Radical Amputation of Sin

Sigh. How stupid we can be. Or I can be.

One of Satan's primary methods to get us to doubt God is to say, "Did God really say that?" (Genesis 3:1).

It is certainly this way when we view the scripture that says, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off." God certainly didn't say that, did He? Well, yes, He did. And that was Jesus, not some old testament prophecy. That was the man (man-God) who as He hung on the cross said, "forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

What I understand about my addiction is that when I leave any room at all for visual tastes to be fed on a regular basis, I eventually fall into sin. So, TV and movies should generally be left out of my repertoire. Hard to do when your new roommate (while you are separated from your wife) has cable TV (though ratings locked) and you have a computer on which you can watch movies (not ratings locked, though filtered for Covenant Eyes). Hard to do, I say, but not impossible. You have to WANT it.

I recently approached some of the more aggressive gentlemen in my 12-step recovery program at Celebrate Recovery, and one of the first things that they said is that I need to engage in "radical and aggressive amputation", that I need to rid myself of any patterned behavior that may lead to sin, even if I have to quit my job, move, etc. The next thing that they said is that I need to fill my life with prayer and worship, and work to get delivered from each and every image that the Holy Spirit convicts me of.

They recommended that I place a reminder/alert on my cell phone for every hour to remind me to pray and worship God. This has helped me set a new daily thought pattern, and it has definitely set new levels of faith and confidence in my heart. I feel more ready to meet God than ever before, and I have a lot less anxiety. They also recommended that I change the spiritual atmosphere around me by playing an audio bible or worship music throughout my day.

When my wife reads this, she's probably going to smack me upside the back of my head, because she has been saying things like this for our whole marriage. The big difference now is that I have burly men that are willing to pull alongside me to hold me accountable, and I actually WANT it now. I know that there may be frustration on her part that the ruination of our family has not caused me to want these things, to want to be completely free. I can't explain why that didn't dissuade me from my sins, except to say that the Holy Spirit has seized hold of my heart and given me a desire for Him.

Whatever you want to call these things that lead to sin... triggers, gateways, footholds, strongholds, etc. You've got to utterly destroy them in your life. You have to cut anything and everything from your life that is going to directly allow you to sin. And you have to WANT it.

Lord, please work in my heart to destroy every last shred of the pornographic spirit, release me from its bond on my heart, from the sexual sins of the past, every woman that I have ever been bound to, and set me free! I know that Jesus died for all my sins, I know that He died to set my free, and that I am free indeed. I pray that I would live for your glory, and to honor others greater than myself. Please let me honor my wife and never harm her again in these ways. Please let me have an increased respect and love for my family, to treat them with the care that Jesus gave to His church. And help me to WANT it.

It's All Porn

I presented a definition of the word "porn" to my wife when I recently informed her of my fight to fully avoid pornography. This was mainly because as an addict, the power of the addiction often times causes us to be deceptive with ourselves and our loved ones, and in the past I had often deceived her with a tangle of word-woven lies. It is this deception that I'm hoping to unravel even now, for myself and for all of you.

My definition of porn to her was "the nude image of a woman other than my wife". Although that is a good start, I think that I am realizing that the porneia spoken about in the bible doesn't just stop there. Porneia is sexual immorality, and while the word usage normally centered upon the prostitution associated with the temples during that age in Greek society, there is ample evidence from other Greek literature that the use of the Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament) word porneia ventures into all forms of sexual immorality.

If a man masturbates while watching porn, the hormones and neuro-chemicals that he releases are actually causing his mind to be mapped to the images in front of him; so much so that addicts are continually drawn to the undulating images and are patternistically drawn to particular genres of sites, porn actresses, etc; maybe particular hair colors, maybe particular activities. The point being, a man will continue to find affinity with the characters represented in the pixels, and his soul will be bound to the "prostitutes" on the computer screen equally as much as if he had fornicated with a real prostitute at the local temple of some deity.

