Confession is God's Gift

I was born and raised here in Collin County by two wonderful parents who taught me the Gospel of Jesus at my earliest ages. Throughout my childhood, I enjoyed regularly going to church and learning about the Bible, God, and the Gospel. Around age 11, I personally accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

However, mere months after accepting Christ, I discovered pornography and masturbation for the first time through magazines and the internet. Before I was even a teenager, I was habitually seeking out porn on a regular basis, multiple times per week. Pornography presented a counterfeit version of comfort, which always led to deep shame and guilt.

I knew what I was doing was sinful, but my deeply-rooted pride and fear of being rejected by others made sure I kept my addiction a secret for the next seventeen years. The Lord gave me many opportunities to confess and live in the light, but I refused each one, determined to find a way to quit by my own power instead.

Because I refused to confess my sin to anyone at all, my sin gained a tighter and stronger grip over my heart and mind, deepening eventually into complete addiction. My hidden sin prevented me from experiencing a personal, intimate relationship with Christ. Most of my faith was surface-level, made up of good works and head knowledge, while my heart continued to rot and my bones wasted away from staying silent.

When I joined my first community group in 2017, I occasionally confessed my struggle with pornography, but always in a way that was managed, deceitful, and self-protective.

In 2018 I met the woman who would one day become my bride, Courtney. In dating, I lied to her about the extent of my addiction. I told her I definitely had a struggle in the past with porngraphy but had been experiencing current freedom, which was definitely not the case. Through dating and engagement, I kept my addiction hidden and continued to find pornography several times a week through whatever means necessary. As Proverbs 5 says,

“I hated discipline, and my heart despised correction. I didn’t obey my teachers or listen closely to my mentors. I was on the verge of complete ruin before the entire community.”

Six months into marriage and 17 years into addiction, my life fell into that ruin before everyone around me. Two and a half years ago, on January 2, 2020, the Lord exposed my sin, despite my best efforts to keep it hidden. Knowing that Courtney and my community group would soon receive an automated email letting them know I had looked at pornography, I confessed to my wife out of fear and self-protection rather than godly sorrow or repentance. That night, the Holy Spirit worked through my wife’s questions to force me to reveal that this was not an isolated incident. The truth was, I had lied about my purity the entirety of our relationship and had never truly found freedom from my sin, because I had never been honest with anyone about it. Galatians 6 says,

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, their flesh will reap destruction. ”

The destruction I had reaped for years as I lived a life mocking God’s grace and mercy was becoming very evident before my eyes. My wife was traumatized by my betrayal; I wasn’t sure if our brand new marriage would survive; I confessed to wave after wave of people I had lied to; I learned how to text on a T9 flip phone (or “freedom phone”) for seven months. I stepped down from serving in student ministries. These first weeks and months that followed my exposure were the darkest of my life, and yet also the most hope-filled and freeing. Hebrews 12:6 says - “My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly, or faint when you are reproved by Him, for the Lord disciplines the one He loves.” Because the God of the universe personally loved me and called me His son, I was experiencing His discipline along with the natural consequences of my sin.

One of my next faithful steps was to begin weekly attending re:generation (a biblical 12-step recovery ministry here at CityBridge every Tuesday night). I learned that ReGen was not about behavior management or moral improvement. It was all about using the truth of God’s Word to create a safe place for hurt and broken people to be completely known while also faithfully answering the high call of loving and following Jesus.

During the first few months after my exposure, there were a series of gradual confessions to my wife about the extent and detail of my sin. Temptation didn’t suddenly stop overnight, either, and I still relapsed every so often. Most importantly, though, the Lord took my continuing struggle as an opportunity to grow the discipline of confession in my life. God proved faithful each time I chose to obey James 5:16, which says,

“Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you might be healed.”

For the first time in my life, I discovered that confession was a gift from God. When paired with true repentance, it was His path to bring me freedom while living in this broken world.

Eventually, the Holy Spirit helped me realize that if I didn’t confess the full extent of my past sin and withheld anything at all, I would not experience true and total freedom from any of it. The Lord brought me to peace with confessing the last 2% of my sin that I had previously intended to keep hidden for the rest of my life. In the fall of 2020, I decided to test His promises found in 1 John 1, which says:

“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin... If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

I finally confessed and shared everything with a group of men that I trusted and my wife as well. After bringing everything to the light, in tears and shame, I remember one of my friends saying these words of grace: “Chase, you’ve never been more free or known than you are right here at this moment now. And we all still love you.”

Since fully confessing the extent of my sin and commencing from re:gen, I have enjoyed the fulfillment of God’s promises in my life, my marriage, my work, and a new heart He’s given me and continues to cultivate and prune. God has also allowed me to share my story and be used in His work of bringing freedom to others as well. For most of last year and this past spring, I got the privilege of serving in re:gen here, where every week I got to watch Jesus rescue other men who have been trapped in addiction and shame for years like I was.

He has also brought more joy, more intimacy, and more unconditional love to my marriage than I ever thought possible. He brought my wife to a place where she was able to trust me again and eventually forgive me for my betrayal, lying, and selfishness. Only three years in, our marriage now has strength and transparency that would have been impossible to ever reach if the Lord didn’t rescue me out of my sin and hiding. He has put to death my old desires and habits, and in their place, He is growing His own. Galatians 2:19 says,

“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” He has removed my heart of stone and replaced it with His heart of flesh.”

But He’s not done working in me, nor do I ever expect Him to be done in this life. I can still be prideful and selfish. I can still seek comfort in the wrong things. I can still have a lustful heart. But God’s grace and love now lead me to repentance rather than being something I think I should take advantage of. My joy is in Him alone. Not in my works, comfort, pride, or self-image. God is also still regularly revealing to me areas of my life and heart that I never even realized were out of line with His will or Word. And those days can be really, really humbling. But when those days come, I can now say I have tasted and seen the Lord’s goodness, and I want a whole lot more of it.