How the Devil Attacks Your Masculinity Through Lust
#DrivingMasculinityForward
By Nathan Berry
WARNING: This article is rated “Real and Unadulterated”. It will remove the shame you feel about your process. My brother, rip off the blanket the enemy put on you. He wants to keep what happened to you in the dark. NO LONGER! Break the bondage the enemy put on your masculinity. My story will shed light on your process as the Father sets you free. Tap into your potential as a man and shatter the prison that holds your masculine strengths.
Lust? I Know What That’s Like
5 years old. I was molested in the basement of my grandmother’s home. This continued for three to four years. In the beginning, I hated it. Later, I craved it. I felt embarrassed and ashamed. I loved the Lord with all my heart, but I also loved the feeling of unclean, sexual relations.
After the experiences stopped with my perpetrator, I engaged in a homosexual lifestyle of my own volition. This went on until age 18. All the while, my father's a pastor. My mother's the First Lady (what they call the pastor's wife in the Church of God in Christ denomination). Here I am, the worship leader at age 12. Ministering, prophesying, going with my pastor to pray over homes and the sick. I traveled and ministered in song in many ministries. I was on a track to be the Assistant Pastor.
The hardest part for me was watching the ministry I did bless so many lives. Why was that hard? Every night I prayed with my knees on the cold ground. My face was sopping wet. My head nestled in my pillow, I cried to God, “Deliver me! I don’t want to live this homosexual lifestyle. I want to have a wife and children someday. I want to have healthy male relationships. I want to be able to hang out with friends and not constantly feel the need to hide my “dirtiness” from them. I feel like a walking virus looking for its next victim. Help me, Jesus. I still feel stuck in this cold, dark basement." Yet, through all my conflict, I still couldn't give up my sin.
I saw the people we were ministering to. I saw their cries for help. I saw them in need. Yet, while I was helping everyone out there, no one saw or helped me. I was hurt, angry, and ignored. In bitterness, I made a choice. I married anger and a spirit of control. It was my “get out of jail” card. When I took on anger, I didn’t feel the hurt anymore. When I took on that spirit of control, I didn’t feel powerless. I was no longer a victim!
I built the identity I desired. I took the power into my hands. But I didn't know that Satan had me right where he wanted me. For as long as I used his power to help me, I gave him permission to shape my heart and identity. I had taken the power away from my perpetrator and handed that power straight over to the darkest offender of all time. I found myself in an even deeper hole than before.
My prayer was “Lord!!! Is it not enough that I don’t know whether I’m gay or straight? I’m fighting for my masculinity here. Now, I’ve started to wake up to the fact that I’m on the devil’s side. I’m working with this jerk. He’s like a mob boss that won’t let me quit.”
Brother, I was scared for my eternal life! I can’t count the nights I cried myself to sleep praying that I didn’t wake up in Hell burning for eternity. Fear owned me like a lifetime prison sentence!
From age 18 - 21, by pure willpower, I pushed hard to not engage in homosexual relationships. However, I knew I needed the power of God to break satan’s hold on me. Something changed at age 21. I had enough! I locked myself in my father’s church every night at midnight. I prayed. I cried. I worshipped. I spoke the Word as a sword against my sin. But I could only do so much in my flesh.
I broke down and surrendered. “Father, I commit my spirit into your hands. My strength can only take me so far. I give you the control that I’ve been holding onto. I give you license to shape me. I give you permission to do whatever you want with my life. You can make me into whoever you desire me to be. Mold me with your perfect hands.”
How I Broke Free From Lust and Homosexuality
A few months later, at age 22, I met Apostles Craig and Colette Toach. I would sit with them from dinner until the rooster crowed in the morning. They peeled the works of the enemy off my life, layer after layer. Shame. Guilt. Fear. Regret. All of them left.
The light shone in. I was breaking free. Every night another piece of God’s image took residency in me. Masculinity and my God-given identity settled in my heart. I glanced back at my past and saw that my Father was never refusing to help me, but my journey was a specific one.
I’m not the guy that testifies, “The preacher laid hands on me and cast out that homosexual lifestyle and I never looked back.”
I’m the guy that testifies, “The Father saw me, heard me, and took me on a journey to establish His kingdom in me. He knew that until I was ready to let go of the identity I wanted, He could not give me His. I needed DNA displacement for the identity He desired to give me. He knew I needed a mother and father to show me who I was and to help me walk it out practically.”
Apostle Craig Toach gave me the image of a man that I needed. Every day, he gave me practical steps and fathered me until I was strong enough to stand as the man God called me to be.
Mind-Blowing Fact! After going through all that healing and deliverance my heavenly Father had a chat with me.
“Nate, my beloved son, never forget, that my power to set people free and to mend the brokenhearted is in your brokenness. In your brokenness, you'll find my strength and bring healing to nations.”
At that moment, I remembered that this was the one thing I swore I would never allow. I never wanted a broken image thrust on me. The devil knew that this was where God’s power was locked up inside of me. He did whatever possible to make sure I did not let this brokenness out.
Brother, I was pushing away the very image of my identity that made me the man God wanted me to be. Today, I feel the same for you. There is one essential part of your nature that makes you the man God needs you to be. It’s time that we men stand together and put our masculinity in the hands of the Father!
Brother, Don’t Fight Alone Anymore
I’m a living testimony that God wants to pick you up and establish His kingdom in you, my brother. It doesn’t matter what you’ve experienced in your life. I don’t care what you’ve done or what’s been done to you. The Father sees you and loves you. He’s moved heaven and earth, relationships and systems, to set up the right environment needed to help you.
You don’t have to fight the darkness alone anymore, alright? Just like Apostle Craig helped me, he will help you discover your masculine identity.
The Father aligned you to receive this impartation for your life. He took away relationships. Moved you to a different location. Changed your job. Positioned you in the work of the ministry. It’s all part of the process to receive the identity you need. In Jesus' name, you will be victorious in the battle against the enemy for your God-given masculinity!
Meet Apostle Craig Toach and your fellow kingdom brothers Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 10am PST. We’re banding together gents! Where all my brothers at that say, “You’re not getting away with an attack on the next generation of men on my watch?!” 👊🏽
