Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
Glorifying God in our bodies with Christopher West
Do your desires feel like enemies to be conquered, or could they actually be signposts pointing toward your truest fulfillment? In this conversation with Christopher West, we discuss how our hungers—even our unwanted sexual behaviors—reveal something beautiful about our design.
Christopher shares his journey from the "starvation diet gospel" of his Catholic upbringing through the "fast food gospel" of cultural gratification to discovering what our souls truly crave. His insights on John Paul II's Theology of the Body offer a radical reframing: we're not just called away from sexual sin but toward glorifying God in our bodies.
Whether you're struggling with unwanted behaviors or simply wondering why your faith hasn't eliminated your deepest longings, this episode offers a life-changing perspective. Your hunger isn't your enemy—it's your heart's compass pointing home.
Listen in and discover how to transform your yearnings into prayer and your dissatisfactions into signposts toward genuine fulfillment.
Resources from this episode
Theology of the Body Institute:
The Ask Christopher West podcast:
Our Bodies Tell God's Story by Christopher West:
Peter Gabriel's "Blood of Eden": YouTube or Spotify
Florence and the Machine: "Hunger": YouTube or Spotify
An Invitation for our annual women's retreat.
Sacred By Design Women's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
Hey everybody, welcome back. I'm eager to get into today's episode for multiple reasons. Before I tell you why, let me tell you what we're going to be talking about. We are going to be talking about what we're doing all this, for so a lot of times people come to our ministry they're wrestling with some type of unwanted sexual behavior, and that's what they're aware of. I want to get away from this. I want to stop doing this, whatever this is for them. But we're not just called away from something, we're called to something.
Speaker 1:And Paul gets after this a little bit in 1 Corinthians 6, when he says in 1 Corinthians 6, 18, he says flee sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but the person who sins sexually sins against the body. And then he goes on to say for you are not your own, You're bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. So glorify God in your body. That's the four. But here's the question what does it mean? What does he mean? What does it mean to glorify God in your body? And so here's why I'm excited about today's conversation. To answer that question, or to discuss the conversation with me.
Speaker 1:I've invited how am I going to introduce this man my good friend, my dear friend, my beloved friend, Christopher West, to be with us. He is a I don't know if you'll appreciate me saying this, Christopher, but to me a master in theology of the body, what's known as theology of the body. We'll probably talk a little about what that is today. In theology of the body, what's known as theology of the body, We'll probably talk a little about what that is today. But he's also just a deeply, deeply spiritual man who loves Christ, loves Christ's church in its many expressions, and who's been just a deep guide, mentor and friend to me over many years. 20 years, 20 years it's been close to 20 years. It's been a long time. Close to 20, if it many years. 20 years, 20 years, it's. It's been close to 20 years, a long time close to 20.
Speaker 1:If it's not exactly, 20, when we met, my wife was pregnant with our now 18 year old. So there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was something like that.
