Becoming Whole

Send us a textRead this sentence a few times: Human beings are the crown of creation. What a glorious declaration! Now consider the fact that sexual sin contorts that truth. A building block to sexual integrity is the understanding and appreciation of the inherent value within you and the people around you. Recognize God’s ideal representation of Himself is the man you are, is the woman you are because you are sacred by design.Also, today we are launching “Sacred by Design” a new addition to the Regeneration Ministries podcast family! “Sacred by Design” is hosted by the women on our team for women covering topics like unwanted sexual behaviors, shame, relational healing and more. Make sure to Subscribe and Share and Join us every other week as we unwrap the gift of understanding we are Sacred by Design. Highlights:It was not good that Adam was alone. It wasn’t enough companionship for Him. It wasn’t accurate representation of God that Adam alone would image Him on the earth. We needed both Adam and Eve, both man and woman. And we need both man and woman today.Being made in God’s image, humankind can be considered an icon expressing what Yahweh is like, expressing what the One Creator God is like. Man and woman are the expression of that; not man alone or woman alone. Together, both man and woman are the expression of God on the earth.  Step back and consider with awe the beauty of male and female, the beauty of man and woman and what it means to be man and woman. And the value of both.Men, when a woman walks into a room, we’re not to idolize her. But there is a sense that if we understood her correctly, if we saw her correctly, if we had eyes to see her as she is designed by God to be that we would want to kneel down in front of her in respect and glory because of how she embodies in this living creature the aspect of the one true God. And vice versa, when a man walks into a room, there ought to be some sense of that.Sexual sin contorts that we are meant to be the crown of creation by idolizing the body and sex. http://www.theologyofthebody.netHelp the showAsk a question by emailing usLeave a reviewSubscribe wherever you get your podcastsFollow us on YouTube for behind the scenes and moreSacred 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)

Send us a textConsidering all the tools you’re working with for sexual wholeness- group work, reading, one on one counseling, software filters - how are your eyes? A key component to your becoming whole is how you are seeing other people. Hashtags, movies, social media scrolls and commercials are at war with the important work you’re doing. Open your eyes to acknowledge the battle for your vision. Then open your heart to pray, “Lord, help me see.” Highlights:We strive in our culture to become attractive because we want others to see us as “good.”Goodness is not found in other people being drawn to us. Goodness is found by virtue of being created by God.It is up to the beholder to see the good God has sown into other people.There is something wrong with our eyes, with our hearts, when we are perceiving people as either objects or obstacles.How do we see people differently? This is a process of growing in the virtue of love. It is a lifelong process, and it comes with suffering and with trial and with effort and by grace.The process begins when we acknowledge where & how we are wrongly seeing people, where we are competing or comparing, weighing or measuring their worth with our eyes. We confess the wrongness of that before the Lord. We ask the Lord to search our hearts.We pray - asking God to give us eyes to see.When you recognize you don’t see others with decency, pray the words of the blind man, “Lord, I want to see.” Help the showAsk a question by emailing usLeave a reviewSubscribe wherever you get your podcastsFollow us on YouTube for behind the scenes and moreSacred 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)

Send us a textAs your sexual fantasy starts playing out in your head, you might shrug it off as “just my imagination.” But sexual fantasy carries more power than you know. It’s the gateway that leads to everything else you’re battling. So, let’s consider taking a different point of view of your sexual fantasy and taking back some of the power it holds on you. What if you tried more than just putting it out of your mind? What if you could connect the storylines of your fantasy to the storyline of your life? There is power in understanding the where and why and who your imagination invites in. In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” Josh offers 3 simple steps to get you started. Let’s begin.Highlights:A lot of us who have wrestled with unwanted sexual behaviors, tend to think that fantasy is kind of the light end of things.Sexual fantasy is the gateway that leads to everything else.There are common threads for people in the kind of pornography they view and the kinds of things they’ve experienced in their lives.Men who experienced a sense of meaninglessness in their lives, a lack of meaning were 7 times more likely to increase their porn use.If we are serious about becoming people of sexual integrity, if we are serious about leaving sexual sin in the past; then there are actually deeper issues, deeper matters of the heart, deeper relational patterns, deeper emotional issues that we have to address in order to leave them behind because our fantasies, the kind of porn we’re pursuing, the kind of sexual sin we’re pursuing is actually looking for something that’s not there.Homework:1.              Find someone to walk this journey with you.2.              Approach this process with Kindness & Curiosity: Ask questions without condemnation3.              Be sober about the work. (Being sober means to recognize and be aware your unwanted sexual behaviors have created neural pathways in your brain that you’re accustomed to. And so, your body and your brain are going to move easily in that direction.)Help the showAsk a question by emailing usLeave a reviewSubscribe wherever you get your podcastsFollow us on YouTube for behind the scenes and moreSacred 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)

