Over the years as I have been given the wonderful opportunity to minister and counsel numerous Christians, I have found that those who continually struggle in the area of sexual purity, and more specifically, with pornography have a few things in common. All professing Christians who end up entangled in the pornographic web have one or all of the following reasons for continual failure.
Let’s jump right into it!!
Reason #1 - They Don’t actively HIDE God’s Word in their hearts!
Christians who struggle with pornography generally don’t hide God’s Word in their hearts. What exactly does it mean to hide God’s Word in our hearts?
Psalm 119:11 says:
“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
To hide God’s Word in our hearts is to store or treasure it in our hearts. This means that we actively fill our hearts with the word of God. But how? How do we put God’s word in our hearts? Through memorizing and meditating on God's Word.
The act of memorizing God’s word is essential to the Christian walk. When Jesus was tempted to sin, every single time he said: ‘it is written’. He knew what God’s word said and he actively quoted it in every one of the temptations he encountered. He knew what to say because He had the Word of God inside him. Too often we have the Bible with us, but it’s contents are not in us.
The Word of God is powerful and can destroy the force of every temptation, but if we don’t know it, or have it available to us in the face of the temptation then we will surely fail.
Memorizing God’s word is not an end in and of itself. Our endpoint is obedience to God’s Word, but we cannot get to obedience without deeply knowing God’s Word. Look at what Titus 1:1 says:
“Paul a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness”.
It is the knowledge of the truth that leads to godly living. Not knowing God's Word opens the door for sinful living.
Meditation is also very important for the Christian, but meditation on God’s Word comes after memorizing it. When the Word is in our hearts we can then think on it, ponder its meaning and apply it to our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. The act of meditation actively transfers the Word from our heads to our lives. This is exactly what we want. We want the Word of God to have an effect on our lives and meditation is the sure way for this to occur.
The Word of God declares:
"This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success” - (Joshua 1:8)
Reason #2 - They have not developed a COMMITTED PRAYER walk!
I once heard a preacher declare that the average Christian does not pray for 15 minutes per day. I am definitely not shocked at this statement. From being in ministry for over 20 years, I have found that the average Christian I meet struggles to pray.
Prayer and victory over temptation go hand in hand. A prayer-less Christian will consistently walk in defeat. There is absolutely no way a believer can withstand the force of temptation without prayer.
Prayer is more than just talking to our Heavenly Father; it is asking God for something so that he can be glorified in and through our lives. In prayer, we cry out for God’s intervention in our lives. Fasting (the act of going without food in order to seek after a spiritual goal), is prayer. Many believers who struggle with porn fail to pray and to include fasting in their spiritual walk.
Some may wonder why should we fast. My answer would be: ‘because Jesus our savior did it’. He fasted for forty days and was victorious in the face of temptation. We should follow his example in order to get His results.
Now, I am not suggesting that you live in a realm of fasting, but I am certainly saying that we should live in the realm of prayer.
As I said before, prayer and victory go hand in hand. Look at what Mathew 26:41 declares:
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation”.
The Christian who is alert and prayerful will always escape the trap of the tempter.
Reason #3 - They have no form of ACCOUNTABILITY!
If there is one powerful solution that can help someone overcome their struggle with pornography and sexual impurity it would be accountability.
Too often Christians continue to fail with porn and sexual impurity because of secrecy. They don’t want anyone to know they are struggling. The excuse often used when things get really bad (or public) is that they felt too ashamed to tell someone. Now, sin does bring shame, BUT that is no reason to keep your sin a secret. God’s Word says:
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
Some believers think that they should confess their failures to God alone but that’s not what the Word of God says. Our Heavenly Father wants us to confess our sins to other believers. Why? So that we can be prayed for - why do we need the prayers of others? So that we can be healed.
So many times Christians remain in unnecessary failure, guilt and defeat because they CHOOSE not to confess their sins to fellow believers. We all need the help of other believers and we can’t get that help by keeping our sins as secrets.
Reason #4 - They do not actively GUARD their thought life!
As Christians, we have to learn to guard our thought life. The devil is always trying to get us to meditate on sinful stuff. He will faithfully bring up the last sex video you saw and tempt you to think on it again and again. He will fire new thoughts into your mind with the hopes that you will take the bait and think about his lustful assertions. So what do we do? How do we actively guard our thoughts?Although there are several biblical answers, one that is very fitting is found in Philippians 4:8:
“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.”
We have to actively and consistently train ourselves to think on that which is productive, biblical and God-honoring and this is done by .... you guessed it - actively filling our minds with productive, biblical and God-honoring information. This is absolutely necessary if we are going to win the battle for sexual purity. Actively filling our minds with godly information and thinking on this godly information is the only way to get filthy information out of our thoughts.
Reason #5 - They Don’t Flee from Porn!!
The only Biblical advise that the Lord gives us in His Word in order to get out sexual impurity is to RUN from it. Look at what God’s Word says:
“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body” 1 Corinthians 6:18.
Nowhere in God’s Word are we commanded to resist sexual temptation. We are ALWAYS told to run from it. So, when we are tempted to watch pornography we have some running to do.
Christians who keep failing in pornography don’t practice running from the possibility of watching porn.
So, How do you run from porn?
We run from porn by DESTROYING every possibility of failing in pornography. So if that means setting up on all our devices an alert that automatically goes to our leaders if we click on anything immoral then set it up on all devices. If it means cleaning out explicit movies from your library, then clean them out. If it means getting out of your room so that you are not alone in the face of the temptation, then get out. WE must practically take whatever necessary measures we need in order to destroy the POSSIBILITY of failure.
There are thousands of Christians who have gotten out of the fatal grip of pornography and have learned to walk uprightly in the freedom that Christ has bought for them.
If you are currently in the struggle against pornography and you are desirous of getting Biblical and practical help, get your hands on the devotional 21 Days To Sexual Purity. It has been used to help hundreds of individuals walk in sexual purity and escape the stranglehold of pornography.