The bible is pretty strong about avoiding adultery and fornication, as a believer joins the Holy Spirit with the prostitute, which is an evil act. You are actually subjecting the "new creation", the eternal being at the core of your soul that is inexorably connected with God via the Holy Spirit, with sin. Since this is clearly an abominable sin according to scripture, and other parts of scripture make it clear that we should be "making a covenant" with our eyes to not look at women (Job 31:1) and that it is adultery to look at a woman with lust (Matthew 5:28), I'd say it's clear that anything that you set your eyes upon with lust is sinful adultery, and somewhat synonymous with fornication (in fact, the same Greek word for sexual immorality, porneia, is also used for fornication).

It's easy to see that the nude form of women is porn. But what about all of the other readily available images of women in our society? Each man needs to answer that question for themselves - HONESTLY.

Watching or surfing for things that are deeply sensual is likely going to get those same hormones running, and I doubt that any man looking at cadres of swimsuits or lingerie or other states of skinful undress is not going to lust. Certainly if your desire is to masturbate or get the exciting pop that you might when surfing porn, you've gone too far. The "looking after another woman in lust" certainly doesn't mention any manner of undress of the ladies you are looking at. You need to avoid any situation that would cause you to lust after women.

If you look at a fully clothed woman and allow yourself to undress her with your imagination, whether out in society or on TV, you need to do something about what you are viewing. Not watching TV would be a good start, if it constantly leads you to lust. Avoiding places filled with scantily clad women when you are out and about is a must. Window shopping at the mall is probably a bad idea, for example. Limiting your exposure to people in general might be wise, especially as you begin to build your strength against temptation.

I myself continue to struggle with masturbation and the occasional viewing of sensual material. I am realizing that these things are a part of the same spiritual bondage that I want to escape from, the pornographic demon that I want off my back, permanently. I am realizing that I need to pray specifically about these things and practice the continued exit strategies that will help me to "flee sexual immorality". Every stolen thought or look is a chip away from my manhood, as well as a nail in the coffin of my relationship with my wife. I need to be removing those nails and building back up my confidence in who I am, not constantly trading the real life interactions (as difficult as they may be) for false control structures.

I hope this helps you to realize the compromise that you may have been making as well, and I pray that you will learn to fight against every modicum of lust in your heart.

My Story of Addiction

I am writing this to other Christian addicts (habitual sinners that have been enslaved to their flesh, but desire to be free) in the hopes that they understand first of all that they are not alone, and that there is hope for the future.

My earliest exposure to porn was when I was four years old. I remember waking up to strange noises and walking out of my bedroom and down the hall toward my mom and boyfriend's bedroom. I knew that I wasn't allowed in their room, and had caught them in various forms of undress and activities to know that I would get a spanking if I bothered them when they wanted privacy. I could hear them making loud noises, though I didn't fully understand what they were doing. There was a projector running on a big screen, so I sat down in the hallway outside of their room to watch. I remember being bored after a while, and the things going on throughout the movie were just weird, reminded me of the things that I knew my mom did with her boyfriend. And the noises kept weirding me out. So I went back to bed. 

Little did I know that I had just watched my first hardcore porno movie, without even knowing what I was looking at. This was a year before Star Wars first came out, which I was infinitely more interested in at the time, I can assure you. Nonetheless, the images are still there today. And the spiritual bondage was only just beginning to take shape.

At the age of 5 and 6, I was allowed free access to the Playboy magazines that were around the house, and I was curious about the women's bodies that men seemed to ogle so much. I was more interested in the cartoons and made lame attempts to joke with my mom about them. My mom had yet another boyfriend, and they did many of the same things that she did with other boyfriends, sometimes while I was in the same room. I remember one early morning that they were making loud noises; I really wanted to get up and go in another room, so I tried to make noises that indicated I was waking up, but they kept going at it in a manner that indicated that they hadn't heard me, and I had to patiently wait until they were done so I could act like I didn't wake up earlier.

When I was 6, I was molested by an older boy at a babysitters. I just figured that it was normal, and allowed him to strip me down and attempt to penetrate me. I told him that it hurt and to stop. The situation went unreported.

