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....acts like he or she is sexually pure.

....justifies the sexual sin.

....declares the sexual sin is a need.

....deceives himself or herself into believing that sinning sexually will be a positive benefit.

....makes excuses for his or her sexual sin.

The sinner who does not sexually sin tells himself or herself that his or her heart is good.

This is a noteworthy excerpt from a book I am reading.

It is part of my journey to understand sin. I believe this is valuable to people having trouble recognizing sin as sin. I am one such person.

There is danger in looking to society to make sin relative, or to even call sin, sin. God views all sin equally, with the one exception of adultery. In that case D is an option. But, even in that case God encourages forgiveness if the sinner stops and repents ....so D is not mandatory .

It might ruffle some feathers to read about sin.....mistake, stumble, dreadful decisions, wrong, selfish.....many other terms are more palatable than sin. I believe there is real danger in not calling sin....sin. I see how it has helped me propagate a lie in my own life.

Sin is easily justified in the mind that desires and chooses it.

....made easier to ignore and deny when a lesser word is used to describe it.

A good friend of mine passed away and was buried yesterday. Although I only knew him for 8 years, he clearly and consistently reminded me that justifications to NOT do something worthwhile are easily found.....especially if a task at hand was difficult.

Sin is easy. Using porn is easy. Committing adultery is easy. Stealing something from another is easy. Lots of justifications could be made.

Real relational intimacy takes work. It takes work to attain that which is more quickly and easily stolen.

It took no work for my wife to have and find an affair.

It took no work for me to find and use pornography.

It takes work to honestly provide for yourself and your family.

Learning to R takes work.

God be with us all.

[This message edited by blakesteele at 6:01 AM, March 7th (Friday)]

I wish I remembered where I heard it, but I was a teenager at the time, so it was centuries ago - lol...

Once you are busy justifying something, you know you are considering doing wrong. What is right requires no justifying. Right is right. It may be hard - but it is still right.

Once you are busy justifying something, you know you are considering doing wrong. What is right requires no justifying. Right is right. It may be hard - but it is still right.

Wonderful! Wish I had some if your teenage experiences!

Peace.

It takes work to honestly provide for yourself and your family

Gods below, we just had a rather agonizing discussion about that last night. Very long story short, I fell apart on Tuesday night because I was just tired. Tired of carrying the ball. Tired of asking for romance and seeing no action. Tired of carrying the ball of intimate initiation and of anticipating and fulfilling desires. I Was Tired. Of discussing it. Of asking for what I needed. Of the blah blah blah words. Of being disappointed.

So I let fly with a brain dump that laid it all out for FWH in an email. And asked if he wanted a roommates partnership or a vital new marriage. To choose because I was too tired of working alone on what I thought we wanted. And that no choice or no decision me just going numb until I was too tired to go on any more.

So we had a discussion last night and I hope that he got it, this time. Because while our partnership is really quite fine, that isn't the marriage that I want. And if I can't have the marriage that I want, after burying the corpse of our former marriage, then I will withdraw to decide exactly what I do want, and I will go pursue that on my own. It takes two, and I am tired of being the one who pushes for a PA slug. Get off of your ass or get out of my way. We shall see. Open yourself and be truly intimate with me and SEEK intimacy and knowledge of me, or admit that you're too lazy to do the work.

Hard damned couple of days.

My fWH too had/has a problem with masturbation and porn pics. Unfortunately for me, he is agnostic...so I have to settle for the "it is disrespectful for me that you do that even when we have a great sex life and if it continues I am gone." argument.

You, however may benefit from this since the two of you are of faith, "God made sex to be "selflessly" God-centered. Masturbation, like all false intimacy, is self-centered and self-satisfying. God made sex to be "profound", which masturbation is not;it is superficial. God made sex to be "complementary," joining husband and wife in an expression of one-flesh union: a relationship between one man and one woman for life.

Great book Undefiled...the best since "Not Just Friends". I suggested it to your wife.

To attain a higher level of intimacy...we must not give in to instant gratification.

Never mind. Too funny. I just got to that same page with your list. How bizarre that two couples going through this at pretty much the same D-day time found this book. I hope it is helpful for you guys. I only wish it may help my fWH.

((((((((((Skan and Mr Skan ))))))))))

Hopefulmother .....tears in my eyes from your post.

I am familiar with this part of scripture.

I just recently (past. 14 months or so) discovered what it is meant to be convicted spiritually.

To keep the ownership on me I will use the term I, but rest assured my wife shared in this too...

I did not do M as God intended it. I was so ignorant that I did not even feel bad or guilty over my destructive, sinful actions....did not see them as such (masturbation or porn use). While I did not hide the facts of my actions from my wife I did not tell her each time I did them. It was that "accepted" in my defiled mind and heart.

"Undefiled" is going to have a more profound impact on my life than "Everymans Battle"....and that was an awesome read.

I always believed in God......but I am relatively new to walking with Him.

God be with us all.

Never mind. Too funny. I just got to that same page with your list. How bizarre that two couples going through this at pretty much the same D-day time found this book.

I no longer believe in coincidences.....no matter how bizarre or illogical.

Hopefulmother....thank you for supporting both myself and mrs blakesteele. It is very kind of you indeed.

Peace.

And I just realized I never mentioned the title if the book I pulled my list from......that is bizarre that your it to that page within a few days of reading my post.

I am grateful my wife is a believer. I can only imagine how painful it is to be unequally yoked in this fashion. A few times my wife has lashed out at me and used my growing faith as a component if sarcasm within that lashing out. It hurt.

I have read and been told that extreme trials either turn people away from God or towards Him. My parents turned hard away from God. Mom went the "universe wisdom" route while Dad went " every faith is good but Christianity" route.

Within the past 6 months Mom has started to turn back towards God. Started to accept that she , like me, did some pretty destructive selfish things in her M before Dad committed adultery.

Really off topic......but it was my post!

Thanks again for the scripture reference and book recommendation.

Peace.

Excellent thread and appreciated. My mind wanders since the A my WW had. I lose sight of the fact that God spoke that sin is fun to the sinner for a season, when they are caught up in the moment.

Sin is only good for one thing; to cause destruction of men and women and the foundation of marriage. If we let it!

(((Smokehouse)))

Well said.

Like I always believed in God, but only recently choose to walk with Him.......I always agreed we are all sinners, but only recently discovered what that really meant.

Grace and mercy.