This is going to be one of my most powerful blogs yet because I'm going to show you what I’m talking about. I have several pictures below that are just a representation of what can be seen in today's culture almost everywhere you look. If this doesn't convince you the matrix has an agenda I don't know what will. Knowing that agenda though gives you the power to disarm its influence on you.

Now what are these women saying with their Photoshopped perfection, body language, facial expressions, and clothing, etc.? This is so important you get! Are they saying, “I want you.” as I once believed. No. They are saying, “You want me and can't have me. ” The difference is subtle but profound. If you can get this you are on your way to freedom.

I had a friend tell me the other day that he was at the mall and saw a woman wearing a tee-shirt that said, "You can look, but don't touch." This is what I'm talking about when I say pornography is about power. Like a movie star or pop star the matrix has made their version of sexuality a source of power over men. Who holds all the power in the photos above? They do. Pornography then is just a way of dominating that power. The matrix has made sexuality strictly about appearance. As men we don't need to know anything about these women, it is all said in their body language and facial expressions. Or so we believe. The matrix has made sexuality completely external. The matrix has created a fictional world were sex is no longer about relationships, but about seeing women as objects that can be used for our personal pleasure.

It is important that women realize this too. It is not about sex really, or even the physical beauty of the women in these magazines. It is about who has power. These women, or I should say the matrix, is using the bodies of women as a source of power over men. Resisting this power struggle then as a wife or girlfriend only drives men to pornography more. But being submissive is not the answer either. You end up being used, and as I have said many times in my book, "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." The answer has to be found in shifting the paradigm to what real sexuality is about, which is relationships and true beauty. As a woman you cannot compete with the beauty of the matrix, though you may try. The beauty of the matrix is fictional. Where you can compete though is in relationships and true beauty. A woman who can smile because she knows God loves her, a woman that gives to her family and the world at large out of a heart of compassion is more beautiful than any magazine cover woman.

Men you have to realize the images above are not real, it is all fake, every last bit of it. It is just a way of trying to control you, to sell you something, to have power over you. We as men have been trained by the matrix to want this kind of beauty. But look at the images below. Can you believe the difference? They are saying I love myself, my children, my husband, my fellow man. In this instance there beauty is actually enhanced by knowing more about them because sexuality is relational. If you can see the difference it is profound and it will change your life. A woman's smile produced by a God given spirit of what a woman truly is on the inside, and not some production of a carefully staged matrix photo shoot, is more beautiful that a thousand magazine covers. This type of beauty, this type of sexuality, does not provoke the need for power, it provokes love and compassion. We need to understand this and make it a part of our lives. Then we need to avoid the matrix's images of sexuality as much as possible and when we can't recognize the deception that is taking place.

This is the power to overcome pornography addiction. This is what men have always wanted but have been deceived into believe they wanted the matrix's kind of beauty. This is the antidote to lust!

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MORPHEUS: It's that feeling you have had all your life. That feeling that something was wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad, driving you to me. But what is it?

“THE MATRIX” Written by Larry and Andy Wachowski

I love those lines from the movie, especially, “like a splinter in your mind.” This week I had a woman read one of my blogs on my “Myspace” page entitled “Disillusionment.” She had lost her son about a year ago and was relating to me how my words were a comfort to her. (I had forgotten to include it on this site, but if you want to read it is now on the blog page.) The short blog “Disillusionment” was really a response to my blog, “The Loner Manifesto.” I had come to realize that what I truly wanted in life was deep close relationships, but the disillusionment came when I tried to build those kinds of relationships. I have talked at great length in my book about power, true beauty, forgiveness, but the splinter that was always in my mind was a desire for deep relationships. In some twisted kind of way I think this was another basic need Satan had prayed on, our need for deep relationships.

Pornography to me somehow was trying to meet that need of close deep relationships. The openness of the body I suppose was to represent the openness of the person. It gave me this distorted belief that there was some kind of magical trust there that would allow people to be that open with their bodies. But in the real world we hide like Adam and Eve, needing our nakedness covered because of our lack of trust. Love and trust are so intimately connected it is hard for me to see how they could be separated. Yet we ask our wives to do that very thing, to put aside the fact they can’t trust us and still love us. Trust though is built on a relationship, not on someone’s ability to throw modesty to the wind. In reality that can only happen when a relationship of trust has been built. I personally have never experienced that, I doubt if many pornography addicts have. Why? Because our addiction makes it impossible to build that kind of trust with our wives.

