Each year during the week between Christmas and New Years we post the Top 5 Posts of the previous year. Today through the end of the year, we will post the top five posts of 2011. We hope you enjoy this short recap of the year and can’t wait to see all that God does at RefineUs in 2012.

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Last Monday I got a text message from a good friend. The text said, “I need your help. A friend of mine is a pastor and he has confessed an affair. I don’t know what to do to help.”

The text broke my heart. It broke my heart for this pastor. It broke my heart for his wife and his kids. It broke my heart for the church that found out yesterday about his unfaithfulness.

There is a verse in Proverbs that came to my mind as I thought about this pastor…because it not only applies to him, but to me and maybe to you.

There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death

As I was thinking about this verse, I thought about the path to an affair. There is a definite path to choosing an affair. It isn’t one big step into sin, but rather several small steps and compromises here and there.

Here is the certain path to an affair:

• Believe that it will never happen to you

• Choose to equate accountability with transparency

• Find your identity in something other than Christ

• Be willing to tell little lies or leave out part of the truth when it will benefit you

• Place more of a weight on what others think about you than what your spouse thinks about you

• Pretend to be closer to God than you really are

• Overcome your insecurities and low self esteem with a false pride and arrogance

• Ignore sexual brokenness from your past and believe it won’t affect your marriage

• Romanticize a relationship with someone else as being more fulfilling than your relationship with your spouse

It is easy to look back on an affair and see the choices and compromises that were made along the way. What if we didn’t wait until the choices we can’t undo were made before we changed? What if we changed the direction of our marriage now? What if you chose to walk a path that leads to life in your marriage, today?

What if more people recognized the path before they were on it? That is why RefineUs exists.

We are fighting for you…and so is God.

We just wanted to say Merry Christmas to you and your family. We can’t thank you enough for being a part of our community. It is an honor to experience life and marriage and family with you. We hope you have an amazing day!

We love you guys.

Justin, Trish and boys.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Galatians 4:4-5

You don’t have the capacity to redeem yourself, but you do have a Redeemer.

You don’t have the capacity to change yourself, but you do have a Transformer.

You don’t have the ability to forgive your sins, but you do have a Forgiver.

You don’t have the power to heal yourself, but you do have a Healer.

You don’t have the strength to sustain yourself, but you do have a Sustainer.

You don’t possess enough control to protect yourself, but you do have a Protector.

You don’t have the capacity to deliver yourself, but you do have a Deliverer.

You don’t have the power to create yourself, but you do have a Creator.

You don’t have the ability to fix yourself, but you do have a Restorer.

You don’t have the strength to save yourself, but you do have a Savior.

Thank you, Jesus for Christmas. Thank you for creating, restoring, delivering, protecting, sustaining, healing, forgiving, transforming, redeeming and saving. It is truly a Merry Christmas.

One of the promises of Christmas is peace. Right after Jesus was born, angels appeared to a group of shepherds and announced that Jesus would bring peace on earth and goodwill toward men. The Bible promises those of us that are followers of Christ that we will have a “peace that surpasses all understanding.” Jesus was called the Prince of Peace…yet for many of us, if we are honest, peace eludes us this Christmas. We wouldn’t describe our life as “peaceful.”

Isaiah 32:17 gives a perfect description of peace:

And this righteousness will bring peace. Yes, it will bring quietness and confidence forever.

A simple definition of Godly peace is a quietness of heart and a confidence in God. That is peace. But every single day, in your life and in mine there will be forces that try to rob you of peace. There are enemies of peace in each of our lives.

 1. Unmet Expectations

For many of us, we had a vision for our life, our marriage, our career, a relationship…and the vision that we had and the reality that we live in are worlds apart. We live with unmet expectations. You expected to graduate by now. You expected to be out of debt by now. You expected to be married by now. You are married and you expected to be pregnant by now. You never expected to get divorced. You thought he’d apologize. You thought she’d forgive. You thought he would never leave. You thought she’d never lie to you.

Unmet expectations are the enemy to quietness and confidence. They seek to reek havoc and bring trouble to our hearts and fear to our soul.

 2. Unfair Circumstances

Maybe this Christmas, you find yourself the victim of unfair circumstances. You were the faithful spouse. You were the loving husband. You were the generous person that got taken advantage of. You were the health nut blindsided by a doctor’s visit. You were the loyal friend. You were the dedicated employee. You were the forgiving sister. You were the olive-branch extending son or daughter. You did nothing to deserve or earn the circumstances you currently have to deal with.

When you are faithful to God and then you find yourself in a situation in which it feels like He hasn’t been faithful to you, it is easy to lose confidence. We lose confidence in His goodness and His character.  It is easy to allow peace to evaporate.

