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Attack Access: Locking Down Your TV, Gaming Console, Cable, Tablets
Here’s some brass tacks for filtering/blocking your television, gaming consoles, tablets and cable tv. The following recommendations apply especially to those who have/will have children. It’s your choice to expose your children to the Internet, so likewise it’s your responsibility, no matter how challenging, to protect them. Trust me, I’ve talked with way too many parents on the phone whose children secretly accessed Internet at home. You do not want to have a 9-year-old sex addict on your hands!
Attack Access: Locking Down Your Phone and Computer
Here’s some brass tacks for filtering/blocking your devices—and remember, I’m being general here. The following recommendations apply especially to those who have/will have children. It’s your choice to expose your children to the Internet, so likewise it’s your responsibility, no matter how challenging, to protect them. Trust me, I’ve talked with way too many parents on the phone whose children secretly accessed Internet at home. You do not want to have a 9-year-old sex addict on your hands!
The Tyranny of Unforgiveness
Unforgiveness, of course, is also quite powerful. Consider the many conflicts across the globe, and how they revolve around old hurts and grievances, ancient injustices, and bad blood between peoples that stretches all the way back to Ishmael and Isaac. How many families and how many marriages across time immemorial have been sundered by the inability and unwillingness to—I know it’s an old cliché, but it’s a great one—let go and let God? The choice to hold on to hurts and remember every wrong is both a wound and a sin that keeps on wounding.
The Life-Changing Power of Forgiveness
Now before we get to the specifics of closing the door of unforgiveness allow me to illustrate with your required dose of WWII history just how powerful the act of forgiveness can be. Take a moment and return with me to Pearl Harbor…
Thoughts on Heartholds and Destinies
It’s no coincidence that the final puzzle pieces of my destiny fell into place as I was doing the hard work of both purifying and healing my heart. Indeed, a basic reason why many of you remain clueless as to your calling is that your hearts are still impure and immature. Only a healthy and wholesome heart can see with the eyes of faith. And without faith, you’ll never have the courage to take that leap into the unknown when the time comes. Without purity you can’t mature enough to faithfully pass the Wilderness tests, and therefore your destiny dies stillborn, a Promised Land in promise only. Indeed, failure to live out one’s destiny is an even greater sin than sexual immorality—precisely because destiny, unlike sin, encompasses the very reason you were put on this planet in the first place.
Winston’s Dreams Save the World
Did you know Winston Churchill was a prophet? If you read about WWII, you’ve likely heard the phrase before, used even by secular historians, to describe Churchill’s uncanny ability to know the future and indeed prepare for its coming. I am, however, speaking literally...
Louis Zamperini: Broken By Brutal Testing
Let’s close out our week or learning about God’s testing with a brief reminder that all this means War! Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand’s biography of WWII hero Louis Zamperini, is an unforgettable book about an unforgettable man. The author is a marvelous writer, but ironically she gets the title of the book catastrophically wrong. The book’s title should have been Broken—because Zamperini’s incredible life story reveals the incredible measures God Himself will take to break one man.
Why Does God Test Us?
I don’t know about you, but if I’m honest, I don’t really like God’s tests. Especially the ones that involve pain and self-sacrifice. Why does everything have to be a test? Why does God’s way have to be the hard way? Do we really have to drink from this cup? Do I sound like Jesus in Gethsemane?
Sorry, folks, there is no quick fix here, no instant gratification, and no pill you can take to make it all go away. God tests His children for two extremely important reason: Brokenness and Dependence.
God’s Top Ten Tests
How serious is God about the testing process required for every believer? I offer as proof the most common divine examinations you and I will undergo—a list that’s by no means complete. See if any of these tests sound familiar.
From Test To Testimony
Speaking spiritually, your Acting-Out Cycle is your personalized, miniaturized Wilderness experience, and your addiction is your Goliath awaiting decapitation. That’s right, it’s back to the Israelites stumbling around Sinai and Jesus in Gethsemane, because this is not about masturbation or sex or drugs or alcohol—the idol right in front of your face. Instead it’s about the unseen Promised Land of your destiny awaiting fulfillment.
You have been put on this planet for Purity, Maturity, and Destiny. But here’s what’s crazy: Your Acting-Out Cycle is a critical part of God’s testing process that helps you fulfill your destiny and take your specific Promised Land. That’s right. THIS IS ALL A TEST! Indeed, the first test is that you get that this is all a test.
