Ephesians 4: 20 - 24 NKJV
A friend of mine shared a email with me recently then followed up with a simple question. Are they winning? See, he had just received a email on the latest and greatest institutional church video for overcoming pornography addiction. I knew that he was just asking my opinion on this series which claimed to help over a million men overcome their own addictions to porn, so I gave it to him. "I'll save my money." Don't get me wrong, it's not that if I were locked in the battle of pornography addiction that I wouldn't want to be free from it, but I've already been there and done all that my brother. Yes, I once fought the day to day battle with my own desires as I longed to be free from my own sin. I jumped at every chance the church put out there to guide men, and women, out of the sludge of porn addiction. I watched countless videos, worked through workbooks and listened to pastor upon pastor promise me that they could set me free from my chains. Of course, for all of their best intentions, they were all promises that went unfulfilled. Despite all of my efforts, my struggles continued. Not only that, each time I fell victim to my desires I felt less and less like a true man of God. I felt less and less like I was really who God intended me to be. Instead of a solid christian example of a man...I had turned into nothing more than a example of who NOT to be. I fully expected the pastor to point me out in church each week and proclaim "Don't be that guy!" I saw myself as that sinner whom God could never be in the presence of. As a result, I needed to work that much harder to make myself acceptable to God. I was on the outside looking in. I didn't realize it back then, but it was this thinking that was helping to keep me in the chains of addiction.
1Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man areceives sinners and eats with them.”3So He spoke this parable to them, saying: 4“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5“And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’7“I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
Luke 15: 1 - 7 NKJV
I don't really recall that day, but I know my addiction brought me to a point where I asked my self the question. Is this what God has in mind for me. My God who had assured me that I, Scott, was worthy of His love and acceptance. My God who had paid that punishment of my sins with His own blood {2 Corinthians 5:21}. Was this what He desired for me? Of course, I already knew the answer to my own question, but change my own thinking I needed to ask. Was God simply sitting in heaven ready to speak judgement upon me? My friend and I talk a lot about our "seperation thinking" which all too many christians have unknowingly fallen into. Instead of following their own hearts for what they know to be true, they follow the teachings of their favorite pastor. See, in my heart I knew that God had no desire for me to live a life in chains. Not only had He moved heaven and earth that my own sins would be forgiven, He assured me that I would would always be one with Him {Galations 2:20}. There is no God and me...we're one in the same. The danger of our seperation thinking is that we mistakingly see ourselves as seperated from God. Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole time I was slogging through the mud in my battle with pornography there was not a single moment that God was not there with me. What's the difference between my life now and my life back then? Knowing what's true in my heart. I may not have realized the truth of Christ in me back then, but that doesn't mean that He wasn't there. Only that I didn't realize who it is that I was. How many men can look at a pornographic image and know in their own hearts that isn't who they truly are? This is where our own freedom from addiction is, and it comes from our own knowledge of who we are in Christ.
I recently received one of the best compliments I could have when my friend revealed that he had personally heard me proclaim the truth of Christ from my heart. There's no recovery program that can boast results like that.
6knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.7For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6: 6 - 11 NKJV
~Scott~
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