1. April 13, 2014 The Brown Sofa

Welcome.

In March of 2013, I had an old temptation show its ugly face once again in my life. A neighbor of mine had discarded a pornographic magazine outside his door. It was all I could do to not grab it and take it back to my place. I knocked on his door and asked him if he would not leave it there. He told me he would get rid of it before he left for Huston for the weekend. He left leaving the magazine outside his door and I knew it couldn't stay there or else I would be thumbing through the pages in no time at all. I had been hooked on pornography for nearly forty years. With help, I had been free of it about two years. I called a friend of mine, who is my accountability partner, and explained the situation to him. Fortunately I was able to dispose of the magazine with out looking at it.

I went back to my place and fell on my knees. I was blown away as how strong the desire to grab that junk was. I thought I had conquered the addiction but for some reason my flesh knew it was there even before I saw it. I needed answers. To me it was life or death. I did not want to go back to that old life.

I prayed for a long time. At some point I found myself in another place. I dont know if it was a vision or a dream, I just knew I was no longer in my bedroom. In front of me was a brown sofa. It was more like a love seat. Comfortable for two people but not really big enough for three.

As I looked at the brown sofa, I noticed something sitting on the sofa. It was called “the thing called sin”. And then I noticed I was sitting beside it. After a while a scripture I don’t remember reading more than once or twice came to my memory. It was in Romans where Paul describes his struggle with sin. He said he did the things he did not want to do, and the things he didn’t want to do he did. He then went on and said something amazing. He said “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:20)” For some reason I was stuck on “sin living in me” since “the thing called sin” was sitting beside me on the sofa. 

I asked God, “If sin is in me, why am I sitting beside it?” There was no answer to this yet I had to have it. For some reason I knew it was important. After a long wait I heard God speak to me. He said the sofa represented my flesh. I was not my flesh just as much as “sin” was not my flesh. We were unique and separate. The me I saw on the sofa was the real me, that is, my spirit-man. The sofa represented my concept of me, or the carnal-man. “The thing called sin” was the “sin living in me” that Paul experienced.

I also remember asking why I was still struggling with sin. God replied that I didn’t know who I was – that is, my carnal mind forgot about my new identity when I asked Jesus into my heart. He explained it to me this way. He said that before I received Christ, the sofa (carnal-man) had a vacant seat. I (the real me) was not there. My carnal mind only had “the thing called sin” to give it direction. And it believed everything it was told was true. Where in fact, most of it was a lie. The reason we continue to sin is simply because we (our carnal mind) forgets who we really are and listens to “the thing called sin” instead. We are not flesh. We are not carnal. We are Spirit. It is impossible for those in Christ to sin. Our flesh may sin, but we cannot sin. The spirit-man does not have sin living in it, only our carnal-man. Scripture teaches the double minded man is unstable in all it does. We need to become single minded to conquer the temptations this world throws at us. This blog is about discovering who God says we are so that our carnal mind will remain in agreement with our spirit-man.

Welcome to The Brown Sofa Diaries. I hope this blessed you. 

Tom