You realize you have become addicted to porn or sex, or are on your way to addiction. You find yourself in a really crappy place and decide you are going to leave. However, you try to stop and find that it seems impossible. You are ashamed of this and feel like you cannot tell anyone. You believe the lie that this is going to be a problem for the rest of your life. You hate that idea but don’t know where to turn.
Sexual addiction and sexual brokenness usually lead believers to start believing things that are not true. Lies like:
- God is done with you.
- He no longer loves you.
- You have lost your salvation and are probably one of the worst people in the world.
- Or you flip the other way and believe that you are not hurting anyone.
- Everyone is doing it, so it must be ok.
- It is not such a big deal.
- You will get over it as you grow older and mature.
I am in the 14th year of my own recovery from sexual addiction. I have made this issue my area of expertise. I have studied it from the spiritual, physiological, emotional, and relational standpoints and have become a certified Sex Addiction Coach. I run a non-profit called 180 Ministries; we currently help over 2,100 people in this area. Let me give you some hope.
You Aren’t Doomed to Be an Addict for Life
I do not believe in the idea that anyone with any addiction has a disease and will be an addict for life. I have seen God heal me in this area as well as many others.
The desire for sex didn’t go away by Him zapping me. The healing has come as I’ve learned how the Holy Spirit transforms us into the likeness of Christ when we do what He says and live in community with others getting weekly accountability and daily support.
It requires much work and time. But for those who do the work–getting honest with yourself and others–and don’t give up, the Spirit of God will do what He is in you to do.
If the Battle Rages On
The Bible holds some amazing promises about what God wants to do in our lives even if we have fallen deep into a battle with sexual addiction.
It might surprise you, but even the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 7 that he battled with the sin of coveting. Coveting involves lust, and Paul says he struggled with every kind of coveting desires. At the end of Romans 7, he cries out, “Wretched man that I am, who will free me from this body of death?”
Did you see that little two letter word in there? He said wretched man that I am! He does not say wretched man that he was. He wrote in the present tense. He understood that even he, a strong apostle, was in a powerful battle with sin. However, right after that he says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
He was in the battle to maintain freedom and was able to overcome by the power of the Spirit. But notice that he makes it clear that it still was a battle for him.
God’s Desire for You in the Midst of the Battle
What does God really want to do for you? There may need to be some discipline and coming clean about your sin.
However, consider these verses, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” He wants to finish His work in you, and He will do it. You will be saved, and you will become like Jesus forever in heaven.
However, He wants to do a few things while we are still on this recovery journey:
- Paul tells us that God wants to strengthen us in our inner being by the Spirit so that we can better grasp the love of Christ and to know that love so that we can be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:16-19).
- Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:3-4 that God has already given us everything we need for a godly life through His promises in the Bible “…so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
- James tells us that we should, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Would you like to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God?
Would you like to participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires?
Would you like to let perseverance do a work in you so that you might become mature and complete, lacking in nothing?
You can, and that is why 180 Ministries exists. I send out emails six days a week to encourage believers in 56 nations around the world. We have Online Support Teams where we use Online Streaming to work through the 180 Recovery Program and people find weekly accountability and daily support. You can sign up for the encouragement emails on our website, and I will be in contact with you to tell you more.
Break the isolation that keeps you captive and find the freedom God wants you to have.
sorry, but I disagree with the Romans 7 as something Paul continued to struggle with… over and over and over and over and over, he says follow his example (Phil 3:17; Paul also said Timothy would remind the Corinths of Paul’s ways in Christ, as he teaches everywhere in I Cor 4:17; Paul considered himself trustworthy in 1 Cor 7:25; he refused to abuse his authority per 1 Cor 9:18; Pauls says imitate me as he imitates Christ in I Cor 11:1; Paul says do what I do in Phil 4:9; etc. etc. etc. etc…)
sadly, this Romans 7 passage has been used as a distorted default for believers to excuse sin for far too long… as believers, the new default is Romans 8 -walking in the power of the Holy Spirit… sinners is what we/believers WERE! (Eph 2, and pretty much the rest of scripture)… we are NOW saints… (not saying we don’t sin, but the Scriptures do not refer to God’s people as sinners, that is no longer our identity in Christ, we are new creations and the old is gone)
Unfortunately we were concieved into sin. We didn’t just become saints so until you become born again and give your whole life over to Jesus you are still consider a dinner. Saints of course do sin because it’s in the nature of the flesh to sin and rebel against God. It’s different though when you know the word of God, you became born again and still get caught up in repetitive sins thats when it becomes a different case then if you were a sinner, still doing things of the world and are stuck in things such as this addiction of pornography and other sexual lust. When you don’t have God at the helm of your heart well of course you aren’t going to think that anything is wrong with what you are doing. There the question of everyone is doing it and it must be okay to take a peak every once in a while comes to play. Believers and saints have great conviction and guilt after such deeds so there are many ways you can look at Romans 7 and 8 and get other perspective s from it.