The Heart of Communication

The heart of communication is……… the heart!  I spend time in 

marriage therapy teaching communication skills – the infamous 

“Speaker – Listener Technique”.   If you’ve never done it is 

like riding a bike with training wheels on, or maybe more like 

knitting with mittens on!  Virtually everyone who does it feels 

it is artificial and awkward.  But it teaches assertive speaking and 

active listening.  Those are extremely helpful skills.   All of us can 

benefit by learning to be more direct yet less accusational in the 

way we communicate with our spouse.  Those famous “I” 

statements, done correctly, really make a difference.  And actually 

listening to our spouses words AND heart is critical to true 

intimacy and connection in marriage.  James 1:19 says, “Know 

this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow 

to speak, slow to anger;” (ESV)   Apply this to your marriage and 

see the difference it will make!

So we need to be lovingly assertive in the way we speak to our 

spouse.  And we have to do the hard work to discipline ourselves
to REALLY listening to them. 

Yet the heart of communication is the heart!  What I mean is
you have to care enough to really want to expose your heart and
soul to your mate (this is real intimacy!). You have to care
enough to deeply desire to know your wife’s or husband’s heart.  
Only that caring (= “love”) will give you the courage it takes to
bare your soul to your spouse and the patience to focus in when
your spouse is exposing their soul to you . Communication in
marriage is speaking the truth in love!  It is engaging your heart
first, then your ears and brains, and last of all engaging your
mouth in a kind, transparent revelation of your heart.

This really frightens a lot of guys.  It just ain’t natural for most of 

us!   But if you are going to love your wife like Christ loved the 

church and gave Himself for her, you will pray for the Holy Spirit 

to give you the courage to go for it!

And gals, when your guy comes stumbling and bumbling and 

doing a so-so job at this emotional intimacy stuff – praise him 

for the effort don’t criticize him for the imperfection!  Have pity 

on us – God didn’t give our brains as many synapses as He 

gave yours!

Bottom line – communication is hard work.  It requires a 

tremendous amount of courage, sweat, blood and tears!  And it 
begins and ends with the heart. 

Cheaters Never Win - But they can stop and come clean! (The Best Way to End an Affair)

You’ve had an affair.  You’ve decided you want your existing marriage to work.  What in the world do you do now?  First of all, in all sincerity I suggest you turn to God.  Ask for forgiveness because of Jesus Christ.  He is God become human (while remaining entirely God) who died to pay for the guilt of the sin of all who turn to Him in repentant faith.  Then determine to completely end your affair.  Cut it off completely.  As much as possible cut off all contact with your ex-lover.  No texts, no im’s, no Facebook contact, no phone calls and no ‘friendly lunches’.  This is also part of what is called repentance.  Ask God for strength to do this completely and thoroughly.  If they work the same place you do – what can you do to minimize contact with them?  Is changing jobs an option (your spouse may or may not insist on this).

Now one of the hardest things you will ever do in life:  confessing and apologizing to your spouse.  I hope you are reading this before doing this.  It is best to start right.  Pray for God to give you courage and to help your spouse with this.  This is NOT all about you.  Selfishness has brought you to this point.  It is time to set that aside and think about others, and especially your spouse.  You need to tell her/him the complete truth, no excuses and no blaming (See my previous blog, “The Devil Didn’t Make You Do It..” for more advice.).  Don’t fall for the lie that you can protect them.  They will find out.  It is best they hear it from you.  And who are you really trying to protect, your spouse or yourself?

I strongly suggest complete disclosure in the initial confession.  If you “piecemeal” your confession you will further erode trust and leave your spouse forever expecting another shoe to drop.  What I mean is don’t think you can start with “Well Honey it was just an emotional affair with a little hand holding and kissing” and then admit petting and finally admit intercourse.  It won’t fly.  Tell her/him everything – in generalities.  Don’t give a detailed narrative of every sex act, position – skip the play by play!  That reinforces mental images that your spouse will have a difficult time ever getting rid of.  Those images will slow down the process of healing, reinforce anger and unforgiveness.  They need to know who, what and how long.  Answer questions completely and honestly – don’t force your spouse to ask the perfect question – that creates even more mistrust.

