Mike Maxwell's Blog

Over the last decade I have heard people talking about FOMO. If you don't already know, FOMO stands for FEAR OF MISSING OUT.As I write this our nation is in lock-down over the covid 19 and all around me in social posts, political posts, news, emails and web calls are people longing for things to go back to normal. I too have vocalized my frustrations with not being able experience and accomplish all the things I missing out on. I have actually had the thought that these days and all that I could accomplish and experience are being "stolen from me. I will never be able to get this time back and its made me kind of angry and frustrated if I am being honest.Over the last few years I have been watching a friend, Jay, in the prime of life, fight cancer. This week he was sent home to "enjoy" the last days or weeks of his life with his family. I was reminded of a book I read years ago entitled "One Month to Live" by Pastor Kerry Shook. The premise of the book asks the question, "If you had one month to live, how would it change how you experience the world around you? How would it change the choices you make today?"If you had one month to live, how would it change how you experience the world around you? How would it change the choices you make today?A few days ago my wife asked me to do something for her. I honestly don't even remember what it was, but whatever it was I was doing it while quietly feeling a little pissy about it. I remember thinking " I bet Jay would give anything to be able to experience this life moment that I am grumbling about...If I only had a week to live, would I be grumbling or would I choose to embrace this moment as one of the few remaining opportunities I will ever have to show my wife how much I love her?"I was overwhelmed by the awareness of how ungrateful I am."If I knew I was going to meet Jesus in a few short days, what would become important to me? This question, in one form or another has been constantly fading in and out of my mind all week.The day we are born we have no choices, we are completely dependent on our caretakers. As we grow and mature, the choices available to us expand. I remember at one point in life being completely overwhelmed by all the choices available to me. "Should I go to college or join the service? Should I save money before buying a car or take on a loan? Should I marry this girl? Should I travel the world or should I settle into a career? Who can tell me what I SHOULD do to have the best life?Even as a young man I knew that making certain "choices" eliminated others forever. I feared making the wrong choices and missing out on "what could have been" my better/best choice. I was afraid I would regret my choices and be stuck in my decisions.There IS some truth to this and there comes a point in life where the choices available to each us begin to be increasingly fewer and fewer. In the end, we have to reconcile and evaluate those choices in light of eternity (should we be allowed to live that long).As I put myself in my friend Jays shoes, days away from meeting Jesus...would it matter if my wife rejected me or that the kids are too loud or that I can't watch sports? No. All these things I allow to determine my gratitude and joy never did matter in light of eternity. I just allowed them to because my perspective is broken. I am focused on the wrong things.I want to live making decisions as if I only had one month to live. I want to love others and not get caught up in all the petty stuff. I want to choose to focus on the last and most important question that will be need to answered on the day I die. "Am I ready to meet my Jesus?""..each one’s work will be clearly shown [for what it is]; for the day [of judgment] will disclose it, because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality and character and worth of each person’s work. 1 Corinthians 3

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame! Psalm 71:1Shame. It entered the world when we ate the fruit and exposed our nakedness. Shame is what keeps us vigilantly manipulating our public images, throwing up misdirection with perfect looking photos, saying we are fine through forced smiles, pretending we are too busy to spend time with others, giving a firm handshake while we make sure to look the other person in the eye in an attempt to convey confidence. Shame can manifest in so many ways. Shame can be hard to detect. Not only in others but in ourselves as well. Maybe even more so in ourselves. Maybe, because it is normal operating procedure in our own lives, we aren't able to clearly see how we have come to depend on it to protect us. Shame always serves a purpose because it is based on a false belief that I am broken in some way, and if others "saw" how I am broken, I would face consequences. Never positive consequences. PAINFUL consequences. So we have to hide. We are really good at this. Often so good we deceive ourselves as well as others.I had a dear friend, who at the age of 67 confessed that he had never learned to read. He had hidden this fact his entire life. Over 67 years of life he had built a successful business, was an elder in his church, he had raised his children, taken in foster children, regularly attended bible studies and small groups with bible open in his lap. All the while hiding his secret for 67 years because he thought that people would think he was stupid, broken. His weeping as he released his deepest fear communicated the soul wrenching pain he experienced as he finally shared his secret. No one rejected him. We loved him all the more for trusting us enough to share. Unfortunately, he died a few years later leaving an amazing legacy, having touched many, many lives.If he had been able to share this earlier in life, the people around him could have taught him to read. He would have escaped his shame decades ago if only he would have share it sooner. This is what shame does, it steals life from us. Squeezing slowly, day by day, until our life is gone. Unless we release it.God's love for us in not diminished by our sin and faults. In fact he seeks us out so he can heal our shame. Dr. Ted Roberts, Pastor and founder of Pure Desire Ministries which counsels men and women in dealing with shame says, "We are wounded in community and we find our healing in community". It is when we can find a safe, loving community where we can share our hurts, fears, and doubts that we can let the shame drift away. Isn't this what the church should be? Yes. Let it start with you and I.Are you a safe person? Are you involved in community where you can be open and venerable?

