What are practical steps to take towards victory over addiction to pornography? How can Christians experience freedom from pornography? In this video, Heath Lambert provides tangible ways in which Christians can find victory over the battle with pornography. Victory over anything, specifically sexual sin, and pornography, begins with prayer and drawing near to God. In addition to full dependence on God, freedom from pornography also requires accountability from Christian community and vulnerability. True freedom is found in the humble surrender to the Lord who conquers every battle.
- Tell the Lord About It
- Tell Someone About It
- Ask For Help
Transcript
How Can Christians Experience Freedom from Pornography?
So if you’re struggling with pornography or some other kind of enslavement to a sexual sin, maybe you’ve got an ongoing sinful relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend, whatever it is, the first thing you need to do is pray. Listen, this is a big deal. God meets with his people in prayer. When you draw near to God in faith, he will draw near to you. That’s what the Bible says in James Four, you draw near to God, he draws near to you.
There are amazing realities in the Bible that we can have the grace of Jesus Christ, that we can have forgiveness, that we can have power to change. All of those realities when you read the Bible, the way we start laying hold of those is by asking. We need to ask the Lord for help. We need to depend on him. This is important because most people in the aftermath of their sexual sin, they have a guilty response and they feel like God doesn’t want to hear from them so they don’t talk to God.
That’s the worst thing you can do. No matter how guilty you’re feeling, no matter how ashamed you are of what you’re doing, that is the moment when you need to draw near to the throne of grace and receive help in your time of need. So approach God by faith, trusting in Jesus Christ to forgive you, trusting in Jesus Christ to change you, and asking him for his power. When you draw near to Jesus Christ in faith, he will not turn you away so, first of all, pray and ask for help. The most important person from whom you need help is the person who is available to you right now. You don’t have to pick up your cell phone, you don’t have to send a text message, you just have to pray and he will draw near to you.
Pray and Tell Others
The second thing is after you’ve told the Lord you have to tell somebody else. So for the guys who do pray and ask the Lord for help, the big mistake that they make is they … “Well, it’s just me and the Lord. I don’t need anybody else, I’m going to sort it out. If I told my mom, she’d flip out, if I told my dad he’d throw me out, if I told my pastor he wouldn’t know what to do, if I told my wife or my husband they would completely be overwhelmed.” But you have to tell somebody. You have to find a pastor, a wise Christian friend who can help you. Don’t tell one of your peers who also struggles with the same thing because, by definition, they don’t know what to say.
You need someone with spiritual maturity and wisdom to get you someplace where you are not. For most people that I know, that is just about the hardest thing they could think about doing is to open up their mouth and say, “Here’s where I’m struggling. They’ll hate me. They’ll think I’m gross and so I’m just going to sort it out on my own.”
The Importance of Exposing Darkness to the Light
What I would say to anyone who’s thinking that right now is you’re lying to yourself. You will not sort it out on your own. The Bible commands in Ephesians Five that we’re to expose the darkness to the light. God will not change you by honoring and holding up your prideful arrogance.
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble so if you want to experience Jesus’ grace, if you want to experience his change, you need to humble yourself and go before the Lord and then go before others and say, “Here’s my struggle, would you please help?”
