The game plan

211 Pages·2005·0.86 MB·English

by  Joe Dallas

A P T G P
DVANCE RAISE FOR HE AME LAN

“You may beat your demon the first time through The Game Plan or you may need it through
a long season, but it’s a worthy companion. Joe’s advice is sound and his format is friendly.”
— Tom Minnery
Focus on the Family
“Joe Dallas has written a practical handbook for men who want to get
serious about their purity. The Game Plan is the tool that answers one
of the most troubling problems in the church today, and it does so with
compassion, clarity, and a sound biblical base.”
— D. James Kennedy. Ph.D.
Senior Minister
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church
“For more than a decade Joe Dallas has been a role model for those
battling to overcome sexual addiction as well as to those ministering to
the sexually broken. The Game Plan is one more example of how God
is using him to bring freedom to the captives. I know Joe. I trust Joe.
What he says lines up with God’s word and when put to practice, bears
much fruit.”
— Alan Chambers
President
Exodus International
“Joe Dallas gives readers a much needed plan for battling pornography
and sexual addiction. The Game Plan will give you the tools necessary
to stop looking at pornography and never return. A must read!”
— Craig Gross
Founder of XXXchurch.com
Author of Questions You Can’t
Ask Your Mama and The Gutter
THE GAME PLAN
JOE DALLAS
Copyright © 2005 by Joe Dallas
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief
quotation in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson,
Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales
promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The New King James Version®,
copyright 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scriptures marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. Scriptures marked NIV are
taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International
Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
ROUTE— Repentance, Order, Understanding, Training, Endurance—is a trademark of Joe Dallas. All
rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dallas, Joe, 1954–
The game plan / Joe Dallas.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-10: 0-8499-0633-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-8499-0633-6
1. Christian men—Religious life. 2. Sex—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Chasity. I. Title.
BV4528.2.D35 2005
241'.66—dc22
2005010011
Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 RRD 10 9 8 7 6
For my beloved son Jeremy—
May you always be a Player, conqueror, and lover of God.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Before We Begin
Qualities of a Player
REPENTANCE
Day 1 Recruitment: Getting Back into the Game
Day 2 Action Plan for Recruitment
Day 3 Crisis: Truth Hurts
Day 4 Action Plan for Crisis
Day 5 Separation: Making the Final Cut
Day 6 Action Plan for Separation
ORDER
Day 7 Structure: Your Daily Meds
Day 8 Action Plan for Structure
Day 9 Alignment: Teammates and Allies
Day 10 Action Plan for Alignment
Day 11 Confession and Restitution
Day 12 Action Plan for Confession and Restitution
UNDERSTANDING
Day 13 The Arena and the Opposition
Day 14 Action Plan for the Arena
Day 15 The Wounded Player
Day 16 Action Plan for Healing
Day 17 Understanding Temptation
Day 18 Action Plan for Understanding Temptation
TRAINING
Day 19 Temptation-Resistance Techniques
Day 20 Action Plan for Resisting Temptation
Day 21 Entitlement
Day 22 Action Plan for Overcoming Entitlement
Day 23 Boundaries
Day 24 Action Plan for Developing Boundaries
ENDURANCE
Day 25 In Case of Relapse
Day 26 Action Plan for Relapse Contingency
Day 27 Your Broader Purpose
Day 28 Action Plan for Your Broader Purpose
Day 29 Conversion and Epiphany
Day 30 Action Plan for Epiphany
Appendix: Questions Players Frequently Ask
Notes
INTRODUCTION
A famous Christian long ago told us that when he was a young man he prayed
constantly for chastity; but years later he realized that while his lips had been
saying, “Oh Lord, make me chaste,” his heart had been secretly adding, “But
please don’t do it just yet.”
—C. S. LEWIS, MERE CHRISTIANITY
Since you picked up this book, my guess is you’re either in crisis over your
sexual behavior, or you want to avoid ever having that sort of crisis.
And why shouldn’t you? You’ve got other plans, after all—a family, a home,
or a career. Or maybe you plan to earn a degree or complete some other project
or achievement. At the very least, I figure you want someone to love, decent
health, and enough money to pay the bills. And by now you’ve probably attained
some of those goals, so I’ll also assume you’ve steered your life in a certain
direction, and to some extent, you’ve succeeded.
You have expectations, too, especially of yourself. You expect to be a certain
type of man—not perfect, but the kind of man you can respect. You want to be a
guy who lives up to his beliefs, has a decent reputation, and is the sort of friend,
father, and husband who makes his loved ones feel safe and cared for. And if
you do ever wind up having any deep, dark secrets, you figure they’ll be the sort
that aren’t really that deep and dark.
Plans and expectations—since you’ve got both, the last thing you want is to
see them derailed by a moral failure. So maybe you picked up The Game Plan to
make sure that never happens.
Then again, maybe it already has happened. Maybe it started so long ago it’s
