Ryan Swanson: Hello and welcome back to the Satisfied podcast. I’m Ryan Swanson and we’ve got a unique but special episode today. as we look at the latest release of our tool here at Satisfied Ministries, the Chord App 2.0.

Some of you received an email about that. And so we’re going to go through a couple of those features as well as address another question that’s come up recently in a phone call that I thought would be good to couple in with this release as some of it relates to the content of what we’re releasing here in our new features. There is another series.

We’re kind of in between series right now on this podcast. And I thought we would begin our next series today. But we’re going to push that to next month.

And that’ll be great when we get there. But I just wanted to cover this since that email went out. And many of you have texted me or reached out and said that you’re excited about this and asked questions about it.

So, Chord 2.0. There’s two primary features here that will be available soon with this release that is coming soon, is pending. I don’t have an exact date for you, but it is coming soon.

But for those of you that may not be as familiar with the cord, let me quickly explain what the principle is behind that, and then we’ll get to these new features. So the cord is a tool designed to facilitate daily accountability, communication on that deepest level in this area of purity. It’s an area of our hearts that is often locked in darkness.

And so our mission, taken from Ecclesiastes chapter 4, is to never be alone in this area, to be shedding light in this corner of our hearts on a daily basis. And when we do this, the devil absolutely hates it. I like to think of it as pouring salt on a leech.

If you’ve ever done that, we grew up swimming in some different ponds near our place and lakes, And it seemed inevitable. We’d come out with these black little worms on our legs that were the leeches. And thankfully, my mom was always prepared.

She always had the salt shaker there to put some salt on those leeches, and they would just curl up in agony. And that’s what I picture the devil doing as we are shedding light on this area of our hearts, in this area of purity, on a daily basis. So that’s, in essence, what the court is designed to do.

And there’s different ways that it does that, primarily through a daily check-in at the end of each day, checking in on a scale of 1 to 10 in the areas of thoughts, viewing, and self-gratification, all of which are so closely related in this area of impurity that we have to deal with them all at the same time. And that’s why we check in in those three areas and then send a video to the group, the small group that we’re in that we call Accord.

And that video is simply explaining why you rated yourself that way. We give ourselves a 90-second cutoff on that so we don’t ramble on forever. And it’s designed to be very sustainable, and I think it has done that well.

There’s also on the main screen of the app, there’s a SOS button. So if you’re facing a temptation, but there’s no one else there with you and you are feeling alone, you can push that SOS button, which then notifies the others in your group that you’re facing a temptation. They can be praying for you.

They could maybe reach out. But the primary goal of that is actually for you, that even if you don’t hear from them, and even if they don’t see it in time to pray for you, you still do not feel alone anymore because you know at the end of the day, I’m going to have to give an account for when I push that SOS button.

In fact, when you check in at the end of that day, there’s going to be a special banner on that check-in to those in your groups. They can see that you did send out an SOS, and they will expect to hear how that went.

And again, that’s taken from Ecclesiastes 4.10. Woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up. So that is the main idea of the court that’s been around for about a year and a half, almost two years now.

And I love hearing the stories and testimonies about how this has been a help to many others, including myself, in this area of purity. But now for the new stuff, for version 2.0, which has been a long time in coming.

But version 2.0 adds several things, but two primary features that we’re rolling out in this. the first of which we are calling check-in streaks. Now, it’s not uncommon for habit-breaking apps or even habit-making apps to have some kind of street counter.

But this is going to be a little bit different than the mainstream street counter that you would expect because you may think that this would be a street counter counting the amount of days that we’ve been pure or the amount of time that we have avoided relapse.

But I think that can be counterintuitive for several reasons. but one of which is it just has us focus too much on the past and judge tomorrow’s possibility of victory based off of how many yesterdays we have had victory, whether that’s 30 days or 60 days or 90 days or whatever it is. But the problem comes with this when I’ve seen so many guys get to, let’s say, a 30-day mark, and they are ecstatic.

And I mean, it is a joyful time, and I think it should be celebrated, but I can think of several guys, when they’ve reached for the first time, they can remember that 30 days without falling in any of those three areas. And they are ecstatic and celebrating as they should. However, it can be easy, like Paul said in 1 Corinthians, So it can be easy just to assume that, man, I’ve gone 30 days, I’ve kicked it.

