HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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FIVE STEPS TO BREAKING FREE FROM PORN

Copyright © 2013 by Joe Dallas

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-5336-8 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-5338-2 (eBook)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A WORD FROM JOE

This book is written to and for you if you have a porn problem because, sadly, it’s a problem hugely affecting the Christian population. Perhaps you’re a guy who has the problem, but not the beliefs expressed in this book. In short, you may not be a Christian. If that’s the case, I’m grateful you picked this up, and I sincerely hope that, whatever your worldview, you’ll find some helpful principles and suggestions in these pages.

I’d be less than honest, though, if I didn’t point out the need to get to the root of the problem, which is much more than porn. It’s the human condition. You can certainly improve your life by eliminating pornography from it, and I hope you will. But eternal questions still need to be answered. If they remain unanswered, then you’ll have only scratched the surface by going porn free.

So please, once you’ve finished reading the chapters, spend some time thinking over the steps to knowing God that are listed at the back of the book. Because in the end, my friend, nothing matters more than having full assurance that you’re ready to meet Him, and Jesus Christ has made the provision for you so you can have that confidence.

God’s best to you,

Joe

CONTENTS

A Word from Joe

Introduction

Step 1: Access

Step 2: Accountability

Step 3: Awareness

Step 4: Amends

Step 5: Anticipation

Appendix A: What About Masturbation?

Appendix B: Knowing God

Notes

About Joe Dallas

More Great and Informative Books

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land’” (Ezekiel 8:12).

Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight (Psalm 51:4).

Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up (Hosea 6:1).

When a man has a problem with porn, he has a problem with God. That’s because the repeated use of porn involves giving himself permission to violate the God-given standards of chastity, monogamy, and a sound mind. A porn habit requires a man to keep a private but huge part of his life to himself, outside of God’s will and authority. Conversely, to turn from porn is to relinquish his most private self back to God.

Are you ready to consider doing that? If so, this booklet is for you. If you’re not, don’t bother reading on.

This book is meant to be used. It’s for you if you have a problem with porn, realize you need help, and are ready to take concrete steps to break the habit once and for all. Readiness is the key. This book isn’t for you if you need to be convinced porn is wrong. If that question isn’t settled with you yet, ask yourself if what you’re getting from the stuff is worth what you’re losing. If you come up with “yes” for an answer, come back when your answer is “no,” and we’ll talk.

This book isn’t for guys who want a detailed analysis of porn’s adverse effects. Pornography does so much damage in so many areas of a man’s life that I couldn’t hope to cover them sufficiently in these pages. Besides, you know better than I do what it has cost you so far. Just consider what prompted you to look into this book, and I’ll wager much of it had to do with loss. For example, “I’ll lose my marriage/reputation/self-respect/spiritual strength if I don’t stop.”

What can I add to that? Only this: Your use of pornography may well not be the only problem. It can become a bridge to more serious, life-altering actions. The guy who stimulates himself on hard-core images often finds the images lose their “kick” after a time, leaving him craving a stronger fix. The fix may then come through actions even more consequential than porn, such as online connections, strip clubs, massage parlors, prostitutes, and affairs. These consequences can be prevented if a man takes steps to break the porn habit while the problem is still in the private stage.

This is doubly true if you’re a family man. Your children can’t help but be damaged if they find out that Dad, who preaches morality and chastity to them, has been practicing something altogether different behind closed doors. Your credibility as leader in the home is largely made or broken by consistency. Inconsistency is a problem no leader, especially the head of a household, can afford.

My goal isn’t to provide an in-depth look at the psychological issues that might contribute to a man’s weakness for lusty images. I fully believe there are problems of the soul that can make you more susceptible to certain vices, porn included. But lust is also an equal-opportunity sin. Guys with deep psychological wounds can fall into it, and guys bursting with emotional health can be just as vulnerable. So while a book on the psychology of porn use might be an interesting read, this book isn’t it.

Instead, this is a handbook to help you break free from porn and stay that way. It’s based in part on my years of experience counseling men who came to my office desperate for help with their sexual issues. They didn’t come to me because of a bad decision they made. They came because of hundreds—even thousands—of bad decisions that linked together to forge a chain they wore like a prisoner’s shackles.

The Chain Is Forged

The first link in the chain usually starts with a discovery. Some act—the use of porn, a sexual fantasy, whatever—delivers a perceived positive impact. A deep impact the brain carefully records for future reference. Then, when a man is either bored, or angry, or lonely, or uncomfortable in some way, the brain reminds him of the positive impact the sexual behavior delivered. So he repeats it to get relief from the current situation. Then he repeats it again, and soon the repetition becomes a pattern, the pattern becomes a dependency, and, link-by-link a chain is forged.

I know about this truth because I’m someone who forged and wore that chain. I can attest to how light it seems at times but how heavy it actually is. Light, in the sense that it doesn’t seem to be interfering with anything. No consequences seem to be forthcoming; no obvious toll is being taken. God is amazingly patient as this chain is being formed, allowing a man time to consider the secret sin he’s entertaining and giving him the opportunity to walk away from it before it becomes an unmanageable bondage. Believe me, as you read this there are countless numbers of Christian men going about their church and family business looking fine on the outside, but privately forging chains and mistaking them for light jewelry. They’re in for a terrible wake-up call. In fact, you must surely know this since you’ve turned to this book for help.

Perhaps you’ve realized that the weight of the chain grows without the wearer really catching on for a long time. But from the moment the links are forged, a man’s mind is being darkened, his heart hardened, his integrity drained. And since those are internal rather than external consequences, they are easy to ignore, just like high cholesterol or blood pressure can be, until a crisis finally comes. And come it does. In your case it may already have weighed in, and the secret’s out in the open. Scary and horrible to go through, yes, but necessary because at least now you’re dealing with the problem before it exacts even more of a price you can’t afford.

My goal is to help you break the chain by helping you dismantle the links in the chain related to your porn use. In part, I want to do that by urging you to look long and hard at how much the chain will eventually weigh and the damage it will cause to your mind, heart, and spirit. To help you break this chain, I’m going to lead you through the same steps I use to help my clients. These steps are written from a Bible-centered, Christian perspective that recognizes three essential truths:

1. You were created. This means you’re not only a created being, but that you’ll answer to your Creator for the way you’ve managed the body He entrusted you with.

2. You were created with intention by God. Paul tells us that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Your Creator didn’t leave you to guess what His intentions for you might be. He spelled them out in His Word—a God-breathed, inspired document profitable to teach, correct, and equip you for the tasks He has for you. So we look to Scripture as our final authority, weighing every other philosophy or doctrine in light of what’s already been revealed in the Bible. And in doing so, we find specific intentions described for all areas of life, including sexual expression.

3. Behavior outside those God-given intentions is counterproductive and, thus, can and should be overcome. Stepping outside of your Creator’s intentions doesn’t work no matter how good those steps may feel temporarily. Some people are smart enough to take God’s word for that, but others of us may choose the less-intelligent, more painful road and challenge it, learning the truth the hard way. Either way, we eventually realize that what takes us out of God’s will is never in our best interest. So if we’ve developed a pattern contrary to His plan and are willing to admit its contrariness, then God will give us the power and the wisdom to overcome it.

With these three points in mind, we’ll take a five-step approach to the problem of porn, one chapter for each step. Here’s how it plays out.

STEP ONE: ACCESS

Removing access to the problem is more than half the battle. You’ll start by making a clean break, removing (as much as possible) access to porn and setting up checks and balances to keep you removed.

STEP TWO: ACCOUNTABILITY

No man overcomes porn by himself. We’ll establish a simple, lean, no-nonsense accountability structure you can easily set up with another man or group you trust.