True beauty has this almost magical sense of trust built into it. You can’t help but trust in its presence. It disarms all apprehension. I can imagine Christ having that quality. In His presence you couldn’t help but trust Him, it would be oozing out of His every pore. But trust like that requires perfection, and none of us are perfect. Yet it is this kind of trust that sticks in my mind like a splinter and at times has nearly driven me mad.

I’ve already told you in my book about the college girl in camp that taught about beauty and its affect on me. But there is another story I would like to tell you. These experiences you might say are splinters. My wife and I did not go on a honeymoon when we got married. My wife didn’t want her two children from a previous marriage to think just because she was getting married they were somehow less important. She wanted the transition to go as smoothly as possible, as did I. So we waited and waited and waited. Finally ten years after being married we got our chance to take that honeymoon we never had. We decided to go to Hawaii . I had been there before in junior college on a botany and geology trip and knew all the out of the way places. We saw some incredible sites; towering waterfalls, some of the highest sea cliffs in the world, tropical flowers that just amazed us with their beautiful shapes and colors. But just as much as these things stuck in my mind there was another sight that still is with me to this day, fifteen years later.

My wife and I had been camping on top of a mountain on the Island of Kawai . The park we were camping at was called Koke’e State Park. It looked just like Colorado . There was a grassy meadow with tall pine trees encircling it. The pine trees had been brought to the Island to make masts for ships. At the end of this beautiful meadow was a small lodge. It was an old log cabin with a robust stone fireplace. One evening my wife and I decided to visit the lodge for supper. When we walked in a young couple in the corner over by the fireplace caught my eye immediately. They looked like something out of a California “love commune,” hippies in other words. He had long brown hair and sandals, she also had long brown hair and was wearing a very plain brown smock. Sitting on the table between them was a small child, being held lovingly by its father and adored by his mother. The two of them were so engrossed in the baby and each other they didn’t even notice our entrance to this very small dining area. I still can remember, like remembering the beautiful waterfalls, the love in their eyes for one another. In there simple attire and life style their love was amplified a thousand fold. This sight would become a splinter in my mind, something that would haunt me to this very day. There was in this scene true beauty, but I never understood, until now, the power it would have to heal my soul.

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I had a frightening thought this morning about technology. I was considering buying a book on Amazon.com about how technology is changing our culture. I had never really thought about it before but it is technology that has allowed us to create our own realities. Without the technology of film movies couldn’t be made, without the technology of computers and the internet that fictitious reality would be much harder to acquire and much more expensive, etc.. That’s when the fear hit. Technology could be thought of as man’s attempt to make himself a God. Think of what we can do today because of our technology, it is amazing. But what happens when we start using that technology to affirm our belief we are gods? Movies and magazines are just the start. Think about what will happen when cyber-sex becomes a reality. Even right now Gamers are involved in fictitious realities where they can take on new identities, be and say things they could never be or say in the real world.

Here is just an example I recently experienced. About a month ago I purchased a program for my computer that would allow me to hear what I had written. If you haven’t noticed I’m not that great at grammar and spelling. This program though claimed to be able to help me with this by letting me hear what I had written. When I finish this blog I will have this program read it back to me. One of the voices on the program is a female voice. The quality is still very robotic, but just imagine the potential in just this simple program when it comes to a pornography addict. Imagine being able to put whatever words you desire into a woman’s mouth. You truly become in a sense a god. As technology progress that potential to become gods will grow greater and greater, and the realism will become better and better. We think things are bad now, what will they be when we can enter into a reality we can make whatever we want it to be? It makes me love my backpacking and living on just the bare necessities more and more appealing.

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I was reading yesterday some things on xxxchurch.com’s website and came across a proof text for accountability partners. I believe the source of this text was from the Pureonline group, the verse was from Galatians 6:1,2. “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” If you remember in my book I challenged anyone to prove to me that accountability partners were scriptural. Well when I came across this verse the first thing I thought was I’m going to have to change my way of thinking, because this sounds like a verse advocating accountability partners. The second thing I thought was I wonder what the context is. My second question should always be your first question. So many times we find teachings in the church that have become so accepted that we take them to be the truth without checking them out. But the Bible can be made to say about anything a person wants if they come to it with preconceived ideas. It is only the context that can save us from mistakes and our guide the Holy Spirit. So I thought I need to see what the context is of this scripture before I abandon my belief. Now I can say pretty much without a doubt that the people that used this text did so in the proof text kind of way. How do I know this? Because if you were reading the book of Galatians there is no way accountability partners would even cross your mind. This text taken in context is more about the pride of those finding fault, than accountability.

