Help For Sexual Addictions

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Help For Sexual Addictions

Website: http://askthechaplain.blogspot.com/
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Latest Activity: Jan 2, 2012

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Comment by Erica Joseph Shepherd on June 30, 2009 at 1:37pm
A Connecticut church has come under fire for a YouTube video showing ministry leaders attempting to cast a "homosexual demon" out of a teenager.

Gay and youth advocacy groups accused Manifested Glory Ministries in Bridgeport of abusing a teenager in the 20-minute video and say the ministry should be investigated.

The video, which the church removed from YouTube, shows the teen convulsing on the floor as ministers hold him down and command "homosexual spirits" to leave him. (View a segment of the video at the end of this article.)


"Rip it from his throat!" one woman yells. "Come on, you homosexual demon! You homosexual spirit, we call you out right now! Loose your grip, Lucifer!"

Robin McHaelin, executive director of the gay youth advocacy group True Colors, told the Associated Press (AP) she planned to report the church to the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. "They have this kid in a full nelson," she said. "That just seems abusive to me."

Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission said Manifested Glory is being attacked for exercising its religious liberty. "This church is being unjustly maligned for a spiritual practice that goes all the way back to Christ and the apostles," he said. "The New Testament records very strange activity associated with demonic spirits. Jesus and the apostles confronted these bizarre situations by praying for deliverance."


"The fact that the video may be strange or uncomfortable should not be surprising, but it is not a reason to attack people who are simply trying to help," he added. "People have been delivered out of homosexual lifestyles ever since the church began."

But D.L. Foster, founder of Witness Freedom Ministries in Atlanta and a former homosexual, agrees with gay activists that the church's behavior was extreme. He told Charisma the video shows a woman putting her foot on the teen's neck while he lay on the floor thrashing. Another minister pours water in his face.

"It wasn't like anything that I've ever seen, and I've been Pentecostal my whole life," said Foster, whose ministry helps people find freedom from homosexuality. "I've seen actual demons cast out. I thought it was just bizarre, the whole thing—the way the young man was treated, this obsession with making sure it was on camera."

Though he doesn't believe the church's behavior was criminal, Foster wrote in a blog posting that its actions were "a very poor reflection upon the church and Christ to film this as if it were some entertainment and treat the young man in the manner in which he was treated."

Manifested Glory's pastor, the Rev. Patricia McKinney, said the church was trying to help the boy. She told the AP that the teen visited the church last year and collapsed on the floor during a service.

"He was out of control in the church," she said. "This young man came to us. We didn't go to him."

She said the church took care of the youth, giving him clothes. "He was dressing like a woman and everything. And he didn't want to be like that," McKinney said of the teen, who told the AP he was 16. McKinney said he told her he was 18.

Foster worries that Manifested Glory may be one of many churches that have responded harshly to people seeking freedom from homosexuality.

"I'm not sure how common that [church's actions are], but I have seen other instances where people who had issues with homosexuality were treated almost like they were some kind of criminal if they came up for prayer," he said.

He said he once saw a televangelist effectively "push" two men down when he laid hands on them after they acknowledged they struggled with homosexuality.

"It was a very stark contrast to what he did with a girl who came up and said she was struggling with suicide," Foster said. "He took her and held her and comforted her. But the two men he knocked down. That's always been my concern: What happens after these services like this? What happens to these people?"

Meanwhile, Cass said Manifested Glory is bearing the brunt of "intolerant" gay activism.