STEP THREE: AWARENESS

Knowing yourself—your patterns, wounds, and weaknesses—is essential. You are the manager of a machine—your body. To manage it well, you’ve got to know how it operates, where it’s delicate, and how to maintain it for optimal health.

STEP FOUR: AMENDS

Take responsibility; show humility. Somebody’s hurt when you use porn, and it’s not just you. Recovery means taking responsibility and showing the humility to recognize where you’ve been wrong. Then you have to step up and decide what you’re going to do about it.

STEP FIVE: ANTICIPATION

Your race is on; your race will end. How it goes is up to you. Any successful business has a plan with an eye toward the future. In your case, we’re talking about an earthly future—the time you have left down here. Then comes your death and appearance before the judgment seat of Christ. The man who keeps his life clean is a man with an eye toward his future in this life and the next.

Each chapter will follow a four-point format:

• Positioning Scriptures

• Principles

• Practices

• Prayer

We’ll begin with three Positioning Scriptures, look at three relevant Principles drawn from those Scriptures, discuss how to Practice those principles, and then end with Prayer. Pretty simple, I know. That’s how I like it whether I’m putting together a budget, a diet, a business plan, or a book. But simple doesn’t mean easy. This plan works if you follow it, but following it will require a few things from you.

First, you have to be motivated. I can’t provide this for you. You can help yourself by listing the many reasons you should quit using porn now and for always. If you’ve never considered specific reasons, take some time right now to think them through and jot them down. Then keep them before you as a reminder, and let them, in turn, keep your motivational fires stoked.

Second, you have to be teachable. Let no man be your guru, of course, since you’ve been given a mind that you’re expected to use. But if you’ve got a problem, you need answers. And if you already had them all, you wouldn’t be reading this book, would you? So please listen. Listen to me, listen to the people in your life who value you, listen to your spiritual mentors, and, above all, listen to God when He speaks to you through His Word, through your life circumstances, and through His still small voice. The man who succeeds is the man who stays teachable enough to learn, strive, and prevail.

Third, you have to endure discomfort. Beware of any book or formula that tells you there’s a comfortable way to stop a deeply ingrained habit. There simply isn’t. Your system gets accustomed to certain stimulations, good or bad, and learns to expect them. So when you remove them, it’s uncomfortable. Not destructive, certainly, just uncomfortable, and there’s no getting around that. So be willing to sacrifice a degree of comfort for your goal of healthy purity, and you’ll be well on your way toward attaining it.

You’ll notice these pages are directed toward men, though porn isn’t strictly a male issue. It affects women too, so a female reader may glean some helpful material in these pages. But I felt it necessary to write specifically to men because I believe there are inherent differences between male and female sexuality, and that male and female sexual problems should be addressed according to their uniqueness. So if you’re a female reader looking for some guidance in this area, please read on and what’s written will hopefully benefit you. But for a book on the subject addressed specifically to women, please see A Christian Woman’s Guide to Breaking Free from Pornography: It’s Not Just a Guy’s Problem by Shelley Hitz and S’ambrosia Curtis (Body and Soul Publishing, 2012).

Finally, let me say that helping you by going through this material isn’t just an academic exercise to me. It’s deeply personal. For the past 25 years, as a pastoral counselor, I’ve had the honor of coaching Christian men who’ve gotten caught up in porn use. And I’m no stranger to the problem myself, having been exposed to hardcore porn as a child and then developing an addiction to it as a young man. Out of my own process (28 years porn free) and the freedom I’ve witnessed in the men I’ve worked with, I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. For longer than I can remember, I’ve wanted to synthesize the principles that do work into a user-friendly guide that any man could use and keep on hand for helping others.

By God’s grace, may this book be just such a guide for you. So let’s get started.

STEP 1: ACCESS

Removing Access to the Problem Is More Than Half the Battle

Positioning Scriptures

[Jesus said,] “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:29-30).

Flee also youthful lusts (2 Timothy 2:22).

Bear fruits worthy of repentance (Luke 3:8).

Principles

Principle 1: If you can, then you will.

Never underestimate the power of the familiar. Therein lies much of a habit’s strength—familiarity. There are probably scores of things you do daily out of habit without even realizing it. For instance, the way you brush your teeth, the times of day you drink coffee, what you do to soothe yourself when you’re nervous or bored. We were all created with a capacity to adopt an array of routine behaviors. And we do—some good and some not so good.

So it is with lust, one of the most formidable of all habits. And I’ll bet you developed this habit early in life. When we discover the rush we get when viewing sexually attractive images, we find the warm security blanket of lust. It wraps around us and heats us up from head to toe as chemicals rage and blood rushes, drawing us into a private, powerful pleasure. This usually occurs in the preteen years. When puberty kicks in and we discover masturbation, the combination of mental images (fantasies, memories) or visual ones (porn, attractive women, suggestive pictures delivered via media) plus self-stimulation creates a potent, unforgettable cocktail. And any powerful experience that brings pleasure is, by its very nature, one we want to repeat…often.

Aggravating the problem is the general approval today’s culture stamps on lust. Think about it. How many products are marketed through erotic images? How many attractive bodies draped in bikinis or Speedos are utilized to promote beer, cars, CD players, and almost everything else? How many songs did we grow up on that extolled the “normalness” of fueling sexual arousal by looking at someone attractive? How many times did we hear “Atta boy!” in the locker room after verbalizing our desire for a certain young beauty? Lust not only comes naturally; it comes with applause. Small wonder then that so many men are absorbed by it—sometimes secretly, often openly. (You’ve probably noticed the centerfold beauties overseeing the work at many machine and car shops.) It’s hard enough wrestling with lust, but when our culture tells us it’s not a problem it’s even more difficult.

If you wrestle with porn, you’re taking on a strong habit with easily accessible materials that delivers potent impact and is openly approved of and shared by millions. No wonder you’re struggling.

Let’s look for a moment at what you’re struggling against in biblical terms. A number of Hebrew and Greek words have been translated as the English word “lust” in the Old and New Testaments. The one most applicable to our subject is found in Proverbs 6:25. Referring to a wanton woman, the author warns, “Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, nor let her allure you with her eyelids.” The word used in the Old Testament (written in Hebrew) is chamad, meaning “to desire covetously with delight.” The corresponding word in the New Testament, which was written in Greek, was epithymeo. Jesus used this word when He described lust as a form of sexual sin (whether acted on or not). This is the most frequently used Greek term in the New Testament that refers to lust. Epithymeo, similar to the Hebrew chamad, means to “covet what is forbidden.”

To “sexually lust” is “to want and dwell on what’s not rightfully yours.” If you’re married, your desire for your wife doesn’t qualify as lust since a sexual union with her is rightfully yours to enjoy. But to sexually covet someone or some experience outside of marriage is to violate your Creator’s intent. It’s a pleasurable violation that delivers high impact, certainly, but a violation nonetheless.

And here’s the rub. If you’ve developed the habit of entertaining that violation through porn, then you’ve trained your body—your brain, your pleasure receptors, your genitals—to expect that high-impact. That expectation became a physical craving, and your ability to resist it was weakened each time you gave in. It was weakened to the point that as long as the stuff is available, you’ll use it despite your best intentions and most fervent promises to God, to your wife, to yourself. That is the power of the familiar—a power you’ve no doubt experienced time and again.

Jesus, spot on and as wise as ever, didn’t say, “If your hand offends you, try to reform it. Or pray for it. Or send it to therapy to see why it offends you.” Rather, He plainly advised, “Cut it off.” He’s saying whatever sin you’ve gotten accustomed to, you should have no confidence in your ability to just say no. Instead, distance yourself from it as much as possible and remove your ability to indulge in it.

