The following is an excerpt from, “Throw off Pornography”, the 4th book in the “Lord of My Life” series. You can download the complete book for free through Amazon Kindle, Apple Books or Barnes & Noble. You can also order the paperback version through the Amazon bookstore. Find direct links for all of these at ktfproductions.com under the store tab. Visit every week and receive weekly excerpts January through April of 2024.
KNOW THYSELF
No one on earth knows you better than yourself. Your spouse, friend, parent, sibling or significant other may claim they do, but you and I both know that isn’t true. You know best what triggers your temptation. My guess is that most addicts have similar triggers, but some are more effective in causing one person to fall than another. Whatever areas of weakness you have I would caution you to never let your guard down. Never underestimate the power of your triggers. The key is to avoid temptation as much as humanly possible. Jesus knows the power of temptation. That is why he included in the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:13):
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus pairs being tempted with the evil one? If you’ve been snared by pornography for any length of time, you know what could cause you to backslide again. Don’t give Satan any ammunition. He is waiting for you to give him just a crack so that he can put his foot in the door. Genesis, chapter 4, verse 7 reminds us:
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.
Sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you. Satan never relents, so we can’t afford to take a break. Take a few minutes to think about what triggers you most? Here are a few common ones.
SEXUALLY SUGGESTIVE SIGHTS, SOUNDS AND THOUGHTS
We may not be able to anticipate every sexually suggestive trigger that may come our way, but we can proactively defend against it. If you consistently pray that God will clothe you with the full armor of God every morning and if you remember to actively take up your cross every day and follow him, you should be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepared. With that kind of protection, the Holy Spirit may warn you or even steer you away from seeing or hearing a suggestive trigger. And if we find ourselves ambushed by a trigger, the Holy Spirit can provide a way out. He can give you the strength to avoid whatever is tempting you or at least the fortitude to endure it. Do not underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit in providing your protection. Ephesians promises that he will provide a way for you to successfully get through your moment of weakness. Hopefully, whatever solution he provides, we take it. The key is not to encourage or indulge in the temptation. We need to remind ourselves that what we are experiencing is a trap. When we are able to see things for what they are it is almost like putting a big red blinking sign above it that spells “danger”. Do not underestimate your triggers. And triggers that ambush us are the most dangerous.
If we are prepared, we may be able to successfully avoid seeing something that is triggering by simply closing our eyes or bouncing our eyes away from the temptation and focusing on something else. To avoid hearing something that is triggering we can put on headphones or walk away from the distraction. But what about our thoughts? How can we control our thought life? I have 3 suggestions.
1. We can use the weapons that the Holy Spirit has given us.
2. We can actively shut down sinful thoughts and take them captive.
3. We can fill our mind with correct thinking.
First, how can we actively and practically use the weapons the Holy Spirit has given us? How can we literally fight something that is in our mind? 2 Corinthians, chapter 10, verses 3-4 says:
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
I’ve often heard that the struggle we face in controlling our thought life can be referred to as the “battlefield of the mind.” I don’t want to oversimplify how we are to win that battle, but I can say that we’ll have a much greater chance for success if we use the weapons the Holy Spirit has given us. What weapons you might ask? Remember the armor of God? We have the shield of faith, with which we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And we have the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We have a defensive and an offensive weapon. Using them in tandem can deal a death blow to whatever is tempting us. Temptation alone won’t cause us to sin. But, remember James, chapter 1, verses 14 and 15:
…but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
The goal isn’t necessarily to not be tempted. That is impossible. The key is that after we are tempted not to let our evil desires take hold, because that puts us on a slippery slope to sin. We can stifle evil desires by using both the shield and the sword. The shield of faith can extinguish Satan’s lies and the sword can cut right through them. How does that work? Satan is the father of lies. He will use any number of tactics to get you to do that moral dance in your mind to justify, or to weigh the pros and cons of allowing yourself to give in to pornography. So, we need to use the sword and the shield to defend ourselves. But it takes faith to wield them. So, how do we obtain and grow our faith? Romans, chapter 10, verse 17 from the King James Version reminds us:
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
We gain faith by knowing the Bible and allowing the Holy Spirit to remind us of the truth of the Bible when we hear lies. And we use the sword of the Spirit, or the word of God, when we speak what we know. When tempted in the desert for 40 days, Jesus spoke the word of God to strike back at the lies of the devil. The more we know, the stronger our shield and the more effective our sword. For me, one of my strongest triggers is when I am ambushed by any attractive woman who I know personally and am fond of, who is behaving in a way that stirs feelings of desire in me. When that happens, it would do me well to remind myself of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 28:
…I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
It also helps if I’m able to see the woman as God sees her. Genesis, chapter 1, verse 27 reminds me:
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
The woman I’m lusting over is an image bearer. She is not a sex object. Though I would not cross the line of physically have sex with her, if I let my mind go where it is being enticed, I will commit adultery with her in my mind. If that wasn’t bad enough, it can stir even deeper desires and cravings that can only be satiated by using pornography and masturbation. Now the battle is at a tipping point. However, if I’m able to use the weapons the Holy Spirit provided at the outset, I can extinguish the lie that it is okay for me to think about her in this way, and the lie that it is harmless to indulge in sexual fantasies because those fantasies will remain in my head and go no further. Mature believers know that it doesn’t stay in our head, it finds its way to the heart. And whatever the heart is full of eventually comes out as some form of sin. So, I encourage you to study the Bible. Allow the Holy Spirit to increase your faith. Knowing the truth of God’s word always has that effect. The more we know, the stronger our shield will be and the deeper our sword will cut.