Speaker 1:So you and I are a lot more gray than we were when we first met. We are. I don't think we were gray at all. When we met. We were not gray. We weren't gray Now we are. Life has had, its has taken its toll on us. So, chris, for those who don't know you, um what, what else would you say about yourself? To introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:I am a man who is a hungry seeker, the. The hunger, the, the yearning of my humanity has always been very present to me, and as a boy I didn't know what it was, I didn't know why I had it, but I felt it and God's creation would awaken it in me in a particular way. I was born in 1969. I went to Catholic schools in the 70s and the 80s and I was, you know, typical kind of Catholic education of that era. I heard a lot about the Ten Commandments and following the rules, and the idea was I need to be a good boy, I need to do something and be good, and I didn't know how to reconcile that with my hungers and my passions. In my teenage years I wanted to be a good kid, but I had these desires that were pulling me elsewhere. And the way the gospel was presented to me it was basically your desires are bad, you need to repress all that, but follow all these rules and you'll be a good, upstanding Christian citizen. And I don't know about other people. But that whole starvation approach, you know follow the rules and reject your desires. I've come to call it the starvation diet gospel and that wasn't going to cut it for me. I became a quick convert in my teenage years to what I've come to call the fast food gospel, which is the secular culture's promise of immediate gratification for those hungers and desires. And I always say this I don't want anybody to lie to me those chicken nuggets taste good going down, especially when you're hungry like I was. But if just go with that metaphor if fast food becomes your steady diet, where's that going to lead you? And that's a picture of me in my college years. So I'm late 80s now. I'm in college and I've eaten a lot of chicken nuggets and it tasted good going down. But now the grease and the sodium has caught up with me and it put me on my knees in a college dorm in 1988 saying, god in heaven, if you exist, you better show me and you better show me why you gave me all these desires, because they're getting me and everybody I know into a hell of a lot of trouble. What is your plan? And long story short, that set me on a journey of seeking that? I'm still on, which is why when you asked you know, what do other people need to know about you? Or what else do people need to know about you, I said I'm a hungry seeker and that seeking led me to this teaching you mentioned it earlier a teaching by a crazy Polish guy who just happened to be the Pope of my childhood, john Paul II, and his teaching was called Theology of the Body and, in short, it was an extended Bible study that he delivered between 1979 and 1984, asking the question why did God make us male and female? And, josh, you know some of the story. When I discovered this teaching, I was 24 years old. This is now the early 90s and I felt like I had discovered the answer to the crisis of our times.
Speaker 2:This was the Christian, the biblical response to the sexual revolution, and not just proof text. It wasn't just, you know, kind of picking one-liners out of the Bible to prove a point. It was giving this entire biblical vision, from Genesis to Revelation, and it was giving us a key to unlock the mystery of the scriptures understood as a spousal story or a marital story. The Bible begins with a marriage in an earthly paradise. It ends with another marriage in a heavenly paradise, and right in the middle you have the Song of Songs, the great erotic love poetry of the Old Testament. This is the key that unlocks the story.
Speaker 2:God wants to marry us and he wanted that marital plan to be so obvious to us. He chiseled an image of it right in our creation as male and female and in the call of the two to become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, as Paul says, and it refers to Christ and the church. So if our understanding of sexuality is confused, guess what else is confused? Our understanding of Christ and the church. And this is exactly why the enemy attacks right here. He wants to confuse our sexuality so we no longer understand the whole biblical story, we no longer understand who Christ is or who the church is, and we don't even understand why we're here.
Speaker 2:That's the world we live in right now. We don't know what it means to be human because we have lost sight of our creation as male and female. And for such a time as this the world we're living in right now, with all this chaos and confusion, have we been given and when I say we, I mean all Christians? This theology of the body is not just for Catholics. One of my great delights over the last 30 plus years of doing this work has been seeing how John Paul II's theology of the body has crossed denominational lines, and you're a witness to that too, josh. So this is for all Christians. For such a time as this have we been given so great a theology of the body. We have the antidote to the crisis of our times. It just needs to be injected into the bloodstream of the church, and that's what I've given my life to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was just a little bit. Just a little bit that people need to know about you.
Speaker 2:A little nibble, a little nibble of who Christopher West is and what I do. But I must say this Of all of my accomplishments, I am most proud to call myself a devoted husband to my dear wife Wendy. We celebrate our 30th anniversary later this year. We have five beautiful children, we have two grandchildren and, yeah, it's hard for me to even comprehend that I've been married for almost 30 years. It doesn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and Wendy is a. She's a. I know her less than I know you, but what I know of her, she's a wonderful compliment to you because she brings this beautiful pastoral, gentle, discerning ear to some of the questions that come your way, on your podcast at least, so, which I'll link to in the show notes as well. So check, check that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife is the star of our podcast. There's no doubt people tune in, maybe because they've heard of me, but then when they get to know Wendy, that's why they stay tuned in.
Speaker 1:It's both of you, you guys, you really do.