When I was 7 years old, a friend of mine was a Playboy fiend, and was drastically interested in looking at them. I remember sitting with this friend at one of my dad's parties (I moved back and forth between divorced parents much of my life) with stacks of Playboys around us. Some of the women tried to stop us, to which the men present told them to leave us alone. That same friend cornered one of the drunk adult women in the bathroom and attempted to molest her while I stood by, shocked.

Also at the age of 7, I lay with a friend and his sister, as she wanted us to simulate sexual acts with her. I had no idea what I was doing. When the older sister came home, she asked me to come into the other room so she could see my uncircumcised penis because she was a nurse. She stared at me for a while and then let me go.

At the age of 8, I was simulating sexual acts with everything in sight. I had regular dreams about being a super hero and having sex with the heroines of the movies I watched. I still remember some of those dreams vividly.

At the age of 12, I was looking at porn in books and reading the stories. I had access to a pornographic book with hardcore images that my mom had "hidden" in a cabinet that she knew I had regular access to. By this time, my definition of sex was completely distorted to the visions of pornographers. The size of my penis was made fun of when I was in the Boy Scouts during a skinny dipping outing, so I began to have a negative body image of myself, thinking that I'd never measure up to the men that had access to women.

I was circumcised at the age of 13, thinking that I had to be "normal" to be able to have a relationship with a woman. Dating was constantly on my mind. I began relationships with girls, and I was good at the making out part. As soon as they tried to go in my pants, though, I got scared and felt intimidated and shrank away. This fear lasted well into the college years, to the point that I was still a virgin though I had a handful of chances to consummate my pornographic fantasies. 

I met my wife in college and we had unhealthy sexual activities from the very start. She made it clear that she hated the Playboys and pornography, so I hid my activities from her. My activities became fewer and lesser, but were still latent in my blackened heart.

We got married under less than dedicated terms, both of us not even sure we wanted to be married. Six months after getting married, I went to New Orleans, got rip-roaring drunk, and fornicated with a strange woman. This tore my wife apart. In the midst of it, we became Christians, but our relationship was never the same. We decided to become dedicated to God - we threw away our television, all of our secular music, and anything that even seemed worldly. We were dedicated to seeking out God and reading His word. For two years, I was clean from pornography. Then the internet hit us full force.

With my wife pregnant with our first child, I had hooked up our first computer to the internet and on the very first night that I had access, I looked at porn. And my wife caught me. And it killed her. That was 1997. We began an 18-year long swan song where she would try to dedicate herself to me, and I would let her down time and again. She began to hate me, and then she just went numb.

I lost one great job because of porn, my children were exposed to it accidentally, and it continued to wound my sweet wife until she was sweet no longer. And yet I still couldn't walk away from the porn. I wouldn't put into affect all of the drastic measures to completely remove it from my life.

That brings me to our current situation. I am separated from my wife and 8 kids. I am free from porn since June 24, 2015; that's 123 days as of today. It took the threat of divorce to finally realize what I was losing. Have already lost, really. My wife has little hope for our marriage. I find myself hoping beyond what faith I have that things will get better. I'm willing to upend everything to become porn free permanently. I attend Celebrate Recovery and I am counseling at my church, and I hope that my wife will join into the marriage counseling eventually. I think that she's trying. I still struggle with masturbation, but I try to focus on my wife even as I do that stuff. I know that masturbation is sin and I want to get it out of my life as well. I'm trying to formulate escape routines to get out of the house and try to stop the cycle of lust. But I need to just kill every last vestige of this beast that has ruled my life. I realize that now. And I'm willing to do anything, whatever it takes to conquer it.

That's my walk with addiction, in a nutshell. I am a new creation in Christ now. And I realize that I need to run TO Him and run WITH Him and believers now, and that this is a lifestyle of continued combat that I just need to diligently continue working at. I once thought I just wanted to be "normal". Now I realize that I don't want anything to do with the world's idea of "normal", and I want what God wants for my life, wherever that takes me.