As Eve stood gazing at the fruit on the tree, she was entertaining the serpent’s silky words: “You won’t die if you eat this fruit. God is lying to you! He doesn’t want you to share his wisdom. If you eat this fruit you will be like God, you won’t die!”Eve was tempted as she pondered her choices. Who do I believe? God or this serpent? If I eat the fruit, I risk death. If I don’t eat the fruit, I might be missing my opportunity to be like God!This was humanity's first double bind, and the second followed on its heels (Genesis 3).Eve took a bite of the fruit and then offered some to Adam. He looked at her expectantly. She didn’t die...in fact, nothing seemed to happen at all!Adam’s mind was spinning. God had told them both that they would die if they ate the fruit, yet there was Eve looking as beautiful as ever, alive and seemingly well. Adam thought, Was this serpent telling the truth? Had God lied to us? Maybe God didn’t mean that we would die when we ate the fruit, maybe He meant that He would kill us if we ate the fruit. Is that what He meant? Can I eat this fruit and hide it from God? What if I don't eat the fruit, will God kill my precious Eve and leave me without her?Adam’s thoughts were unbearable! Adam experienced the most important double bind in world history. If Adam refused the fruit and God killed Eve for her sin, he would be all alone in the garden. Eve was the only woman in the world—literally, one of a kind. She had been handcrafted by God specifically for him. She was perfect and could not be replaced! If Adam ate the fruit and God found out, he risked the consequences. At worst, death. At best, he could no longer trust his Friend and Creator and would have to hide his sin from Him. His relationship with God would be damaged. No matter what choice he made it would cost him dearly. Michael Dye defines a double bind this way:"A double bind is when you are in a lose/lose situation. Or when the thing you need the most is also the thing you fear the most…staying stuck in the middle of a lose/lose situation produces feelings of anger, frustration, hopelessness, anxiety, and fear. These are the very feelings that coping behaviors anesthetize. Our need for intimacy is the double bind that drives self-destructive coping behaviors to avoid the feelings above."Double binds are not always as dramatic as the situations Adam and Eve faced. We face double-binds every day.Do I go to my daughter's soccer match or work on a time-sensitive project for work?Do I sleep in or get up early to have devotional time?Do I lie to my boss about why I was late or tell the truth?Do I tell my wife I was talking to my ex-girlfriend on Facebook or keep it hidden?Do I tell my men’s group that I have doubts about God’s Word or do I pretend to be completely solid?Do I tell my wife how angry I am or do I shut down and head to the man-cave?When facing any double bind of significant consequence, we face the same question Adam faced: Will I make my decision based on the Word of God and His promises (Proverbs 3:1-6), regardless of what my intellect or senses tell me? Or will I trust what my flesh is telling me?Said another way: how I handle a double bind always answers the question, “Do I trust God?”The double bind is one of our enemy’s favorite strategies because it causes doubt, fear, and confusion in our souls. And when doubt, fear, and confusion about God’s intentions toward us are present, the scale of our decision making will most often tip in the direction of what our flesh desires (James 1: 14-15).It is not possible to have sin-resisting faith when we are confused or doubt the Word of God. When we become unsure about obeying God due to uncertainty or fear, we can be sure our enemy is near. This is where the desires of our heart (feelings) have the power to manipulate our intellect and our deceived intellect then directs our choices. This is why we MUST know the Word of God and have a personal faith in its trustworthiness. When we know the Word of God, it becomes a bridle on the desires of the human heart and helps us stay out of the double-bind situations caused by sin.In several Pure Desire groups—Seven Pillars of Freedom, Betrayal & Beyond, and Unraveled—we work to identify and share our double-binds each week. Then, we choose to face the double bind in the form of a commitment to change over the coming week and report back to the group. The beauty of embracing and processing double-binds consistently over time, no matter how small, is that they begin to create integrity momentum which leads to an increased spiritual character (James 1:2-7). And spiritual character is what keeps us from falling into the most painful double binds which are the result of sin.If you are interested in learning more about identifying and handling double binds, listen to the Pure Desire podcast: Double Bind & Commitment to Change.Mike Maxwell is the Director of Operations at Pure Desire. His previous ministry experience includes seven years with New Beginnings Christian Center and two years as an Area Director for Pure Life Alliance, both in Portland Oregon. Mike has been leading purity groups since 2012 and oversees the Pure Desire groups at his home church, Good Shepherd Community Church. He authored The Purity Driven Life: God's Call to Character and Integrity.REFERENCES Dye, M. (2012). The Genesis Process: For Change Groups, Book 1 and 2, Individual Workbook (4th ed.). Auburn, CA: Michael Dye.