If your indiscretion was pornography I suggest admitting that and the nature of the pornography.  Was it adults, teens, children?  Was it homosexual, lesbian, heterosexual?  Was is strictly nudity or did it involve watching sex acts?  Did it involve bondage, S&M, bestiality?  Once again, avoid a play by play.  Your spouse may ask to see the sites you have visited.  I suggest gently responding you think that is not good, “Let’s discuss that with a counselor and see what they say.”  Your spouse does NOT need those mental images in her/his mind.  The same kind of response may be order if you had a physical affair and in anger your spouse is asking for a play by play of what you did with the other person.

Whether we are talking about a physical affair or extensive involvement in pornography (more than once or twice), if you are blessed and your spouse is willing to try to save your marriage,  you need to find an experienced, qualified counselor to help you and your spouse walk through this to try to save your marriage.  Your relationship has suffered an extreme wound.  To have any chance of surviving and healing correctly you need skillful intervention as soon as possible.

The Devil Didn't Make You Do It! (Responsibility in an Affair)

Let’s start with the bottom line: the person who chooses to cheat is 100% responsible for their choice and for the affair. Any refusal to own up to this will undermine their spouses healing and efforts to forgive. Blaming the offended spouse is especially injurious to reconciliation. Don’t blame your upbringing. Don’t blame your spouse’s shortcomings. Don’t blame your hormones. You made a wrong and evil decision – man up! (Or Woman up!) Admit it, apologize for it, ask for forgiveness. If you desire reconciliation – ask for that and be ready to pay the price emotionally to help that happen. (Now, your upbringing may be a factor in why you made the wrong decision – you may need to explore this and learn from it – but it does not excuse what you did!

All marriages have problems and are less than perfect. Many marriages impacted by infidelity are more troubled than average (but not all). Both spouses are responsible for the problems in the marriage. Both need to accept responsibility for change to improve their marriage. 

A sensitive (and inconvenient) truth is that the short comings in the marriage may contribute to the unfaithful spouse’s decision to be unfaithful. This is where it can get tricky. Many factors contribute to every decision we make, good or bad. But we alone are responsible for those decisions. “The Devil made me do it” doesn’t play well! You may have had a very unstable childhood. Your spouse may have been very distant and neglectful. You may have had too much drink the first time you slept with the other person. You are still 100% responsible for the  choice you made. Even if your spouse was truly horrible, you had other alternatives to deal with that.

Contributing factors in the relationship need to be recognized and addressed because they will continue to undermine the relationship if they are not. But none of them remove or shift responsibility for the moral wrong involved. The first step to healing your marriage is accepting full, unequivocable responsibility for what you did. 

I have seen many marriages saved after an affair.  But it requires tremendous courage and a lot of hard work by both spouses.   The offended partner will have a lot of anger to deal with.  The struggle to forgive is huge.  And rebuilding enough trust to make the marriage work is usually the hardest of all.

If your marriage has been intruded on by an affair, and both partners say they want it to work, see a good marriage counselor.  Don't try to negotiate this enormously difficult task on your own.

Avoiding the Greater Condemnation - part three

Luke 5:31 And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.   32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

There are a lot of self righteous, conservative religious people who think they have no need of spiritual physician.   It is a common disease in conservative churches.    It can be contagious!  (Look at how the apostle Peter got sucked in, Galatians 2:11-16.)  Please examine your heart to make sure you don’t get caught up in that stuff!  Looking down on people who don’t go to church, or people who drink and smoke and cuss.  Those attitudes and behaviors stink in the nostrils of the Lord!

Or judging people who disagree with your political views!  I am a political conservative – you may like that or hate it.  But it is what I am.  But Jesus wasn’t a Republican.  He wasn’t a Democrat either.  GOP does NOT mean “God’s Own Party”!  Our gospel cannot be restricted to any one political party or political view.  Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Socialists and even Communists need to get saved!