If you can access porn, then most likely you will. If you’re serious about stopping porn use, you’ve got to distance yourself as much as possible from the porn itself. If you’re not ready to do that, you’re not ready to stop.

Principle 2: What the heart rejects, the brain records.

When you’re serious about overcoming porn, you can get into a pretty ferocious wrestling match with your brain. That’s because it records significant experiences and files them for future reference. When it determines you may need their benefit, it brings them to mind, reminding you of the experience. That’s part of your brain’s function. Sometimes this function is great. When you discover that a particular type of aspirin helps you get over a headache, your brain records the brand name of the aspirin for future reference. Next time a headache comes on, your brain reminds you what worked to relieve it in the past so you’ll use it again.

But here’s where it gets dicey. Your brain also records less legitimate actions and experiences that helped you forget, feel soothed, feel great, even if the actions clash with your moral values. So when you discovered how porn helped you temporarily forget, helped soothe you, and caused excitement and pleasure, your brain recorded all of those benefits just as surely and clearly as it recorded the brand name of the aspirin that worked. So the next time you feel boredom, stress, or discomfort, the option of porn barges into your head like an unwelcomed pop-up on your computer. It reminds you, based on past experience, that the stuff worked and provided relief. You may be convinced porn is wrong. You may be determined with all your heart to never use porn again and, through repentance, reject it. But what the heart rejects, the brain has already recorded, making the option of porn an undesirable but lifelong addition to your brain’s filing system for coping strategies.

Principle 3: Temptation doesn’t change; resistance capacity does.

Many approaches to overcoming sexual sin offer results, including healing and transformation, and to a point I fully agree and celebrate that. Life deals all of us some pretty treacherous blows, leaving us wounded and downright broken in a number of ways. When we come to Christ,

• He restores our souls (Psalm 23:3).

• He heals our broken hearts (Luke 4:18).

• He transforms our minds (Romans 12:2).

• He changes us from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).

These are indisputable realities of Christian living. But these changes occur in our souls and spirits, not in our flesh. Our flesh is that fallen, old nature of ours inherited from Adam. Our flesh has some truly ugly qualities, as described by the apostle Paul:

• It never gets better (“For I know that in me [that is, in my flesh] nothing good dwells,” Romans 7:18).

• It hosts a population of horrendous impulses (“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness…” Galatians 5:19).

• It’s locked in a constant battle with the Holy Spirit (“The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish,” Galatians 5:17).

Ultimately, a struggle with porn is a struggle with the flesh. And the flesh is a part of us that, in this life, will never be healed. It is what it is, and immune to reformation. Because the flesh can’t be reformed, made better, or healed, Scripture advises us to:

• Refuse it (“Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” Romans 6:1-2).

• Put it to death (“Put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience,” Colossians 3:5-6).

• Walk in the Holy Spirit to remain free of the flesh’s power (“Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh,” Galatians 5:16).

Temptation in our flesh is guaranteed in this life. God will not take it away. Rather, in the face of fleshly temptation, God gives us strength we didn’t have before and authority over our flesh to deny it. This principle matters because it influences our approach to handling temptations. Either we’ll yield to them, wait for them to stop, or wisely be prepared to deal with them in our newfound strength of walking in the Holy Spirit.

Temptation to use porn will continue in your life—sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Its presence is no indicator that you’re doing anything wrong. It only means you’re a new creature still residing within a sinful body in a sinful world. Part of your residential responsibility is to deal with the ongoing fact of temptation. God will not remove it from your life. He will gladly empower you to meet that enemy armed and ready with His Word, His principles, and His Spirit within you. And with that kind of equipment and help, temptation may continue to be a pain in the butt, but it need never master you. Jesus met it head on and mastered it. And within the trinity, He resides within you in the form of the Holy Spirit, so it’s doubly reassuring to consider that “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Therefore, “sin shall not have dominion over you” (Romans 6:14).

Practices

1. If you’ve been using porn via the Internet, immediately sign up for the “Covenant Eyes” software by going to www.covenanteyes.com. This site not only monitors your online use, but it will also send a regular and detailed report of your browsing history, week by week, to a third party of your choice. So once you’ve signed up with Covenant Eyes, you’ll never again be able to tell yourself that no other person will know what you’ve been looking at. This is one of the most effective programs I know of…and one of the most essential. If you’re married, I urge you to have a report sent to your wife and one other accountability person. Be sure to get it installed on your cell phone, iPad, tablets, and any other Internet access tools you have.

2. If you’ve been watching inappropriate material via cable, immediately get the channels offering that material off your package or get another cable package altogether. Don’t assume you can resist the channels offering this material. By now you know how hard it is to resist. If you can’t get it off your cable system completely, set up the parental controls or have someone else do it so you won’t know the password

3. Do an honest and thorough inventory of the material you watch for entertainment, whether television, DVDs, films, books, or magazines. Ask yourself if it contains images that make you susceptible to lust. Whatever doesn’t pass that test should go. Toss it out now. There’s no point in abandoning porn just to replace it with “porn lite.”

Prayer

Father, I know I’ve been taking something unclean into my heart and mind, and it’s taken its toll. It’s darkened my thinking, hardened my heart, perverted my views, distracted me from what matters, disrupted my most intimate relationships, and hugely offended You. For all of this I’m so sorry. I’m choosing right now to stop my involvement with porn once and for all.

To stop, I need Your mind, Your heart, Your strength. I’ve given myself to this destructive habit so many times that it’s lost its ability to shock me. I hate to admit it, but I’ve gotten comfortable with something You abhor. Cause me to see this sin as You see it—in all its depravity. Cause me to view it as poison and hate its content and effects as You do. Cause me to remember the wasted lives of the women and men involved in this product, and remind me how contradictory it is for me to say I love people but then use something that exploits them in such a primitive way.

Give me a holy, white-hot hatred for this habit I’ve trained myself to allow. Give me Your indignation over the fact that I, one of Your children, so stupidly and deliberately gave myself to something so dark. Then give me the strength to renounce it not once but every time the temptation rears its ugly head. I want to experience such a close relationship with You that I won’t allow anything, much less something so destructive and foolish as porn, to ever come between us again.

In the name of my Lord Jesus, who was tempted in all areas yet remained sinless, I pray. Amen.

STEP 2: ACCOUNTABILITY

No Man Overcomes Porn by Himself

Positioning Scriptures

Exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13).

As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend (Proverbs 27:17).

Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works (Hebrews 10:24).

Principles

Principle 1: You don’t need accountability to do what comes naturally. You need accountability to resist what comes naturally.

Default, or falling back into a routine, is a fact of life for all of us. We’re naturally inclined to return to patterns of thought and behavior that have been set in place early in life. These patterns are reinforced or interrupted as time goes by and we grow in our experiences. Nail biting, daydreaming, knuckle-cracking, swearing, overeating, and smoking are all good examples of patterns. They’re behaviors people adopt for comfort, relief, or pleasure. Depending on how acceptable those habits continue to be as the person grows, they’re either discarded or incorporated into life.

Unfortunately, even when negative habits have been discarded, they can return when we’re under stress, depending on how much impact they delivered. The reformed smoker may find that, years after he quit, a stressful life event makes him yearn for the familiar comfort of a cigarette. The same goes for the person who abused alcohol, drugs, junk food, slot machines, and so on. When we discover actions that soothe or stimulate, we’re naturally inclined to return to them when some form of impact, whether pleasure, forgetfulness, or stress relief, is desired. That’s our natural tendency.

Neuroscientists Dr. Wilkie Wilson and Dr. Cynthia Kuhn provide an interesting observation along these lines when describing the brain’s reward system: “When a person experiences a positive, pleasurable outcome from an action or event, the release of dopamine and other chemicals alters the brain circuitry, providing tools and encouragement to repeat the event.”[1] In layman’s terms, the pleasurable discovery becomes a behavioral pattern, and returning to it feels good and natural.

