her doing that, it inspires me to do likewise.

Taking the mental effort to think thanks about what is going on in my life and expressing that can be very inspiring to others. They may feel an urge to also be th(i)nkful about their circumstances. An added benefit is that if you write down your expressions of gratitude in a journal, you can inspire even yourself years later as you reread those pages.

3. Being Th(i)nkful Is Obedience

The Bible is full of exhortations to be thankful. I Thessalonians 5:18 spells it out starkly: In all circumstances give thanks. Both Ephesians and Colossians, the Twin Epistles, give specific commands to be thankful. Colossians has a verse in each of its four chapters dealing with being thankful and in the third chapter there are three verses in a row that urge the reader to be thankful.

¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:15-17

Have you ever taken a dog to obedience school? It is pretty tricky to teach obedience to a dog. In training, you give them a series of tests to see whether they will overcome, still obey, and do what they’ve learned. If successful, you will enjoy the company of your canine to an even higher degree. When we learn obedience, just like our four-legged friends, we become a joy to our Father.

If we love the Lord, He says we will obey His commandments from the heart. The commands of Christ were given by Him as our Creator for our benefit, to keep us from scars and destruction, and to push us toward a flourishing life. And He sends tests to see whether we will still obey, and with the tests He makes His grace downloadable. Thankfulness in the good times is easy; thankfulness amid the dark wind and waves is altogether different. We should obey, but in our obedience is also our overcoming.

So….there you have it! 3 blessings that come from being th(i)nkful:

It helps us process life
It serves as an inspiration to others as well as to ourselves
It honors God by simply obeying

Th(i)nkful That It Turned Out Differently

June 12, 2018June 12, 2018 / thinkfulkarin / 2 Comments

Open Hand Principle

My husband David has an message called Keeping an Open Hand. In it he describes how we are allowed to clutch our hand around two things. Those two things are 1) our relationship with God and 2) our commitment to do His will for our lives.

Everything else is to be kept in an open hand.

When you meditate on that, it exposes how we often clutch things that need to be released.

Expectations, for example, are things we need to hold loosely. If we let a dream or wish morph into a targeted goal that drives us, pushes aside competing loves, and creates an expectation that is not God’s will, we will struggle terribly if God calls on us to release it and receive what IS His will instead. Best to dream while keeping a neutral disposition. Psalm 16:11 says, “You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Fullness of joy doesn’t come from chasing my dreams; it comes from being in His presence.

Expectations

Have you ever thought back to things that you prayed so fervently for that didn’t happen? I have. I remember when David was practicing law as a young new lawyer in south-eastern Pennsylvania that I prayed earnestly that we would be able to buy a large white historic house on the outskirts of town. I even made a name for it and dreamed about how we would raise our family there and use it for hospitality. It was a great dream, just not the Lord’s will for us.

That white house is just an example. What about when we pray for success, health, fame, or even the salvation of others? Our desires and requests, although seemingly right, may not be what God wants for us. Maybe He will answer our requests totally differently than what we expect, or at a very different time in our life.

Romans 8:26 and 34 mention that the Spirit and Jesus Christ both make intercession for us. I love envisioning my prayers going through that grid. I pray earnestly, but I cannot see the full picture. He can. We may not understand why He does things the way He does until glory, but we can trust that He does them well. He is sovereign and trustworthy for me, His child.

If I turn my dreams into strong expectations I will almost chronically be an unthankful person because God’s choice is so seldom what I would have chosen. But if I can yield my hopes to Him and leave my dreams at His feet, I will have no problem finding contentment and can even celebrate the path He has chosen for me.

Th(i)nkful in Simply Obeying

Nurturing my relationship with God and earnestly renewing my thoughts so I can discover His good, acceptable and perfect will for my life (Romans 12:2) can bring simple joy and contentment.

These are good truths on which I am reflecting, especially as David and I prepare to move back to South Africa to work among the Zulu. We are excited to learn the Zulu language and get acclimated to life in Amanzimtoti because God has shown us His will, and that directive trumps all other dreams and wishes.

What about you? How are you expressing your dreams to God? Is your disposition summed up in “not my will, but Yours be done?” As with gardening and athletics and most worthwhile things in life, His way is not the easy way, but it is the best. And often as we grow older and look back, we can be th(i)nkful for unanswered prayers. Our amazing God, Infinite Mind and Wisdom, has designed bigger and better plans, purposes, and pictures.

P.S. If you’re interested in a copy of David’s Keeping an Open Hand message, just email me.

Th(i)nkful and Take 5

June 4, 2018June 4, 2018 / thinkfulkarin / 4 Comments

Even a Child Can Do It

Our son Nick and his family seem like a perfect family. They look like they must always be kind to each other; their children are probably good and kind and share all the time.

Well, if you are human, you realize that is not the case. They struggle like every family struggles. There is always an ongoing fight to do what is right.

A while back one of their children developed a real rage problem. I am the Yaya (what my grandchildren call me), and on one visit even I saw that this was a real difficult puzzle. Nick and Julia asked us to pray for them to have wisdom and discernment, and so we did earnestly. I am sharing about this with their permission and with the hope that their story could help others.

One particular evening the anger again came to a head. Nick and Julia had been reading different things to try and find some answers, and they had come up with a plan. As Nick started to talk to his child he laid down some rules that the child needed to follow when he began to feel great anger. The idea was to help him get control of these overwhelming feelings he was experiencing. They called it “Take 5.”

Take 5

Take deep breaths

Count from 1 to 10, and then count backward from 10 to 1

Say one thing that you are thankful for

Practice smiling even if you don’t feel like it

Pray to God for help

The first two cause a person to break from the aggravating situation, slow things down, and let off some steam. But Nick and Julia chose being th(i)nkful as the exercise that tends to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Forcing yourself into a thought-search for positive things tends to eat the stuffings out of anger.

Take 5 has helped tremendously! Not only has it helped their child control his anger outbursts much better, but also the parents, and grandparents (!) have benefited from this exercise. It is simple enough for a young child to implement, but effective enough for anyone, young or old. Hearing this little guy pray to God for help is so inspiring. We, too, can pray to God for help and He hears and answers us.

After a season of their child experiencing victory, Nick and Julia happened upon a candy bar that was called Take 5. 🙂 One evening their little guy was allowed to stay up after the others had gone to bed, and just Daddy, Mommy, and the little victor each got to enjoy a Take 5 bar. Hearing about this made my heart smile.

You Choose Th(i)nkfulness

Just like a little child seeking to get control over his or her emotions and choosing one thing that they are thankful for, we as adults can combat both the flurry and fury of negative emotions by choosing to be thankful. It requires a choice.

So, I shared the Take 5 concept with a friend recently and within a day she texted me that she had put it to use. At the end she commented, “Take 5 is not just for 4-year-olds!”

Thanks requires choice.

th(i)nkful

Cultivating thinking thanks

Month: June 2018