[jackajesusfreak]

My testimony given at my church on Dec 12, 2008 at our Celebrate Recovery ministry. Approximately 500+ in attendance. We play a song that runs in time with a picture slide show of our lives before our testimony. My song was a song by Mercyme entitled 'Bring the Rain'. That is why I start the testimony the way I do.

'Forgiven, forgotten, set free'

Good evening. For those of you who focused on the pictures and might have missed the lyrics to the song, I wanted to share them with you, because I couldn’t have written a better personal, musical, testimony myself. The song was entitled, “Bring the Rain” by Mercyme.
I can count a million times, people asking me how I can praise you, with all that I’ve gone through. The question just amazes me, could circumstances possibly change who I forever am in You.
Maybe since my life has changed, long before these rainy days it’s never really ever crossed my mind, to turn my back on you oh Lord, my only shelter from the storm. But instead I draw closer through these times.
So I pray, bring me joy, bring me peace, bring the chance to be free. Bring me anything that brings you glory. And I know they’ll be days when this life brings me pain, but if that’s what it takes to praise you, Jesus bring the rain.
I am yours regardless of the clouds that my loom above, because you are much greater than the pain. You have made a way for me by suffering your destiny, so tell me, what’s a little rain.
It took me 47 years to even begin the journey that brought me to the point I’m at now, and that is still a work in progress. I spent the first 47 years of my life thumbing my nose at God, thinking I could handle things just fine on my own.
My family and I have been through a journey these last, almost 8 years, that, fortunately, most people in this recovery program have never experienced. Most of the testimonies given here are about lives that have been devastated, turned upside down, and restored, from drug and alcohol addictions. My journey of sexual addiction I’m about to share with you, has worldly stigmas and ramifications from decisions and laws that have been made, based upon the political climate at the time, and are extremely unique to this particular area of sexual addiction.
Typically, most men that fall prey to sexual addiction have some sort of family or personal dysfunction at some point in time in their lives. My personal dysfunction consisted of being very shy and intimidated by the opposite sex and a very subtle, yet unexplainable degree of low grade anger and frustration inside of me.
I was the oldest of 3 boys, all 3 years apart, and we were raised by great parents who gave us love and morals, 24/7, and discipline when needed.
My father worked hard and yet still found time to be an excellent father, being very involved in all three of his sons’ lives and activities up to the time he was killed in a pedestrian accident in 1997. My mother had her hands full between raising us, keeping the house up, and working jobs herself on and off throughout our childhood. We weren’t raised as Christians, per say, but I did believe in God, although I had no comprehension of salvation or of a relationship with Jesus, or any interest thereof.
When I became an adolescent, I found a way around my intimidation with, and any possible rejection from the opposite sex, through the discovery of pornography. The pornography progressed from magazines to adult videos as I grew into early adulthood.
After I served 4 years in the military, I experimented with drugs on almost a daily basis until I moved away from that world and came to Florida in 1981. The drugs were a temporary escape from the world, but were not the fulfillment I was looking for and I am fortunate that I was able to walk away from them as easily as I did.
Blaise Pascal, who, in the 1700s, was an atheist French mathematician, who became born again, once said that everyone of us has a ‘God shaped hole’ in our hearts that can only be filled with Christ. Like so many other lost souls, I was trying to fill my hole with sex, drugs, and anger.
After moving to Florida I finally met the woman for me. Her name is Linda, and we were married in 1991, and had our son, Taylor in 1993. Linda and I both had good jobs, owned our own home, and each owned new vehicles. We even started going to church after my son turned two years old. We didn’t go because I wanted to hear about Jesus. We went because I wanted our son to be around other children, since he was an only child. Life was good and even though I now had a wife, I still had the desire to look at pornography through videos.
I never had any interest in electronics and did not even own a computer until my mother gave me hers in 1999, two years after my father was killed. Once I learned my way around on the computer and discovered all the ‘free’ pornography, I was in ‘hog heaven’. Like most addictions, one thing leads to another, and before I knew it, I found myself having cyber-sex with adult women on line via chat rooms and webcams.
I ventured deeper and deeper into the darkness of the addiction and ended up getting involved in role-playing with the women on line.
The decision to role-play led me to viewing and sharing pictures that I knew were wrong and probably illegal. I kept the addiction alive by buying into Satan’s lie that what I was doing was okay because I wasn’t physically with anyone, and if I wasn’t really with anyone, then it really wasn’t adultery. I also bought the lie that the role-playing was even okay, because it was all just pretend, and besides that, I was in my own home and wasn’t hurting anyone. I couldn’t see it at the time, but my addiction and selfishness were tearing my family apart, day by day.