What we’re often called to do, though, whether by life or by God, is unnatural. That is, we realize that certain patterns we’ve developed, no matter how naturally they came to us, are counterproductive. They contradict what we believe in, interfere with our healthy functioning, and harm our relationships with God, people, and ourselves. So we abandon them, or try to, opting for the “unnatural” pattern of saying no to what we’re accustomed to saying yes to. And more often than not, that’s when the struggle begins.

So the dieter, who’s realized that the consequences of overeating outweigh the pleasurable benefits, won’t automatically stop craving junk food just because he’s realized it’s unhealthy and damaging. His cravings will continue and, at times, clash with his principles. And when he’s especially low on energy or motivation, he’ll be more inclined to return to the pastries or other favorite foods.

Now suppose that during this low point, no one else knows he’s dieting. He’ll only have his conscience and willpower to rely on to keep him from defaulting to his old and usual behavior. But his emotional and perhaps even physical states are drained. He’s tired, moody, lonely, or bored. In that case, it wouldn’t be wise to trust in his ability to resist defaulting to his old “medication,” would it?

But suppose he’s also a member of a Weight Watchers support group or he’s got close friends he’s confided in regarding dieting. They know how badly he needs to lose weight and how much he wants to stay on his diet. Now, rather than depending on his own shaky resolve, he’s also got the additional strength of allies! They encourage him to stay on course, exhorting and loving him through this tough time of temptation. That’s the power of accountability. You’ve taken steps to make it available because you know you’re inclined to default to the very thing you want to avoid, and that, left on your own, default is inevitable.

I cannot say this plainly or strongly enough: I’ve never known a man who’s overcome the porn habit without accountability. That’s how basic and critical this principle is. Iron gets sharpened by iron; it certainly doesn’t sharpen itself. This is both proven and expounded on in the next principle.

Principle 2: Resistance requires integrity, and integrity requires accountability.

“Integrity,” per a Merriam-Webster dictionary, means “adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.” That’s a quality everyone should attain and protect, and it should grow within all of us as we mature. But our integrity is imperfect and, let’s face it, incomplete. No one operates with full integrity at all times. I may have a degree of integrity, but some days it will be lower than other days. And it’s during those low points that I’m especially in need of the additional integrity that accountability helps provide.

I’m called by God to resist the pull of my flesh—a pull that often includes the beckoning of pornography despite my 28-year layoff from it. Part of what’s kept me porn free is a bit of my own integrity, but that hasn’t been enough on its own. A strong additional force keeping me from default has been the knowledge that I’m not in this fight alone. I’ve arranged to have people in my life regularly ask me whether or not I’ve used porn or defaulted to any other sexual sin. Knowing that I’m required to give an account to them and that their lives would be affected by my report has been a potent deterrent beyond description.

I need and want to resist what I would otherwise naturally default to. But I don’t have the integrity within myself to keep the resistance up consistently and effectively. I need more, and accountability fills that need.

Principle 3: Every steward gives an answer for himself.

Paul told the believers in Corinth that he wanted to be regarded as a steward of the truth, a servant given the privilege of handling the mysteries of God. Then he made a notable remark: “It is required in stewards that one be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). Required. Please think of this as it applies to your stewardship. Do you have one? Of course! Paul mentioned that as well when he wrote to the Thessalonians, “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4). So you’re required by God to “possess the vessel” He entrusted to you in an honorable way. Along the same line, Paul reminded the believers in Corinth that their bodies were not their own. Instead, they are God’s, and each believer is to “glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

You’ve been commissioned, as the steward of your body, to be faithful in the way you manage the property the owner has entrusted to you. You’re the manager of the property, but it’s His house. And someday in the not-too-distant future, you’ll be called on to answer for the way you’ve managed it. “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

God’s Word (and thereby God Himself) declares that you’re going to be judged for the way you manage your body. Your past experiences declare that you’re unable to manage it properly on your own. Accountability, then, is a requirement for any man with a porn problem who wishes to give and get a good report at the judgment seat of Christ. Let’s consider how to implement this essential principle.

Accountability is enhanced by intimacy with God.

The first and great commandment is to love God, which can’t fully be done apart from knowing Him. Likewise, knowing Him can’t be done without ongoing communication with Him. So your first order of business regarding accountability is to ensure that you’re regularly (meaning daily) reading the Bible and praying. Since the Bible is God’s infallible, inspired Word, when you take in its wisdom, you’re building up your knowledge of Him—how He feels about you, His indescribable love for you, and how He desires you to respond to His love. If you’re serious about living a life consecrated to God, you’ve got to talk and listen to Him daily. And reading His Word is essential for understanding and communing with God. So settle in your heart right now that because you’re serious about purity, you’ve got to be a man of God’s Word. Commit to reading it daily with no exceptions allowed.

Commit to daily prayer as well because holiness without prayer is as unthinkable as swimming without water. Read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and you’ll see He set aside time for prayer. He was and is God incarnate, yet He felt the need and desire to commune with His heavenly Father through prayer, publicly and privately. Honestly now, wouldn’t it be foolish to think you need it less than Jesus did? Because you’re committed to God and to being spiritually and physically healthy, pray daily. Schedule it, invest in it, let it become part and parcel of your routine. A man accountable is first and foremost accountable to God, from whom He hears and to whom he answers daily. There is simply no other way to victorious living.

Accountability is established with allies.

“Exhort one another daily…lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). Sin is deceitful. Leave a man on his own long enough and, dollars to donuts, he’ll find ways to start kidding himself. This is doubly true of his tendency to rationalize the sin he’s most vulnerable to. Without anyone else’s perspective and/or loving challenge, he’s often inclined to look at his area of weakness and tell himself, “It’s wrong, but I’m entitled to it anyway.” This eventually morphs into, “It’s wrong, but it’s not so terribly wrong.” From there it becomes, “It’s wrong, but not always.” And finally he says, “It’s not wrong at all.”

The deceitfulness of sin can translate the most obviously immoral actions into something minimal, justifiable, even good. Let’s never underestimate our ability to kid ourselves. That’s why you need a man or a group who will ask you on a weekly basis if you’ve used porn, put yourself in danger of using it, or indulged in behaviors that make you more susceptible to porn use. You can get that sort of accountability in existing accountability groups or from an individual, but one way or another you need it. And accountability isn’t attending a Bible study, prayer group, or get-together. (These are all great, but they don’t qualify as good accountability resources.) Where there’s true accountability there’ll be three elements:

1. Someone else will know your specific area of weakness.

2. Someone will ask you weekly whether or not you’ve indulged that area of weakness.

3. Someone will be there to exhort, encourage, or empathize with you in case you’ve relapsed or to rejoice with you when you’ve stuck to your goal.

If those three elements aren’t in place, you don’t have true accountability. So now’s the time to put accountability in place. Find an existing men’s group or an individual you trust and get started.

Practices

1. Establish daily spiritual investment. Choose a time of day when you’re least likely to be interrupted and when you’re most likely to focus. Pick a book of the Bible to read during this time. Follow the Scripture reading with a time of prayer. This needn’t be a long time, but you need to be consistent. Protect this time. Consider it essential to your solid foundation.

2. Establish a weekly accountability investment. Choose either group or individual accountability. Both are effective; both are usually available. To choose an individual, simply select a man from your church, Sunday-school class, Bible study, or social life you consider to be spiritually mature and trust enough to disclose this personal part of your life. Make sure he’s reliable and will keep appointments. Approach him and ask if he’d be willing to meet with you regularly to ask you about this area of your life.