And for many of us that would tend towards an overly optimistic viewpoint on this, that would be our fall right there. But when we do have some kind of a compromise after that 30-day mark or whatever it is, that street counter is going strong, we see that number 30, we see that number 60, and we are pumped. But then we have some kind of a compromise.

And it may not be full relapse, but it’s enough to reset that counter. And that counter goes all the way back down to zero. Now, what that number is telling you is that you are right where you were when you started.

Nothing’s happened here. And that, my friends, is exactly what the devil wants you to think. And so, as we’ve toyed around with different ideas of how to do a streak counter, that has been, we’ve at least known this is how we’re not going to do it.

We are not going to do it where it’s just counting our streak for purity. It’s basing our victory too much on the past, and it’s just not helpful to, after 30 days or whatever, to be reset back to zero and for the devil to be waving that in your face saying nothing really happened here. When the Lord has been doing a renewing of your mind the entire time, you are not the same person that you were.

After being free for 30 days from that, you are not the same person. Your brain is physiologically changed. It would look different under a scan than it did 30 days ago, but that street counter says otherwise.

So instead of just counting a streak as in I’ve been pure for 30 days, instead our streak is going to just encourage consistency. This is a check-in streak counter. This is how many days have I consistently opened up the app and checked in.

And the reason that that is so important is because right now one loophole that’s easy to take advantage of is if somebody has a day that’s not so great, then they can just conveniently forget to check in until the next day and then resume their check-ins like nothing ever happened. And so in this way, it won’t allow you to do that. There’s going to be a consequence for skipping a day.

And if you do skip a day, let’s say that I go to check in on Saturday and I did not check in for Friday. I missed that day. Then the cord will know that.

And when you go to check in for Saturday, it’ll say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second. your streak will reset unless you go ahead and put in a check-in for Friday right now. Tell us how Friday went.

And so you can then, it’ll say, how did you do on Friday? You check in for Friday, and then you can check in for Saturday. And in that way, you can keep your streak going and keep the consistency of daily accountability, which is such a huge part of our victory as we’ve explored in the past.

And the check-in counter will, by the way, award you different medals as you go along in reach seven days. And then I think it’s 30 and 100 or whatever we’ve set those at this point. And it will award you a medal that’ll be seen on your profile, that’ll be seen on your check-in.

And you can see the progress of other individuals in your group and how they’re doing to reach their check-in goals as well. Once you’ve hit all those medals, and I think our longest one is 100 days for the diamond medal that can be awarded. Well, then you actually can re-earn the other ones, and you can 2x and 3x and 4x and 5x, so there really is no limit to the amount of metals for your streak counter that you could gain in that way.

So that’s the check-in streak counter that will be a part of the app soon on this next release 2.0. The dev team, developer team, is working that out right now. Then we’ll have a beta version out, and once we finish testing on that, then that release will happen, Lord willing, within the next two to three months here.

Then the second feature, but it’s more of a service that we’re offering to our Yerza Base than it is a feature, but what this is is simply a bi-weekly three-minute devotional challenge. This is from Trusted Preachers. All of these I have some personal relationship with that I know and can trust them.

And they’re going to be speaking one to three minutes in these videos that will go out to each of you. It’ll show up right on your feed in the Chord app in a little bit of a separate window, so you can go back and watch previous ones as well if you’d like.

But that will come up twice a month, and that’s designed just to refocus us, be sure that this doesn’t become just a dry confessional booth here, but it’s bringing us back to the answer, which is Jesus. It’s challenging us. Maybe we’ve started to get lax a little bit and how we’re checking in and starting to lower the bar for our purity a bit.

And that’s what these are for. They’re just designed to speak life into our groups, and I think that’s going to do so much to keep these groups vibrant and organic. And so we have quite a few of these videos already.

I’ve been collecting these since almost the beginning of the year, so we have a database to go on. And I’m excited seeing some of these are just going to be so helpful coming through and I think add quite a bit of value to what the court is doing. And it’s the first way that we have intentionally worked to be sure that the court is not becoming the end all, but we’re continuing to focus and point our user base back to Christ.

