Sexual Mindshift

In this episode of Abundantly Loved Podcast, Gwendolyn Miller speaks from the heart, drawing from her book, 40 Years a Virgin: Why the Wait? She talks honestly about her own journey, learning to see her body, her choices, and her thoughts through God's love rather than pressure or shame. She explores the difference between living led by impulses and living led by the Spirit, not as a lecture, but as an invitation. This conversation is about slowing down, noticing what's shaping us, and asking gently, does this lead me toward life? If you've ever wrestled with shame, confusion, or questions about purity and authenticity, this episode offers compassion and hope. No judgment, just a reminder that God's invitation is always rooted in love and that the Spirit leads us back to life. 

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SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to Abundling Love Podcast with your house, Gwendolyn Malika Noah.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hey y'all, and welcome to another episode of Abundling Love Podcast. I gotta say, first of all, thank you so much for following me and subscribing to this podcast. Thank you for the feedback that I've received from several of you guys that have been listening to this podcast. And my prayer is that it's meeting you where your needs are right now in your walk with God. I really pray that because this is a podcast that I know that the Holy Spirit led me to start, and that I want everything to be about Him and guiding hearts to grow deeper in intimacy with Him. Now, before we get started, I gotta add, I want to share with you guys right now. This podcast is brought to you by Love Abundantly Counseling, where mental health meets faith and healing meets love. You don't have to walk through life's challenges alone. We combine evidence-based counseling with biblical practices to help you heal, grow, and move forward with love and with hope. Love abundantly counseling, where healing begins with love. So that's my counseling practice, you guys. And if you're interested in finding out more about it, you can email me at loveabundantlycounselinginc at gmail.com. And you can also check out my Facebook page, Love Abundantly Counseling Facebook page. Um, and I I love working with people and work with people in their healing process because it's something I'm called to do, y'all, just to be honest. All right. But today, y'all, I'm sharing about my book that I wrote called 40 years of virgin, why the weight promoting purity in the world of promiscuity. Now, why did I write this book? And I share about this a little bit on my other podcast, and I've talked about this before. I wrote the book basically because honestly, the spirit wanted me to write it and to be transparent about my weight for him and waiting to get marriage absets. And I know that it's so it's I don't know about how you may feel about talking about this if you are a virgin and you're waiting. And I've had several conversations with people um who are virgins and still waiting. They feel embarrassed because they're afraid of what the people in the world are going to think about them or what people are gonna think about them in general. But for me, I couldn't allow that to stop me from sharing because I was listening to my younger sisters or younger women wanting to be disciples of Jesus and trying to figure out how to do this and be pure and to do it Jesus' way, God's way according to the Bible. And I've been going on 28 years as a disciple this year, and I'm waiting, and I've had experiences of being tempted, or experiences of dating someone or dating people who were disciples of Jesus, but struggling with my purity in those relationships, but using the scriptures to help me to conquer it so that I won't fall into sexual sin. And y'all, when I tell you it's difficult, it's difficult to walk this life. That's why Jesus says broad is the road that leads to destruction, but narrow is the road that leads to life because and only a few would find it, because only a few are really looking for this narrow road, and you have to be intentional on walking down this narrow road. And it's difficult to walk on this narrow road if you're not being intentional about it. And broad is the road that leads to destruction because that's and many will find it because it's easier, it's easier to walk on this broad road and and to go and flow the way you want to flow, but know where it's leading you to, it's leading towards destruction. When I was thinking about that scripture, y'all, the spirit brought to my mind when you're driving down a road, and I grew up in a country, especially when you're driving down a dirt road and it's and it's another car there, you have to be intentional about moving to the side or and and not going into the ditch and being focused on where you're trying to get to on this road. But if it's a broad road, like you're driving down 40, and it's a 40 or whatever, and people be swerving back and forth and everything like that. But even in that, I have to be you have to be intentional even in that though, honestly. But it's easier to go back and forth when you're on a broad road and just not, and sometimes people not focus on where they're going, honestly. But when you're on a narrow road, you have to have that that that focus, hence why this book is so important. Now, let me tell y'all, this book is not only for women or single women, this book is for anyone who wants to grow deeper in intimacy with God. That is what my mission is with the ministry, is teaching you how to overcome the things that's blocking you from growing deeper intimacy with God, facing them honestly, being honest about it, and then using the scriptures to guide you in growing deeper intimacy with God. And I have a workshop, we're getting ready to do a webinar about that on October the 31st. Our webinar is going to be on that Saturday, Halloween. But