"Where is the tolerance for a church who tried to help a young man who freely asked for help to overcome homosexual temptations?" he asked. "No church deserves to be maligned for trying to help a troubled teen who asked for prayer."
Comment by Mark H. Stevens, Th.D on June 21, 2009 at 7:19pm
I was exposed to pornography when I was about 12 years old growing up in Connecticut. My brother had a trunk in the attic filled with hardcore porn and I found it. I would secretly go to the attic after school and look at it, I never told anyone or shared my discovery with friends. Porno has haunted me most of my life, I accepted Christ at the age of 14, and thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit I began to feel convicted about my activities. The sad truth is even after becoming a Christian I realized the images had already done their damage. After joining the Air Force at 18 my first roommate was a porn junkie, and I fell back into temptation again. Eventually I was able to request a new roommate but the damage was done. To this day I have to make a daily concerted effort to pray and seek God for strength. I put blocks on my computers and I make sure I don’t go in stores that sell porno like 7-11 and other corner stores. I can’t let my guard down EVER because I know that is an area of weakness for me; but not just me but millions of other men, yes Christian men too!

I hope this short book will help you realize how the enemy carefully calculates your destruction through the avenue of sexual sin. I share some funny stories and personal things so you will know you are not alone in this struggle. Jude 24 is my favorite scripture when it comes to God keeping us in this evil world, meditate on it and make it your mantra. The Lord can keep you from falling, sometime even when you DON’T want to be kept! If don’t believe me keep reading!
Comment by Mark H. Stevens, Th.D on May 27, 2009 at 8:15pm
Samson, Solomon, and Me is a Christ Centered 12-step program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. We are dedicated to helping men overcome sexual addictions and bondages. We names the group Samson, Solomon, and Me because even the strongest men can fall to sexual immorality. We use biblical principals to assist us in recovery. Even if you are not a Christian you are welcome to this group because I believe the principals applied will help anyone.

Here are the 12 steps of Samson, Solomon, and Me.

1. We admitted we were powerless over addictive sexual behavior - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Psalms 38:4 "For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an
heavy burden they are too heavy for me."

There is no heavier load to carry than the burden of sin. His mind is stayed constantly on his sin. Sin is a burden NO man can bear. Only Jesus can bear sin. We must release the sin through confession and repentance (change or mind).











2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I John 3:5 "And ye know that he was manifested to take away our
sins; and in him is no sin."

Jesus was completely without sin. He had never sinned. His body
had no broken bones. He was the Lamb without blemish. He took our sin
upon His sinless body. Our sin died on the cross. Our sins are not
covered, they are done away with by the blood of Jesus. He gave us His
righteousness.



3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

Proverbs 3:7 "Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and
depart from evil."

The most dangerous thing, if you are trying to succeed in the
world, is to get satisfied with yourself. A person cannot grow when
he gets this attitude. When we rely upon our self, we are always
disappointed . No one likes a know-it-all or a conceited person. We
must remain humble. What little knowledge that we do have is because
of God's generosity towards us. Fear of the Lord will take away all
arrogance and pride. In the first few verses of Proverbs, we learned
that the fear of the Lord is true wisdom. Fear here could be looked
at again as reverence or high praise. Give God the glory for it all.



4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.


Psalms 51:6 "Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and
in the hidden [part] thou shalt make me to know wisdom."

I have been saying, all along that God looks at the inside of
man. He looks at the heart and examines the condition of the heart.
David's heart was always stayed upon God. It was the desire of David's
heart to do what was right in God's sight. David fell prey to the
desires of his flesh, when he sinned with Bathsheba. I have said, over
and over, that we must let our spirit rule over our flesh. The flesh
of mankind must be crucified with Christ that we might live victorious
lives.


5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

James 5:16 "Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one
for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much."

This answers many questions about prayer. To be truly forgiven
for our sins, we must express a sorrow for committing them. This is
what the confessing one to another is all about. This is not
confession to a minister, but to a friend in Christ. This helps us get
it out in the open and deal with it. We are to pray for each other. We
must not just pray for ourselves, but for others. Many times, God
takes care of the needs in our lives as we pray for someone else. This
healing is body, mind, soul, and spirit. We are not just to pray, but
to pray over and over, until we get an answer. This effectual fervent
prayer just means that we are earnestly seeking God. It means that we
are to continue in this prayer for an answer. Notice, also, that the
person doing the praying is righteous {in right standing with God}.
He, or she, is righteous, because they have taken on the righteousness
of Christ and been made sons of God. God hears the prayers of His
children, and answers them.