Speaker 1:I think you compliment each other well and you and you compliment each other well on the podcast, in both those ways, both spellings. So, yeah, I want to riff here this is not why we're talking today, but I can't help. But you talk about kind of your church upbringing and the starvation diet, and there's something that strikes me and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to kind of unearth it in just a minute here, but I think that in a lot of the churches that I've been in, uh, yes, there's been versions of that, but but with a little bit of a Christian spin on it, kind of like, uh, um, you know we've, we've sinned, uh, christ offers us grace, um, therefore, we've got reason to rejoice, and isn't life good? And yet I think some of the way that you teach and talk about the hunger and our hunger being for an infinite God, I think is one way to give so many people in Christian circles permission to. It's okay, it's not even okay, it is good if you still find yourself longing as a believer.
Speaker 2:It's proof that you're on the path yes, yeah, because the path of following Christ, as one beautiful, beautiful, very holy man once said to me. I was on retreat with this guy some years ago. I was on retreat with this guy some years ago and he said the proof that you're growing in holiness is not the decrease of desire, it's the infinitization of desire, it's that your desires are getting stretched to the point that you know without any doubt that nothing in this world can satisfy you. You are made for something infinite. Right, if we are made in the image and likeness of God, it means, as the early Christians would say, we have the kapax dei, which means the capacity for God. You know, jesus says as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love.
Speaker 2:Well, pause there. You know, there we are sitting in our churches, we're listening to that scripture verse and it kind of just goes in one ear and out the other Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. What kind of love are we talking about here? We are talking about something infinite, something beyond the realm of the created order. We're talking about an uncreated, infinite love. That is the very source of the existence of everything. We're talking about something mightier than the trillions and trillions of stars that exist. We're talking about the force behind everything, the power behind everything. And we, these little specks of dust, have been given as a total, absolute, sheer gift, the capacity, the kapaxdei, the capacity to receive that kind of love, an uncreated love. We have been given, as creatures, the capacity to receive an uncreated love. As the psalmist says, you've made us little less than a god, right, I mean, we're always creatures, but God gives to us as creatures as much of his divinity as it is absolutely possible to give a creature, as it is absolutely possible to give a creature. That's what we're made for.
Speaker 2:And, as CS Lewis says, when we consider the rewards held out to us in the scriptures, it's not that we desire too much. The problem is we desire far too little. Infinite, infinite bliss is held out to us. Infinite, infinite bliss is held out to us. And CS Lewis says we're messing around with alcohol and money and sex and all these other pleasures that God made the pleasures of the world to be little signs that are meant to point us to an ultimate fulfillment. But when we treat sexual pleasure as ultimate fulfillment itself. He says the problem is not that we desire too much, we desire far too little.
Speaker 2:We're saying I prefer the momentary pleasure of an illicit orgasm over the opportunity of participating in the infinite ecstasy and bliss of the Trinitarian exchange of love. To which I respond bad choice, bad choice. But why do we do this? Why do we do this? It's because I believe, as I wrestle with my own sinful tendencies, when I choose something less than God to be my satisfaction, and that when you boil, sin down, that's pretty much what it amounts to. I am looking for this fulfillment. Only God can give it to me, but I don't believe he's going to give it to me. So I grasp at some creature comfort, and I was just listening to this song yesterday. I was a Peter Gabriel fan in my teenage years and his music has meant a lot to me. And have you ever heard, josh, the song called Blood of Eden by Peter Gabriel? No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:Look it up. He's singing about the yearning of men and women to unite and he traces it back to what he calls the blood of Eden. And it's a song about the union of man and woman. But it's not a. There's nothing off about it, there's nothing perverse about it. It's an honest man's seeking. For what is this yearning we have for union? Why are we, male and female In the blood of Eden? He says we lie. The woman and the man, and the man is in the woman and the woman is in the man. In the blood of Eden they long for the union, oh, the union of the woman and the man.
Speaker 2:Obviously this is biblical imagery, the union of the woman and the man in Eden. And it's Peter Gabriel's reflection on this original call, a divine call for man and woman to become one flesh. But there's a line in the song when he says I can hear the distant thunder of a million unheard souls. And then he just laments of a million unheard souls and you can feel like he's feeling the hunger of humanity. And he says I watch each one reach for creature comforts, for the filling of their holes, and there it is. That's sin.