Be honest and forthright. You’re asking him to ask you specifically whether or not you’ve used porn, come close to using it, looked at any other inappropriate material, or crossed any other sexually immoral lines. You’re not asking for counseling; you’re asking for accountability. You’re also asking for his encouragement, his empathy, or his exhortation, depending on how well or how poorly you’ve done during the week. When you talk to him about all of this, remind him that a guy doesn’t have to be an expert to be a good accountability partner. He just needs to be available, honest, and trustworthy.

If you choose a group for accountability, be sure you choose one that allows time for each person to report how he’s done during the week, including time to be questioned or challenged or encouraged by the group after each report.

Whichever form of accountability you decide on, be sure you make it a lifestyle choice. This is not a temporary solution. You’ll find, as time goes by, that this will be one of the wisest, most practical, regular investments you’ll ever make.

Prayer

Lord, however deeply I love You, I confess there’s a part of me that wants to indulge in what You’ve forbidden. I hate that part of me. More than ever, I’m committed to never letting it rule me again.

Lead me into deep communion with You. Let me find in Your Word and through prayer knowledge of You like I’ve never had before. Draw me close to You. Show me the way, and I’ll run after You. Increase my faith, my ability to focus, my openness of heart and spirit, and my understanding so I will grow closer to You. Help me to become a godly, mature, well-centered man.

Lead me to men who also love You and value the power of godly accountability. Give me wisdom when choosing my allies, along with the humility to be honest with them. Help me have the courage to hear their feedback, embrace the discipline needed to be consistent in my investment with them, and be aware of my need for them. Deliver me from the pride of self-sufficiency by helping me remain humble and teachable.

Build me up through the partners in purity You choose to bring into my life. And let me be a positive building influence in their lives as well. Use the bonds we create to further Your purposes in us. Guide us so the time we invest in each other is well spent.

In the name of Jesus who called me to know, love, and lean on Him and His followers, I pray. Amen.

STEP 3: AWARENESS

Know Yourself—Your Patterns, Wounds, and Weaknesses

Positioning Scriptures

Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you (1 Timothy 4:16).

Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me (Psalm 19:12-13).

I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Principles

Principle 1: Pleasure is a permanent prompter.

To “take heed to yourself,” as Paul advised, you need to understand the way your system works and what you can do about it. Part of the systemic problem you’re dealing with has to do with the long-term effects of what you’ve been investing in.

Human history, experience, and common sense tells us that when a pleasurable experience is discovered and then repeated, it forges a “chain of behavior” that many a man never breaks. Now science has chimed in with some fascinating conclusions about the human brain and the way it stores memories of intense pleasures for future reference. “The number of things people do to increase their dopamine [pleasure chemistry] firing rates is unlimited, neuroscientists are discovering…Reward circuits are activated when young men look at photos of beautiful women.”[1] These same circuits activated by pleasure can then hijack the brain—in essence, sending messages to a person’s brain saying that he genuinely needs what, in fact, he only craves but can really do without.

All of this makes pleasure a permanent prompter. That is, when you repeat the pleasurable experience associated with porn, you actually train your brain’s circuitry to register porn as a necessity, a need, a requirement, although it clearly isn’t. This, in turn, prompts your brain and body to send stronger craving signals, making you feel that your desire for porn is a physical need. You just gotta have it. And this is when the struggle between flesh and spirit gets ferocious. By developing the porn habit, you trained your brain to expect the chemical rush it experiences when you anticipate and then use unclean material.

And there’s more bad news. Some studies indicate that prolonged porn use decreases a man’s ability to be sexually aroused by normal marital relations.[2] This, logically, creates sexual problems in his marriage. Other studies show that viewing pornography decreases a positive attitude toward women in general. This can enhance desires ranging from unnatural acts to violence.[3]

In general, not only does the porn habit cause the brain to crave a repetition of the pleasure, it darkens the mind as well. At the very least, you’ve done some “mind damage” by developing this pattern of vulnerability to (and possibly dependency on) erotic images. That’s a part of yourself that, as the apostle Paul said, you need to “take heed to” because it accounts for much of the temptation you’re likely to experience. The man with a porn habit is a man who’s trained his system to expect regular doses of the chemical rush porn brings.

Principle 2: Wounds crave remedy.

Compounding the problem of giving up porn can be the emotional pain we may feel that, in turn, makes us vulnerable to relapses as we seek to self-medicate the pain. Realistically, no one is exempt from emotional pain, whether pains from childhood or the present. But sometimes the combination of deep hurts that have never been properly dealt with plus the habit of medicating the hurt with the pleasure of porn use, creates a pretty sturdy bondage.

Wounds crave remedy. Old rejections, early abuse, broken relationships, and a sense of personal failure can all contribute to what I call “emotional wounding.” This type of pain leaves men defensive, depressed, isolated, and/or enraged. Often, instead of dealing directly with the source of the pain, we learn to medicate rather than address its roots, creating psychological and spiritual trauma as the emotional hurt finds solace through sinful and spiritually destructive acts.

So let me ask you plainly: Do you hurt? Does your mind often return to painful events, whether from early in life or more recently? Do you revisit them and relive them—in memory and in pain? Is intimacy something you shy away from because your history includes severe betrayal or rejection? Are you currently in a relationship that causes you continued pain—pain you haven’t been willing to discuss openly?

If so, then you need to look at the ways you’ve been coping with the pain and the causes of the pain itself. It may be time for you to finally confront the person who caused the hurt, if confrontation over a serious and ongoing violation is called for. Or you may need to correct the part of the relationship that needs changed. Either way, know this: If an ongoing relational problem is the source of your emotional wounds, then as a steward of the soul that’s in pain, you need to address it with honesty, maturity, a willingness to forgive, and the possible implementation of boundaries to prevent future wounding.

Clearly, hurt or anger over someone else’s sin is not a valid excuse for your own. But it’s equally clear that ongoing pain makes you more susceptible to medicating yourself in wrong ways. Both the pain and the medication are problems, and now is the time to do something about them.

Principle 3: Weak links weaken lives.

Character problems aren’t emotional wounds; they’re just weaknesses common to the human race. They’re symptomatic of the sin nature, and they vary from person to person. I have mine; you have yours. No big deal—except when those character weaknesses become doors that porn (or other ongoing sin) use to get into your life. Then your personal weakness isn’t just a weakness; it’s a chink in your armor as well.

Take selfishness, for example. It’s a common weakness. The man who’s in the habit of selfishly taking what he wants, whether right or wrong, will find the sin of self-centeredness makes the sin of porn use much easier to fall into. After all, he feels entitled to satisfy himself, regardless of who may be hurt. So he indulges in lust and self-absorption.

Another common weakness is anger. The man with a temper who acts rashly when he’s irritated may use porn as a way of “lashing out” at his wife because she irritates him.

One more example of weakness is fear. The timid man who is cowardly in the face of conflict may run to porn as a shelter when he’s afraid. He hides from life’s problems instead of dealing with them directly.

Sometimes character problems exist in a man long before he starts using porn. Other times, they develop as a result of his porn use. Guys who used to be honest, for instance, may find themselves lying to cover their tracks after viewing the stuff. Men who used to be open and warm may become defensive and secretive because they have a habit they want to keep in the dark. Whether the character problems existed before or after the habit developed, these flaws become weak links in the chain of resistance.

Paul advised Timothy to know himself (1 Timothy 4:16). The apostle also admitted to the Corinthians that he kept a close watch on himself just like an athlete in training would. He didn’t want his weaknesses to overtake him and derail his life (1 Corinthians 9:27). And if Paul saw the need for self-watch, you and I can’t afford to do less.