So let’s look at the context and see exactly what Paul is advocating here. The book of Galatians is written to Christians that are having a terrible time with Jews that want them to be circumcised. They want the Christians to revert back to keeping the law. In the fifth chapter Paul makes a very passionate plea to the Christians in Galatia not to listen to the teachings of some who wanted to go back to the law, but rather to live by the Spirit. One of the fatal flaws of living by the law and not the Spirit is, the law actually makes men prideful. If we believe we can keep the law, which one would have to believe if he wanted to live by it, there is within that person a belief he or she can be good enough to keep it. Paul ends the fifth chapter just before the quoted verse with these words. “Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.” These are all things of the flesh Paul says not of the Spirit. He then says, “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” NAS version This is an admonition for humility more than an admonition for accountability partners. If you don’t think so read the next verse. “ 3 For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Now if we take this to be a proof text for accountability partners what this verse is saying is more for those being the accountability partner, than the ones being held accountable. Let’s look a little further at this text and Paul will actually turn it on its head. “ 4 But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. 5 For each one will bear his own load.” Does that sound like a text for accountability partners? No. It could almost be considered a teaching against accountability partners. But it sounds so good when we want to prove a point doesn’t it?

How did Christ bear our burdens? By holding us accountable? No he became a sacrifice for the sins of the flesh so we could live by the Spirit. You could almost consider accountability partners as an invention of the Jews that wanted to live by the law couldn’t you? What is the focus on in regards to accountability partners? Isn’t it the flesh? But we are to be living by the Spirit. Focusing on the flesh only takes us away from what we should be thinking about. How do those who are spiritual then restore those caught in sin? Isn’t it by accepting that we too are sinners? That is why Paul admonishes us to be careful, because we could fall into the trap of thinking we are better than other people. But he says look at your own life and you will see it is better to judge yourself by your own works, and not compare yourself to others. Isn’t this what this verse is about?

You might be saying right now to yourself, “This all may be true, but it does say we are to restore the person doesn’t it, and couldn’t that still be considered an accountability partner type relationship?” Look at that first verse again in the proof text. Why do you think Paul adds the words, “even if”. It goes back to the previous verse. “Let us not become boastful, challenging on another, envying one another.” It is an exception to the rule. If you think you have to do this Paul is saying, at least do it with gentleness and realize you are putting yourself in jeopardy of living by the flesh, instead of the Spirit.

Be very careful about taking at face value what you read when it has quotation marks around it. It could just be a person’s view being authorized by those quotation marks.

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I want to talk today more about this idea of shame and how we deal with it. For me it was the greatest break-through in my Christian life when I learned how to deal with my shame. I believed God had forgiven me, but I just couldn’t get rid of the shame. I was told I was forgiven, but I couldn’t accept that forgiveness. Many deal with shame today by looking at past experiences of abuse and helping people see they are caring around shame they don’t deserve. It wasn’t their fault they were abused in some way in the past and all the shame that brings on them. By recognizing those past experiences of abuse they had no control over they are freed from their shame. But again I must go back to the fact not all of us were abused, and if we weren't, at least not to the extent it could ever justify our sins, what do we do? Now it may never be said that abuse justifies sin, but I don’t see how it can be avoided. For me it was the recognition that I was a slave to the body that freed me from my shame. The body, if you will, became my scapegoat, not my past abusive relationships or experiences. Is this a totally unscriptural way of thinking about things? Well in my book I’ve tried to show that this is Paul’s position as explained in Romans 7 and 8. But consider Leviticus 16:7-10, 20-22 for what I believe is further evidence that this way of seeing things is correct.

“Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the LORD and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat . . . When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert.” Leviticus 16:7-10, 20-22

The sacrifice of the one goat was not enough to remove the shame of the people, another goat had to be made a living sacrifice—the scapegoat. Does that term “living sacrifice” ring any bells? Didn’t Paul say we must present our bodies as “living sacrifices”? Romans 12:1 Could Paul have been talking about the scapegoat? To me it makes perfect sense, even down to the way the goat was chosen, which was by lot or chance you might say. There was no willful part for the goat being chosen it was a victim of circumstance, just as our lives are a victim of circumstance. The fact we are slaves of the body makes our bodies our scapegoat. We can now accept the sacrifice of the first goat, or Christ, for our guilt and place all our shame on the second living goat, our bodies. There is a whole treasure load of scripture and insight that can be mined in this understanding. I hope you will become a treasure hunter in this area of your meditation and study.

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