When Solomon saw a man without sexual self-control, he saw an enemy army and a pillaged city. He saw broken windows and unhinged doors. He saw the stronghold taken and the people defenseless. Or in his words:A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. (Proverbs 25:28)In the modern West, no city has walls; you don’t need to knock at a gate to enter Boston. But in Israel’s ancient Near East, where nations warred for land and survival, walls could make the difference between a flourishing city and a ravaged one. When Babylon breached Jerusalem’s walls, the city that was once “the joy of all the earth” (Psalm 48:2) became a widow and a slave (Lamentations 1:1).So it is with us in the war against sexual sin. You are a city under siege. The armies of lust are at the gate, with seething hatred in their hearts and satin lies on their tongues. They seek to steal your contentment by making you grasp for phantom pleasures. They yearn to kill your manhood by rendering you incapable of cherishing a woman who is not airbrushed or imaginary. And they long to destroy your very soul by leaving you more in love with lust than with Jesus (1 Peter 2:11).None of this happens overnight, of course. But over time, as we consistently throw a rope to these “deceitful desires” (Ephesians 4:22) and allow them to climb into our city, the walls crumble under their feet. A City Without WallsWe haven’t yet grasped the nature of the fight against lust if we think only in terms of individual skirmishes. Each act of disobedience certainly has its consequences; we all know the sting of immediate guilt, regret, and self-reproach. But no single battle destroys your city — no one failure robs your contentment, your manhood, and your soul. That only happens in stages, as habitual defeats gradually weaken your defenses and silence the sound of your war cries.Yesterday’s loss will not subject a man to the tyranny of lust, but weeks and months and years of losses will (Galatians 6:8). That’s because sin has a subtle soul-twisting quality. Each time we follow the phantom of lust into the caves of our imagination, our eyes become more accustomed to the darkness, and we find the light less welcome. This morbid curving of the soul is what C.S. Lewis called “the real evil of masturbation”:For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. . . . Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself. (The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, 758)If we allow ourselves to habitually conjure up that imaginary harem, we will gradually become men who choose imagination over reality, men who find contentment as elusive as a shadow, men who have lost the ability to love a real woman. Or, to return to our image from Solomon, we will gradually become a city without walls. A city where lust roams at will, a city where no woman feels safe, a city that is flirting with total destruction (Matthew 5:29–30).I know how tempting it is for single men to seek refuge in the thought that marriage will end this warfare. But marriage, as much as it may bolster a man’s sexual self-control (1 Corinthians 7:8–9), cannot make a persistently lustful man pure. Saying “I do” cannot rebuild the walls he has demolished through a thousand clicks, fantasies, and double takes. Men who have laid down their weapons during singleness should not be surprised when months, weeks, or even days into marriage they find lust inside the city gates.A City with BarricadesSo Satan and the armies of lust are laying siege to your city. The destroyer who turned a garden into a wasteland would smile to see your citadel collapse into ruins.But the Holy Spirit is on a counter mission to defend your city — to raise the battlements, to post the guards, and to fortify the gates. He burns with zeal to make your city a home of righteousness, where a woman walks safely and where the noise of songs and dancing rumbles through the streets. The Holy Spirit’s presence transforms your city into a temple of the living God (1 Corinthians 6:19), and he is jealous to make it holy.If habitual sin twists our souls and tears down our walls, habitual righteousness beautifies our souls and builds our walls. Every time you say no to lust by the power of God’s Spirit, you are not simply denying yourself; you’re building. You are not simply beating off the hordes of enemy armies; you’re setting stone on top of stone until the walls become impenetrable.Every time you lower the sword of God’s promises on the leering head of lust (Ephesians 6:17), you are turning outward toward other people instead of inward toward yourself. You are banishing those shadowy brides and preparing to welcome a flesh-and-blood wife. And most importantly, you are sharpening your sight of God’s beauty — the only sight that will flood you with pleasure upon pleasure forever (Matthew 5:8).In other words, you’re becoming more like Jesus, the man who faced the rage of enemy armies but never once let a soldier through the gates. Jesus was a walking fortress of a man — a city of contentment and manhood and sexual wholeness. Within his walls lives everything good. And one day soon, he will welcome us in as his bride, and we will revel in the strength of his steadfast love (Revelation 19:6–8).Until that day, men, let’s fight with everything we have to become more like him.He Died for ThisMaybe you read this and think it’s too late. You’ve already dismantled the walls of your city. Lust has taken up its residence inside you, and you feel beaten, shackled, enslaved. If that’s you, hear Jesus’s word to every sinner, sexual or otherwise: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Jesus died to seek and save people like you — the lost, the sexually defiled, the one who has no self-control, the city without walls.And Jesus also died so that you might take up a sword and raise the resistance. He died so that you might “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” and live a “self-controlled, upright, and godly [life] in the present age” (Titus 2:12). He died so that, by the power of his Holy Spirit, you might build some walls, raise some barricades, and defend the city.Scott Hubbard is a seminary student at Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis and a content strategist for desiringGod.org.

