Many believers love Jesus and yet struggle with pornography. It’s very common these days. The reality is as long as you’re a man with testosterone, eyes, imagination and a “you-know-what” you’re going to be wrestling with lust. And lets all just be honest, like every other man has to wrestle with lust! But instead of just giving up and allowing the current of pornography to sweep us along where ever it wants to take us, here are a few things that we can do to overcome.
1. Fight, and don’t make excuses!
Never stop fighting. If you don’t fight then you will be overcome. As long as you’re fighting you’ll never be defeated! Only fighting will bring victory. You need to put on your fighting pants and fight like a son of God whose righteous nature wants to live in victory! If you’ve stopped fighting then you may as well stop looking for some magic fix for overcoming. It will never happen. The only way you will walk in victory is if you keep fighting and never stop! The grace of God will help you fight but it won’t fight for you. Grace doesn’t make us passive and expect God to do it all, no, grace empowers us to access all of heavens victory and resource and for us to then use them. But grace doesn’t force us to use them, it just makes them available. It’s up to us what we do with them. And when we do rise up in the grace of God and fight, we’re unbeatable!
(Ephesians 1:17-23/2:6; Titus 2:11, Ephesians 6, Colossians 2, Romans 6, Ephesians 1: 4)
2. Walk in the Spirit
It’s 3 dimensional. You do it by walking:
- In the Spirit Covenant
- By your reborn spirit
- In fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
You do this by focusing on these 3 realms. In other words keep your eyes on grace, even if you sin, and never go back to the law and performance. Grace is the spirit covenant that takes you into the spirit. Law is the flesh covenant that takes you into the flesh. Grace will bring strength not law. (Galatians 1-6)
Also, focus on your reborn spirit and live from it. Get your focus off your flesh and mind. Your spirit is absolutely perfect and doesn’t want to sin. Sin is foreign to your spirit. It’s your mind and body that are tempted to sin. As long as you’re walking by your spirit you can’t sin. Easier said than done, but most people ignore their spirit and wonder why they struggle so much. The more you focus on your spirit and learn to live from your spirit in control it will begin to bring dominion over your mind and flesh. You focus on your reborn spirit by finding out the truth about it, praying in tongues (it aligns your consciousness with God’s consciousness!), spending time praying and worshipping and soaking in God’s presence, learning to discern between your spirit, flesh and mind, learning to make decisions from your spirit, meditating on the Gospel of grace. (Ephesians 4: 22-24, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Corinthians 6:19; Colossians 2:9, 10; Ephesians 2:6, 1 Corinthians 14:4)
Then walk with the Holy Spirit daily. He is God inside of you! He will strengthen you. Lead you. Empower you and help you to live from the spirit realm. You need regular powerful breakthrough prayer times with the Holy Spirit. Get to know him as your closest friend. Talk to Him! He is your defender not your accuser! He’s on your side and wants to help you not condemn you. He wants to make heaven and all that is God’s manifestly real to you! (John 14 – 16, Acts, Hebrews 10:15, Romans 8)
3) Get rid of as much temptation in your life as possible!
Make your world around you as safe as you can. You need a safe haven at home not a battle field. Get rid of all access to pornography without making any excuses! If you struggle with looking at pornography on your internet phone, get rid of it without making excuses. Be radical! Radical chains demand a radical breaking! I refuse to have one of those things because I don’t want that temptation in my life. I keep a simple phone with no internet on it. Those internet phones, to some, can be like having pornography in their pocket! Now if it’s not a struggle for you then keep the thing and don’t worry about it. But if it is then you’re crazy to have it. You’re allowing weakness to have access to your heart. You need to cut off every channel of weakness in order to gain any kind of strength in this area. You actually don’t need an internet phone as much as you think you do! It’s like a heroin addict walking around with a pocket full of heroin and telling himself he’s ok and just won’t have any. How long do you think he will last? Same with any kind of access you have to pornography that is a struggle for you. Get rid of video’s, magazines, pictures, TV channels, even your blessed computer if you have to if it’s a problem! Or at least put some control on it so you don’t have open access to everything. And don’t hide behind the excuse “Well that’s like putting a law over your life that will just stir up sin”. It won’t if you’re born again! If you don’t have the access the less the temptation will be and the less likely you are going to struggle with it. If a heroin addict has a house full of heroin stashes that he knows about, he’s got no chance of choking the habit. None what so ever! But if he gets rid of all access to it he’s going to have a much better chance at overcoming – especially if he learns how to walk in the spirit and puts on his fighting pants! As long as you’re allowing access you don’t have your fighting pants on. As soon as you cut off the access you put on your fighting pants. I think we need to stop over spiritualizing addiction. If your house is full of temptation you can’t really blame the devil for it or anyone else! You need to do something about it! You can never fully eradicate temptation from around you because it’s just so rampant everywhere you go but we also shouldn’t hide behind this excuse either. Hopefully in the times when you haven’t been able to eradicate it then walking in the spirit and fighting will carry you through!
Put on your fighting pants, walk in the spirit and eradicate temptation from your life as best as you can. Stop looking for other magic fixes that will do it all for you. No, youhave to do these things! if you don’t then you’ve got no chance of overcoming. Victory is up to you not anyone else. Not even God! He gives you the strength and weapons that you need and can use to live in the victory but He doesn’t live your life for you. It starts with you! You have got to decide how desperately you want to walk in victory and what you are prepared to do to get that?