Part of knowing yourself means knowing your gifts, your calling, your responsibilities, and your passions. It also means knowing your areas of weakness and liability—not because God calls you to beat yourself up over them, but because as a good steward you want to take responsibility for them. You want to correct them when possible, learn to work around them when needed, and stay aware of their potential to disrupt your life. You want to always pray, as David did, that secret faults and presumptuous sins will never rule over you.

Practices

1. In response to the impact porn has had on your mind, be sure to develop legitimate sources of pleasure and invest in them regularly. A physical workout, a movie, long walks, or watching a football game can go a long way toward giving your brain a legitimate chemical rush that will help offset the loss of the illegitimate rush you’ve been accustomed to getting from using porn. Take a few minutes now to list some legitimate sources of pleasure that fit your personality and interests.

2. In response to emotional wounds, if there is an ongoing hurt in your life you haven’t resolved, now is a good time to talk it over with a pastor, spiritual mentor, or counselor who bases his practice on biblical principles. Thankfully, the modern church has been blessed with numerous women and men well trained in the workings of the human mind and heart, and who maintain a Biblically-centered approach to those problems. So the value of a good counselor or therapist can’t be overemphasized. This is the time to find someone who’ll help you know the parts of yourself you need to know, and who’ll equip you to better address and resolve longstanding emotional or relational problems. Don’t overlook this option; rather, take full advantage of it. Locate, with the help of your pastor or trusted resource, a Christian therapist or counselor. Be honest and open, explaining exactly what causes the pain and who’s been involved. Be willing to explore the options for correcting the problem or learn to forgive and let go.

3. In response to character problems, come clean to your accountability partner (or group) about what yours are. Ask him to ask you weekly how you’ve handled that problem area. Encourage him to give you honest feedback when he sees that area creeping into your speech or behavior. Above all, put the area of weakness before God, admitting your inability to change it on your own. Ask Him to glorify Himself and His power by displaying His strength through your weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

Prayer

Lord, I agree with what David said in Psalm 139: “You have searched me and known me.” You know the effects my deliberate sin has had on my way of thinking and feeling. You know the hurts in my heart that have been there for years, sometimes in plain sight and sometimes hidden. And You surely know my weaknesses—those parts of me that are so unlike You but so very human.

Everything within me stands before You. Slowly I’m learning to see what You’ve seen all along—the good and the evil. Give me grace to face all of it and not run away from hard truths. Help me believe all the more in Your love and mercy as I realize none of these dark spots in my life are a surprise to You. You’ve known about them all along, and yet You still love me.

I’ve not repented from sexual sin just to be clean from one specific behavior. I also want to be a mature man, fully equipped in You, becoming more like You every day, every minute. Help me abstain from pornography. Never stop working in me so that I grow in You. Long after I leave this sin behind, relentlessly pursue me to deal with the countless others that keep me from being all You mean me to be. Let me become as intolerant of sin as You are, while holding on to the hope of finally shedding this mortal body and sinful tendencies and getting to see You face-to-face in eternal communion with You.

I pray this in the name of Jesus, who I look to hopefully and gratefully as I run this race. Amen.

STEP 4: AMENDS

Take Responsibility; Show Humility

Positioning Scriptures

David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, “Surely I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done?” (2 Samuel 24:17).

The [prodigal] son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Luke 15:21).

If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23-24).

Principles

Principle 1: You’ve hurt God.

It’s one thing to recognize you’ve sinned. It’s something else altogether (and altogether devastating) to face the damage your sin has done to others. But facing this truth is crucial because it reinforces your resolve to never commit the sin again. The apostle Paul had to face it. He never forgot the innocent Christians he’d arrested and persecuted before he knew Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13). He viewed that time with regret, with the misery of a man who knew he couldn’t undo what had been done. No doubt he remembered watching with approval as a “religious” mob killed Stephen, a man filled with the Holy Spirit who saw the glory of God (Acts 8:1). The image of that bold man dying for speaking the truth must have plagued Paul year after year.

I’m sure David was well aware that he covered up his sin with the beautiful Bathsheba by arranging the death of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah. Bathsheba had become pregnant, and David didn’t want anyone to know he’d committed adultery and the child was his (2 Samuel 11–12). Although David knew the Lord forgave him, the king never forgot what he’d done and how he’d sinned against God. Living with that burden had to have at times been agony for an otherwise good man.

The agony of facing the truth about sin is what true repentance requires. You have to take responsibility for what you’ve done and for what your actions have done to others. Without this, repentance is incomplete. Enormous loose ends are left untied. In Step 3 we looked at porn’s effect on you. Now let’s look at how your use of porn affects others, starting with God.

After God’s prophet Nathan confronted David about Uriah and Bathsheba, the king repented and wrote a psalm (song) of remorse: “Have mercy upon me, O God…I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51:1,4). At first glance, David’s prayer may raise your eyebrows considering the king had hugely sinned by arranging for Uriah’s murder and committing adultery with Bathsheba. I believe David’s point is that all sin is ultimately, first and foremost, a serious affront to God.

How does this relate to you? Your use of porn, first and foremost, is a serious affront to God. Have you considered this and its ramifications? I can’t imagine you’d even think of showing a dirty movie on a big screen at your church. Nor can I fathom you sitting at your church’s altar masturbating while viewing pictures of naked bodies. Your church is consecrated to God. It’s a place of worship and holy activity. Are you irritated that I’d even introduce such an idea? Hold that thought. Now, remember your body is a sanctuary. Paul said as much when he asked, somewhat indignantly, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a place where He literally lives. Even churches, as vital as they are, can’t boast in that truth. But it is said of you. So how could you, who wouldn’t dream of doing something blatantly immoral in your church, which isn’t described as a place where God continually dwells, do something like that to your body, which is plainly described as the temple of the Holy Spirit?

When you used porn, you deliberately jumped over your God-given conscience and gave yourself permission to surrender to something you knew God abhorred. Then you introduced into His holy place, into your body and mind, images created for so vile a purpose they used to be illegal and still can’t be shown in most public places. You brought the profane into a place of the divine. In so doing, you introduced sexual degradation into the temple of the God who can’t tolerate the sight of sin. “[LORD,] You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness” (Habakkuk 1:13). Paul wrote, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). How awful to think of grieving the only One who so perfectly and eternally loves you! You were created, redeemed, and cared for by a heavenly Father who will never leave you nor forsake you—and you’ve hurt Him. You should be aware of that.

Principle 2: You’ve hurt her.

If you’re married, you entered into a covenant with a woman who believed you when you said you were forsaking all others. Little did she know that she, not the others, would be forsaken. To pledge yourself to monogamy is to promise your sexual energy will be reserved for your partner and not shared with strangers in one-sided fantasy episodes. When you invested your energy into those images, you betrayed your spouse in an unusually cruel way. Ask almost any wife who’s caught her husband using porn, and she’ll be only too glad to tell you how rejected, humiliated, and unimportant her man’s use of pornography has made her feel. Beyond the obviously immoral content of the porn, there’s also the terrible statement a wife so often feels is being made about her: “You’re not enough. This is what I really want.”

That thought may or may not be accurate from your point of view, but you can hardly blame her for assuming it is. That leaves her crippled with self-doubt. “Am I not attractive to him anymore? Was he ever satisfied with me? Am I supposed to compete with the women I’ve seen him looking at? Do I have anything to offer him anymore?” Porn defiles the man who uses it, but it also wounds the woman who loves him. You need to know this too.

Principle 3: You’ve hurt us, the body of Christ.

If you’re a born-again believer, then you’re part of a body—a body comprised of followers of Jesus Christ called the church. And this body is affected by what you do. Paul said as much: “We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (Romans 12:5). He also noted that “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Please think these statements through.