Send us a textYou are created to be loved by God. You are created to be part of a grand, triumphant story. Your sexual sin doesn’t subtract you from the story. Throughout scripture, we see God choosing and inviting all sorts of characters with all sorts of issues into THE bigger story. Don’t let shame make you believe otherwise. God still wants you. God still chooses you. Your sexual sin doesn’t disqualify you from being chosen, it doesn’t cross you off God’s invite list. Highlights:Our bodies play a significant part in sexual sin.In a unique way, those of us wrestling with sexual sin are prone towards a greater amount of shame.We are more prone to believing something really negative about ourselves, not just about what we’re doing but about our very essence, because of sexual sin.This area of struggle does not mean that there’s something really awful, perverse, weird, unusual about you. What you’re being drawn to, in some ways, more adequately addresses what you’re really looking for than a lot of other vices do.If you wrestle with sexual sin, you’ve taken your desire to be a grand character in a grand story and you’ve traded it for something lesser.We would love your questions and feedback. If you need help or even want us to speak to a certain topic on Becoming Whole, email us at podcast@regenerationministries.org.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)

Send us a textBattling sexual sin does not mean going to war against your body. Your eyes, hands, feet, your genitals are not the enemy. The Enemy is the enemy. Understanding God loves your body is key in your fight to becoming whole. At the most precious point in the creation story, God created the human body. Your body is not the enemy. Highlights:Your body matters immensely to God. When God sees your body, He sees you.Your body is not an accessory to who you are, it is a fundamental part of who you are.You are a fusion of body and soul. This is at the core of what Christianity believes about human anthropology.At the core of Christian theology is that God himself, who is spirit, became flesh. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”   John 1:14For those of you wrestling with sexual sin; you sin sexually with your body. We feel temptation in our bodies, it’s a physical experience. This can be confusing.In the process, we can be tempted to blame our bodies, to vilify our bodies, to look down on our bodies. When we do that, we are more likely to want to leave our bodies behind.At the pinnacle of creation, God created humankind in his image and in his likeness.This is important to remember as we seek to be men and women of integrity, as we seek to take good care of our bodies, as we seek to steward well the physical aspect of who we are, and as we seek to love other people.Homework:AFTER FALLING INTO SIN:Confess to the Lord and your allies.Apologize to your body - “Eyes, you were made for God. You were made to see like God sees. And I just mistreated you, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.Feet, you were made to pursue God and to move towards others in love and I used you to walk towards my computer, to carry me somewhere I shouldn’t have been. Please forgive me.Genitals, you were not made for sexual immorality; you were made for the Lord.Please forgive me.” WHILE IN TEMPTATION:“I’m feeling arousal, but I am made for the Lord. I am made for love not for lust. I’m going to pursue the Lord with my body.”Ask yourself: What am I looking for?We value your feedback on our podcast, or if you want us to speak on a specific topic. You can email your feedback to podcast@regenerationministries.orgSacred 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)

Send us a textGod’s word tells you, “your name is written on the palm of His hand,” and that “He knows the number of hairs on your head,” and that “It was for you He died.” Consider this - The same is true for the porn actress and the man you just swiped left for. God designed you and lives in you. God designed and lives in them.  We encounter God when we encounter other people. There’s a lot packed in this short episode, let’s begin.Highlights:“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8“Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” Romans 1:19Because of God’s goodness and love for everyone; we encounter God when we encounter other people.We are meant to honor others because God has made them in His image and likeness. There is something about them that God sees and honors and loves and delights in. And He sees them as children.What does this have to do with our struggles with pornography or lust? The answer is not just for you to look away.Seek to cooperate with God’s gracious work in our hearts and in our eyes and in our minds so that we begin to participate with the idea that what we are looking at, who we are looking at, is someone who bears the image of God and who He delights in.Homework:On a practical level, begin to pray for people you see, be intentional to engage with people and treat them as people.Use your imagination to remember truths about the persons you encounter - they have a mother and a father, they have hopes and dreams, they go home at the end of the day.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)

Send us a text“In this world you will have troubles, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” Temptation is trouble. In fact, temptation is multi-layered trouble because it wants you to believe there’s something bad about you that leads you to be tempted at all. Jesus knows temptation and He knows you. In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” we’re reframing temptation through God’s word and Jesus’ grace.Highlights:Jesus taught us to pray in the Lords Prayer - “And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” Matthew 6:1" John 16:1-4 Jesus prepares comforts and prepares his Disciples for His crucifixion with these words: “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.  And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.  But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.John 16:33 “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”Temptation is trouble you experience in this world.1 Corinthians 6:13 “But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. “Matthew 4:1 “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.”Temptation is something that comes to us because there’s a tempter moving throughout the world.Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”Jesus was tempted for you, for us. He knew temptation would be a part of our lives.Don’t fall to the temptation beneath your temptation to believe there’s something wrong with you.Jesus experienced temptation because He wants to be with you in that space.Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”Our “time of need” is when we’re tempted.Jesus will delight in you drawing near.Hebrews 11:37 “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword.”When you’re enduring temptation, count yourself among the faithful Saints who have suffered in the name of Christ. Temptation doesn’t mean something bad about you. Temptation is what saints everywhere go through.We have an enemy who comes to tempt us because he wants to draw us away from God. Jesus expected that we woulSacred 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)