            But self righteousness is not restricted to conservative religious people!  Anyone who thinks they are better than others is self righteous.   Secular folk and liberal folk are often self righteous too.  I hear and read them saying things that make it obvious they look down on us “poor ignorant Christians”!

What makes self righteousness so blame dangerous is the erroneous belief that we are all right and we don’t need anyone to fix us!  If you think you have all the answers and think you have it all together, you sure don’t need a Savior!  If you think you are exempt from the disease of sin, you fail to realize you need Doctor Jesus!  If you think you’ve got your act together, you think have no need to get saved!  - or, no need to grow, no need to become more like Christ!

In fact, in a sense, if you think YOU have all the answers, you’ve gone into the Savior business yourself!   In a way, you’ve gone into the god-business!  Only God has all the answers!  And God doesn’t take lightly to competition!  “Thou shalt have no other gods before me!”  This includes yourself!  Just ask Lucifer how God reacts to little phonies trying to take His place.  God is not insecure.  But He will not allow His glory to be mocked or His beloved people to be misled.   God will not share His glory with another!

If you run into Pharisees or Sadducees who think they have all the answers – YOU CANNOT ARGUE THEM OUT OF IT!   My advice is to speak the truth, then walk off and pray for the Holy Spirit to open their eyes!  Pray for them, and seek to honestly and humbly live the Christian life in front of them.  You can’t force them to change.  If you get angry and mean you only reinforce their prideful self righteousness.

Jesus said, 32 “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”Even Jesus could not fix the self righteous while they were entrenched in their self righteousness.

He came for those who know they are sinners, those who know they are a mess.   He came for people who have hit bottom and know they cannot fix themselves.  He came for the straight sinner and the gay sinner.  The church going sinner and the bar hopping sinner.  Rednecks, mentally ill, promiscuous, drug addicts, sex addicts, child abusers, house wives who gossip, Deacons who lust after their neighbor’s wife, financial advisors who steal from their clients.

John Calvin, “He came to quicken the dead, to justify the guilty and condemned, to wash those who were polluted and full of uncleanness, to rescue the lost from hell, to clothe with his glory those who were covered with shame, to renew to a blessed immortality those who were debased by disgusting vices.”

            But don’t miss He came to call us all to repentance!  To repentance! Just this week someone asked me what repentance is.  In NT “repentance” translates a Greek word, “metanoia”, meaning, ; “(1) religiously and morally, as a change of mind leading to change of behavior, repentance, conversion, turning about.” (Bibleworks)  

“a change of mind leading to change of behavior”.   Repentance means accepting God’s verdict on your behavior, your thinking, your values, and choosing to change them all with God’s empowering!  You can’t repent on your own.  You can’t change on your own.  You need the power of the Holy Spirit to change you from the inside out!

            You don’t get saved by just saying a prayer someone tells you to pray.  You get saved by repenting of your sin and believing that Christ is God become a man,  who died on the cross for everyone who will believe in Him and on the third day God raised Him from the dead!

This is the Gospel!  This is the good news!  Do you believe this?  Have you repented?  Have you turned from your sin and cried out for God to forgive you and change you?  If not, you need to do that right now!

            If you have believed, my question is, have you kept your heart open to Him?             Have you avoided self righteousness and pride and hypocrisy?   Is your heart broken by your own sin and failure?  If not, my beloved brother or sister, fall on your knees before Him and cry out for change!  Be ruthless with your sin and with any hint of self righteousness.  

May God grant that we can look at the people around us without self righteousness, without pride and have our hearts broken by the sad condition of our country.  I’m not talking about the economics or politics – they are in sad shape.  But it is the moral collapse and spiritual confusion in America I’m talking about.   I believe they are at the root of the other problems.

This week Billy Graham wrote, "My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance."

            I believe in Christians being involved in the political process.  But my friends, no election is going to fix what is ailing this once great nation.  No politician can fix the twisted hearts and minds of our people.  A mean spirited, self righteous church will not fix this nation. 

