Finally Free Page 6
Finally, you may be getting your pornography from someone else who has it. Perhaps you have a roommate, parent, sibling, neighbor, coworker, or friend who has a stash of material you can look at whenever you wish. You might be using someone else’s computer or phone to look at pornography without their knowledge. If so, the most effective radical measure is to confess your struggle to them and ask them to remove the opportunity for you to view it when you’re around. Such an admission may be painful or even embarrassing, but keep in mind that it’s better than cutting off your hand! And according to Jesus, both of these are far less painful than hell. Just because something is hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Pray for the grace of a changed heart, and then obey by doing the right thing, regardless of the cost.
One word of caution here. Before you talk with the person who is intentionally or unintentionally giving you access to porn, you should inform your accountability partner. There may be some situations where it’s unwise and even dangerous to approach a person who (knowingly or unknowingly) provides you with access to pornography. Before you get involved in a relationally complex and personally risky situation, you should ask a trusted outside source for wisdom.
Are You Ready to Get Serious?
I realize that after reading this, some of you are freaking out. Reading about these radical measures raises all sorts of objections: What will I do without my smartphone? How will I text … get sports scores … update social media? What will I do without my car? How can I live without my debit card? How can I tell my parents what I’ve been doing on the computer? Is this guy serious? Believe me, I’ve heard them all. If you are stressing about these things, it’s because you are considering the seriousness of the strategy without considering the seriousness of the stakes. Let’s not forget that Jesus commands amputation because he is concerned that we avoid hell and pursue life in him. Do you fully grasp the serious consequences of your sin? Indulging in pornography is like drinking spiritual poison. If you do nothing, it will kill you sooner or later. Get a clear picture of what pornography is doing to your heart, your mind, and your life. When you do, you will want to get serious and do anything you can to stop the spread, regardless of how radical it might seem.
Thankfully, not everyone will have to employ all of these measures, but everyone will have to employ some of them. Talk honestly with the person helping you and make wise decisions together about which measures to take. These measures aren’t meant to be convenient; they’re meant to be radical, difficult, painful, and costly. No one removes a limb because it’s fun or handy. They do it because they realize they cannot keep the limb and live. It’s a life-and-death decision.
Frog, Toad, and Radical Measures
Frog and Toad knew they had to take steps to get far away from the cookies Frog had made. They tried a number of things—putting the cookies in a box, tying up the box, and putting the box on a very high shelf. Our amphibious friends quickly realized, however, that they could always undo the measures they put in place. They could still get the cookies if they really tried. So at the end of the story they take the most radical step of all and throw the cookies to the birds. Now, with no more cookies to eat, Toad decides to go home—and bake a cake.
The story of Frog and Toad teaches a critically important truth in fighting temptation: outward measures, regardless of how radical they are, can never change your heart. This is why it is critical to employ radical measures in your thought life first. You need more than a change in your circumstances to win the battle; you need a change in your heart. Frog and Toad tried putting the cookies far out of reach, but eventually they found a way to eat them, because no matter what they tried, they still wanted to eat the cookies. Never forget this lesson. You can try to remove porn’s availability. You can eliminate your time alone. Yet you will still seek out porn if you desire it. This is why Jesus and the good news of the gospel is the only sure hope for those who want to be free from porn. Only Jesus has the power to change your heart desires, and he does this as you believe in his forgiving and transforming grace.
This emphasis on the need for change in your heart does not mean ignoring other, more outward forms of radical action. Taking steps to limit your time and remove the source of temptation just need to be put in their proper place. Outward radical measures do not change your desires, but they are necessary for two crucial reasons.
First, radical measures give you space in which to grow. Change takes time. Old ways of living must die; new ways of living must form. New kinds of thinking must be learned. If you are enslaved to pornography, God will not usually change your desires instantly but by degrees (see 2 Corinthians 3:18). Radical measures allow the space and time needed for you to direct your attention toward Christ instead of porn.
Second, employing radical measures gives you an opportunity to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8). As you learn to rely on God’s help to set you free, you will want the full-blown power of having new desires. As you press forward in growth, you can still experience some change before your new desires have fully formed. These external measures are the first steps of change, and even though they don’t automatically transform your internal desires, they are expressions of real change. You need the grace of Jesus to accomplish them. When you experience his grace to take these first, hard, faltering steps, you are seeing the fruit of God’s work. Seeing this fruit helps give you confidence that Jesus will also give you the grace to experience the fullness of change that you are seeking.
This wonderful and progressive change is given to you by Jesus through his forgiving and transforming grace. As you continue to fight for purity with the power of grace, you must continue to seek God’s forgiveness and his power to be different. Cry out to Jesus. Remember his death on the cross and how it purchases your forgiveness and your obedience. Believe that Jesus’ blood pays for any sinful lack of seriousness and gives you power to employ every radical measure necessary.
Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace
1. Consider your need to employ radical measures in your thinking. Make a commitment to repent the moment your thoughts begin to drift toward impurity. Ask Jesus for help to follow through with this commitment. Make a plan with your accountability partner to hold you accountable. Think through an initial passage of Scripture you can begin using to fight temptation in your heart. Write it down and begin memorizing it. Finally, make a plan with your accountability partner to commit to call for help when you are tempted.
2. Consider your need to employ radical measures in your use of time. Write down and discuss with your accountability partner the times when you are most tempted to view porn. Make a plan together to fill this time with activities that will move you toward purity.
3. Identify, write down, and share with your accountability partner the places where you access pornography. Do you get it online and on TV, purchase it from a store, or get it from someone you know? Review this chapter and write down all the radical measures you will take to block your access to the sources.
4. When taking these steps seems too hard or when you find yourself facing temptation, meet with Jesus. Ask him for his help, believing he will give it to you.
CHAPTER 5
Using Confession to Fight Pornography
Tom was frustrated. He sat in the office with me and another pastor as we confronted him with our suspicions that he had been looking at pornography. Tom admitted that he had spent a considerable amount of time looking at porn, but he stressed that he had quit almost a week ago. He knew what he had done was wrong, so he told another friend at church and downloaded accountability software onto his computer.
We were encouraged by these steps, but then we asked Tom if he had confessed this sin to his wife. He had not. When we insisted he must tell his wife what he had done, Tom became deeply agitated. In frustration he protested, “My wife doesn’t know. Telling her about this would create a conflict rather than solve one. And there’s really nothing to tell
her since I haven’t looked in a while.” Finally he added, “It’s not like I committed adultery with an actual person. I never stopped having sex with my wife.” Tom strongly felt that confessing his sin to his wife was a bad idea.
Eventually, after talking it over, Tom agreed to confess his sin to his wife. He did what we encouraged him to do, and in the end their relationship was stronger for it. Tom later told me that confessing his sin to his wife was one of the main things the Lord used to keep him from ever returning to pornography.
Before Tom was willing to confess to his wife, we had to prove to him that confessing to her would actually help him in his battle against sin. In the first chapter, I talked about the importance of confessing our sin to God; in this chapter, we’ll be looking at the need to confess our sin to others. My prayer is that, like Tom, you will understand the powerful grace of confessing your sin to those who are harmed by your involvement with pornography.
The Importance of Confession
Tom needed to know our advice was biblical before he would accept it, and I’m sure the same is true for you. The Bible states, “Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). At least three truths in this passage illustrate how important it is for you to be a person who confesses sin.
First, it is important to confess sin because the Bible tells us that confession is the way we receive the promise of God’s mercy and blessing. This proverb teaches us that it is bad to cover up our sins and that it is good to confess them openly. Notice this is not in the form of a command—it’s a promise. The Bible promises that there is no prosperity for those who cover up their sin. On the other hand, good things will come to those who expose their evil deeds. God’s Word graciously calls us to confess our sins because confessing is better than concealing. Like surgery, pain actually promotes healing. So the first and most obvious reason you should expose your sin of looking at pornography is that it is a mark of wisdom to seek the merciful blessings that come with uncovering sin.
A second reason it is important to confess sin has to do with the kinds of mercy that come to those who confess. One kind of mercy that comes with confession is the blessing of openness and restoration in relationship. Sin separates you from those you’ve sinned against, creating walls between you and those you love. How can you repair this brokenness? What can you do to restore what your sin has destroyed? In the Bible there are no take backs, do-overs, or repeats. Sin is not a misstep corrected by simple adjustments. It is only through a process of confessing our sin that God allows us to make right what has been damaged and broken. To be restored to those you love—to receive mercy—you must first confess your sin.
Tom sinned against people who didn’t know they had been sinned against. Tom’s wife may not have been aware of his sin, but her lack of knowledge doesn’t change the fact that what Tom did broke his commitment to remain faithful to his wife. Regardless of whether Tom’s wife knew it or not, his sin led to a lack of openness and sincerity in their relationship. Tom could keep his wife in the dark, living in ignorance, but it is far better to desire a relationship with his wife built on honesty, trust, and full awareness of the other’s strengths and struggles. The only way for Tom to receive this mercy—the only way for you to receive this mercy—is to confess your hidden sin.
A third reason it is important to confess your sin relates to yet another kind of mercy that accompanies confession. James tells us that “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (James 4:6). There are two important implications of this verse that relate to the struggle with pornography. On the one hand, I will assume you want to experience God’s merciful favor as you seek to move toward purity. After all, you may well be reading a book like this because you are desperate to know God’s power.