There will be circumstances in our life that make it seem like the world has overcome you…but Jesus says, “Take heart, I have overcome the world.”

3. Unresolved Conflict

Ever been in a place where it felt easier to give up on a relationship than to fight for it? Resignation is the place where peace goes to die. It is easier to quit than to resolve conflict. You thought that ignoring the conflict would make it go away. You bought the lie that time heals all wounds. But time doesn’t heal all wounds…time only enables us to live out of our woundedness.

We can pretend things are okay when we go home for Christmas. We can pretend things are okay with our ex-spouse when we really haven’t forgiven. We can act like don’t have an issue with our sister or our dad, but we know its there. We can pretend. Pretending will never bring peace.

Which of these enemies of peace come at you the hardest this Christmas?

Divorce doesn’t happen all at once. Addictions don’t take hold overnight. Relationships don’t usually just implode. There is a slide into divorce. There is a gradual accent into addiction.  There is a subtle breakdown in relationships.

Most of the time, our character doesn’t deteriorate instantly. It starts with a willingness to rationalize. We are capable of convincing ourselves that the choice we are making isn’t that big of a deal.

Rationalizing is a slippery slope, and it doesn’t kill us all at once, it kills us an inch at a time. A small compromise here, a justification there, and little by little the convictions you once had fade away. Maybe you aren’t justifying an affair…but you are on the slippery slope of rationalizing other choices:

-withholding truth: You have accountability partners, and you have people with whom you are “doing life” and you have a spouse that you say you could tell anything to…but deep inside, you are withholding truth. Accountability is only as good as our willingness to be transparent, and you rationalize the truth you withhold as “not really telling a lie, and no one is really getting hurt.” So you withhold more and more and more of yourself.

-pornography: You know what pornography has done to other marriages, to other friends, to other families, to other church leaders…but you aren’t really “addicted” to pornography…and besides it doesn’t have the same affect on you that it does on other people. It won’t hurt your life, your marriage, your kids, your church, your ministry like it has other people.

-debt…You know you need to create a budget. You know you need to stop using credit cards. You know you need to share with your spouse how much debt you are in. But you make enough money to cover the minimum payments. You know you’ll be able to pay off the big screen in less than 90 days. You deserve the trip on Spring Break…you’ve worked hard. How could you not use your Macy’s card, it was an extra 15% off?

-drinking…Its not like you are an alcoholic. You can stop any time you want. You just like to have a good time. You just like to go out with the fellas. You just need to take the edge off. You know how to hold your liquor.

-flirting in the office…The sexual comments are common place at your office. The person you are flirting with knows you’re happily married. It is just friendly banter, it will never go any farther than that. You’re just charismatic, its part of your personality, its who you are…people think you’re charming.

The list could go on…the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the grudges we hold, the people we gossip about, the tempers we lose…we can justify it and explain it away.

It’s a small choice here, and a compromise there…and one morning we wake up and we have no idea how we drifted so far away from where we knew God was leading us. I have been there.

When we rationalize sin, we are telling the deepest of all lies…that is a lie to ourself.

Six years ago today, my amazing wife Trisha and I renewed our vows. I have never shared this publicly, but a week after the affair was confessed I received an envelope from a lady in our church. Inside the envelope was a note from Trisha and her wedding ring. I don’t remember the letter word for word, but I remember her overall message: Our first marriage has died. I need God to give me a vision of a new life with you.

Six years ago today, she chose me again. She gave me a second chance. Two months after I crushed her heart, she said “I Do” again. New vows. New rings. New beginnings.

I didn’t deserve a second chance. I didn’t deserve to stay married. As I sit here and think about it, I still don’t deserve a second chance. I still don’t deserve to be married. That is amazing thing about grace…it offers what we don’t deserve and can’t earn.

When I look at the pictures below, they aren’t about a blog or a book or a marriage ministry.

They are simply about a family that is so grateful to God for grace and second chances. That is what we are celebrating today. The incredible gift of a second chance.

Thank you for being a part of this community. We believe with all of our heart that no one and no marriage is beyond the gift of a second chance.

Every Christmas since I was 8 years old, I have ended the gift giving and unwrapping with the phrase, “This was the best Christmas, EVER!” I truly believe that that specific Christmas was better than any before it. While that may or may not be true, Christmas of 2007, I gave the best Christmas gift, ever!

I had been out of ministry for two years and I had a really good year at my sales job. I wanted to do something special and something that would blow Trisha’s mind. On Christmas morning, I gave her two tickets to see Les Miserables. Trisha had seen the musical when she was in high school in Chicago and it was her favorite musical of all time. When she opened the box, she looked more confused than excited…she was confused because that show hadn’t been on Broadway in years. What she didn’t know was it was back! Back for a 25th anniversary showing for a limited time on Broadway in New York. She was stunned.