            America needs a humble, broken church that is on its face before God for her own sins.  You need to get down before God in repentance for your sins!  And I need to be right beside you in repentance for my sins! 

            Then, and only then we need to cry out for conviction and repentance to sweep through this land with a might move of God.  “The healthy do not need a doctor.”  But my friends, America needs Doctor Jesus!  We have hope because He came to call sinners to repentance, and we are a nation full of sinners.

They do not need a feel good “Gospel” that tells them Jesus loves like they are and will not judge any one. 

And they do not need hypocritical, mean spirited self righteous judgment from a church dead in its own pride and sin. 

They need loving, broken servants of Jesus who plead with them to repent AFTER they have repented themselves and AFTER they have pled with God to turn the hearts of the lost to Himself.

Pray for America – for our children and Grandchildren, for churches and pastors,  For hard hearts to be broken and blind eyes to be opened by the Holy Spirit.

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.
Acts 3:19 NIV

Avoiding the Greater Condemnation - part two

Jesus spent much more time speaking against self righteousness and hypocrisy than He spent speaking against sexual sin or drunkenness.  Why don’t we Christian preachers copy our Lord?  Jesus was much harder on the self righteous church folk of His day than He was on the worldly sinners!  What does that tell us?  We had better be on guard against the leaven of the Pharisees!  I had better examine my motives for self righteousness and pride!  And cry out to God to put those things to death whenever they raise their ugly heads in my life!

In my Bible College days my two closest friends and I formed the “Union of Conservative Christians”!   We were appalled that some of our fellow students were wearing mini-skirts, fishnet stockings, flared pants and playing rock n roll music!   We also were angry that some professors spent so much time teaching about Grace and Christian liberty when these worldly kids around us needed to hear about holiness and godly standards.   Now holiness and Godly standards are good things, the problem was  we thought we should be the ones who decided what was holy and godly!

We went to the Dean of students and complained he was too lax with our fellow students.  He had the audacity to suggest we needed to be more concerned about the sin in our own lives than how our fellow students were dressing!  It probably took me 15 to 20 years to figure out he was absolutely right!  Oh what a little Pharisee I was!  And I was proud of it!

But step by step God has brought me more awareness of the greatness of His grace and the greatness of my sin and sinfulness.  I need to take care of the two by four in my own eye before I try to remove the splinter from your eye!

Consider the Gospel of Luke, chapter 5 and verses 27-32  Luke 5:27-32.  ESV.  ²⁷ After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, "Follow me."   ²⁸ And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.  ²⁹ And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.  ³⁰ And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"   ³¹ And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.   ³² I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

There is much to learn from this passage –

To continue the mission of the Messiah we need to reach out to all kinds of people!

The Pharisees were outraged that Jesus had table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners.   Luke 5:30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"

Years ago I knew a Pentecostal preacher who made many people in his church angry because one day a week he would go to a bar, drink Coke and make friends and witness!  I believe he was following the example of our Master!  It took courage to do this.  He received criticism.  But he was doing the right thing!  Now, not everyone should necessarily do the same thing.  Especially if you are a recovering alcoholic and being in that bar would be a major temptation to relapse.  But we need to fish where the fish are!

And we need to reach out to all kind of sinners just as Jesus did.  We should witness to gays and straight, bikers and bankers, lawyers and ex-cons, the middle class and the homeless, Republicans and Democrats, drinkers and non-drinkers.

And not just hammer them with the Gospel, first build friendships – get to know them!  Get involved in their lives!  Earn the right to be heard!  Jesus did!  We need to do the same!  If we are committed to continuing the ministry of Jesus in this world, we will seek to do the same!

Avoiding The Greater Condemnation - part one

The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: "Take only ONE. God is watching."

Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples." (Borrowed from John Michael Talbot’s Facebook page.)