On the other hand, most people don’t want to confess their sin because of embarrassment or fear. You might be embarrassed about your struggle, not wanting others to know. You may be afraid of how they will respond when they discover what you have done. You can even make these fears sound holy and loving and turn them into legitimate reasons to avoid confession: I don’t want to put my loved one through a difficult ordeal. It would be wrong of me to inflict my troubles on those around me. Telling my spouse will just make matters worse. I can change my life privately without them needing to know. But at the heart of it, there is likely a more selfish reason for not confessing your secret sin: you are loving yourself and your reputation more than you love God and others; you are proud.
So how does a proud person come to know God’s favor? How does a person full of self-love receive God’s mercy to change? In James 4:6, God speaks his promise to you: If you want my favor, humble yourself; if you want my mercy, confess your sin. There is no mercy or favor for those who arrogantly cover their sin and keep it hidden. You will find God’s grace to change only when you humbly confess your sin—not just to God, but to all those you have wronged, whether they know it or not.
A Framework for Confessing Your Sin
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that confession is the path to healing and blessing. But I need to warn you as well. You need to be careful. Confessing your sin can be a tricky business. We live in a culture that does not understand how to confess sin. There are many common and hurtful mistakes people tend to make. Because your sin may come as a painful shock to those you have sinned against, it is very important to consider beforehand how to confess your sin in the wisest way possible. Here are six critical guidelines to make your confession as helpful as it should be.
1. Confess Your Sin to All Who Have Been Touched by Your Sin.
The Bible has much to say about confessing sin, and we can’t look at all of it here. But if I were to try to boil dozens of verses down to one principle, I would say that the circle of your confession should be as broad as the circle of your sin. If you draw a circle around all the people your sin touches, then you should confess to everyone in that circle. God stands in the center of the circle, since all sin is ultimately committed against him (Psalm 51:4), but there are usually plenty of other people in the circle as well. You should confess to your spouse, since indulging in pornography is a blatant violation of the sexual fidelity promised in your marriage vows. You should confess to your fiancée for a similar reason—you’re preemptively breaking the vows you are committing to make. You will need to confess to accountability partners, since viewing porn is a break in your relationship with these fellow believers who have partnered with you for spiritual growth. You will need to confess to anyone whose equipment, money, or space you used—if you used your neighbor’s computer, your friend’s money, or your hallmate’s room, you should confess to them. There will often be others in the circle of your sin as well. The point is that you must confess to everyone you have wronged, even if they are unaware.
2. Do Not Confess Your Sin to Those Who Are Not Touched by Your Sin.
Given the first point, you might think it is safe to assume this guideline. It isn’t. Sometimes our guilt over sin can lead us to confession that is unwise or includes too many people out of a misplaced desire to “come clean” and “be real.” Here’s a story that illustrates how damaging this can be.
Several years ago, a male student of mine asked to speak privately with his female friend at the school. During that conversation this young man confessed that he had been plagued with lust for this young woman. He knew it was wrong to have lustful fantasies about her filling his mind, and so he asked for her forgiveness. I cannot express how much this young woman was freaked out by this conversation. I found out about it as she sat in my office crying, wondering how in the world she should respond.
What is wrong with this confession? After all, the young man was well-meaning, and he wanted to be serious about exposing the darkness in his heart to the light. It must have taken extreme humility and courage to share such a sin with a young woman he did not know well. His problem was that his method unwisely included
more people than necessary. This man’s desire to unburden himself was tainted with his own selfishness. He wasn’t thinking about how troubling this information would be for this young woman, who had no idea there was any problem. The problem with his confession was not that the woman was unaware of the sin; it was the fact that the lustful man’s sin had not directly impacted her. Lust is first a sin of the heart and a sin against God. This man had not expressed his lustful thoughts in a way that affected this young woman. The guilty man needed to make the sin a matter of confession to God alone.
The lesson to learn from this is that you must not think of confession as being exclusively for you; you must also see it as an effort to serve God and neighbor that is guided by the teaching of Scripture and not by your own desires. Be sure the people to whom you confess your sins are within the circle of those offended by your sin. This principle does not mean it is always wrong to talk with others about your sin struggles in general terms as a testimony to God’s faithful care in your life. It also doesn’t mean you exclude spiritual mentors who can help hold you accountable for your thoughts and temptations. It does mean you need to be careful about involving people in your struggles against sin. As you consider these first two principles, you will likely have many questions about whom to include in your confession. If you do, pray. Ask God for wisdom. Seek the wisdom of others, such as a pastor, a wise Christian friend, a parent, or another wise believer. Ask for help as you sort these things out.