I won't go into the glory
details of my sin. And even though my problem wasn't directly with
pornography, as far as I'm concerned, it was just as bad, and had just
as much of a negative effect on my life and walk with the Lord. So for
those of you who don't struggle with pornography, but are plagued by
lust, please don't be deceived into thinking you don't have a problem
too. I hope you'll read on.
"You have heard that it was said, `Do not commit adultery.' But
I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already
committed adultery with her in his heart."
Believe me, this sin has been a HUGE problem for me. Ever since
I first noticed women as a teenager, my imagination has run wild with
fantasies about them. Women on TV and in magazines, women I saw on the
street, even women coworkers and friends. My mind was totally out of
control with lust. And to make matters worse, I've been married for the
last 22 years. It wasn't that I didn't love my wife, or was
dissatisfied with her. It's just that I was obsessed with women.
Like Jesus said, I was guilty of adultery, because of my impure
heart and imaginations. There are those of you reading this who maybe
don't have the problem quite as bad as I did, but even if it's not at
the level of where it was for me, it's still sin, and you need to deal
with it. Lust = adultery = sin. I don't think the above verse leaves
any doubt - it's pretty straightforward.
However, it's amazing how we can try to justify our sin. First
of all, I didn't become a Christian until I was 25 years old. So before
that, I didn't think it was a problem. I didn't care if it was sin or
not. I just kept enjoying the pleasures of lust. It was no big deal to
me.
Instead of doing anything about it, I just tried to ignore and
avoid it. I'd just skip over those verses. They would just make me feel
bad. The Bible tells us that godly sorrow leads to repentance. But I
didn't repent I just went into denial.
After awhile, I realized that what I was doing was wrong. And I
even tried to stop myself from thinking those kinds of thoughts, but I
never had any success. I could never go for very long before those same
old thoughts came flooding back and filling my mind. I went into the
old temptation-sin-guilt-shame cycle (most of you have been there for
one reason or another - it's sort of like a Catch-22 that Satan uses to
keep us in bondage, and it works all too well (but only because we let
him get away with it!)).
So then I went into the worst phase of all - I tried to
rationalize it away. "It's just hormones; it's a guy thing; all men
have this problem. God created us men this way, so He understands, and
realizes there's nothing I can do about it. What Jesus said above was
to point out that we are all sinners in need of grace - surely He
didn't expect that I could live that way! Right?"
I lived in this mode of thinking for way too much of my life. I
knew that Jesus died for my sins, so I knew God would forgive me. I
might feel bad about it for a little while, but then I just went right
back to the same behaviors and thoughts and imaginations. I didn't
realize how much harm I was doing to myself or my wife or our marriage.
A couple years ago, as bad as my thought life had been up to
that point, it got even more intense and more constant. Even though I
was still trying to blame it on my "maleness", it was starting to
bother me, it had gotten so out of hand. At the same time, I was really
seeking God, and wanting to have a much more intimate relationship and
walk with Jesus. But I just couldn't figure out why I was so
spiritually dry, why the Lord seemed so distant to me.
In prayer and reading the Bible, and taking a good long hard
look at my life, the ugliness of my lust problem just loomed over me
like a dark mountain too big for me to climb. Instead of my usual
response of rationalizing my thoughts, and excusing myself from my
actions, I really looked at this sin of lust and mental adultery that I
was harboring in my life. And I finally saw it for what it was -
filthy, shameful, impure, disgusting sin! How could I have ignored it
and rationalized it for so many years of my life?!?
This step was a major turning point for me. Without this square
one, I never would have gotten beyond where I was. I'd still be stuck
back in the pit of my lust. After all the years of rationalizing, of
covering it up, prettying it up, and trying to make it look okay, I
finally admitted that what I was doing was sin. Plain and simple. It
was sin! No more running from the truth - I had a sin problem, not a
"male condition", not an overactive imagination, not a normal urge.
This was not an easy step. I had to come clean to the Lord. And
when I looked back on the years and years I had done this, it was
really ugly. It was bad enough I'd been nurturing this sinful behavior
- but the fact that I had rationalized it away for so long made it even
worse. But this is what repentance is. The Greek word is "metanoia",
and it means "a new or changed mind". It means I change my attitude, in
this case of rationalizing and continuing in sin, and I agree with
God's Word, which plainly tells me the behavior I was involved in was
sin.
But I believe there's a second part to this repentance. There
are a lot of people in this world who are living in sin, and they know
it, but they don't care - sometimes they're even proud about it. Sin is
still no big deal to them. They do not have repentant hearts. The other
thing that needs to happen in our hearts is to hate the sin in our own
lives. It's real easy to hate the sin in others, but we rarely look at
our own selves in this respect.
But I finally reached a turning point. I acknowledged my sin.
And I asked God to help me to look at my sin the same way He did - I
prayed for the Holy Spirit to help me hate it as much as He hated it.
And He was faithful to me as I finally decided I needed to obey Him at
His Word.
So if you're dealing with this sin, and you're struggling to
reach this point - PRAY! God isn't waiting for you to fail - He wants
to see you be victorious over sin! He loves you, and is just waiting
for you to call on Him for help. All you have to do is acknowledge your
need for Him and His power in your life. Don't let Satan's guilt and
shame trick you into staying distant from God because you don't think
He can love you in this state - it's a lie!
So anyway, with God's help, I had started down the road to
freedom. I had taken some hard steps. But there were more to come,
because although I had confessed my behavior as sin, and come to hate
it, I was still in bondage to it, and still struggling with it (and
mostly failing)...
"Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in
spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at
the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be
conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but
like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your
behavior; because it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'"
(1 Peter 1:13-16)