And we want to do that outside of the app and our preaching and our presentations and our podcast. But we also want to do that within the app. And so this is a way that we’re able to do that.

Well, I told you that we would get to one other question that came in that I thought was a good one. And it has somewhat some to do with, as we discussed the cord, which is designed to be, as I said, a tool. Now, when it comes to accountability, you may wonder, is that fear of, oh, man, I don’t want to fall in this way because then I have to tell the guys at the end of the day.

Is that enough to give me victory? Well, the answer is obviously no. Well, then why does it matter?

If it’s not the ultimate motivation, then why is it a valid motivation at all? And that is the question I received.

Someone called me up and asked what I felt was a great question, and that is this motivation I feel right now, this individual, hopefully, Lord willing, to be looking to be in a relationship with a young lady soon and talk to her dad and have that great conversation and begin what could be a wonderful opportunity in relationship, but he’s very, very conscious now of, man, the decisions I make in my purity affect this so much as it gets closer.

And so that is, he said, that’s a huge motivation that’s helping him right now, but he just doesn’t know, is that okay to be motivated by anything other than Jesus Christ? And the answer, I think, is a little bit complicated, but I hope to break it down for us, and I think it’ll make sense.

There obviously is an ultimate motivation, and that I think we could take, as we have in the past, from Matthew 5, 8, where Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart. Why? For they shall see God.

Well, what a motivation, right? Jesus is both the end and the means of our purity. We do it for him.

We do it by him. But if that’s the case, then why does any other motivation matter? Now, I think there’s many motivations, and I have said before that I don’t think there is a wrong motivation to be pure, but there certainly is a better one, and I think it’s important to be focused on the ultimate goal of our relationship with Christ, because He not only is the end, but He is the means.

We’re going to do it by Him as well. He’s the only way that we can do it. So then how do we handle these seemingly more present motivations, such as relationships, whether it’s someone that’s married currently or hoping to be married.

Maybe it’s I’m in the ministry, and so I’ve got the motivation of my church, and I can’t let them down, and all the responsibility that’s there. Or the motivation of my kids or future kids. How do these motivations come into play?

Well, one thing we need to establish is that the motivation itself and that passion you feel from these, maybe we could call them secondary motivations, that in and of itself, no matter how strong that feeling is, does not equal the victory. It is not the victory. It is not the answer.

The motivation is not the answer, but it is designed to lead you to the answer. Here’s a quick illustration of what this might look like in another area. We’ve got an alarm system in our house, a security system, and the reason for that that I won’t go into too much right now is because when we were under contract to purchase this house, a bullet came through the master bedroom and lodged in the master bedroom door.

And then we sorted that whole situation out and the police forensics were there and they did their job. And then we did our job and went and knocked doors and found the culprit and had a conversation and got things squared away. And I’m quite confident that there’s not going to be any further issues.

In fact, I was confident then, otherwise we would have backed out of the sale or the purchase of the home and would not have moved forward with it.

Although, side note, I did ask my wife at the time, even once we figured out where it came from and got the assurance this is not going to be something that happened again, it was a fluke deal. I did ask my wife, I said, okay, so let’s say we’re laying in bed at night and you hear a gunshot, which can happen here in South Carolina, right? It happens in the middle of the night.

Some guy’s probably just shooting off a target in his backyard in the middle of the night, whatever. But are you going to feel safe laying in bed knowing that our house has this track record here of a bullet coming through the master bedroom wall? And she said, I will if I have a bulletproof headboard.

She probably wouldn’t want me to tell you this. So I went and got a sheet of steel, cut it up, and we have a bulletproof headboard.

Try it. No, don’t. But I’m not going to test it.

But hey, I’m quite confident with the gauge of steel I got there that that’s going to be sufficient for the peace of mind and to be sure our mind stays in one piece while we’re sleeping, that this is going to be sufficient to protect my wife. I take that seriously. Go to whatever length.

Got a bulletproof headboard. Okay, but let’s say that we’re laying in bed at night. That was a rabbit trail.

The reason I hit that was to tell you why we made sure to get an alarm system, more peace of mind as well, and security cameras around our house. So we’ve got that. Let’s Now, we’ve never had a false alarm.

