1Co 6:18 "Flee fornication. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits fornication sins against his own body."
Men can bring many sexual problems into a marriage, actually, woman can bring in just as many and the combination of these problems can create unique situations to which, outside of the Holy Spirit, there could be no solution. It is important to know that we can only ever deal with ourselves.
Regardless of your spouses problems, you must focus on yourself and allow yourself to be changed by the power of the Holy Spirit. This may or may not effect your spouse, but your motivation for your own change has to be a desire to be Christ like.
One of the major sexual problems that men deal with before and after marriage is that they have replaced sex for intimacy. Because of a lack of intimacy with their earthy Fathers, this creates a foundational problem in forming a relationship with their heavenly Father and the result is that they seek intimacy through the act of sex or any sexual act. This is a destroying substitute.
Through the passage of time, men will realize that sex in place of intimacy is ultimately unfulfilling and in the process of learning this (if indeed they ever truly learn this truth) they will demand more and more from their partners or they will change partners in their search for that which can only be found in true intimacy, a relationship with the Lord.
There are numerous examples of men seeking intimacy through lust. Many men will masturbate in order to fulfill perceived needs. The problem with masturbation is that it breeds a lack of self control and is a perfect vehicle for fantasy which is ultimately fornication or adultery.
For we know that the Lord says that if “you look upon a woman with lust for her then you have already committed adultery with her in your hearts.”And so every time an image is conjured up in our minds, whether that image is real or not, we are sinning against our God, our bodies and our spouses.
Pornography is another sexual problem that often goes along with masturbation. Many young men or boys discover pornographic magazines. These magazines are all about images. Young men begin to fantasize about what they see in these magazines and compare other young woman that they meet to the girls that they see in these magazines. If these young men marry then it is possible they will compare their wives to the woman in these magazines . Very few woman could ever measure up to the “perfect,” images that are created by those who are in the fantasy business. As a result men may become disillusioned by their partners and begin to belittle them or undermine their wives confidence in themselves.
This is not a problem in men’s lives it is sin. Until a man recognizes that he is living in this sin, he cannot even take the first step on the road to purity. Regardless of how a man is raised, regardless of the circumstances of his childhood, there will come a point in every mans life that he will have to face, not only the sin, but the consequences of the sin.
When a man comes to Jesus and his life is changed, there is so much grace, grace abounds. God the Father is very patient and very loving and the Holy Spirit is very gentle and kind in His treatment of all who come to Him. He is a loving Father who is dealing with new born children. He gives them the milk of kindness and begins to spoon feed them. As we begin to grow in Christ then there comes a time when we are no longer “babes in Christ.” God the Father will begin to deal with problems in our lives.
Many men have assumed that because they were still acting out in their sexual problems , be it pornography or masturbation, besetting sins, and still feeling the presence of the Lord (albeit in a limited fashion) and maintaining a “respectable.” outward appearance that they are not “harming ,” anyone and that which was done in secret is not that big of a deal. God will not allow this situation to go on indefinitely.
No good Father would allow his child to act out continually in front of him. Even the world would recognize this as irresponsible. And so our heavenly Father begins the process of conviction. And when it starts, it will not stop. And if the actions continue, without the proper response to His “tugging,” then we are in danger of being exposed by our Father, so that which is in darkness and stubbornly remains in darkness, will be brought, kicking and screaming, into the light.
And so we have seen that our Heavenly Father drenches us in grace and mercy. He is longsuffering and is gentle in His nudgings to us along the way. He convicts us of our actions and ultimately He wants to remove the idols from our lives because He wants nothing to stand in the way of our relationship with Him. There are a multitude of actions that the Lord may lead men to do.
As every single situation is unique and different, then there is no self help book that we could refer to that will have the answer to our problems. Not even the Word of God will solve any of our problems. The Word of God is not a step by step handbook on how to overcome the problems in your life. If it were so, then stop doing what your doing, isn’t that what the Word ultimately tells us to do? Go ahead, try that, and see how that works for you.
Undoubtedly you will find yourself crying out with Paul in Romans 7 “Oh wretched man that I am.” The Spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak. How do we win the war between the spirit and the flesh? How is the Word of God empowered to change our very lives ? First and foremost, you must be Baptized in the Holy Spirit. You must know and have experienced the power and the presence of God. It cannot be a head knowledge, if it is, you are doomed to failure. You must “know Jesus.” This is a most intimate of terms. If you do not “know Him,” then everything will be an exercise to you.
You will attempt to exercise control over your lusts, over the sin that most easily besets you and you will have varying degrees of success, but you will always end in failure. And every failure will be worse than the failure before. And each time you fail, the guilt and the frustration will lead to either despair or anger. You will withdraw, or you will lash out and those closest to you, probably the very ones that you are sinning against.
This will not just be your spouse, it will be your God. You will be angry at God or you will withdraw even further from Him. You will do whatever it takes to try and not be in His gaze. You will probably stop going to Bible studies or meetings, perhaps stop going to church at all and you will blame others and make excuses as to why your not going. And still God pursues.
The answer to this sin and all others is acknowledgement, taking full responsibility, being broken and contrite and giving up your sin in total submission. Search your heart and know that despite how you got to where you are, this is a sin that you embraced at some point in your life. You invited this sin in , and now you must reject it completely. And you cannot fool the living God. You may be able to fool everyone, you may even attempt to fool yourself, but God does not play games.
He is very patient, and if you have to “ go around the mountain again,” then that is what you have to do. You will never go further up the mountain until you exercise your will, the same will that invited this sin in, now has to tell it that your are finished. Once you do that then your Heavenly Father will enable you to overcome.
Many times after you reject this besetting sin, it will come knocking at your door to see if it can come back again. Every time you reject it, turn your back on it, it will lose its power, piece by piece. You might have to reject it a thousand times. And by the same token, every time you reject it in favor of God, then you will be empowered as this sin is weakened.
Imagine you are crossing a great river. The world is on one side and you are headed toward the other side, the heavenly side. Each time you are obedient, each time you turn your back on sin, another stepping stone appears before you and you move forward towards your goal. One step at a time on the road to glory. It is by obedience that we make forward progress towards a deeper walk with Him and overcome. Yet brokenness, submission, surrender and totally rejecting the sin and casting it out of your life are the pre-requisites to the journey of obedience.
If we simply try to be obedient without first taking these steps we will surely fail. When we are broken and finally surrender and submit to our Father then we have begun to establish true intimacy. This, you will discover, is more fulfilling than anything on earth. It is more fulfilling than even a good , wholesome sexual relationship between a man and his wife. It has to be, because no matter what we lack in this life, then we can be fulfilled in every single way with our relationship with Jesus.
Even if you are not married to the perfect spouse(how many of us are?) and you do not get all your needs met, when you walk in proper relationship with your heavenly Father, He will meet all your needs. And as He does this, it frees you up to exercise the same kind of patience with your loved one, that He has exercised with you. This is Gods plan of salvation.
Whereas before you did not have the power to reject sin, to cast it out, now you do. The question is, will you hunger after God’s presence, will you value that more than you value that which has given you a pitiful existence ? The Lord has come to give you life and that more abundantly. As you follow His ways and His leadings it will lead to greater depths. Praise God ,for in this world you will have tribulations, but be of good cheer, He has overcome the world..........Frank