I chose it intentionally for Halloween Day because we're talking about love and we're talking about God and getting our mindset focused on Him and growing deeper intimacy with Him. So if you want to join me for that webinar, you can email me at Miss Gwendolyn at AbundlingLove Podcast.com and we can send out you to send a zoom to you. My assistant will be able to respond to you, send you the Zoom and all those different things for that webinar. Now, I'm doing a continuation today from a podcast that I did a couple of weeks ago. And go back and listen to it. You also could get the book, y'all, on it's on Amazon and read it for yourself. It's like a devotional book. It's it have I have questions in here for you. Could examine yourself as you're reading it. But I'm continuing from where I stopped at on the last podcast. I stopped at where it says on page 35 in chapter where we talk about sexual it meant mind shift. I ended with here are some of the scriptures that help me understand more of how God wanted me to see my body now, and how he wanted me to see sex. And I had to really pausing right now because I want to go back to to just share this real quick. It's important for us to really examine how we view our bodies, and with sex, the thing that I learned is when you're having sex with multiple people and being promiscuous in that way, there's something that's happening in our mindset that's leading us in that behavior. Let me say that again. As a therapist, now I'm putting my therapist head. There's something happening in the mindset that's leading to that behavior to have multiple multiple partners and such all those different things. And that's for you to examine for yourself. What's the why behind what you're doing? For me, being a virgin and honestly having to see my body as a gift, as a prize for something that God created. Now, I struggle with self-esteem at times. Um, and when I do struggle with self-having low self-esteem at times, I have to remind myself of who God created me to be. Like I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and I teach mindfulness practices to my clients, and I use it with myself. And if you're listening to this and you're struggling with how you view your body, and you feel as if you've done made choices that led to you not feeling good about yourself because of your decisions to have sex with people who are showed you that they didn't really love you, but you wanted to get love from having sex. That's what I've heard some people say. You're you're trying to create this intimacy with someone who is obviously not loving you in a way that you need to be loved, and you're giving yourself over to that because you're trying to feel that connection. I want you to pause and examine yourself to really see if that's who you are, and at the same time to recognize that God still loves you, He is still calling you to Himself, He still wants relationship with you, He wants you to understand that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, created by the Creator for the Creator, and He's drawing you to grow closer to Him. It's no coincidence that you're listening to this podcast. It isn't because through this podcast, God is using it to draw you to him. He loves you, he intensely loves you, no matter your choices, and he wants you to change your heart, to change your mind, and to change your behavior, to draw closer to him in that love. So that when that time comes, but let me stop there. But first, having an intimacy with him first, being in love with him first, so that when that time comes, he'll willingly allow you to go into that relationship with someone and knowing and knowing that you won't change your heart or idolize this person over him. Because that's what it is, y'all. When we are giving our bodies away, or we're using sex in a way to get our esteem from or to connect with someone or attach ourselves to someone, where you that they become our idol. That relationship becomes our idol. That's what attachment is. We talk about attachment theory. A lot of my clients they do research on attachment theory, and I've done research on attachment theory. And attachment basically is insecure attachment, and it's a secure attachment. And what insecure attachment is us uh not feeling secure within our relationship with the people, and we're trying to do whatever whatever we can to hold on to them, which creates these holes in our heart, these this behavior that is toxic. With secure attachment, it's us being content and comfortable in who we are as people, and not going outside of that to attach ourselves to something that may be toxic for us. But with secure attachment, and here's the God piece in it secure attachment is us literally attaching our hearts and our being to God and getting our steam from Him versus trying to attach it from other people outside of us and getting our confidence from Him. Let's go back to the garden. In the garden, Adam and Eve had a secure attachment with God initially. They were walking in the garden with God, God was right there with them, they were in their presence, in the presence of God. God spoke directly to them, they could hear God, right? But when Eve ate the fruit and attached herself to that fruit, then came insecure attachment because she was attaching herself to something else other than God. Our whole walk as people has been have been has been having. That is the journey that I'm walking with you on right now. That is the journey and the mission of the ministry. It's first to examine what have I attached myself to, that's not the creator of the earth of who I am. I'm talking about God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Yeshua Jesus. What have I attached myself to that is not them that claim my idol? It could be money, it's it could be relationships, it could be food, it could be uh, and you feel up like sex, and you feel up like for yourself. And now how can I detach myself so