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.
MINIMIZING THE DEVIL’S FOOTHOLD
You may have heard it said of any addiction that admitting you have a problem is half the battle. But what if we never take that step? What if we are not willing to admit that pornography is a problem worth addressing? Satan can convince us that our struggle with porn “isn’t that bad” or that we can “learn to live with it”. He will try to make us feel comfortable in our trap. He may even try to convince us that we are dependent on our trap, so much so that we don’t want to leave it. That is power. It is a form of Stockholm syndrome which “describes the psychological condition of a victim who identifies with and empathizes with their captor or abuser and their goals.” Do you identify with Satan’s goals for you? Do you agree that pornography is too comfortable to leave, that you can live with it, or that you don’t really have a problem with it? As Paul warns in Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 27:
do not give the devil a foothold.
When we opened the door to pornography, we let Satan in. We gave him a foothold in our life. Once he has you, he doesn’t want to let go. If we begin to agree with him that pornography is too comfortable to leave, we may never attempt to throw it off. We cannot fall for this trap. If you attempt the 90 Day Challenge and fail, do not give up. If you succeed at the 90 Day Challenge and later return to the vomit of pornography, do not give up on freedom. Being okay with the shackles of pornography is like a wild animal being okay with living in a cage. It isn’t the way life is supposed to be. It isn’t God’s plan for you. I believe that when we allow the shackles of pornography to remain, we will never fully reach the potential life that God has planned for us. God has a perfect plan for you and me. Don’t you want to know what that looks like? Don’t you want to live it? If you do, you cannot become comfortable in your trap. You cannot agree with, and identify with, Satan’s goals for you.
When Satan was able to sink his claws into me, I pictured a scene from a National Geographic documentary of when a predator catches its prey. The predator is relentless in its pursuit. And when it catches its prey, it immediately goes for the kill, draining the life out of its prey. Don’t think of Satan as your friend in this. He is relentless and doesn’t have your best interest at heart. Once he snares you, he wants to stay attached. He wants you to grow accustomed to him. Like a predator who catches his pray, he wants to drain the life out of you. Like a terminal disease, he wants to become a part of you. Like a tick or a leach, he wants to stay attached to you. He wants to feed off of you. If you have fallen into this trap, come to your senses. Allow the Holy Spirit to change your trajectory. Allow him to change the narrative. Allow him to remind you that you are his, that he owns you, that he bought you with a price. Remind yourself that as a child of God, Satan and his lies have no place in your heart.
JUSTIFYING SIN
Satan is the father of lies, and believe me, he is good at what he does. His lies can be incredibly convincing even if in our heart we know they aren’t true. If you let yourself listen to him, you may actually begin to justify your use of pornography. Sounds crazy right?! You may begin to make excuses for your sinful behavior! One popular justification of mine was, “If this is the worst of my sins, I’m not doing too bad”, forgetting that all sin carries equal weight when we use God’s scales. The wages of any sin is death. But if we listen to his lies, we forget, or dilute, the power of the truth. Another justification I’d use is, “pornography helps me cope with all of the lustful thoughts I have.” I begin to actually convince myself that pornography is a medicine for my lustful thoughts when in reality it is the fuel. In truth, there is no way to put a positive spin on sinful behavior. Even if some of what I convinced myself of was true, which it isn’t, the end never justifies the means. God does not want us to sin for a “good reason”. When we justify sin, we are, in effect, showing a lack of reverent fear or lack of respect for God. When we justify sin, we are disagreeing with God by saying sin is good. As it says in Psalms, chapter 36, verses 1 and 2:
I have a message from God in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before their eyes. In their own eyes they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin.
God hates sin. We can never forget that he sent his son to die for our sins. What’s more, we have to remember that sin cannot exist in the presence of a Holy God. In fact, sin gets in the way of our relationship with God. It sabotages our relationship with him. It never helps. It only separates and destroys. When we justify our sin, we lessen the healthy reverent fear that we should have towards our Almighty God. We forget that he has the power to “destroy both soul and body in hell,” as it says in Matthew 10:28. We forget our place. Therefore, we should never fall into Satan’s trap by justifying our sin. There is never any justification for it. There is never a good reason to sin. If we truly begin to buy into that lie and think there is, then we are only proving we are not born of God. As 1 John, chapter 5, verses 18 and 19 says:
We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
As children of God, we cannot desire to keep sinning. We cannot justify sin or make excuses for sin. Instead, we must desire freedom from sin. We must rely on our protector to keep us safe so that the devil cannot harm us. We need to decide who we serve. We need to plant our flag in the sand and say that for me and my heart I will serve the Lord!
MINIMIZING THE SPIRITUAL CONSEQUENCES
One final trap I want to highlight is how the enemy is able to get us to believe that the spiritual consequences of viewing pornography are negligible. It is easy to fall into this trap because pornography is such a private, “hidden” sin. We can convince ourselves that we are so good at hiding our sin that we can continue for years without consequence. In fact, we may be able to convince ourselves that we can go our entire lives without anyone ever finding out. But that way of thinking is a house of cards. For most of us, at some point light will reveal our dark deeds and our sin will be made known. Even if that doesn’t happen, as scripture proclaims, whatever we put into our heart will eventually come out in some way. Discerning Christians will be able to see through our mask. They will be able to judge by our fruit. Jesus said in Matthew, chapter 12, verse 33:
“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”
Even if you were to dodge both of these bullets and keep your pornography addiction hidden from your closest friends, the person you have become is a far cry from the person you could be. The influence of pornography affects your behavior, decision making, relationships, pattern of thinking and your dependence on something other than God. While trapped, you will never know what your life could be like without pornography. You will never know what God could do through you if you were free. Certainly, the worst consequence is that you’ll be found out, that your testimony will be ruined and that you’ll be proven a hypocrite. But even if that doesn’t happen no one leaves unscathed. You will be affected. I was affected. Though I had admitted my failure with pornography to some, I was never “outed”. I went up for prayer during altar calls, I prayed through prayer hotlines for freedom, and God was certainly aware of my acts but most everyone else didn’t know. I was enslaved by pornography for almost 40 years. So, if someone came to know me, they likely did so while I was under the influence of pornography. Though they may not have known about my habitual sin, my heart was inevitably affected. My relationship with God was affected. My relationship with my wife was affected. In truth, my life was affected. We can only hide so much. Our heart will reveal the truth. I’ve been caught lustfully staring at a pretty girl too long. I’ve been caught commenting about the beauty of other women in front of my wife. I’ve been caught looking at suggestive pictures too long. I’ve even been caught flirting, though I’d claim it was harmless. My heart was full of lust, pornographic images, and detestable desires. I did my best to hide it, but I know that some of it seeped through. I’d know what I shouldn’t say in public, but for some reason I had to say it anyway. I knew that I shouldn’t stare at pretty girls, but for some reason I couldn’t resist. What was in my heart eventually made it to the surface.
You may think you are really good at covering your tracks, hiding your sin, and masking what is truly in your heart, but chances are, you aren’t as good as you think. Satan has convinced you, as he has so many, that you can have your cake and eat it too. He has convinced you that you can indulge in pornography without any spiritual or relational consequences. But remember, there are three likely outcomes to your deceit; either you’ll be found out, some of what you are trying to hide will come out in some way, and/or you will not be the person you could’ve been in Christ if you had been free. Any of these scenarios are unacceptable for followers of Christ because if we claim to be a child of God, we should not desire to keep on sinning.