Know this upfront, because any addiction (including a porn addiction) is not a substance issue but a relational deficiency issue, this site although filled with many tools, makes no apologies for including the testimony of the relational connection I have with God and the physical deliverance and freedom I experienced when praying to God. It would be disingenuous and I would be pandering to those who don’t yet believe and worse deny the absolute miracle that took place in my living room several years ago, if I do not bring God into this. I have met others from other addiction programs who say they will always be ‘sick’, and must live a life ‘managing’ their sickness. Most addicts feel they have to ‘white-knuckle’ their way to freedom. This is not the same as the freedom I and so many others have experienced through God alone. It’s true that those secular programs offer wisdom, but on the issue of freedom, my experience is testimony that without God it’s impossible to be truly free, wholehearted, connected and a source of true strength to your community. Although this is not a prerequisite for reading the site, the added advantage of such a belief makes the site so much more valuable and effective. So no matter where you hail from or what your position is in terms of God, I highly recommend meeting Him and engaging Him in this process. He wants you to be free and wholehearted more than you do. I include Him because He is my story.
It seems appropriate at this point to give you an opportunity to meet Him before you continue reading. It is my opinion that meeting God isn’t something you can fabricate with a prayer and or an assertion, but a someone you experience. If after reading so far you feel compelled and or inspired to believe, then pray to God. Just try it. Keep it simple.
Pray and tell Him your intent. Be honest with where you are at.
If you are tired of living the way you have been and you can see how destructive it is, acknowledge it and ask for forgiveness.
Ask Him to come into your life and help you live a life of freedom.
Finally acknowledge that Jesus is who He said He is, the son of God whom God raised from the dead and acknowledge Him as your saviour from a corrupt way of thinking.
Expect then that things will feel different and that you will experience His inner peace. Expect Him to talk to you in your heart and guide you into all truth.
MOST IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER
20If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 21“Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” 22(which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
Col 2:21-23
Before I start if you remember nothing else from this site, remember this point:
If appearing free is all you need, then abstinence is all you need. Abstinence never solved any struggle on it’s own, but it sure makes you seem wise. Abstinence is a weak, external, lateral, behaviour-modifying attempt to solve a deep intimacy problem. Abstinence is a self-made religious effort and asceticism which is powerless to curb innate desires especially those derived from a deep lack of connection or intimacy. “You don’t have a porn problem or an eating problem etc., you have an intimacy problem” and ‘white-knuckling’ your way to freedom isn’t the goal or the solution.
The writer of Colossians (Paul or Timothy) continues in chapter 3 to encourage the believers in Colossae to ‘continuing in seeking the things above’ as a path to freedom and fruitfulness. He continues to encourage them to ‘consider their earthly bodies as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed which amounts to idolatry’, and then he distinguishes these things as the inner workings of those who inherited the curse of Adam, aka ‘the sons of disobedience’. This is similar to Paul’s admonition to the church in Ephesus in Ephesians 5:1-20. We are no longer ‘sons of disobedience’ but ‘children of light’.
What does that all mean? Well let’s start with one main point I want you to remember. Abstinence alone doesn’t heal you, but abstinence and setting your mind in persistent pursuit of the things above is a lethal combination.
Your pursuit of God and Godly thinking is the root of your sobriety and ultimately your freedom.
When He says ‘set your mind’, he is not saying that we just think about God once in awhile, no! He is using the term ‘set’ as in: focus-on; desire; drive toward; pursue; obsess-over; direct the mind toward and or seek after God, Jesus and Holy Ghost. Jesus came that we might have life and life abundantly, then how come we obsess, pursue, seek after, focus-on, direct our efforts towards the things that can not produce life in us and through us? He came to set us free and he who has be set free is partially free indeed? NO! He who the son sets free is free indeed! Brothers be sure that when you pursue Him and His fullness in you that, as the scripture and my experience confirms, He will be found by (in and through) you.
This has proven to be more profound than I realized, but the encounters we have with God are what set us free, not the abstinence of ‘bad things’ or the processes that appear wise. This site will highlight many processes, but it’s the goal of any process to engage you in an encounter with God, His love, His way of thinking and His way of life. This is how we transform ourselves into His image, set our minds on pursuing Him and starve out the desires that are fruitless to us who believe. Any process that becomes stale or ineffective in this goal should be considered useless in your pursuit of freedom. Even if this site is found to be ineffective in producing Him in you, throw it out! Freedom comes when we experience Him in a tangible way and our thinking becomes more inline with His thinking. Bill Johnson said, “I can’t afford to have thoughts in my head about me that God doesn’t have in His.” He is right, those thoughts produce no life.