that I can have their crawl or attach myself to the creator to God? The way to do that is we have to examine what it is first, and then through that, and you guys get therapy because therapy can help you with this. And and my podcast is a part of the journey, but it's not the whole journey. But it's like you begin to examine and make choices. Do if I attach myself to this, what is that leading me to? How is it damaging my soul? How is it affecting my life? And when I attach myself over here to God or to my heart to to Jesus, and I'm not gonna say high because high bar to me is Jesus, it's Yeshua God. If I attach myself to Him, how is it helping me in my walk right now? What is the evidence I'm seeing that's transforming my life right now? What is the evidence that I'm seeing of the benefit of this relationship now? You see the difference. I shared about this last time in Romans 8. What if in Romans 8 times 5 we live according to the flesh and leads to death, but live according to spirit and leads to life? Literally, we're making choices of what we're going to attach ourselves to. That is why, and that's why when Jesus calls us to be disciples, he's telling us to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. Denying ourselves is a part of a killing that part of ourselves that's attached ourselves to the world, to the earthly things, and killing those things so that we can attach ourselves to him and walk with him daily. It's a minute by minute, second by second, usually, guys, to really be able to do this. I work with people who are addicts too, or addicted to certain things. It's not my primary focus on my practice, but some of my clients come in with some addictions. And with that, what I realize is this aspect right here, what we're talking about is attachment is addiction. Either we are addicted, whatever we're attached to is what we're gonna be focused on and craving. Catch that. What we are attaching ourselves to is what we're gonna be focused on and craving. So if I'm attaching myself to relationships or to sex, that means I'm gonna crave that relationship and sex with that particular person. Food, you crave food, I'm attaching myself to food, and our emotions follow that. If I'm feeling sad, if I'm feeling hungry, we talk about halt a lot. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. If I'm feeling these emotions, then I'm attaching myself to those things to give my comfort from these things, and it's compelling me and drawing me to those things. But check this when you go to Corinthians, first Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 1 or 2, Paul says how Christ's love compels us. But one died and all died, one died for all, and therefore all have died, right? When he tells us this, Christ's love compels us, that means when we attach ourselves and be and crave our the love of God and craving that relationship with him and being consumed, because that's what craving is being consumed by our relationship with him, then that's going to compel us to want to repent, to want to change, to want to grow deeper in intimacy with God, to want to be closer to him. Whatever we're attaching ourselves to, y'all, that's what we're getting closer to and being controlled by. I never forget this conversation I had years ago when I was in my internship at an outpatient clinic in Harlem. I had a group and I was, I read this poem about drugs, and it described it as being um its husband or being a relationship with it, and it was an abusive relationship, as I was in this aspect of drugs, right? After reading this poem to my clients, and how at the end of it it says, I would take your soul with me to hell. It says that at the end, one of my clients said that they view drugs as their husband. Even though this poem was so scary, in their mind, they still saw drugs as being close to them, as the intimacy, that that craving. Notice the word intimacy, I'm using it right now, and and desiring it above taking care of their children, above their relationship with their spouses, above anything else. They crave that. That's what addiction is. That's what that that that you can say intimacy again, but intimacy is with drugs. With this walk, it's really reframing the mindset of how we view it, because intimacy is not connected with drugs, but that's how we can shift it in our mindset to be that way. Intimacy is this closeness, it's intimate, this knowing of someone or having a vulnerability with someone and being able to be safe in their presence. And I'm talking about Jesus, I'm talking about God, it's being known by Him and knowing Him and having that safety with Him to be seen naked before Him. That's true intimacy, but we have a skewed intimacy when it comes to attachment with drugs, too, or with relationships or different things like that. When that person becomes your all-in-all, and then you heard people say in their songs about it, how you made me whole when I connected myself with you, or you made I I am whole now because of you. It's like, no, there are just this part of that relationship is there, but I'm whole with Jesus. My wholeness comes from being in him, but we get a distorted mindset and thinking that my I'm whole when I attach myself to this person, and that's where we miss the God aspect, and that's when we get toxic relationships again, and we only see that person through worldly lenses, and we're not able to see them through the lenses of God because God is not the center of that relationship, because now this person has become my everything, and y'all, I'm telling you, I've experienced this myself, and I struggled in my relationship with Jesus because I made this person my everything, and he had Jesus had to help me with that, he had to confront me about that to help me to see like, no, this person is not my everything. He's like, I am your everything. He didn't say it to me in that moment, but but I realized Jesus is my everything. He came to me, y'all, and