Medicator or Compensator
There are many different kinds of “drugs” you can choose during your particular cycle, but generally speaking, there are only two kinds of addicts in this world: Medicators seek to numb or medicate old trauma, childhood abuse, the absence of a father/mother, the wounds caused by divorce or growing up in an addict home, and so on. For Compensators, on the other hand, the key is the outward stress and pressures of life that drives them to compensate by seeking a temporary relief from what they feel are overwhelming, inescapable demands.
The Long Obedience in the Same Direction
There is another alternative to the endless cycle. You can actually move from Point A to Point B, Upward and Onward into the Kingdom of God. Eugene Petersen calls this The Long Obedience in the Same Direction. There are still ups and downs but you’re covering new ground - moving forward. You’re learning from past mistakes. Making progress. Building a sure foundation.
Annihilate Acting Out!
“Your next objective is to completely destroy your personal Acting-Out Cycle(s). Simply put, you cannot transition from Private Pervert to Captain Clean without first identifying your personal Acting-Out Cycle and then ruthlessly killing off your former negative, unhealthy behaviors, even as you replace them with positive, healthy behaviors. “
Warfare Worldview: The Greatest Generation
“Mr. and Miss Hunt, you have been saved to save others. Get pure and mature, and then fulfill your destiny even as you walk in increasing intimacy with God and others. Become part of God’s Epic End-Time Mighty Men and Women, part of the Greatest Spiritual Generation ever born for such a time as this, because the Sovereign God always saves the best for last. And therefore, since we are now in the last, it’s time you and I become the best! “
Your Preflight Checklist
“Are you doing your pre-flight checklist? You and I will be taking off someday soon. We must practice consistent accountability in this life if we want to give a good account in the next. In short, only by giving a good account Now can you give a good account Then. Think of your Pureheart Checklist as your daily/weekly dress rehearsal for your moment before the Great White Throne… “
Accountability And Goal Setting
“No Body/body can reap a harvest without the discipline of self-control. DISCIPLINE is the Achilles heel of almost every Christian I know (remember what I said about divinely placed weaknesses?). Our lives are utterly shaped by the presence and/or absence of discipline. . . Discipline is nothing more than the ability to consistently remove bad habits and practice healthy habits via the art of setting and achieving goals. “
Accountability & The Body Of Christ
“How important is accountability in the context of Christian community? When Jesus came to earth, all He did on an institutional level was to start and run a small group. Think about that. This is Jesus we are talking about!. . . Implicit in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is the fact that the Messiah’s methods are just as fundamental and binding as His teaching (Make disciples just like I made them, to paraphrase Jesus’s words). I’m merely skimming the surface; go back and see how the disciples time and time again come to Jesus for commendation, rebuke, further instruction, commissioning, impartation, and so on. Time in community and then back on the road, a minimum of two at a time (a small group!), to implement what they are learning.“
Small Group Accountability
“How important is accountability in the context of Christian community? When Jesus came to earth, all He did on an institutional level was to start and run a small group. Think about that. This is Jesus we are talking about!. . . Implicit in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is the fact that the Messiah’s methods are just as fundamental and binding as His teaching (Make disciples just like I made them, to paraphrase Jesus’s words). I’m merely skimming the surface; go back and see how the disciples time and time again come to Jesus for commendation, rebuke, further instruction, commissioning, impartation, and so on. Time in community and then back on the road, a minimum of two at a time (a small group!), to implement what they are learning.“
Keys To Life-Changing Accountability
“There’s a right way and a wrong way to do accountability. Most Christians I’ve met never practice accountability at all, and if they do, it’s what I call Wimp Accountability. It’s not specific, nor is it measurable. There’s no cost for failure, and no focus on the positive. As someone who has been practicing accountability for over 3 decades now, here’s how you do it right. “
Activate Accountability
“Accountability is a spiritual discipline just as important as prayer or fasting—but far more neglected. Pay attention, Agent Hunt: Completion of your Mission Possible demands the consistent practice of honest transparency and real accountability!
I define accountability as the practice of meeting daily/weekly with trusted brothers or sisters to give a detailed account of your spiritual walk—the good and the bad—for that day or week. There’s no such thing as a disciple without the discipline of iron sharpening iron in the community of a band of brothers/sisters working together to grow in Christ. Accountability is perhaps the simplest of all spiritual disciplines to learn and practice, and yet how often have you received any practical teaching on living the accountable life? Has your pastor ever preached or modeled accountability for you?“