hard to recall how or when, but at some point you discovered “it.” We usually
refer to “it” as sexual sin or acting out. However you label “it,” it’s the thing
that’s now disrupting your life so badly you’re willing to pick up this book.
The form “it” takes varies from man to man. For many, it’s a combination of
pornography and sexual fantasies. Others find it in a prostitute’s embrace, strip
clubs, adulterous or premarital sex, anonymous encounters, phone sex, cybersex,
or chat rooms. Maybe you’ve practiced it in less common ways, through some
habit or private ritual you’re deeply ashamed of and have never admitted to
anyone. (Although heaven knows, there really is nothing new under the sun, and
I can guarantee you’ve neither discovered nor created a new sin.)
But whatever its form, it has become part of your life, despite your plans and
expectations, because in its own strange way, it works.
When you discovered it, you found something that delivered both meaning
and ecstasy. Meaning isn’t normally a word we associate with immorality, but
think about it: there really can be profound meaning in actions that are
completely wrong. Just because they’re meaningful doesn’t make them right.
But just because they’re wrong doesn’t remove the sense of meaning. In plain
language, if sexual sin wasn’t deeply meaningful in some way, men wouldn’t
indulge it.
Masturbating to Internet pornography, for example, can bring a man comfort,
thrill, power, and escape, all of which create a meaningful (though unhealthy)
experience. When you add ecstasy to the mix—the anticipation of seeing the
porn, the adrenaline rush that comes with viewing erotic images, the heightened
sensations building up to orgasm, then the orgasm itself—then you’ve got
yourself a powerful product. Morally wrong? Sure. Addictive, even destructive?
Absolutely. But powerful, nonetheless. And when a customer tries a product that
delivers both meaning and ecstasy, there’s a good chance he’ll go back for
seconds.
But it didn’t stop at “seconds,” did it? Maybe it became a fairly regular part of
your routine. Oh, there may have been times— months, even years—when you
stopped. But then it kept returning; or, I should say, you kept returning to it. It
was reliable and ever-present, like an old friend who never said no. So it became
not only a secret vice, but a secret device as well—a product you’ve relied on for
comfort, connection, and escape.
But knowing your behavior was wrong hasn’t stopped you from repeating it.
And repeating it did not, at least in the beginning, ruin your plans and
expectations. While nursing your sin, you may have also built up that family,
career, and life you were aiming for. The sin didn’t keep it from happening.
There’s a good chance, in fact, you’ve told yourself, “This is wrong, but it isn’t
that wrong! If I’m careful and discreet, it won’t interfere with the rest of my life.
I am, after all, a good man in general; and even good men can have a few bad
habits.”
Then something happened. You got caught, perhaps, or at least had a close
call. Maybe your situation is worse—an arrest, a sexually transmitted disease,
professional or financial damage—and now your life has been thrown into
endless somersaults. Or maybe you’re just exhausted from the lying, double-
mindedness, and shame that come from prolonged sexual sin. Whatever the case,
a crisis of truth has gotten your attention, slapping you in the face with a
realization: “This has to stop. I have to change.”
Y L I B I
OUR IFE S EING NTERRUPTED
I say all of this because I know we don’t usually ask for help (which is what
you’re doing by picking up this book) unless a fire has been lit under us. So I
doubt that I’m assuming too much in saying you’re a man in crisis, either
because of what you’ve done or what you fear doing.
And since you can see by this book’s cover that it’s written from a biblical
perspective, I feel safe in also assuming you’re a Christian. In that case, your
crisis springs not just from circumstance but from deep within as well.
Because you know better. You know God, you know something about His
will for your life, and you know His will can’t include behavior the Bible so
strongly and specifically condemns. In light of that, you know what you need to
avoid doing. Or, if you’re already doing it, you know what you need to stop
doing.
You need to stop using pornography. You need to break off the adulterous,
casual, or premarital sexual relationship. You need to distance yourself from the
actions that have created your crisis, actions that may have been meaningful but
have also done more damage than you ever thought they would. You need to
stop, and you need to stop now.
But even knowing that may not have stopped you so far. Maybe (in fact,
probably) you don’t need to know what to stop doing. You need to know how to
stop doing it.
I’ve yet to meet a Christian in sexual sin who didn’t know what he should or
shouldn’t do. Most of us, after all, have spent years hearing that sexual contact
before or apart from marriage is wrong. So it’s not the knowledge of right from
wrong you’re looking for, but a plan—a game plan that will map out a practical,
effective way to recover (and keep) your sexual integrity.
Now you have one. The Game Plan is written for the Christian man who is
tempted by sexual sin or who has gotten involved in it but is now ready to walk
away from it, and who wants a practical, biblically based plan to guide him.
Since 1987, I’ve had the honor of working with these men through private