Secondly, we can actively shut down sinful thoughts and take them captive. There is a subtle difference between this and simply using the sword and the shield, but in my opinion, there is a difference. It is a more aggressive use of the weapons. I believe, the more mature we are in our faith, the more viable this option is. 2 Corinthians, chapter 10, goes on to say in verse 5:
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
So, we can combat sinful thoughts by taking them captive and making them obedient to Christ. In other words, don’t let your thoughts control you, you control your thoughts! When a rogue thought enters your head that could ultimately lead to sin, stop it in its tracks immediately. If it is harmful, sinful, or in any way destructive, allow the Holy Spirit to flip the script on it, making it obedient to Christ. If we take a closer look at how Jesus responded to being tempted in the desert, we can see this subtle difference at work. In Matthew, chapter 4, verses 3-11 it says:
The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Did you see what happened in these verses? When Jesus faced one of his most vulnerable moments, he didn’t only use the shield to identify the falsehood in Satan’s words. He didn’t only use the sword of the Spirit to cut through those falsehoods by quoting scripture, but he chose scripture that took those words, or thoughts, Satan was tempting him with and turned them on their head. He took those thoughts captive and made them obedient to him. So, when he was tempted with bread after not eating for 40 days, he could have said something like, “I know what you are doing Satan, for it is written, ‘your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.’ Away from me!” But he chose to use the sword to take what Satan had tempted him with and to turn it on its head. He used it to remind himself that in truth, the bread that Satan is tempting him with is nothing when compared to the living bread. He trumped Satan’s temptation, and he did it three times.
To further explain this subtle difference, let’s examine it in light of our struggle with pornography. Using the example of a woman I may be fond of, that if I allow my evil desires to entice me will lead me to sin or to entertain pornographic tendencies, instead of simply reminding myself that entertaining these thoughts are the same as committing adultery with her, I could tell my spirit, “This woman is God’s creation.” I could say that “God has a beautiful plan for her and I pray that God will perfect his plan in her,” and that “I will in no way hamper God’s plan for her, but will look upon her with godly love as a sister in Christ”. In this way I’m taking the sinful thought captive and making it obedient to Christ. I’m not just defending against it, I am transforming the thought from something potentially sinful and detestable into something holy and good. The truth is that God does have a plan for her. She is his beautiful creation. I should be a part of the solution and not part of the problem. I need to look at her the way God looks at her. By doing that, the thought doesn’t even have a chance of becoming an evil desire because the Holy Spirit will be able to bring me to my senses by changing the narrative. This method allows us to not only defend ourselves, but it encourages us to see women the way he wants us to see them, in the light of his perfect plan. I hope you can see that subtle difference. God is in the business of turning something bad into something good. He can cause your thoughts of lust to transform into thoughts of godly love. I’m not saying it is easy. You may have to continually remind yourself of this truth every time you encounter that person, but if we are prepared, it is certainly possible.
Finally, we can fill our mind with correct thinking. The perfect antidote to thinking about sinful things is to fill our mind with heavenly things. Paul reminded the Philippians in chapter 4, verse 8:
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
If you are able to maintain a practice of daily prayer, I hope that during your prayer, you ask the Holy Spirit to fill your mind with holy thinking. Because if you are holy thinking, you’re not stinking thinking. I challenge you, even right now, to think of something that is true, something that is noble, something that is pure, holy, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. It wouldn’t hurt to mentally build a catalog of things to think about. We may all have different lists, but we all have one. These are the kinds of thoughts we should fantasize about. These are the thoughts we should mull around in our head because thoughts like these are glorifying to God. Holiness is the enemy of sin. It will do us well to allow as much holy thinking to enter our mind as possible. And once there, to continue to think about them. Give glory to God for those thoughts. Allow him to use them as a purifying agent to wash your mind so that when a sinful thought tries to enter, it is foreign and unwelcome.
Everything starts with what we see, hear, or think. If we invite temptation into our heart, we are on a slippery slope towards full blown sin. For porn addicts, hopefully, the furthest it will progress is at pornography. But for many, pornography and masturbation are just gateway sins that lead to something darker. It could lead to premarital sex, adultery, homosexuality, or sexual abuse. Sex can turn into something that God never intended for it to be. If left unchecked, it could spill over opening the door to other addictions like substance abuse and other forms of sinful and destructive behaviors. If you are struggling with sinful thoughts, and if you are reading this book I know you are, then I encourage you to overcome them now. Because this is where everything starts.