The day after Christmas, we flew to New Jersey; took the train to New York; went to dinner at a very nice restaurant; went to see Les Miserables on Broadway; stayed up all night walking around New York city; then flew home the next day. It was truly the best Christmas present I’ve ever given. (And now that we are back in ministry, it will be the best present I will ever give. )

I thought it would be fun today to brag on ourselves a little. What is the best Christmas present you have ever given?

Share with us today…the best gift you’ve ever given?

Have you ever read a passage of Scripture that you have read 100 times before, but for some reason in that moment it hits you in a different way than it ever did before? That happened to me the other day.

Genesis 2:25 “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

There is a shame epidemic in Christianity today. So many people feel ashamed. Ashamed in their friendships. Ashamed in their marriages. Ashamed in their relationship with God. The problem with shame is that it puts a choke-hold on grace. Shame allows you to experience living with the knowledge you are free from the penalty of sin, but feeling as though you are not.

What jumps out to me about this passage is that there is a definite connection between nakedness and shame. Naked doesn’t just describe Adam and Eve’s physical appearance…it describes the condition of their heart. It illustrates their relationship with God.

Our willingness to live naked…to live exposed…to come out of hiding will determine the amount of shame with which we live. We can’t understand why we can’t grow in our intimacy with God. We can’t figure out why all of our friendships come to a standstill after the same exact amount of time. We convince ourselves that the pseudo-intimacy we experience in our marriage is as good as it can be. Shame diminishes our potential for intimacy in every aspect of our life.

God’s desire for us is:

• Bare
• Open
• Exposed
• Uncovered
• Honest
• Known

What we live in is:

• Hidden
• Disguised
• Secret
• Concealed
• Buried
• Unknown

Adam and Eve hid behind fig leaves and thought that God wouldn’t see them. How ridiculous is that? How could anyone ever think they could hide from God behind fig leaves? I would never do that.

Except: I hide behind my reputation; my income; my status; my talent; my career; my smile; my ability to fake you out. What this type of hiding leads to is shame…and shame is the enemy of the life God longs for us to have.

Maybe today, you are experiencing shame in your life; in your marriage; in your friendships; in your relationship with God because for some time you have been unwilling to be naked. You have counted the cost of baring your soul and exposing your heart to God or to another…and the cost seems to high.

It will cost you something. To live naked will cost you a lot. But what you will gain is being known and feeling no shame.

James 5:16: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other, so that you can be healed.”

One thing we learned about this community…we love us some free stuff.

Seriously, we can’t thank you guys enough for your love; your support; your encouragement and your help in sharing the new resources we are launching at RefineUs. You guys are amazing.

If you are just tuning in…we are launching two new resources in January:

MentorUs: A monthly membership program designed to move you from the marriage you have to the marriage you desire. (MentorUs membership is 25% off until December 31st)

CoachUs: An online coaching program designed to equip you to have the marriage God has in mind.(We still have a few spots open for registration)

Here are the winners and the prizes they won:

First Place: Kyle Whiteley- Amazon Kindle Fire

Second Place: Angie Combs-Free Marriage Coaching Session

Third Place: Daniel Peavey-Starbucks Gift Card

Congrats to each of our winners!

If you guys could email us your contact info so we can connect with you and get you your prizes that would be awesome!

Thanks again for being a part of the launch of CoachUs.

Yesterday was an amazing day. We launched our new CoachUs program by announcing that we’re giving away a bunch of stuff…including an Amazon Kindle Fire. You can still enter to win it! Thank you for helping us get the word out. (If you want to share this post too, we’d appreciate it!)

Today, we want to challenge some of you to take a step and register for our coaching program. We have a few openings left and maybe today is the day you choose to move from the marriage you have, to the marriage you truly desire. You don’t have to walk alone.

What we have found is that most people don’t need textbook answers, they need a partner in the journey. Our marriage coaches desire to walk with you as you seek to refine your marriage.

The cost of registration is $60. This includes $10 non-refundable registration fee and $50 for your first marriage coaching session. If you are not satisfied after your first session, you can cancel your coaching registration and not pay anything further. You will be billed monthly for subsequent coaching sessions.

After registering, each couple will receive an email from their Coach setting up their first online meeting. The program is a four-month commitment to meet via Skype one hour per month. Email correspondence on the off weeks for support and encouragement are common.

***Please know that every attempt to pair you with the coach of your choice will be made. Coaches are determined by availability and capacity. Click here for more info on our coaches.