I and I know I shared this before, but I'm gonna share it again. I was sitting on my bed after my boyfriend broke up with me, and I had prayed for him to break up with me because I it was a toxic relationship. And here's the thing codependency again, that's attaching myself to someone who I wasn't supposed to attach myself with. I'm supposed to attach myself with God, but that codependency was there, and God used the relationship to show me how codependent I was and how I did not love myself by staying in that relationship with him. It was an emotional and abuse and mental abusive relationship, and it could have gotten the physical, but you know I'm a girl from Arkansas, but and then she ain't even allow that to happen. But he broke up with me, and I remember sitting on my bed crying because I'm grieving a loss of the Relationship, it was heavy grief. This separation in my spirit. We hadn't had sex, but it was an emotional grief. And remember, y'all, I struggle with my imagination. I struggle with imagining us having sex because sex it all starts with a mind. That's how much sin starts with your mind and then becomes an action. And I struggle with my thoughts about him, which is why it was hard for me to really focus on Jesus. But as I'm sitting on this bed crying, and God asking him, Why do you allow me to go through this? Why did you allow me to go be in this relationship with somebody like this? He called me to look at John 21. And in John 21, he's reinstating Peter. And he says to Peter, Do you love me more than these? Peter said, Lord, you know that I love you more than these. But he was asking me, Gwen, do you love me more than these? These for me was my desire for relationship, my desire for a music career, my desire for money and fame and fortune. Did I love him more than these? And I had to be honest and check my heart in this. And I'm asking you to do the same thing, you, my listeners. And I know that it may be challenging for you to do this, but this is how we grow deeper in understanding and in our relationship with God, is admitting where we are in our hearts. He already sees it, he already knows it, but we have to confess with our mouths what it is. Get it out of our hearts. And I said to him, No, Lord, I don't love you more than these. And I and I felt bad saying it and having to admit that the Lord who gave up everything for me, who came from heaven to walk among what was created through him, to show me what it looks like to live for the Father, who was in this human body, even though he was deity and walked on this earth. And in my mind, I was thinking about he pooped and had to take baths and he smelled and all those different things, even though he was pure and came from heaven to walk on this earth to show us that here I am saying, I don't love you more than these. That broke me. He asked me a second time, and then a third time, and I had to admit three times that I didn't love him more than these. And it was obvious about how my mind was, and my focus was it was being torn, being divided in that space, and not focusing on him. Jesus doesn't want us to be halfway with him, he wants all or nothing. Because he gave all, he didn't drink the gall when he was on the cross, he gave up everything, he felt everything when he was dying for us. When he could have drank the gall, but he decided not to. Because he wanted to make a total, complete sacrifice for us to leave us without any excuses. We don't have any excuse to remain in our sins. When our savior, Jesus Christ, and all of us say he's our and a lot of us who create like say we're Christians, we say he's our savior, and we look at him as our savior, but we don't want to imitate him with giving up the things that would hurt him. That put him on the cross. That put him on the cross. We don't want to give those things up, but I want to challenge you to look at your heart to see what are you holding on to that you need to let go. What are you choosing to love more than him? Be honest about that. Yeah, I went on a whole spell. I know that's the Holy Spirit. It's not what I came on. I haven't even gotten to the book yet. But the Holy Spirit wanted me to share this with you, wherever you may be. Examine yourself. The scripture talks about examining our hearts. Examine yourself so that you can see where you are before Him. Be honest, talk to accountability partner. If you want to reach out to me, join me at the webinar, we can talk then. I will have a coaching aspect after which we all we can have this conversation together, but it takes honesty and openness to be able to do that. Okay, now let's get to the book. So back to the book. I said, here are some of the scriptures that help me understand more of how God wanted me to see my body now and how he wanted me to see sex. First Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 13 to 20. It says, You say, food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both. The body, however, is not meant for sexual morality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself? Shall I take, shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Nectar, do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, the two will become one flesh. But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee, again, I will say, flee from sexual morality. All other sins in a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price, therefore, honor God with your body. Romans 5, chapter 3, verse 3. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of purity or I forgot that's a misprint in the Bible. I mean in my not in the Bible, or in my book. It's supposed to be Ephesians chapter 5, verse 3. But among you, there must not be even a hint of sexual morality or of any kind of impurity or of greed, because there are these are improper for God's holy people. In Matthew chapter 5, in verse 27 to 28, and verse 30, you have heard that it was said, you should not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Similarly, when I was in the world, I used to dress at times in a provocative way. I did it because I wanted the attention from others, but I also thought I was beautiful, and I am beautiful, by the way. After becoming a disciple, I had to examine my motivation behind what I was wearing. Was I wearing it because I wanted to seem sexy and get men's attention, or did I feel insecure about myself and want to feel beautiful? A part of me struggled with seeing my value and worth. Are you struggling with understanding your worth and trying to find it by gaining the attention of others? In order to grow more in understanding my worth, I had to understand that God sees me as fearfully and wonderfully made. He designed me in my mother's womb, Psalms 139, verse 13 to 14. Our lives were written in a book before we even existed. Psalms 139, verse 16. So if God thought about you and me before we were even born and used his fingers to specifically design every shape of our bodies and the hair on our heads, how amazing do you really think you are? We are completely amazing. Consequently, some women are not concerned about how short their skirts are or if they are showing cleavage or not. They just want to wear what they want to wear without thinking about the motives behind this decision. However, if you are proclaiming to be a disciple of Jesus, are you living according to your own standards or are you living according to the Bible standards? If you are proclaiming to be a disciple of Jesus, then the Bible should be the standard over what you feel or believe. Philippians 2, verse 3 to 4 says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of the others. When I was in the world living according to my own standard, I did not consider how my outfits would affect others. But after I became a disciple, I had to consider the men who were also trying to follow Jesus. I had to be aware of if my pants were tight or if my skirt was too short, because I did not want to be a stumbling block in someone else's path. Matthew 18, verse 6 to 8 says, If anyone causes one of these little ones, those who believe in me, to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble. Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come. If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maned or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into internal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. So we need to consider our motives for wearing a provocative outfit. We may also consider how we are feeling about ourselves in a moment. Insecure, unloving, unattractive, devalued, and acknowledge those feelings and deal honestly with those emotions. What we wear is at times a display of what is going on in our hearts. Therefore, we need to practice self-love through self-assessment and truly gauge if we are being a assembly block to someone's life. I know this is a hard, this is hard for a lot of us because we want to wear what we want to wear. But do you consider the men in your fellowship and their purity when you wear your short dress or tight pants? Remember, you have a choice, and God is not going to force you to change it, but you will be held accountable for the decisions you make. To be clear, I am not advocating wearing long dresses along always and never wearing makeup out of fear of being sexual. What I am saying is dressing like you are going to a club or wearing a dress with a split up to your split, like my grandmother used to say, is not representing Christ. We have to remember as disciples, we are ambassadors of Christ, representing Christ in all that we do. Once we become disciples, we are supposed to look different than the world in our behavior and our actions, and honestly, in what we wear. So I am encouraging you to watch your life and your doctrine and make sure whatever you are doing, whatever you are wearing, is edifying not only yourself, but the kingdom of God. And we were all one because his Holy Spirit lives in me. I had to learn how to be renewed in my mind so that I no longer saw myself through the eyes, through the world's eyes, like the following scripture. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. In order for me to truly be transformed and not live according to this world standards, I decided to allow the word of God to penetrate my mind and to fill my heart so that it can lead my actions. All right, y'all, I have to close here. But before you go, I want to personally invite you to join me for my growing deeper intimacy with God webinar. If you've ever felt stuck in your spiritual journey, struggle to hear God's voice, or simply long to for a closer relationship with Him, this webinar is designed for you with you in mind. Together, we'll explore practical and biblical ways to deepen your connection with God, remove barriers that may be hindering your growth, and experience the peace, healing, and love that comes from walking closer with him. God desires relationship, not religion. He wants you to know his heart and experience his presence in a deeper way. To learn more and reserve your spot, visit Love Abundantly Ministry website at Love Abundantly Love Abundantly Ministry dot com. And you can email me at Miss Gwendolyn at Abundantly Love Man Abundly Love Podcast.com. Miss Gwendolyn at Abundantly Love Podcast.com. Thank you for listening to the podcast. If this episode encouraged you, if it challenged you, please subscribe and share it with your friends. And you can email me with your thoughts and let me know how you felt about this podcast and especially about this episode. And join us as we continue this journey of growing in God's love and helping others to do the same. Until next time, remember you are deeply loved by God, and He is inviting you into a deeper relationship with Him every day. So let's accept that love and let's pour that love out into the lives of others that's around us. All right? Be blessed.