Ephesians 4:13 (AMP) " I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.]"Each day brings new challenges and opportunities. We aren’t promised that it will be easy, but with Christ in us, whatever comes our way — we can handle it.

The Lord rescues the godly; he is their fortress in times of trouble. The Lord helps them...He saves them, and they find shelter in him. Psalm 37 :39-40The most precious times in my life have been when I have been able to see my future most dimly. It has been during these times that I have felt the least "in control of my life and that I have been the most willing to release the reins to God. Don't get me wrong, although these times have been the most precious to me they were also the most painful times of my life as well. The preciousness has become clear in the lens of hindsight and the experience embraced as the most beautifully bittersweet.For some reason, and I think this is true of most of us, God is most able to get our attention when we are experiencing the consequences of our choices (including our attitudes about our situation). Some just fight against the consequences, abandon what little gratitude they have and blame God for everything. Others recognize that God is sovereign and realize the need for surrender and submission. It is a difficult thing, to really surrender to God. A dear friend once said "God will give you an opportunity every day to answer the question, Do you trust me?" Answering that question is the beginning and the end of faith and relationship with Jesus.Before I was afflicted, I went astray but now I obey your word. Psalm 119:67Obeying his word when we don't always understand is hard for us. It is for me. But this is just where he whispers "Do you trust me?" and we answer not with words but with the choices we make. And we reap the consequence of our choices.If  you are in a place of pain...sickness, divorce whatever... embrace Jesus in a deeper...deeper sincere way. Listen for his voice and answer the question "Do you trust me?"Fight! Every. Day.Mike

For most people, a long prayer of, “I need,” is easier than a long one of, “thank you for.” But it was thanksgiving and thankfulness that marked the explosive growth of the early church. Paul wrote from prison, “Keep on rejoicing in the Lord at all times. I will say it again: Keep on rejoicing!” (Phil 4:4 isv) This attitude sustained him through the most difficult times. Pastor Jack Hayford wrote a book called The Key to Everything. When Pastor Jack says something is the “key,” we listen. He wrote, “At Thanksgiving, the imagery of harvest frames our own nation’s history, inspiring us with things reflective of Early America. Yet Thanksgiving is about more than that. It is a call for us to celebrate not only God’s provision and restoration, but also His promise and presence—even amid delays, restricting circumstances, or tears. Thanksgiving also calls us to constancy, for the journey to harvest will usually be harder than we think, longer than we expect, and more rewarding than we can ever imagine.”What defeats a thankful heart is focusing on what you don’t have, rather than on what you do have. One of Israel’s biggest issues was envy. They wanted what others had—a king, or to worship the gods of Ba’al. “There is a new way of thinking,” Paul wrote. “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Romans 12:1-2 msg).Thankfulness is the response of a mature heart. Thankfulness confirms relationships. Thankfulness opens our hearts. Thankfulness makes the world brighter—even in the midst of difficult times. Thankfulness releases blessing.The early settlers of the United States were people marked by problems and challenges, yet they practiced thankfulness. Jamestown, the first successful colony and where John Rolfe married Pocahontas, the colonists’ first act, after landing at Cape Henry, April 27, 1607, was to erect a large wooden cross and hold a prayer meeting. Thankfulness gave them strength to endure. “For many of us, it’s been a demanding year. But as you and I come to Thanksgiving, the joy of celebration makes everything else incidental,” Pastor Jack continued. “When we finally see the harvest, it no longer matters how tough things were, how much time they took, or how heavy the pressures were—what’s important is that we have answered the call to faith. The joy is there. The Bible likens this joy after travail to a woman who has delivered a child. After the difficult months of pregnancy and the pain of labor, the baby is born, and what it took for that to happen doesn’t matter anymore—there is only rejoicing.”I am thankful for your friendship, thankful for family, thankful for the blessing of God on this ministry and our lives, thankful for God’s provision and thankful for the thousands of families who have been reached for Christ this year. Thankful. I’ve always loved the song of Psalm 136, read it. It will lift your heart, here’s an excerpt.Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to him who led his people through the wilderness. His faithful love endures forever. He remembered us in our weakness. His faithful love endures forever. He saved us from our enemies. His faithful love endures forever.May this season find us thankful.May God lovingly bless you. In His Grace and Peace,Paul Louis Colehttps://www.christianmensnetwork.com