Speaker 2:Sin is when we take our yearning for God and we aim it at a creature. And Paul talks about this in Romans, chapter one, right when we exchange the creature for the creator and we no longer glorify God. We turn and we seek in the creature what only God can give us. And what does Paul say? He says God gives us up in our lusts. And that's really a pretty good, working definition of lust.
Speaker 2:Lust happens when we aim our desire for infinite joy at finite pleasure. That's lust, and that's what Christ came to save us from. Christ came to save us from these disordered desires. The very first thing he says in the what are you after? What are you seeking, what are you looking for? And the first thing he says in Matthew and Mark is an invitation to reorient our desire. Metanoia, turn about, redirect your yearning towards what you're really yearning for. That's what repentance is. Repentance is not just saying I'm sorry, I sinned. Repentance is the reorientation of our desire. Metanoia, turn around, turn towards what you really yearn for. I once heard it said that evangelization is nothing other than one hungry person showing another hungry person where to find good bread. And we know what that good bread is it's Christ himself, the bread of life.
Speaker 1:What I want to. I want to just pause here. So this is a word to everybody, not just to non-Christians, not just to unbelievers, and that is revolutionary, I think, for all of us. So this idea of metanoia turning around, I've heard that a million times, but I've heard it this way it's turning around and following Jesus, and oftentimes it's come across as you're forsaking your desires and you're following Jesus, which is not what you said. That's not what I said. You said it's turning your desires towards their ultimate fulfillment Correct, which is. And so I just want to say this Okay, I'm talking to myself, I'm talking to other, to Christian listeners. Listeners, listen. Part of what Christopher is inviting us into, part of what Jesus is inviting us into, is acknowledging that we still hunger. Christopher, I think I shared this story with you.
Speaker 1:I was on a Christian retreat years ago and we were singing this song. It's an older song, I can't remember how it goes, but it's one of the lines had something to do with you know, lord, I'm lost without you, I hunger for you, something like this. And the song just leaves it there. But the worship leader, towards the end of the song, changed it and he started singing like I'm satisfied. But I remember at the time feeling like that's right, but it doesn't feel right. And I think why it didn't feel right was because, like, yes, Lord, you satisfy, and I'm still hungry.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. And there's, there's a, and I don't mean that I'm like there, I've, I've had experiences as a Christian where I'm like I, lord, I feel satisfied, I'm, I feel full, I'm grateful. But I also have a lot of times where I'm like you know, we, when, before the call, you asked how you do it, I'm like, ah, it feels like a really dreary Monday and it's Tuesday, you know. I'm like, it's just like, ah, um, I want to come in here full and I'm, but I'm coming hungry and um, and part of what I hear you saying is yeah, yeah, like, don't ignore that Like, but just don't misdirect it. Yes, correct, but just don't misdirect it.
Speaker 2:Yes, correct. One of my favorite sayings is from St Augustine, augustine of Hippo. He says the Christian life is to be trained by longing. This is what the good life of a good christian looks like. It looks like you are being trained by your hunger, and your hunger is leading you to that which ultimately satisfies. But in this life we're not there yet. We're not Now. It's true that faith gives us tastes of ultimate satisfaction.