Porn Use as Grounds for Divorce

This article on Covenant Eyes is just about the most balanced and fair treatment about this topic that I have ever read. Make sure to read to the very end, because he gives many proofs from the scriptures, and prescribes a very biblical course of action:

http://www.covenanteyes.com/2015/10/08/porn-use-as-grounds-for-divorce-how-my-opinion-changed/

The gist of the article is that though porn use by a spouse should not be used as a hair-trigger reason for divorce, nor should it be used as an excuse for divorce after the porn user has long since repented, an unrepentant spouse that continues to commit adultery in this manner is breaking the marriage covenant continually and binding themselves to other partners. After the offended spouse and the church confront the porn user in the Matthew 18 manner, if the porn user is still unrepentant and has a hardened heart, then similar to excommunication, the spouse may need to separate or divorce the unbeliever. It should be a long, drawn out process allowing plenty of time to repent and rebuild the marriage.

But I would say that God hates divorce, and there should never be any reason to divorce unless all options have been exhausted, the church being in complete agreement that the spouse has done so. Just as the covenant is made in front of the church, it should be broken in front of the church, with no other options finally being available. Left up to the emotions of one spouse, divorce is all to convenient and an easy option, and their emotions should be kept in check so elders can come in and counsel both parties.

Flee From Sin, But Don't Stop There

For those porn addicts, the bible is pretty clear that we are to flee from sexual immorality, from the porneia that can so easily settle into our hearts. I think the basic video that starts off the Covenant Eyes 40-Day Challenge (http://www.covenanteyes.com/challenge/) is very astute that you can't just stop there. They prescribe the following:

1. Run FROM
2. Run TO
3. Run WITH

First, you should flee sexual immorality. This particular sin joins the Holy Spirit to the body of a harlot. If you think that avoiding full coitus will keep you from dragging the Holy Spirit through your sinful acts, think again. Your body's chemical reactions are virtually the same in reaction to porn as they are with a full sexual act with a real woman. And if you think that you do not grieve the indwealt Holy Spirit with your eyes and hands when you perform sexual acts with yourself, you are deceiving yourself altogether. So, run AWAY from sin. Get away from the computer, out of the house if you need to. Create the hard-line boundaries in your life, no matter how important the object that you may need to cut from your life...   "If your right hand should cause you to sin, cut it off". Install filters, or at least accountability software (Covenant Eyes is great, and there is a link to it in this blog). This is where victory begins, but you cannot merely empty a household of demons and not expect them to come back stronger than before. Your household, your temple of the Holy Spirit, needs to become a stronghold for God. That is accomplished in the next steps...

Second, you should run TO God. He is our salvation, our rock, our mighty fortress, and he will give us shelter from the storm and protection from ourselves and the great tormentor. We should fall on our faces before Him and beg Him for strength to resist temptation, for every temptation comes with a way out, and He can help us. Also, run to accountability partners, other strong believers that can help you get through these difficult moments. Whatever you do, get your mind off of the preoccupation of pleasuring yourself, and work to serve God and to serve others for the sake of God's kingdom and glory. Find a way to accomplish the very thing for which God made us - to glorify Him, and to enjoy Him forever. Find practical ways to get out of your isolation and serve others - widows and orphans in their distress, friends that might need you in their hour of need, or your family that very well may need any number of things done (you might have to do dishes - gasp!).

Third, you should run WITH God. True strength is not found by just avoiding sin, and not by just falling on your face before God, but in communing with and dwelling with God. God equips us with the full armor described in Ephesians 5, all elements of which are attributes that are purely provided by God; only through a full realization and full meditation of all of these attributes can we attain a renewing of our minds. Salvation, Righteousness, Truth, the Gospel, Faith, and the Word of God. These should all be ready in our arsenal as we go about our day. Find ways to pray for those who are close to you, and those that you meet for whom God gives you a heart. Meditate on God's word. Bring God into every situation and ask Him to show you how to glorify Him as you go about your business, as you shop, as you socialize, as you do everything. Pray without ceasing. Treasure His word in your heart. But most of all, ready yourself for battle.