Grace Greater than Fear

When, by God’s grace, I stopped running, blaming, denying, and minimizing, I began recovering from my addiction to porn.

In the beginning, I was afraid of my sexuality. I was afraid of acting out, or relapsing. I was afraid of hurting my wife again. I was afraid that because I had admitted that I was a sex addict that meant I was uniquely damaged and disturbed. I was afraid that if left unchecked, my problem with porn would escalate to affairs, prostitutes, or possibly even a sex crime.

Before I came clean, I felt doomed to live with this struggle and fight it alone. As I saw it, I would either wind up married, miserable, and monogamous, or a pathetic, 50 year-old “playa” hitting on cheer-leaders, or I would go to the “dark side” and show up on a Dateline Special Report.

In any case, I didn’t believe there was hope for purity. Purity was misery because lust was so much fun! I certainly didn’t believe there existed communities of blessed and courageous men pursuing their own recovery from sexual sin. And more so, I didn’t believe that a godly life could be led with anything approaching joy and peace. I saw black and white; damned if I lived for lust, or miserable if I tried to be a “good boy”.

Fear kept me in bondage and in secrecy. Denial kept me believing that porn was no big deal. Pride kept me believing I could handle it on my own. And the grace of Jesus Christ broke through those webs of deceit… amazing love.

The tragedy is how this cancer thrives in secret, and yet keeps so many of us locked in secrecy.

CNN) -- An evangelical preacher killed his wife several years ago and
stuffed her body in a freezer after she caught him abusing their daughter,
according to police and court documents.

Anthony Hopkins, 37, was arrested Monday night at the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Jackson, Alabama, just after he had delivered a sermon to a congregation that included his seven other children, officials said.

He faces charges including murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and incest.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/31/preacher.freezer/index.html

Grace and Peace,

Job

Solo Recovery?

So is it possible to overcome lust and pornography on your own with the help of Christ? Does saying otherwise diminish the very power that the Holy Spirit offers us? These are some of the ideas I would like to throw out there and discuss.

I believe that it may be possible for Christ to offer a spontaneous healing to someone that is struggling with sexual sin just by asking for forgiveness and having a repentant heart. However, that is not what I have found to be the case in my own recovery and in the lives of the many men that I have had the privilege of being surrounded by in recovery.

It is only now after two years that I am beginning to appreciate the very thing that I was so frustrated about for so long. I have realized that through this journey of frustration and pain I have been able to learn many lessons that I can hopefully pass on to other men who choose to fight this tough battle as well.

For many years I would go to 1st John 1:9,

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our
sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”

and wonder why I was unable to overcome this struggle. I kept going to Christ and confessing my struggle to him but I still went back to the very thing I despised so much.

It was only after attending a recovery workshop put on by Pure Warrior Ministries that I realized I was missing a key piece in my recovery. This missing piece is found in James 5:16

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you
may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

That is when the light bulb went on. What I was missing all along was the support and prayers of other Godly men in my life. I needed to be connected with other guys that would be willing to hold me accountable to the very standards that I so longed to achieve.

On top of that I needed to retrain my mind so that I would look to Christ to fill all of the voids in my life and not towards my addiction. This was not an easy thing to admit because it now meant that I would be unable to keep falling back into my sin like I had in the past.

Finally, I realized that this is what Christ has desired for us from the very beginning and following this model does not diminish Christ’s power at all.

Thoughts?

James

Porn Again Christian

This free e-Book was written by Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill in Ballard, WA, and is free for download, printing, and distribution.

From the amazingly clever title to Mark's way frank way dealing with sexual sin, this book is pretty much right on. Plus, it's hilarious.

http://relit.org/porn_again_christian/

one of my favorite quotes from the book:


"...what you do with your eyes and your penis is not simply your business. If you belong to
the Lord Jesus Christ then there is urgent kingdom and gospel business for you to be
about and neither time or money for you to waste while standing on the sidelines with
your pants around your ankles looking for a bottle of lotion."

....FINALLY!!.... wow, honesty and humor. Turns out it's ok to laugh about porn and our abysmal failure as men in this area.

peace and grace,

Job