Yes, there were times when I wanted to quit. The guilt and shame would sometimes eat me alive, and I would come home from work determined to stop and get rid of that world. However, the lies, the anonymity, and the selfishness kept the addiction alive and well until April 19th, 2001.
The doorbell rang at 7:15am on that Thursday morning, and I was greeted by a Cape Coral policeman and 4 federal custom agents. Several emotions were running through me at the time, fear, guilt, and shame, but also the emotion of relief was also present, because I knew my addiction was finally over. The incentive to stop just rang my doorbell. They served the search warrant, asked Linda and Taylor to leave, and proceeded to search my house and seize my computer. After they left, I called Linda and she came back home, and I proceeded to tell her all the sordid details of my 40 year old addiction. As expected, she also experienced an attack of emotions with anger being at the forefront. As far as I was concerned, my life was over at this point. Linda would surely leave and divorce me, and Taylor would probably hate and want nothing to do with me. Little did I know that God had different plans. About two weeks later, with no where else to turn, I ended up on my knees giving my life to Christ. That began a journey I could never have imagined. He first led me to two small men’s groups where I met my close friends Bob and Greg who, unbeknown to me, God would use in a mighty way throughout the journey ahead. I was baptized by Pastor Jorge in August of 2001 and followed that up with the Walk to Emmaus a month later.
God then led me to Celebrate Recovery where my friend Bob and I stepped out of the closet of sexual addiction by giving our testimonies and assisted in starting a Men’s Sexual Addiction Recovery Group in August of 2002.
Each day during this time, I grew closer and closer to God and, to my surprise, Linda made the decision to honor her vows by staying with me until she could see what course of action I would take. All this time we had heard nothing from the government and did not know what they were going to do with my case. That all became clearly evident in November of 2002 when the federal prosecutor called my attorney and told him that they were going to prosecute me after all. I continued in my Walk and tried to hold on to my faith as much as I could. I was convicted on March 5, 2003, and sentenced to 33 months in federal prison, three months later on June 16th. I’ll never forget the morning of that day when I had to say goodbye to Taylor. Even though having to leave him was a consequence of my horrible choices, it was a heartbreak that I never, ever want to experience again. It baffles me today how some fathers, in the world, can conscientiously choose to abandoned their children, especially after what I went through.
God took charge right away in my journey of incarceration. Instead of sending me across the street from the federal courthouse holding cell to the Lee County Jail, He sent me 25 miles up the road to the Charlotte County Jail. The significance of that is the fact that Lee County is rated the worst county jail in the state while Charlotte is rated one of the best, as far as county jails go, based upon the conditions and number of lawsuits. I spent a month there and was transferred to the Federal Detention Center in Miami. After spending 2 and a half months there, I was transferred to Coleman Federal Prison, which was my final destination. Coleman is where God presented me with spiritual opportunities I would have never imagined.
He made it clear that I was to perceive my time at Coleman, NOT as an inmate in prison, but as a cadet at a spiritual academy. He immediately steered me to the church and had me volunteer my services in the praise band.
The praise band qualified me as a ‘leader’ of the church and gave me eligibility to start attending the pastor’s Saturday classes, designed to refine biblically, our husband and father skills. I also attended several evening Bible study classes that were taught by organizations outside of the facility.
I signed up for several Bible correspondence studies, and enrolled in the Bible College that was given by an outside ministry. God had me learning and growing spiritually at an unbelievable pace. I had heard similar testimony by the likes of Jim Baker and Chuck Colson, about how God used their prison time to grow and move them closer to Him than they had ever been before, and now I was experiencing it for myself.
I experienced incredible depth in my growth at the Coleman Academy, that has left a permanent, positive scar in my life that I believe will always be with me and will keep me grounded in my relationship with Him, which leads me to one of the most profound points I’ve discovered about recovery. If you want to not only recover, but be free and delivered from whatever your compulsive behavior is, you need to get to the point to where you love Christ more than you do your addiction. Yes, He gives us the tools to use like CR, twelve steps, counseling, and so forth, but that will only take you so far as statistics show. Alcoholics Anonymous only has about a 5% success rate as far as people staying sober. I’ve got to believe that probably 95% of that 5% have a relationship with Christ. Another powerful statistic is the one at the Angola Penitentiary, which, at one time, was the most violent prison in the country. For the past 14 years the Christian warden there has implemented a faith based program for the inmates. Out of an inmate population of 5,000, 2,000 are born again. That, in itself is incredible because the average born again population in prison is about 10%. For the past 14 years the inmates that have left the institution that are not born again, have a recidivism rate of about 80%. The born again inmates that have left Angola have a recidivism rate of 15%.
