Sex/Porn freedom in 30 days: day 16
The Gray Area’s
Tom wanted to watch his new favorite show. It was on Netflix and it seemed to be clean at first. But once he really got into it the nudity became a regular thing. Tom knows he can’t handle the nudity, he knows it would cause him to go on a binge sooner or later. But the last couple of times the show had smut he had successfully looked away. So he cranked up the show again. After watching the show all he could think about was smut.
Suddenly he realized that he had fallen 5 times in the last 2 months and that in 4 of the times he watched that very show shortly before falling. Denial had reared its ugly head again. He knew deep down inside that he would fall again if he kept watching that show or others just like it.
If we live in gray area’s we will fall. Everyone will. All lifetime addicts live in gray area’s. They all have a steady stream of borderline things they do/watch which always steer them back to addiction. The food addict watches food network, the porn addict watches not quite porn movies, the drinker always picks his buddy up at the bar, the drug addict just needs to talk to someone about current prices and about how strong the designer drugs are, the gambler just wants to know how many points his team is giving.
We still believe our addiction is better than a dynamic time of prayer, than a great Bible study with our friends, than taking time reading the Bible which straightens out our confused mind.
The Bible says that Jesus is the light because He is the light. The gray area’s suck. They are not dynamic like real Christianity is. They steal your purpose instead of leading you into purpose. They always lead to darkness which ends in destruction.
Church, Bible reading, prayer, Christian fellowship, Christian books – these are the things that lead to living in the light. Fight the gray area’s with all your might. Then dedicate yourself to Christianity with all your might. You might be shocked not only at the power you have over your addiction, but also at the power you will start to have in prayer.
Self Control
Our goal should be to learn to be at the maximum level of self control both physically and spiritually. We need to learn to control the anger and other emotions. Self control is about calmly and slowly identifying the cause of your distress and irritation and finding a solution. Find calm and constructive solutions to your problems. Stable emotions allow joy to grow in your life.
Pause before you speak or act, or look. Self control does not react impulsively. Practice this often. Pray that Jesus Christ will help you improve. Think and plan about how you will react around people.
We need a new Spirit in us. Our Spirit is often dark and evil. The more we pray and fight to overcome sin the more the Holy Spirit starts to help us. When we allow God’s Spirit to begin to be joined with us we start to be filled with His Light. Self Control is sweet like honey; lack of self control is bitter and destructive.
Billie Joel Daugherty noted the following. “We should practice self control over greed, lust, anger and pleasure in excess. Where does real self control come from? It comes from the Holy Spirit. How do we start to get the Holy Spirit’s help? Let God’s Word get inside of you by hearing good preaching, praying, and digging into the Word. We must make decisions that cause the Spirit of God to do work on the inside of us. There must be an attitude of repentance to say no to these temptations.
If God made us do everything we would be nothing more than a robot. God shows us his will and gives us the power to choose to follow his will so that when you do it, it is not a robotic act. Instead it is an act of love. You have the power to choose either way. We start to align with Jesus when we ask Him to give us the power to follow His ways. We say yes to those things He says yes to. We say no to those things He says no to. That can only happen when we are surrendered to Jesus. We pray to God – not my will be done. But your will be done. Who is a great example of this? Jesus. Before being taken away to be crucified He was in the garden. The soldiers came for Him and His disciple Peter took a sword out and cut off one soldier’s ear. Here is Peter out of control and all he has is a sword. Here is Jesus who can call legions of angels and He is under control.
Each of us has an opportunity to react to what people have done to us. Or we have the opportunity to respond to the Spirit of God and the Word of God that He will put inside of us if we allow Him to. With the Holy Spirit’s help we can fight off temptations, imaginations and bring every thought into captivity.”
Pray, morning noon and night every day “Father put a guard over my mind and my willingness to think about my addictions”.
Addiction is about wanting more. It is about searching for something to fill an empty place in our soul. Being Vibrant is about starting to find your purpose then being moderate in all things so that we can fulfill our purpose. Being Vibrant usually involves quitting something completely that keeps us from fulfilling our purpose.
To be vibrant we need to always remind our-self that the high that comes from things like drugs, drunkenness, sinful sexual acts etc always lead to a vast emptiness. When we instead turn aggressively from our addiction and just as aggressively pursue a joy filled relationship with Jesus Christ, the pursuit is filled with joy and challenges and the end is filled with success, joy and a new found purpose for living.
Write down what you need to do each day for the next 10 days to begin to make your life vibrant. Read what you have written down each day for the next 10 days.
Read John 13 and 1st Corinthians 13 and Proverbs 11
Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life
Pray “Father, keep me from temptation”.
Something to memorize: If I resist “it” persists. If I “refocus” on other things I can keep control. Example: Alice is fighting temptation with all her might. Now she has to fight all evening. Ruth gets tempted and she spends 3 minutes planning out her evening and then immediately gets busy with the plan. Ruth will be too busy to be tempted often and she will likely keep control.
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Thank you for reading day 16 of this program: fighting porn habits, fighting sex addiction.
Index
Day 1: Overcoming cravings
Day2 : Is God real?
Day 3: Quitting addiction exercises
Day 4: Getting negative emotions out
Day 5: You can never increase the amount of pleasure that you can have for the month by going back to an addiction
Day 6: Sin leads back to addiction
Day 7: Worshiping God helps us overcome addiction
Day 8: What causes you to stay addicted
Day 9: Develop positive addicitons
Day 10: Overcoming negative emotions
Day 11: You have some self control
Day 12: Always have a list of alternate activities to do when temptation hits
Day 13: Only living water can satisfy you for good
Day 14: Learning form the story of Adam and Eve
Day 15: Blessings and curses