Speaker 2:In this life, we do get little foreshadowings and I think here it's one of my favorite lines in the New Testament, when the people who are following Christ and listening intently to his teachings, people who are following Christ and listening intently to his teachings, they've been with him in a deserted place for, I think, three plus days, and Jesus you know it's right before the multiplication of the loaves and Jesus says we can't send them home, they'll pass out on the way. I don't want them to pass out along the way. He had compassion for them because they had been with him for days and he didn't want them to pass out along the way. He had compassion for them because they had been with them for days and he didn't want them to pass out on the way. Now, whenever you hear the way in Scripture, it has a deeper meaning In the New Testament. It means the way of following Christ. And along the way of following Christ. Along the way of following Christ, we get tastes. He does In his compassion, he gives us tastes. But along the way of following Christ, what's happening is our yearning for the wedding feast of the Lamb, which is the ultimate satisfaction of our every yearning. Our yearning for that eternal wedding banquet increases. And one of my heroes in the Christian life, in the Catholic world we call her Saint Teresa of Avila she got to the point of yearning so profoundly for the marriage of the Lamb that she said I die because I do not die Like. She was so overcome by this passionate hunger for the consummation of the marriage of the lamb that she, she, she just wanted. She wanted nothing other than that, and she died because she didn't die. She said the pain of the longing for heaven became overwhelming and I just wanted to die so I could fulfill my yearning. And I died because I didn't die. Wow, that's a sign that we are on the way, not that our hunger is diminishing, but that our hunger is being infinitized. It's being stretched to the point of infinity right.
Speaker 2:And we have this imagery also from the Song of Songs, where the lover in the Song of Songs, which represents all of us, right, the church, the bride, the bride, is in the bridal chamber and she is longing for consummation and the bridegroom is on his way and she undresses. She undresses in the bridal chamber, basically saying to the bridegroom am ready for union, I am ready to come together, and the bridegroom, who represents christ ultimately in the song of songs, peers through the window and and she catches a glimpse of him and then, to the surprise of everyone who's following the story, he turns around and leaves. And you're like what, what, what? The bride is aching and pining for consummation, she's taking off her clothes, the bridegroom appears and then he turns around and leaves. The bridegroom appears and then he turns around and leaves.
Speaker 2:And saint after saint over the centuries, reflecting on this mysterious passage in the Song of Songs, and how does this refer to Christ and the church, and why would Christ ever do this to anyone? Saint after saint has said and here I quote Augustine, this is his way of putting it, but many other have said similar things the bridegroom leaves, why? To stretch our desire? And he says imagine that your heart is a purse and the purse is too small to put the gift within it. The leather of the purse has to be stretched to have the capacity to receive so big a gift, so great a gift. I said earlier we all have the kapax dei, the capacity for God. But what has happened with original sin? Christ called it hardness of heart. The capacity to receive God has shrunken. Right, the leather is all tightened up, if you will, from hardness of heart. And that leather needs to be made supple and it needs to be stretched so that we have again the full capacity to receive the infinite love that God wants to pour into us. And that process of stretching one's desires, that process of infinitizing one's desires, can be agonizing. And so St Paul talks about groaning in the Spirit, right Prayers that are too deep for words.
Speaker 2:When you are in touch, when you really seek to answer honestly the question that Jesus asks us all at the beginning of the Gospel of John what do you want? If we are honest about that question, it will send you into groaning prayer, where you are groaning in your yearning for what you really yearn for. If you are not groaning in your yearning, if there is not a cry of your heart to be filled. Right, my soul cries for you, I long for you in my body and my soul, says the psalmist, my body pines for you, says the psalmist. My soul cries out for the living God. Right, that is a cry, that is a groan, that is an ache, that is a yearning that only God can fill.
Speaker 2:And again I'll say it Thanks be to God in this life. Through faith, we get tastes of fulfillment. But any Christian who says I gave my life to Christ and I was totally satisfied and I've never yearned for anything at all, ever since that moment, I don't believe him, not for a moment. I don't believe him. That is a stagnated journey, right there, you're not on the journey of the infinitizing of desire. Now, if someone were to say to me let me qualify what I'm saying, so we're clear. Let me qualify what I'm saying, so we're clear. If someone were to say to me I live with a steady, underlying joy because of the hope that Christ has given me and hope as.
Speaker 2:St Paul tells us does not disappoint. Okay, I'm with you brother, I'm with you, sister. I believe that, because that is what we're given, but notice it is is what we're given, but notice it is hope that we're given, and we don't hope for things we already have. As St Paul tells us. Right, we hope for that which is to come, and the kingdom is among us, it is true, but it's not yet in its fullness. And so, along the way of our following Christ, we are going to feel the longing for the fullness of the coming of the kingdom, and that is what I mean by the infinite, infinitization of desire.