Before I went to Coleman, I loved Jesus Christ, but after my experience there, I fell in love with Him and was able to reach that point of loving Him more than my compulsive behavior.
In fact, one of the first things I did upon my release in November of 2005 was buy myself another wedding ring. I now wear two wedding rings, the one closest to my hand is His and the other one is Linda’s.
One of the many consequences of incarceration was being away from Linda who had become one of the strong legs of my recovery stool. What was I going to put in place of the physical relationship with her?
I prayed for two weeks about this concern and I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me in the form of a conditional promise. He told me that if I completely surrendered and submitted to Him, He would take away my sexual drive and reserve it solely for Linda. That was in December of 2003 and I’ve been delivered through that promise ever since.
Five months prior to my release, with everything seeming to be coming together like clockwork, the enemy took the opportunity to rear his ugly head big time! I called home one evening and found out that the Cape Coral City Council voted to start sending notification letters to all the neighbors of any sex offenders living in the neighborhood. Because of this, my wife and son did not want me to come home because of the obvious problems that these letters could present. Needless to say, I was devastated, confused and upset with God. He had been training me to be the godly husband and father He wanted me to be, and now this? I went through some intense spiritual warfare which developed into a chemical imbalance of anxiety. I slept only an hour a night for 3 months. It was, without a doubt, the worst 3 months of my life. However I never turned away from God as I saw His hand working almost immediately.
Right away I received two offers for a place to stay and a job opportunity waiting on my return. Praise God! He also promised me that I would eventually be back with my family and be involved in music/ministry. I stood on those promises even when it didn’t ‘feel’ like they were materializing.
I was released on November 4th 2005 and went to stay with friends from church. I also started my job at an adult day stay center.
It was incredible to see God use the church to help support not only myself but also Linda and Taylor as well.
I began to see why God allowed the notification letters and allowed me to not come home. He used the letters as the catalyst for me to go elsewhere, not because of any repercussions of the letters, but because He wanted Linda, Taylor, and I, to get to know each other again before I moved back home.
I stayed at Greg and Judy’s for 7 months when the Holy Spirit made it clear that it was time to go home. The letters continued with absolutely zero negativity or repercussions whatsoever.
God had begun fulfilling His promise of restoring my marriage and family one day at a time. I assumed that the promise of the music ministry was the CR praise band that I was a member of but little did I know that He had bigger plans ahead.
In May of 2007 I was laid off of my job at Millennium House and God began leading me to the music/ministry He had planned for me. As I searched for jobs He reminded me of the fact that I used to entertain the clients at Millennium House with my guitar and song. I started putting my name out to the assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and adult day care centers and God started opening doors at an incredible rate. I bought some equipment and set up a music ministry/business that has now given me an opportunity to minister and witness to the folks who are often forgotten about. In addition to supplementing the family income, this ministry also provides me the opportunity to take care of all the household chores, shopping, and errands. The beauty of that is that it relieves Linda of all that responsibility and extra stress and gives her more free time in her life. Lord knows she deserves any and everything I can do to serve her for standing on her vows the way she did. Linda stood, in the gap, despite the living hell that Jack the heathen put her through. I will never ever lost perspective of that.
I finished my probation period on November 3rd of this year. During my probation I was not allowed to go onto any school property, which denied me the opportunity to see Taylor perform in the North Fort Myers High School Marching band for his first two years, as well as any other band concerts or extra curricula that was held on the school grounds. It was rough on us for the last 3 years because it placed the burden on Linda of having to juggle her work schedule in order to get Taylor to and from all of his events and appointments, while I had to sit helplessly silent on the sidelines.
However, God, in His infinite sovereignty, orchestrated the timing of the end of probation to coincide with Taylor’s last football game.
I was able to attend the last game, of this year, and his last band competition the Friday and Saturday after my probation had ended, and I also have his junior and senior years ahead. Praise God!


For three years I also had to attend a secular group that I was, at first, not happy about, mainly because the counselors there did not want to hear about Jesus and what He did for me. That was a huge problem for me, because if you want me to talk about my life and recovery, but leave Jesus out of the discussion, then I don’t have a whole lot to say.