That story is related to a question I am often asked, “Isn’t all sin equal?  Does the Bible really teach that?”  In a way, isn’t that like asking, “Is God more concerned about stealing apples than stealing chocolate chip cookies, or is He equally concerned with both?”  Many are shocked at my answer; you may be too, but please keep reading until I explain my belief.  No, the Bible does NOT teach all sin is equal!  Here are the verses that seem to teach that:

⁸ If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well.

 ⁹ But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

 ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

 ¹¹ For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

 (James 2:8-11 ESV)

The point of this passage is not that all sin is equal.  The primary point is that showing partiality based on income and social status violates God's law as much as adultery or murder!  The point is the law reveals God’s moral nature.  Any and every violation of the law is a violation of God’s moral nature.  Any and every violation of God’s law makes us a lawbreaker.  Any sin makes the one who sins a sinner.  The wages of sin is death – eternal separation from God’s holy and loving presence.  

This does not mean all sin is equal.  All sin violates God’s moral nature and is deserving of damnation.  Yet, some sin has greater consequence than other sin.  I will even say that some sin offends God more profoundly than other sin!  But all sin profoundly offends God.

^ESV  Luke 17:1 And he said to his disciples, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!  ² It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

 (Luke 17:1-2 ESV)

It is a very serious thing to lead the weak into sin!  I believe we can find Scriptural justification for the position that sins against the weak and helpless in general are very offensive to God – this would include all kinds of child abuse.

But there is one category of sin that Jesus singled out repeatedly.  And that is where our focus will be.  

  

Mark 12:38-40 ³⁸ And in his teaching he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces  ³⁹ and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts,  ⁴⁰ who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation." (Mar 12:38-40 ESV)

The King James Version translates that key phrase, – “these shall receive greater damnation.”  In the Common English Bible it reads,  “They will be judged most harshly."  The English Standard Version is the most literal, “They will receive the greater condemnation." What is clear is that the sin of the scribes and Pharisees will be punished more severely than many sins.  Perhaps, even more severely than any other sin.

Matthew Henry writes, “But as iniquity, thus disguised with a show of piety, is double iniquity, so its doom will be doubly heavy; These shall receive great damnation; greater than those that live without prayer, greater than they would have received for the wrong done to the poor widows, if it had not been thus disguised. Note, The damnation of hypocrites will be of all others the greatest damnation.”

What was their sin?  Their sin was Hypocrisy, self righteousness and using religious power to harm the powerless!  Using religion to hurt people and then being smug and self righteous about it is at the core of the sin of Scribes and Pharisees!

They made a public display of how religious they were.  They wanted to be seen as special and be treated as very special.  They wanted to gain privileges through acting religious.  Their hearts were corrupt and yet they used religious standing to cheat helpless widows.

Certainly priests and youth pastors who use their positions to molest children are guilty of the same kind of sin as those Scribes and Pharisees in Jesus day – they share the greater condemnation from God!   And any TV evangelists who bilk widows out of money they cannot afford with false promises of healings and miracles stand in line with these scribes.  Not all do so, but those who do face the greater condemnation from God according to Jesus!

But what about us?  In what ways can we fall into these sins if we are not careful?   When we parade with Christian bumper stickers and tee shirts, and post pious things on Facebook we need to examine our motives!  In themselves, those things are not wrong, they can be excellent – or they can stink to high heaven!  

The important question is why do we do them?   Are we doing these things to Glorify the Lord or to look good ourselves?  We need to watch our motives, watch our heart.  Why are we doing it?  Who are we seeking to benefit?  Who are we seeking to impress?

Are we Trying to build Kingdom of Christ? – That is good.  Are we trying to witness to the lost? – Good.  Is our intent to encourage other believers? – this is good also.

Are we trying to put down liberals and sinners? – That’s not good.  Are we trying to use our Bible knowledge to look spiritual while we use that knowledge to hammer those we disagree with?  That is acting like a little Scribe and Pharisee!  Are we trying to look more religious than most people?  Man, that is really bad!

When we have motives like that, we are engaging in the sins Jesus said would receive the greater judgment, the harsher punishment!   We are acting more like the Scribes and Pharisees than like Jesus!