6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.


Psalms 51:10 "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a
right spirit within me."

David is very wise. To get a clean heart, we must allow God to
wash our old one in the blood of the Lamb. We must allow the old man
to die that we can become a new creature in Christ Jesus. Spirit, in
the verse above, has to do with breath. God breathed the breath of
life into man when He first created him. I believe this breath
{spirit}, here, means new life. David is saying, I want to be born
again with a spirit stayed upon God.


7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

Psalms 51:7 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me,
and I shall be whiter than snow."

Hyssop was used to apply the blood of the Lamb. David knows that
only the blood of the precious Lamb of God can wash him and make him
white as snow. Purge, in the verse above, is speaking of purifying his
inward man. He is saying, Lord, you burn out all the evil within me,
and wash me with your blood, and make me white as snow. This is a
white that is so white no fuller on earth can compare with it. This is
not David washing, this is God washing David. This is the white that
we all receive from the Lord, when He washes us in the blood of the
Lamb.









8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Exodus 22:1 "If a man shall steal an
ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen
for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep."

Here, we see someone who had not just stolen, but also, had done away
with the stolen merchandise. The punishment fits the crime. this thief,
here, would feel the pain of the theft by restoring four and five times as
much as he stole.



9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.


II Chronicles 33:15 "And he took away the strange gods, and the
idol out of the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had
built in the mount of the house of the LORD, and in Jerusalem, and
cast [them] out of the city."

He went back and tried to make amends for all of the false
worship he had established. He tore down the places of idol worship,
and removed the evil idols in the house of the LORD. It appears, he
had truly repented for his sins.

II Chronicles 33:16 "And he repaired the altar of the LORD, and
sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded
Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel."

These were both voluntary offerings. He had completely turned
around, and commanded Judah to do the same.



10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

I John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

"Confess" means to mention the exact sin. This is the first step
to forgiveness. Christians are not righteous in their own right. We
have taken on the righteousness of Christ. We are washed in the blood
of the Lamb and robed in His white robe.







11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.

Joshua 1:8 "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy
mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest
observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou
shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."



12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other sex addicts and to practice these principles in our lives.


Psalms 51:13 "[Then] will I teach transgressors thy ways; and
sinners shall be converted unto thee."

David is promising, if God forgives him, he will tell all who
commit sin that God forgives. He is actually promising to be a soul
winner for God. Not only has David learned a lesson himself about
committing sin, but he promises to pass on this knowledge to others
that they might be saved, also. The best teacher in all the world is
someone who has passed the same way before you. Experience is a great
teacher.
Comment by Mark H. Stevens, Th.D on May 18, 2009 at 1:31pm
"Sex addiction is a betrayal of the loving heart. Like all addictions, it is cunning, baffling, powerful--and destructive. It often has its roots in childhood, in unhealthy family relationships where there was boundary trespassing, seduction, violence, and other abuse. Sex addiction then may continue in secrecy from generation to generation. Those of us who were abused often kept seeking out situations that seemed to promise gratification, but they inevitably brought humiliation and pain. We tried to figure out the obscure mechanism that drove our behavior, and we may have even managed to work out some kind of explanation. But more often than not, we continued acting out and re-enacting our desperate scenarios. Our behavior remained inexplicable, implacable and devastating.

"To understand what was happening to us, we found we needed to change the beliefs that under laid and motivated our behavior. What we discovered continues to be true at each stage of our recovery. We need to be honest, fearless, and confront our affliction by breaking out of our secrets and shame. Above all, we need to develop new ways of interpreting our feelings and expressing them, and new ways of loving and relating to the world.

"Love is the antidote to addiction. By love, we mean the abiding affection that comes from connecting with others. This love includes and nurtures our sexuality as we rethink the relationship between love and power. Such love does not exist in isolation, and so we move toward other men and women to find and develop it.