American men are facing a health epidemic. It’s not smoking or obesity. It’s not heart disease. No, the greatest health issue facing American men today is loneliness and isolation. Boston Globe reporter Billy Baker details the all-too-familiar process. As we enter our adult years, work takes up more and more of our time. Then we get married and have kids. After running our homes, trying to stay in shape, and (for Christians) getting involved with the church, we have little time left for friendships with other guys. When we do find a bit of “free time,” it’s hard to leave our wives home alone to change diapers, correct homework, and broker peace deals among the warring children.So, we let our male friendships slide. Baker found that over the past thirty-plus years, study after study has documented the unhappy consequences for our health. Lonely people are far more likely to die during a given period than their socially connected peers — even after accounting for age, gender, and other factors like healthy eating and exercise. In fact, socially isolated people have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and the progression of Alzheimer’s.It gets worse. Another study determined that loneliness matched smoking as a long-term risk factor. In 2015, a massive study from BYU gathered data from 3.5 million people over 35 years, and found that those who are lonely, isolated, or merely living by themselves are 26% to 32% more likely to die prematurely.No matter how you look at it, loneliness is a train wreck for our health.My Story, Your MarriageI was forty and friendless. But this was a crisis at least fifteen years in the making.For years, my wife had been telling me that I needed other guys in my life. Read More at DesiringGod.org

The common trends in dating today are more likely to prepare you to get divorced than to enjoy and persevere in marriage. Dating is an intentional pursuit of marriage, not casual preparation for it. Unfortunately, many of us are being told we must date early and often if we ever want to be ready for marriage. For instance, one popular Christian dating book reads, “Dating is an incubator time of discovering the opposite sex, one’s own sexual feelings, moral limits, one’s need for relationship skills, and one’s tastes for people.” Sounds practical and reasonable on the surface. Until you think about putting yourself (or your daughter) into someone else’s “incubator” for a few months, or years, while he or she tries out their “sexual feelings” and “moral limits.” We put too much of ourselves at risk in dating to donate our hearts to someone’s romantic experiment. The truth is we have given dating far too much credit, and far too much power in our pursuit of marriage. And because we misunderstand and misuse dating, we end up making more and greater mistakes in our search for love.Wait to Date?Wait to date until you can marry. That’s my advice for the not-yet-married reflecting on my personal experience (and failures) in dating and on years of walking with others falling in love (and often falling harder out of love). In short, if we are dating in order to marry, we need to be ready to marry before we begin dating. I definitely do not expect everyone to agree with me. Godly wisdom is a wide stream, and God’s word often allows us to apply his heart and wisdom in remarkably different ways, even in dating. But one common point of push back puzzled me. It came in many forms, but it goes something like this: Read More

A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped.Luke 8: 43,44We don't get a lot of detail on this woman's condition but do know that in Jewish society this woman would be considered unclean. And those that came in contact with her became unclean as well. This meant that was she shunned on a regular basis by all devout Jews, both public and family. She had to move about the outskirts society letting everyone who approached know of her condition. We know that she had suffered long and that she had spent her income on seeking a cure but none could be found. Her final act of desperation was to sneak through the crowd of people who were supposed to avoid contact with her in an attempt to touch the hem of Jesus, the miracle working Rabbi. I imagine that if those around Jesus knew that they were in contact with an unclean woman they would have been extreme angry for being defiled. I believe this is why she tried to hide when Jesus asked "Who touched me?"I don't think she would have risked this unless she was desperate. Yet it is when we come to the place of desperation that life change comes. Our sin will hold us in bondage until we are willing to risk all to fall at the feet of Jesus. It is in that place where appearances and what others think of us no longer matters, the place where Jesus has our complete focus and attention. It is there where we see him for who he is in our life.Questions:Have you ever reached the point where nothing else but Jesus matters?How much is your relationship with Christ influenced by what others think?Fight! Every.  Day.Mike