Speaker 1:Welcome everybody to our podcast. That was preview. Now we haven't even gotten into the topic at hand, but it's all related. It's all related with it and I appreciate it, because I, I, I forget my longing and I and I, honestly I, I forget that it's good to long and that it's good to feel the ache, because when I feel the ache, my, I think what I've been trained in, what our culture trains us to, is get away from the ache. Yes, yes, numb it and um, yeah, numb it. And I think the, the smartphone, has um oh yeah, it's a big numbing agent yeah, and and the.
Speaker 1:The illusion of infinite gratification, instant and infinite gratification online, has just exacerbated that but but. But it leaves us with permission. So when I get done doom scrolling, which I don't do as much anymore I got rid of my most of the, the, the, uh, what my smartphone can do because of this. But when I get done with doom scrolling and find myself so flipping hungry, and empty um, it's actually a wonderfully good thing, like, yeah, cause that's, that doesn't satisfy. I'm so far from satisfied. Yeah, thank you brother.
Speaker 2:All right. The early Christians tell us prayer is nothing other than becoming a longing for God. That's prayer. Prayer is becoming that longing for God, feeling that longing and learning how to aim it at what we really long for the living God. And one of my favorite scripture verses I think it's Psalm, is it Psalm 119? I might be getting that wrong, but it's.
Speaker 2:I treasure your promises in my heart, o Lord, lest I sin against you. Because if I feel that ache, if I feel that hunger and I do not have faith that God is ultimately going to satisfy that hunger, well, I am going to take satisfaction into my own hands. That's the lest I sin against you part, right. But if I treasure his promises, I can feel that ache more. I can feel that ache. I can stay in that ache if I really open my ache to you and treasure your promise.
Speaker 2:What is your promise? Your promise is that all who come to me, come to me, all you who are thirsty, come to me, all you who are hungry, and you will not hunger again, you will not thirst again. Now, that's a promise. Jesus is not saying you're not going to hunger again in this life, because we do hunger again in this life, right, but he's talking about the consummation of the marriage of the Lamb. In the consummation of the marriage of the lamb we will not hunger or thirst, but in this life we hunger and we thirst, and that hunger and thirst, if it doesn't become prayer, it will become sin yeah, whoa sorry, I zoned out for half a second and I got what you're saying.
Speaker 2:If it doesn't become prayer, it will become sin and it will become sin in two manners either through the numbing out of our hearts or through pursuing false infinities. And jesus laments the numbing out of the heart when he says I sang a dirge and you did not weep. I played the flute and you did not dance. That's a hard heart, that's a heart that's numbed out. It's a heart that doesn't feel what it really feels. Right, we've numbed out. And a heart that is taking its satisfactions to finite pleasures. It's taking the yearning for infinite satisfaction to finite pleasure. Well, that's where we get addiction right. Addiction happens when we aim our desire for infinite joy at finite pleasures never satisfy. So we think we need more and more and more and more and more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, and listeners, I, for those of you who who resonate with that and say, yeah, I, that's what's happened to me. I I keep going back to this stuff and I know it doesn't satisfy me and I it's. I feel beat up because I keep going back to this stuff and I know it doesn't satisfy me and I it's. I feel beat up because I keep going back to this. Um, there's no condemnation in what christopher's saying. The it's invitation like correct, correct. Recognize even that that your own dissatisfaction with what you're doing, your own lamenting what you're doing, is part of the goodness of your heart calling out for something better yes, yes just just begin there just stay right in there.
Speaker 2:stay, listen to your pain. That's what I say to people. Listen to your pain. Pain is instructive, right, and this is why numbing ourselves out is very dangerous, because, you know, let's just draw a parallel with physical pain If you numb your hand and it's on a hot stove, you won't know it's on a hot stove, so you'll keep it on the hot stove without even knowing it and you'll do serious damage to your hand. Right, that pain tells you you shouldn't be doing that. Our emotional and our spiritual pain is just as instructive. It's telling us something ain't right. I'm giving my heart to something that's damaging me, or I have given my heart to something that's damaged me. I've believed some lie, and so much of the journey of the Christian life is undoing the lies we've believed and reorienting our desire towards what we really desire talking about listening to your pain, I want to make one clarification that that does not mean um coming coming underneath, uh condemnation or accusation no, no, it does not, you are absolutely correct that that'll do just the opposite.
