In our challenge so far we have been focused on taking out the obvious trash. The challenges have been to fast from magazines, books, movies, and music that glorifies or glamorizes sin and feeds your mind and spirit on things that tear us down instead of building us up.

During this trash fast we are to be focusing our hearts and minds on remembering how God says He created us by meditating on Psalm 139. If we feel the need to get wrapped up in a good love story we are to be reading the Song of Solomon and digging deeper into the truths in this beautiful book. When it’s movie and tv time, we need to be very selective during this challenge, if we watch at all, and if we do watch, don’t veg out. Try to count the number of times sex is thrown in our face and that not being a healthy biblical account of sex between a man and his wife. When it’s music time, until March 17th, we need to fill our mind and heart and soul with only songs that connect us to Our Creator. Until March 17th, let’s read and study and focus on growing in the grace and knowledge of God and His everlasting lovingkindness toward us.

Day Five: Beginning our taking of personal inventory.

Here is where we start digging deep. We begin to focus today on weeding out deception…

“Many believe that just because they are not involved in a physical, sexual affair they don’t have a problem with sexual and emotional integrity. As a result, they engage in thoughts and behaviors that compromise their integrity and rob them of true sexual and emotional fulfillment.”

“Men and women struggle in different ways when it comes to sexual integrity. While a man’s battle begins with what he takes in through his eyes, a woman’s begins with her heart and her thoughts. A man must guard his eyes to maintain sexual integrity, but because God made women to be emotionally and mentally stimulated, we must closely guard our hearts and minds as well as our bodies…”

 ~ Shannon Ethridge

Now take this Scripture and apply it to you as a woman and our struggle: “I tell you that any woman who envisions a man longingly has already committed adultery with him in her heart.”

Ladies our adultery does not begin with lustful eyes… it begins with a lustful thought and a longing heart. We don’t undress a man with our eyes. We envision him undressing us… looking deep in our eyes and seeing the real us.  We envision that he pulls us close and whispers his undying love and devotion in our ears and then whisks us up in his arms and carries us away to a place of deep emotional fulfillment…

Am I close here?

Here are some contrast that Shannon brings out her book:

Men: crave physical intimacy                           

Women: crave emotional intimacy

Men: give love to get sex                                

Women: give sex to get love

Men: body can disconnect from mind and soul 

Women: body, mind, heart, soul, intricately connected

Men: stimulated by what they see                   

Women: stimulated by what you hear

Men: recurrent physical needs cycle                

Women: recurrent emotional needs cycle

Men: vulnerable to unfaithfulness in the absence of physical touch

Women: vulnerable to unfaithfulness in the absence of emotional connection

Are you beginning to see why we have began this challenge with a trash fast? Are you beginning to see how the enemy has been able to use the media outlets to seduce us and confuse us and tempt us and yet wonder why we feel the way we do when we have not “technically” committed a sinful act?

Ladies… I didn’t mention this in the trash take-out but let me approach it now… Internet chats… be careful. “Oh he’s just a good friend” is one of the biggest lies the enemy feeds us and we gobble it up just as quickly as Eve gobbled up the fruit of that tree that got us all in the mess to begin with. If you are connecting emotionally with a man that is not your husband… or if you are unmarried and it is somebody else’s husband… RUN!

Today we are going to look over a checklist of questions to consider. This is more personal inventory time. These question require a simple yes or no answer. Consider each question honestly. This is just between you and God, precious one, don’t hide from your own flesh.

ARE YOU ENGAGED IN A BATTLE? 

1) Is having a man in your life or finding a husband something that dominates your thoughts?

2) If you have a man in your life, do you compare him to other men (physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually)

3) Do you often think of what your life will be like after your husband is dead, wondering who the “next man” could be?

4) Do you have sexual secrets that you don’t want anyone else to know about?

5) Do you feel like a nobody if you don’t have a love interest in your life? Does a romantic relationship give you a sense of identity?

6) Do you seem to attract bad or dysfunctional relationships with men?

7) Do men accuse you of being manipulative or controlling?

8  Do you feel secretly excited or powerful when you sense that a man finds you attractive?

9) Do you have a difficult time responding to your husband’s sexual advances because you feel he should meet your needs first?

10) Is remaining emotionally or physically faithful to one person a challenge for you?

11) Do you often choose your attire in the morning based on the men you will encounter that day?

12) Do you find yourself flirting or using sexual innuendos (even if you do not intend to) when conversing with someone you find attractive?

13) Do you resent the fact that your husband wants sex more often than you do, and you would rather he just masturbate so you don’t have to perform?

14) Do you have to masturbate when you get sexually aroused?

15) Do you read romance novels because of the fantasies they evoke within you or because they arouse you sexually?

16) Have you used premarital or extramarital relationships to “medicate” your emotional pain?

17) Is there any area of your sexuality that is not known by your husband, is not approved by your husband, or does not involve your husband?

18) Do you spend more time or energy ministering to the needs of others through church or social activities than to your husband’s sexual needs?

19) Do you use pornography either alone or with a partner?

20) Do you fantasize about being intimate with someone other than your husband? (this includes if you are not married, that is some one’s husband or at least it probably will be one day)  

21) Do you have a problem making and maintaining close female friends?

22) Do you converse with strangers in Internet chat rooms?

23) Have you ever been unable to concentrate on work, school, or the affairs of your household because of thoughts or feelings you are having about someone else?

24) Do you the word victim describes you?

25) Do you avoid sex in your marriage because of the spiritual guilt or dirty feeling you experience afterward?

Whew… yes that’s a lot to think about.

By the way this list was just to make you think. It was not a list to see how horrible you are because of the number of yes’s you had or to make you pat yourself on the back because of the number of no’s you had.

We are focusing these next days on personal inventory and weeding out the subtle deceptions that the enemy has been able to sneak in our hearts and minds…

Our goal is freedom.

Our goal is to stand before our Savior unashamed…