"Most of us were enslaved by our addiction as long as we were convinced that we were unlovable and therefore incapable of loving others. For many of us, our search brought us to programs that offer vital and nurturing communities where we can learn the simple truths of loving an allowing ourselves to be loved. It is here we can find the serenity and strength to daily turn our struggles over to a Power greater than ourselves. Often spiritual healing brought sexual healing as we recognized an expressed ourselves as whole people, with both masculine and feminine aspects. In these programs, we continue to find confidence and fellowship as we open ourselves to others and Jesus Christ..."
Comment by Mark H. Stevens, Th.D on May 18, 2009 at 1:29pm
A message from Mark to all members of Help For Sexual Addictions on Black Preaching Network!

Sex Addicts Anonymous is a 12-step program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Here are the 12 step of Sex Addicts Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over addictive sexual behavior - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that trust Jesus and His Word NOT ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God through faith Jesus finished work on Calvary, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other sex addicts and to practice these principles in our lives.

Visit Help For Sexual Addictions at:
http://www.blackpreachingnetwork.com/groups/group/show?id=916966%3AGroup%3A594464
Comment by Mark H. Stevens, Th.D on May 13, 2009 at 10:28pm
Why Sexual Sin is so devastating

3 And David sent and inquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? (2 Sam.chapter 11)

David’s sin with Bathsheba lead to him also killing her husband as well. David spoke his own punishment when the prophet Nathan confronted him concerning his sin. Nathan used a story about a wealthy man that stole a poor man’s lamb, while he had many sheep of his own. David said this man should suffer fourfold. David lost 4 sons! David and Bathsheba lost their illegitimate son, Amnon raped Tamar his sister, Absolom avenged his sister by killing Amnon, and David’s general Joab for trying to overthrow his father’s throne killed Absolom. David’s eldest son Adonijah was killed by order of Solomon because he sought to overthrow the chosen king (Solomon). All of this because David couldn’t control his libido. It was no accident David was standing on a rooftop at the time Bathsheba was cleansing herself ritually. He knew who Bathsheba was. His closest advisor was her grandfather, and her husband was one of his military leaders. The seed of lust was already there; Satan just put some water on it.

32 But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.
32 A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. (Prov. Chapter 6)

18 There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:
19 the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.
20 such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
21 For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear: (Proverbs chapter 30)

Adultery is very devastating because in affects not only the individuals involved, but also the innocent children, the church family if the adulterer’s are believers. If Satan can weaken the family structure in the home, then the church is also weakened.

26 Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbors, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger.
27 Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.
28 Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied.
29 Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. (Ezekiel chapter 16)

The children of Israel were lured away from their relationship with the Lord by sexual sin. God constantly warned Israel not to intermarry and fornicate with the heathen nations around them. Sexual intercourse unites the parties involved emotionally; this is called a SOUL TIE. This is why married couples are not truly married until they have sexual intercourse; it is the consummation of the marriage. When sex takes place between unmarried people they are still emotionally tied to one another, this is why Israel backslid and followed the god’s of other nations.

17 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. (I Cor. Chapter 6)
Comment by Rest Of God Ministries on May 9, 2009 at 7:51pm
Hello Sister Avani Meli,

The question was not put to the 2 women in this group, but for people in general to think about. both men and women whosoever read.
Comment by Ayani_Meli on May 9, 2009 at 3:20pm
Hello Bro Mark,

I did some minor research on Jezebel, I have lost most of those links, but I would like to revisit those sites. If I can find them again, I'll share them.
Comment by Ayani_Meli on May 9, 2009 at 3:17pm
Hello Bro (Rest of God Ministries),

I was reading some of the posts today and got to your question. There are currently only two women in this particular group, so I am asking for clarification... was the question simply rhetorical or were you trying to spark a discussion?
Comment by Mark H. Stevens, Th.D on May 9, 2009 at 2:07pm
Amen brother this was a great post!
 

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