Your strength or weakness as a member of the body of Christ does, for better or worse, affect the entire body as a whole. When you allow yourself to continue compromising your spiritual health and vitality, you weaken the body itself. You can’t simply check out from the rest of us when you’re not doing well. Rather, your condition is our condition, and your ups and downs affect us. We’re attached as members of the same entity. When you hurt yourself through sin, you hurt us as well.

Do you know the story of Achan that is told in the seventh chapter of Joshua? Achan was part of the army of Israel who conquered Jericho with God’s blessing. However, God told the Israelites to leave any “accursed” objects alone after the battle. When going through the spoils of war, Achan found some objects that appealed to him. He took them and hid them in his tent. No doubt he thought his private sin was his alone and no one else’s business.

When Israel faced their next battle against Ai, they were thoroughly routed. When the leader of Israel’s army, Joshua, asked God why, His answer was very telling: “Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff” (Joshua 7:11). God told Joshua, “You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you” (verse 13). Then God helped Joshua (and the soldiers in his army) identify and deal with Achan. After that, the army of Israel was once again successful (Joshua 7–8).

One man’s sin crippled the fighting abilities of Israel’s army. In God’s sight, Achan’s sin was the nation of Israel’s sin as well. Ponder this carefully and often: Your sin affects all of us. Your righteousness empowers all of us. So don’t hurt the body of Christ. We need you spiritually strong and healthy because you’re a vital part of us.

The bottom line and very hard truth is that what you thought was private isn’t. By giving yourself to this sin, you grieved your Lord, wounded your spouse, and weakened the body of Christ. Let the reality of that sink in, and then let it inspire you to never repeat the offense.

Practices

1. Set aside time—a minimum of one hour—to consider the way God has felt when you’ve hardened yourself toward Him. Remember the times you deliberately chose to give yourself to porn—but think of those times from His perspective, not yours. Think of what He saw you do, and what He heard you say in your heart. Consider His grief, anger, and general pain over an erring son. Let yourself imagine a loving father being ignored and even defied by an indifferent son. Contemplate what that father would be going through emotionally. Then, after considering all of this, take some time to express to your heavenly Father your feelings about what you’ve done, what you plan to do, and how you feel about Him.

2. If you’re married and your wife knows about your porn use, set aside time to let her know how aware you are of the damage you’ve done to her. Ask her to help you understand even more what she’s gone through. Listen carefully to what she tells you without arguing or defending yourself. Explain to her specifically what you’re doing to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Ask her what else, if anything, she needs from you regarding this area.

3. Think of your place in the body of Christ and how you can contribute in a positive way. Ask yourself what impact on the church, in general, your inconsistency may have had. Prayerfully consider how much damage is being done daily, secretly, and publicly by other Christians involved in porn, and then determine not to ever be part of the problem again.

Prayer

Lord, of all the sins I’ve committed against You and others, the most obvious is the sin of making myself a god. I did this by choosing to put my cravings above everyone else’s needs and desires, including Yours. I did this just to draw pleasure from something I know now to be wrong and destructive. Ultimately my sin wasn’t lust but idolatry. I’ve made a deity out of my pleasure, my urges, myself. I’ve never really taken the time to look at the damage I’ve done to others or what pain I’ve caused them and You.

By Your grace, I’m ready to face everything now. I come to You knowing You are a forgiving God and will not condemn me. Help me to not be swallowed up in grief as I become fully aware of the damage this behavior has done. Then guide me and be with me so I will stay motivated to never get involved with porn again.

Lord, I crave Your forgiveness for my indifference toward You. Please grant my wife the ability to forgive me for the pain I’ve inflicted on her. I know You love her and that You will heal her dear heart from the wounds I’ve created. Give me the opportunity to be an active, upstanding member of Your church, the body of Christ. I want to serve the body well by building it up and helping others. I want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

In the name of Jesus, who came to save sinners like me, I pray. Amen.

STEP 5: ANTICIPATION

Your Race Is On; Your Race Will End. But How?

Positioning Scriptures

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:2-3).

By now there are a number of things you’ve realized and acted on. Let’s review them before going further to make sure you’re on track.

1. You’ve realized your problem with porn was ultimately a problem with God. This led you to recommit to deeper fellowship with Him through daily Bible study and prayer. Through these activities, you’re getting to know Him better and continuing to grow spiritually and emotionally.

2. You’ve realized you’re a created being whose Creator has specific intentions for you. You’ve recommitted to staying within His intentions, continuing to recognize them and grow into them.

3. You’ve realized the power of the familiar, including familiar habits. You’ve also realized you’re not likely to abandon a familiar habit as long as you have access to it. As much as possible, you’ve cut off access to porn by getting the Covenant Eyes system installed on your computer. You’ve also cancelled any subscriptions to channels or media offering content you know you need to avoid. You’ve also stopped any material from coming into your home or life that may draw you back into unclean thinking. On this point you were ruthless and brutally honest with yourself, knowing it was necessary for success.

4. You’ve realized that when you repeat a pleasurable experience, your brain records it in your memory and brings it to your mind, along with a reminder of its pleasure. Knowing how difficult it is to resist the pull of porn on your own and wisely not trusting your limited, human integrity, you’ve established weekly accountability with a man or group you trust. You’ve chosen to be regularly asked to give an account of the way you’re handling temptations and your sexual nature in general.

5. You’ve realized you trained your brain to expect the chemical rush that comes with porn. You acknowledge that your brain may even register that “rush” as a necessity, causing you to feel porn is a physical need. Knowing how wrong that is and how strong your brain’s message will be, you know to expect some discomfort. You also know the discomfort won’t hurt you, so you accept it as part of leaving an ingrained, unclean habit. You’ve also developed alternative pleasurable experiences that are legitimate to help you resist the pull of pornography without feeling deprived.

6. You’ve realized there may be emotional pain in your life that you’ve been trying to medicate through porn use. While recognizing that’s no excuse for deliberate sin, the pain may be calling your attention to longstanding problems that need addressing. So with the wise counsel of a pastor or mentor, you are determining whether or not there are relational problems you need to confront, correct, or let go of.

7. You’ve realized your sin pained God, damaged others, and weakened the body of Christ. Knowing this, you’ve made amends when possible. Realizing the impact of your sin on so many innocent people, you are determined to never repeat it.

Having learned all of this and taken the necessary steps in light of these realizations, let’s consider a final principle and some practices to develop as you anticipate your future.

Your race is planned.

Let’s step back from the porn issue and look at the big picture. God has a purpose for your life, including specific plans for you. You have a limited amount of time to see those plans fulfilled, and then you’ll be gone. That’s when you’ll face a reckoning at the judgment seat of Christ and spend eternity with Him. That’s the big picture. Your use of porn is but one of many things interfering with the bigger plans God has for you. His unwillingness to let you continue in this addiction springs not only from His holy hatred for sin, but also from His intolerance for anything keeping His larger purposes from being fulfilled in you.

There are lots of images Scripture uses to illustrate your limited journey here—pilgrimage and sojourning, for example—but I’m especially interested in one used by Paul and the author of the book of Hebrews. Both authors refer to life as a race. “Do you not know,” Paul wrote, “that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24). The author of the book of Hebrews exhorts: “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

You’re running a race right now. In your race there are goals, processes, and rules that govern what you may or may not do. You need clear focus and unreserved commitment. Your particular event consists of whatever God calls you to accomplish in this life, including your responsibilities, gifts, calling, and primary relationships. That makes you a “sprinting steward,” a man given both responsibilities and goals. Now, more than ever, you need to consider them and take them to heart.

