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.

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

Grace Vs. Enabling

Grace v. Enabling
By Rev. Frank J. Busbey MAR, MA, LPC

“Grace is not a blue eyed blonde.” So goes the feeble Sunday School joke! Many of us have memorized the good theological definition, “Grace is God’s undeserved favor.” Another excellent definition is Grace = God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Even though we are undeserving sinners who have grievously sinned against Him, God outrageously paid our debt through the torture, humiliation, and unjust execution of God the Son – Jesus Christ! Now all who respond from the heart in faith to the Good News about Jesus are totally forgiven and freely given a place in God’s family including an unending home in heaven!

Having received that forgiveness and grace we should be morally moved to offer the same to those who mistreat us. This can be extremely hard. One of the many difficulties in doing this is being sure we offer grace but not enablement of bad behavior.

Grace gives room to grow, mature and heal. Grace does not give permission to continue in sin. Enabling allows sin and misbehavior to go unchallenged.

God’s grace is not a license for us to remain in sin. God’s grace allows us to have relationship with Him while we struggle and grow in the process of allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us. Romans 6:1, 2 says, “1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (ESV) So God offers a costly, free forgiveness and insists that we seek His help to be progressively overcoming both our sin nature and the sins we commit.

The grace we offer others needs to offer room to grow, mature and heal. It does not continually throw the past in the face of one who has repented and apologized. The grace we extend also needs to maintain healthy boundaries and accountability. The parent who pays for their adult child’s groceries because that child has repeatedly spent every cent they get on crack is enabling addiction, not offering grace. The wife who looks the other way while her husband carries on affair after affair or continues in pornography year after year is enabling bad behavior, not offering grace.

How can I tell if I am enabling? Ask yourself questions like the following: Am I doing something for my loved one they could do themselves and need to learn to do themselves? Am I helping them grow up or helping them stay childish? Am I helping them get free or helping them stay in bondage?

Misguided family concern and love can hook us into enabling. It is important to realize that our loved one needs to be pleasing to God more than they need anything else. Giving grace does not mean living without boundaries or accountability!

Levels of Forgiveness

Levels of Forgiveness

By Rev. Frank J. Busbey, M.A.R., M.A., LPC

Forgiveness is both simple and complex! Much of the complexity comes from the fact that there are different levels of forgiveness and we mistakenly think of it as simply one thing.

Level One – forgiving with our will (Volitional Forgiveness). At this level we consider the wrong that has been done to us and the person who has done the wrong and we choose to forgive. We have full and complete control over this level of forgiveness. I believe this is the forgiveness commanded in the Bible. We have control over it, we can choose to do it or choose not to do, and therefore we are responsible for the choice we make.

Level Two – emotional forgiveness. We can make the choice above and yet for a time still feel hurt, indignation, anger when we think about what was done to us or simply see the wrong doer. Does this mean we have not forgiven? Yes and no! If we have sincerely decided to forgive we have given volitional forgiveness – forgiveness with our will. We can often do this pretty quickly in many cases. But even once that decision is made, a wounded heart still takes time to heal. Emotional forgiveness can take months or even years in some cases.

Forgiving with our will and standing by it can help emotional forgiveness to take place. Repeatedly go back to the Lord in prayer and discussing with Him the fact you have chosen to forgive and asking over and over for healing grace to fully let go of the wound will promote that healing. On the other hand, if we choose to replay the wrong over and over and fume over the perceived mistreatment – we slow down any chance of reaching to point of healing and full forgiveness. There is a story about a father named Henry, with a prized Siamese cat and a stubborn teen age son. The son repeatedly refused to cut the grass until his father’s threatened to take away all electronics for a month if he did not cut the grass before sundown. The thought of doing without his I-phone, I-pod, laptop, TV etc for a month motivated the young man to put his headphones on and drag out and half heartedly cut the lawn. Not only were there Mohawks in the lawn, the son ran over and killed the prized Siamese cat. The father was grief stricken and furious. The father stormed out with a shovel, buried the cat in the garden, but left the tail sticking out of the ground. “Henry”, his wife said, “you didn’t bury the poor cat’s tail!” “I know”, said Henry, “every time I get upset with that boy I am going to pull that cat out of the ground and remind him what he did!” Are there cattails sticking up in the garden of your heart?

This stage can take time and work! It may take repeatedly taking the offense and your wounds back to the cross and going back to Level One, “Father, with your help I choose to forgive the person who wronged me.”

Level Three – volitional, emotional, spiritual forgiveness. This comes about when we have faithfully gone back to level one over and over when the hurt, anger etc. has raised its head in our hearts. For the believer, when we make it a matter of prayer the Holy Spirit empowers us and moves our spirit toward this point.

“Can I Forgive a Person who Does NOT Ask for Forgiveness?” This is not a simple question. I believe the answer is a bit of “yes” and a bit of “no”. On the one hand we need to have a forgiving spirit as soon in the process as possible. It is destructive, even crippling to allow the root of bitterness to grow in your heart. An unforgiving spirit is like a cancer. Hebrew 12:15 , ¹⁵ See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; “ Heb 12:14-15 (ESV)

This question does lead to another level of forgiveness:

Level Four – Relational forgiveness. This level involves full, unrestricted restoration of the relationship. We have full ownership and responsibility for the first three levels of forgiveness. This level, however, is dependent on the actions of the other person. In Ephesians 4:32 the Apostle Paul writes, “³² Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”Eph 4:32 (ESV) How does God forgive us? Fully and completely AFTER we repent and seek forgiveness from Him. God does not give forgiveness until we ask for it! His heart is forgiving. He desires to forgive us. But He does not forgive until we come to Him in repentance. In the same way, we cannot give full relational forgiveness to someone who is unwilling to receive it. There are times in which it would unsafe (emotionally or physically) to restore relationship where there has not been profound repentance and transformation.

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