So if that happens, I’m assuming, okay, this is a real deal. One of those contact sensors on the doors has been separated and there is a door open and all our doors lock at night. So that means something’s been broken, something’s busting in here.

And there’s not too many innocent explanations for that in the middle of the night, right? So we’ve got a problem. Let’s say I pull up on my phone, the security feed just in time to see three armed men coming through our front door.

Now, hopefully, I am stirred. I’m motivated to action at that point, and I’m not motivated to maybe just duck under the covers or hide under the bed. No, I’ve got a family to protect here.

I’ve got a wife beside me. I’ve got a son across the hallway. I’ve got to do something about this.

So here’s that motivation, right? The motivation is huge. Ain’t no way this enemy is getting to my family.

I’m going to do something about this. But let’s say that those emotions and that passion just leads me in that moment to bust out into the hallway as fast as I can, to run and attempt to do what I have dreamt about doing, and you have to so many times. I am going to single-handedly disarm all three men simultaneously, bash their heads together, tie them up, and call the po-po saying, come on, collect your boys.

I got them here waiting for you, right? That’s what we would would like to, that’d be a great story to tell, but not very realistic. Why?

Well, that motivation could easily lead us to do something that ridiculous, but I can have all the passion in the world, but I bust out into that hallway like that, trying to take matters into my own hands, guess what’s going to happen? Man, I am going to get lit up in my own house. See, the motivation itself, that desire to defend my family, that in and of itself is not going to give me the victory that day.

But it can lead me to the victory. It is not the answer, but it can lead me to the answer. And that is just a few feet away from that bulletproof headboard is a gun that I can grab that would do a whole lot more damage than my fist could.

And stationed throughout their house in undisclosed locations are more firearms that could be used to defend our household. And because the battle that’s entering on my home with three armed men is a different level than a could take care of, then I better hope that that motivation to protect my family leads me to the proper answer to combat that battle. Okay, now the illustration breaks down because Jesus is not just a tool in our hand to use.

He’s a person, okay? It’s about a relationship. But here’s how it is.

Because we can be so motivated by, oh man, this enemy is getting into my home. Oh man, there’s no way I’m going to let this happen in my marriage. There’s no way I’m going to wreck my children’s life with this sin of pornography in my life.

There’s no way I’m going to set my future family up in this way. There’s no way I’m going to let my church down in this way. And so we take all that passion and motivation and emotion, and we just try to fight the battle with emotion.

We go out there, fists swinging, trying to take care of this all on our own, and we’re going to get demolished every time in our own home. But it wasn’t the fault of that motivation, but what should have happened is that we should have realized this motivation, this emotion is not the answer, but it can lead me to the answer, which is Jesus Christ. So as I told this young man who’s asking, how do I do this practically?

What’s this look like? I’m so motivated by the present and the tangible and these things that I can see, and I think that’s fine. But make sure that those things, that you realize that that motivation is not truly the answer, though it feels so powerful inside of you.

It needs to lead you to the answer, which is Jesus. The Chord app is not the answer. It’s a tool to lead you to the answer.

And I think version 2.0 is doing that better than ever before in ways that we are consciously directing our users back to the source, which is Jesus Christ. Well, I hope this episode, though it’s been a bit unique, has been a help to you. And if you’d like to learn more about the Chord, since we talked about that, you can go to the cord.app or just download from the app store.

But there’s some videos online that may help you understand it a bit more, the cord.app. So you can look that up there. If you have any comments on that or questions or anything about what we discussed about motivations and secondary motivations, feel free to reach out to me, ryan at satisfy.org.

It’s my email, and I’d love to hear from you in these coming days. And what I want you to do for this coming month is to take those God-given passions and ask the Lord to translate that into action. and actions of pursuing Christ, and of spending time in the Word, and of spending time in prayer and fasting, and of getting biblically and accountable, and all these things that are focused on the true source and the actual answer.

Allow all these God-given passions to be funneled into action as we seek to be less gratified and more satisfied with Jesus Christ.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Degeneration Podcast. If you’ve been blessed or helped in any way by this episode or any other episodes, please consider sharing what God has done in your life. Your testimony could be exactly what someone else needs to take their own step out of the boat.