God calls a man with an eye toward his current situation, his potential, and his future. When Jesus encountered Peter, He said, “‘You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas’ (which is translated, A Stone)” (John 1:42, parenthesis in original). God told Abram he’d become a father of many nations (Genesis 17:4). Saul, who was also called Paul, was a persecutor of followers of Jesus. But when Paul was traveling near Damascus one day, “a great light from heaven shone around” him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” It was Jesus (Acts 22:7-8)! Through Ananias, a devout man, Saul learned that God had chosen him, and he would be His witness to all men of what he had seen and heard” (Acts 22:15). Later, when Paul was in Antioch, he said, “The Lord has commanded us: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth’” (Acts 13:47).

God sees who you are, who He intends you to be, and what it will take to get you there. That, to my thinking, is a primary reason He’s called you to shed this habit that constitutes a weight that needlessly slows you down. Now that you’ve shed the encumbrance, look long and hard at the track before you. Pray for His guidance as you run, enlightenment to see the curves and stretches coming, and the strength to get your second, fifth, and thousandth wind.

You’re a vital member of the body of Christ, and I hope you run the race well.

Practices

1. Take time to describe in writing what you believe the rest of your life will look like since you’ve give up porn. Include your calling, your primary relationships, and your responsibilities. What do you believe God is calling you to accomplish before your life is over? What kind of man does He want you to be as you run this race? Be detailed and specific.

2. Describe in writing the effect porn would have on the rest of your life if you continued to use it. Include every area of your life—relationship with God, family and friend relationships, and spiritual life. Again be detailed and specific.

3. Describe what you’d like people to say about you at your funeral. Can that be said of you right now? Explain why or why not.

Prayer

Father, I know You created me with specific purposes in mind. And I surely know my ongoing love for unclean images has worked against those purposes. At this point I’m only beginning to see the many ways my violation has affected You, the people who love me, and even me. I know that, like the prodigal son, I’ve settled for so much less than what You desire for me.

More than ever, I want to return to Your plans for me, to Your purposes for my life. Be gracious, Lord, and show me what they are and how You want me to pursue them.

I’ve renounced something I know will show up again, beckoning me to pick it up again. Even though I’ll want to return to it at times, by Your power and grace, help me stay true to Your call on my life. And, Lord, I know there will be other sins You’ll bring to light so I can reckon with them. I’m asking You to never allow me to make peace with sin. I’m running a race, and I want to finish the course and bring glory and honor to you. I don’t want anything to keep me from finishing well.

Even as I pray this, I know the impossibility of keeping to these high ideals in my own strength. Your Word says I am kept by Your power, so I’m clinging to that promise and asking You to keep me safe and pure. Help me stay motivated and keep me strong, wise, and so deeply in love with You that even the thought of giving myself to anything that offends You is abhorrent and vehemently unacceptable. I want to experience the life You intended for me when You created me. I want to fulfill the purposes You set before me.

I pray in the name of Jesus, who said yes to the cross and bids me do the same through His power in this life and experience eternal rest and reward in the next. Amen.

APPENDIX A

What About Masturbation?

Right now some of you are probably wondering, “Okay, Joe, so I conquer my porn habit. But as a healthy man with a normal sex drive, what am I to do? Especially if I’m single.” Good question. And any discussion of male sexual purity should include masturbation, especially as it relates to sexual fantasy and pornography. Masturbation is, after all, one of the earliest forms of sexual expression we experience, and the most common form of sexual activity among humans.

This topic is seldom discussed, widely misunderstood, and universally considered an embarrassing topic. So let’s hit the question head-on: Is it all right for you to masturbate? Let’s recognize, first, that there are no specific references to masturbation in the Bible. Some people mistakenly quote Genesis 38, which is the story of Onan. He “spilled his seed onto the ground,” and some people view that as a reference to masturbation. A closer look at the text, however, shows that Onan was in the middle of sexual intercourse and withdrew just before ejaculating, thereby spilling his seed to avoid impregnating his wife. He wasn’t masturbating; he was practicing a crude form of birth control.

Since there are no clear biblical prohibitions against masturbation, we can’t say that the Bible specifically condemns it, but I offer at least three cases in which I consider masturbation to be sinful.

First, since 1 Corinthians 7:4 teaches that a husband’s body “belongs” to his wife, I believe that it’s wrong for a married man to masturbate. In doing so, he is taking what belongs to his wife and using it only for himself, which seems a violation of Paul’s guideline.

Second, Jesus condemned internal lust. “I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). If it is impossible for a man to masturbate without fantasizing, masturbation for him would be a sin.

Finally, since Paul said that anything a man does without faith—that is, anything a man does that he feels badly about even if it’s not expressly forbidden in Scripture—it is, for him, a sin. “Whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). So even if a man is single and has the ability to masturbate without fantasizing, if he feels it’s wrong to masturbate, then for him it is sin. This raises the question of how you feel about masturbation. Even though God doesn’t necessarily prohibit it, if your conscience is violated by the practice, it has become a sin for you. In other words, if you believe a thing is wrong, you need to abstain from it whether it’s biblically prohibited or not. So if you feel masturbation is wrong for you, the argument stops there and masturbation is not an option.

You need to make your own decision regarding masturbation. While it’s not necessarily condemned, it’s certainly not commended either. Marital status, conscience, sexual fantasy, and common sense should all play into your decision on this controversial and highly personal question.

APPENDIX B

Knowing God

Pornography is sinful, but sin is more than an act. It’s a state of being that is, humanly speaking, incurable. Sin leaves us far short of what our Creator intended. Paul said, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). As a result, all of us, regardless of the good and bad habits we have developed, are under a death sentence. “The wages of sin is death [eternal separation from God]” (Romans 6:23).

Thankfully, God wants us for Himself and wants us to be part of His family. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He also promised “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). When explaining how easily this promise is received, Paul said, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). So your part is simply to say yes to this unchanging invitation!

If you have any doubt as to whether or not you belong to Christ and you want to settle the matter now, just pray this prayer:

Lord Jesus, I confess I sin, that sin carries a price, and that You suffered on the cross to pay that price. Thank You for Your sacrifice and for loving me no matter what I’ve done or where I’ve been. Please forgive me of my sins. I want to be “born again” through faith in You. Please make me a new creature in You by giving me everlasting life. Turn this earthly life of mine around so that I will live it exactly as You meant me to live it. Be my Savior and my Lord. Thank You for conquering death so I can have eternal life through You. Amen.

If you prayed this prayer, find a local, Bible-believing church to attend this week. Meet with the pastor or another staff member and let him know you just received Christ. Ask him what steps you should take next.

Welcome to the family of God!

NOTES

Step 2: Accountability

1. Dr. Wilkie Wilson and Dr. Cynthia Kuhn, “How Addiction Hijacks Our Reward System,” Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science, vol. 7, no. 2, Spring 2005, https://scienceweb.madison.k12.wi.us/files/science/How_Addiction_Hijacks_Our_ Reward_System.pdf, accessed 1/7/2013.

Step 3: Awareness

1. Sandra Blakeslee, “Hijacking the Brain Circuits with a Nickel Slot Machine,” New York Times, Feb. 19, 2002.

2. Marnia Robinson, “Porn-Induced Sexual Dysfunction Is a Growing Problem,” Psychology Today, July 11, 2011.

3. See Joe Dallas, “Darkening Our Minds,” Christian Research Journal, vol. 27, no. 3, 2004, http://www.equip.org/articles/darkening-our-minds-the-problem-of-pornography-among-christians.

ABOUT JOE DALLAS

Joe Dallas lectures extensively at churches and seminars and directs Genesis Counseling, a biblical counseling practice in Tustin, California. He is the author of Desires in Conflict, When Homosexuality Hits Home, and The Complete Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality. He’s written articles featured in Christianity Today, Christian Research Journal, and The Journal of the Christian Association of Psychological Studies. Joe can be contacted at www.joedallasonline.com.

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ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

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