However, God used the opportunity to fulfill the plans and purposes He had for me at the time. As it turned out, I was able to end up witnessing there regardless, throughout the three years, and became an example of hope to the other men. Praise God again!
Of course the enemy did not like what was going on and did his best to try and dismantle the transformation and family restoration. Because of the enemy’s shenanigans, I had to stop coming to Celebrate in February of this year, but I am blessed to say that I have returned to Celebrate and will continue to attend the Men’s SA group. I am certain that part of what God wants me to do, is to witness and testify for Him, and help other men who struggle with this darkness and bondage, in hopes of being able to assist them with their recovery, keeping them on this side of the legal system and, most importantly, letting them know about Jesus.
The federal system has really tightened the consequences of this offense to the point that if I had been convicted of my offense 30 months later, I would have been mandated to a 5 year minimum prison sentence and lifetime probation. Praise God again!
Despite all of that, I refuse to acknowledge the world’s definition of who I am, by labeling or calling myself a sex offender. I committed a sexual offense 8 years ago, but I am now a new creation in Christ, and will live my life according to His definition of who I am. Besides that, even though I used drugs for six years, from 1975 to 1981, but have not used in 27 years, I would not stand before you here today and say, “Hi, I’m Jack and I’m a drug user.”
I also believe Christ wants to use me and other men like myself, to help de-stigmatize the perception of this addiction and the many offenses and areas that fall under the umbrella of the addiction.
As I said in the beginning, this addiction, and in particular, my offense that accompanied this addiction, has stigmas attached to it. Some of the stigmas are necessary and justified, but several are being slanted and sensationalized by the media.

If we, especially Christians, depend solely on the media for our information, we would be in constant darkness. We can’t de-stigmatize until the public is factually educated.
Case in point that most people do not know that 85% of sex offenses against children are committed by family members, friends of the family, or people that they trust, such as teachers and coaches.
The media portrays just the opposite through presentations such as the Dateline saga. A study was done n 2007 by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Matt Herterik of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office reported that “Some sex offenders do re-offend, but it’s also proven that the majority of these crimes are committed by known perpetrators.
The greatest threat to your child is not someone lurking in the park. It’s someone you know. Someone who may have even been in your home, who isn’t listed on a website”. From this study it was also reported that out of the 534 sex crimes committed in Lee County in 2006, only 3 involved registered sex offenders, a recidivism rate of less than 1 percent. I learned from a seminar I attended a couple of years ago, that the sex/pornography industry generates more revenue in one year, than Major League football, baseball, and basketball combined!
The world has conditioned us to believe that sex, and even sexual immorality is normal, to the point of legislating same-sex marriage and adoption. The irony of that is, that sexual immorality is one of the few sins God tells us to ‘run from’, and that the sin of sexual immorality, is mentioned more in the Bible than any other sin. From God’s perspective, anyone who has had sex outside of marriage and/or is engaged in any type of sexual immorality, has committed a sexual offense.
Fortunately for us, He is full of love and forgiveness, despite our wretchedness, as long as we say yes to free His free gift of grace and mercy; and surrender and submit to His will.
In closing let me say to the folks here that are struggling with this darkness but have never said yes to Jesus. You can use these tools He’s given us such as the steps, counseling, and the groups, until the cows come home, but if you don’t say yes to Christ and develop a love for and a relationship with Him, you’ll never be free.
You have to get to that point where you love Him, more than you love your junk. I can say this with conviction, passion, experience, and authority, because I’ve walked the gauntlet.
God now wants me to spend the rest of my life, devoted to helping others with this bondage which can only be accomplished through Jesus, giving Him all the glory.
I could not stand before you and Him here today and claim deliverance, and 7 and a half years of sobriety, without Him.
If you’re here for the first time and are wondering if you are in the right place, I can only answer that by saying this: You are in the right place if you are willing to work and give it all to Christ. Today is the day of salvation.
It’s time to quit trying to fill that Christ shaped hole in your heart with everything but Jesus. He’s here and He’s calling you. Can you hear Him? It will be the most important decision you will ever make in this lifetime, because after this life is over, it’s too late. There are no ‘do-overs' after that.
My name is Jack and I’m a Christian who’s been delivered from sexual addiction by the grace of God and all the wonderful people, tools, and opportunities He’s given me in the last 8 years. Thank you all for being here and listening. God bless you and remember that Jesus loves you and so do I. Thank you.