Speaker 1:So we um, and and sometimes, just to be fair, sometimes it can be difficult to recognize, especially when you're in the midst of it, difficult to recognize the difference between is this just natural consequence from going to that old dirty water that? I've been drinking from or is this the enemy? Attacking and accusing me and listeners, you may need help. You may need help discerning. I know I did. I needed people to say that is not from you, that's not from the Lord, that's from the enemy.
Speaker 2:Needed people to say that is not from you, that's not from the Lord, that's from the enemy. Yeah, I think that one of the scripture verses that comes to me in making this very important clarification that you're making, josh and I'm glad you're making it, because I know how easy it is to fall under those voices as well the scripture that comes to me is the woman caught in adultery. I do not condemn you, I do not condemn you. And right before that, or right in that same context, we see that beautiful line Jesus was alone with the woman. That's so important. We need to be with the Lord, without other eyes, without anybody else's eyes on us, just alone with the Lord, where we are not tempted to look at what other people are saying. And that's where the voice of condemnation comes from right. Everybody in that crowd wanted to throw a stone at her right. And those voices go away. Jesus is alone with the woman. And then we can hear I do not condemn you, but also go and sin. No more. Right. But what is sin here? Why was she committing adultery? Why did she take her hunger and her thirst to this illicit relationship? What is she really yearning for?
Speaker 2:And now we're circling back to what we originally wanted to talk about in this podcast. It's not just turn away from sexual sin, but what am I turning toward? Right, what had this woman been looking for? She had been looking for the love of a man, for the love of a man. Well, whom has she encountered? Right here, she encountered the love of the man. That is the only love that can satisfy the hunger and thirst that she had. This is again a metanoia moment. It's a redirection of her heart and her hunger towards that which really satisfies.
Speaker 2:Think also of the woman at the well, when Jesus says go get your husband. Well, what's that all about? Go get your husband? Well, jesus is trying to point out to her where she has been taking her thirst. Right, she's been taking her thirst to all of these imperfect lovers. She had been married five times and the guy she's with now, number six, is not her husband. Well, guess what? Six is the imperfect biblical number. You've been taking your thirst to all of these imperfect lovers. What's the perfect biblical number? Josh seven. Who's her seventh lover?
Speaker 1:right there, right there right there.
Speaker 2:If you knew the gift that I wanted to give you, you would ask me for a drink and I would give you a water that wells up in you to the infinite, to the eternal, to everlasting life. I'm number seven. I'm your perfect lover. Bring your thirst to me and let me satisfy it. That's the living hope that Jesus gives us. It's a living hope.
Speaker 2:Now that woman I'm utterly convinced, both the woman caught in adultery and the woman at the well, I'm utterly convinced both of them, that day, experienced a real taste of fulfillment. But it's not the ultimate fulfillment until we arrive at the marriage of the Lamb. So we need to continue to make acts of faith. I treasure your promise in my heart, o Lord, lest I sin against you. I treasure your promise in my heart, o Lord, lest I sin against you. You have promised me that you're going to satisfy my every hunger and thirst. You have promised me this I treasure your promise in my heart, o Lord, because if I don't treasure that promise, I'm going to take that hunger somewhere else or I'm going to shut it down, and either way I'm going to sin against you. But I treasure your promise in my heart, o Lord, lest I sin against you. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it, says the Lord. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it, says the Lord. Believe that Psalm 81, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1:Okay, with that, we got to. We got to pause because we know we're hitting our time for this week, but, listeners, come back next week. We're going to continue this conversation with Christopher West and we're going to get to. How do you glorify God in your body? Is it a momentary decision? Is it a process? Come back next week for more.
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