Send us a textYou’re here now, listening for a reason. Maybe you’re hoping to find a new way, break a habit. Understanding the motivation behind your goal is key to healthy change. In this episode, we’ll explain how shame works. Learning to recognize the sneak and bully Shame is in your work towards wholeness is important. From the outside, your eagerness to volunteer and motivation to serve can look godly and impressive. But, if shame is driving you; that eagerness and motivation can push you towards internal chaos.  For now, try to take a breath and relax your shoulders. As you’re becoming whole, learn to look for shame and listen for Jesus.Highlights:Shame masquerading as godly zeal is going to do internal damage inside a person.The outside might look like motivation but inside shame drives you to damaging ways.Shame communicates the message that you are a bad, unworthy person; that there’s something uniquely deficient, detective, dirty about you.Shame projects successful images in order to cover up its presence.Jesus, the true shepherd, draws his people towards becoming fully and wholly who they are designed to be.He draws them to confession and repentance and humility. He draws them towards godliness.He goes first.He doesn’t drive us with shame, Jesus draws us with His love.We need to recognize and get with people who can help us uncover the shame that we carry and be healed by the love of God in those areas.Psalm 23 (NLT)The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.Romans 2:4 Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?If you have been impacted by Regen or Becoming Whole, would you consider giving? You can do that here.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)

Send us a textTenacious. That’s the kind of grip your sexual addiction can have on you- no matter if it’s porn, masturbation, or hooking up. So, here’s a tough question. While your sexual sin is holding on to you, what are you holding onto? The reality is we are living in an on-demand kind of world. As a Christian battling for sexual freedom, it’s important to recognize if you’re holding onto the hope of instant results or the hope of God.  In this episode of “Becoming Whole,” we’ll confront the struggle together and then show you how to consecrate the process. True sexual freedom embraces God’s plan, design, and timing, not results.Highlights:If your unwanted sexual sin never goes away, what will you do? If the temptations persist and you continue to fall, what will you do?Confront yourself with the possibility that you may not be as free as you had hoped to be free.Confront yourself with the possibility that you may not make the progress you want to.But, don’t give up. Continue to follow Jesus. Don’t abandon the journey.Ask yourself: What else is driving you forward beside your results?For so many Christians pursuing freedom from unwanted behaviors, we find that deep down is an insistence that God do it “our way,” when we want it. This is in contradiction to what it means to follow Jesus.We all are living in a culture that demands results. If we don’t see the results we name, in the timeframe we expect; we can question God’s goodness, the truth of scripture, God’s design.While many think, “If I have to struggle in the area of my sexuality, then I can’t trust God with my sexuality.” That thinking limits you to two choices: 1. To forget God 2. To keep suffering.But, the other option is to open our sexuality to God and consecrate our sexuality to God.  Homework:Consecrating your struggle to God can begin with a prayer like this: “Lord, enter into my suffering. Enter my temptation. I consecrate to Your will and Your purposes. I trust You to bring good out of it - whether it means freedom from the temptation or freedom through the temptation.”If you have been impacted by Regen or Becoming Whole, would you consider giving? You can do that here.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)

Send us a textWhat if you could watch footage of yourself just as you’re caught in a moment of temptation? No one else knows what’s about to happen, but you: Your finger might be lingering above the “play” button. You might be walking down the specific hallway where you might see her. You might be standing in front of your bedroom door. Hitting pause at that moment would hold a lot of meaning for you in battling your unwanted sexual behavior. And the pattern is deep, the temptation is painfully intense and you can barely catch your breath. Stretch out your hands, take a deep breath and let’s hit pause together. In today’s episode of “Becoming Whole,” we offer you 3 Steps to Navigating Temptation. We hope these three simple steps can become part of your new routine so you can begin pursuing your truest desires.Highlights:1.              Admit to yourself that you’re tempted. Even when the temptation is a small nudge, admit to yourself then that you’re tempted. 2.              Reach out to an ally and admit temptation. Text your ally (someone who knows your struggle), get on the phone and then connect with them.3.              Figure out what you’re really looking for. Self-Mastery takes time. Give yourself grace.Sex is never just about sex. It is deeply embedded in our identity as both male and female.Sex is always meant to be unitive, highly relational. What is it that you’re really looking for in the areas of intimacy and identity?There are patterns to when you are tempted. And, there’s a “why” behind your temptation.If you have been impacted by Regen or Becoming Whole, would you consider giving? You can do that here.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)