The truth is, that if you are a follower of Christ, your addiction to pornography has already been defeated… On the cross.
Your flesh may not know it yet but that doesn’t make the truth any less true. Pornography has been the number one vice in my life since before I can remember. I couldn’t tell you the moment I found it or if it had found me but it was a part of my life none the less. My whole life I have fought this sin with all my strength. But my strength was never enough. Why didn’t God just remove it from me? He could have cut out the dead flesh so easily, He is God after all. Well, my perspective was wrong. As a good friend and mentor always says,
If you think wrong, you’ll never live strong. – Matt J.
How is it that I can believe that God created everything with a word and yet is not capable of giving me true freedom from my sin. The problem is that I had always believed wrong. I believed that I would always struggle with this sin. I told myself it was just something that I had to live with. I hated it and God hates it but at least I’m forgiven and that’s all that matters, right? The sad thing about thinking this way is it kept me from tapping into the potential that God put in me for doing great things for His kingdom. I HAVE FOUND TRUE FREEDOM FROM PORNOGRAPHY. God was patient with me but also stern with me. He sent someone to tell me the truth. This was not a new truth. I have always known of it but it had never been a part of me and that’s the key, making it mine. Do you believe the truth, brother? Well, if you have never heard the truth or haven’t believed it yet, here it is and I pray that today you would find true freedom from the lie that you cannot walk tall chain free.
Here is the truth in all its glory!
- Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
You are free, brother. But you can choose to remain a slave to your sin. God broke every chain with the cross of Christ but you can decide to disregard this and act as if the chains had never fallen.
- Romans 6:5-14
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Do you consider yourself dead to sin? Or are you daily giving your life over to it still? Instead, present yourself to God as an instrument of righteousness because sin has no more dominion over you, brother.
- Romans 8:1-11
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Remember, If you call Jesus Lord then he has given you the Holy Spirit so you now can walk in the spirit instead of the flesh. My flesh still craves many things that are contrary to the will and word of God but I have the Holy Spirit giving me life.
- 2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Walk in the new and let the old be dead.
- Exodus 20:20
Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.”
If we have our fear of God in order then we would recognize that it is the safeguard against us doing anything we know would not please Him.
- Matthew 5:28
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
In order to walk in true freedom then we need first get real with what it is we are doing. Pornography is adultery. Period.
- 1 Corinthians 14:20
Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
I will do everything in my power to keep my children’s innocence intact. So I must become innocent once again to evil.
- Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
- 2 Corinthians 3:17,18
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
- 1 Peter 1:3-11
seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Dwell on these verses brothers and believe the truth that in Christ you are already free.