HOW TO PRAY TO QUIT PORN
PRAYERS BASED ON BIBLE VERSES TO PROMOTE QUITTING
“Father, help me to turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.” Turning our eyes preserves our lives.
“Father, Your Word says that I will not be tempted beyond my ability. I will put in the work but please give me the wisdom to escape this temptation.”
In this session we will start with the spiritual then see how it relates to everything else. Having said that, keep in mind that if you have a long term problem you need to consistently try everything that you can in every way to try to quit. So we will start out with a prayer. The prayer is “Father, help me to care only about quitting my addiction”. Obviously when we pray help me to care only we are not excluding caring about things like family or responsibilities, we are merely trying to exclude things that may lead back to addiction.
Example #1 We have a hardcore sex addict, now clean for 9 days, is called by a buddy who invites him to a bar. The second he is invited he knows all his buddies who struggle will be there. But what is the harm, drinking is not his thing and there won’t be hardly any girls there, they will just be talking in a raunchy way (that only usually makes him lose control). He goes and the very next day he is in full swing on a binge, the type that has almost always ended with him being broken in the past.
In this example he fully cared about quitting his addiction but he also badly wanted to go have fun. And let’s be honest when we are disciplined and schedule an alternative event it will not always be quite as much fun (if we are looking at fun from the viewpoint of a messed up addict (myself included). But if he had cared only about quitting his addiction he would have turned down the first offer where he knew he would fall into severe temptation and he would have found something else to do. He might be doing something only 80% as “exciting” that Friday night, but he could have just as much real joy from the evening and he could keep his joy for the whole week and he could have his life back.
Example #2 We have Ty who we have been following. He is a severe porn addict clean for 5 days now. He has been reading a book on controlling his emotions because he knows that when things go bad he always needs to be glued to his computor for 4 hours. On Sunday he wakes up highly determined to stay clean. He goes to church, after he gets home he reads his book and even underlines the parts he wants to think about later in the day and meditate on. Very strong indeed. Then his wife starts to nag him about their finances. He immediately blows up and gives her a long thorough piece of his mind. I don’t need to tell you how this story ends. But I will – on a 2 day binge that leaves him burnt out and depressed. When we pray Father, help me to care only about quitting my addiction, we are directly asking God to help us pause before blowing up. We are asking Him to make us realize how important it is to fight to control our emotions. Our partner or boss wants to start a fight but we now care only about quitting our addiction. Instead of blowing up we calmly give a short explanation and leave the room. If your boss or husband/wite insists on ragging at you, plan a short well-rehearsed speech that will diffuse the situation. When they keep coming at you give them a well rehearsed puzzled look which will say to them, what is wrong with you. Then just stop talking.
Example #3 We have the hardcore drinker. Clean for 6 days now she is in the mood for a good movie. She loves her HBO and likes wild movies. She starts to watch a movie and notices that there is a major theme of smut and partying going on. Well, she is not going to give up that quickly for a movie that she already started. After the movie ends she can’t get to the liquor store fast enough. The next morning she wakes up and wonders who she is with and where she is.
We often can’t change those around us and sometimes can’t change our situation. But we can change ourselves.
MORE PRAYERS
“Father, Your Word says that I will not be tempted beyond my ability. I will put in the work but please give me the wisdom to escape this temptation.”
“Father, help me to flee sexual immorality.” A great goal is to increase this skill daily.
“Father, help me to not think about how to gratify the desires of my flesh. Show me what to think about.”
“Father, help me to remember that lust leads to death.” This prayer is based on James 1:14-15. Something always is dying or dies when we give in to lust.
“Father, take away my sinful desires and give me a Spirit of power, love and self-discipline.” Based on 2 Timothy 1:7
Father, show me the destruction of sin and fill me with your fire.
Love is an action word. Christiananswers.net said: “It is goodness that one chooses to do on behalf of another, and it ultimately relies on faith and hope in God. True love is humble, righteous, forgiving, patient, generous, kind and willing to endure personal loss and suffering.
Love is the opposite of self-absorption and selfishness, which are chiefly devoted to one’s own personal pleasure, benefits, welfare and profit. Extreme selfishness is one of the traits of Satan, the devil—the enemy of God and mankind.”
Today, consider writing your own prayer rejecting lust and promoting love. Examples:
“Father, take away my spirit of lust, and help me to focus on righteousness.”
“Father, take away my spirit of lust, and help me to forgive.”
“Father, take away my spirit of lust, and help me to endure hard times by learning the habit of praising You.”
“Father, take away my spirit of lust, and help me to care about others.”
6 Matthew 18:21-22
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (NIV)
This answer by Jesus makes it clear that forgiveness is not easy for us. It’s not a one-time choice and then we automatically live in a state of forgiveness. Forgiveness may require a lifetime of forgiving, but it is important to the Lord.
We must continue forgiving until the matter is settled in our heart. When we don’t forgive we open up the door to addiction.
Tip: Sin leads to addiction. Watch TV with your remote in your hand. Always be ready to fast forward through nudity and sex scenes.
If you want to quit a porn addiction (or sex addiction) make it a goal to be clean in all ways. Even when you stay clean from your addiction, if your mind is filled with dark evil things you will never find real joy. When we pray Father, help me to care only about quitting my addiction, we are directly asking God to show us if our movie channels or our this, or our that, are leading us directly back to our addiction. This is exactly the type of prayer that God answers.
It’s not that God does not want you to do fun things. He does not want you to do fun things that will destroy you.
Let’s continue to watch people who are trying to quit to see what they are doing. Joy focused on reading books that will help her control her impulses and the things that are out of control in her life.
Tip: Get books, articles, advice and add them to your journal. Underline key points of advice and review that advice often until it becomes a habitual part of your life.
After falling Ty prayed: Father forgive me of my sin. Help me to turn to you when things go bad. Ty decided to read even more often on how to control emotions and he determined to make it a habit to tell himself to turn away aggressively from thoughts of smut 5 times every day. For busy people we should say it 5 times per day, for others we need to say it every hour. To turn away aggressively means to turn away instantly from any emotions, situations, temptations, wrong people or anything else that may trip us up.
Every day Tom worked at analyzing what he was doing that leads him back to his sex addiction. Over time he started to really understand how his mind and emotions played tricks on him. This knowledge gave him more skills on how to fight his addiction.
God has unfailing love for us. Every day I will add another verse that talks about His unfailing love. Psalm 21:7 For the king trusts in the LORD; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken.
Tip: Addiction is often accompanied by an unknown attitude of: “I have to have short term pleasure at any cost.” To fight this attitude pray: Father: take away my love of pleasure and fill me with a Spirit of toughness. A Spirit of toughness leads to God’s joy because we are saying that we will stop doing the wrong behavior. We will instead be tough and switch to an activity that we only sort of like. But it is an activity which avoids destruction and leads to long term joy and a chance to find our purpose.
Don’t Ruin Tomorrow Today
Everyone who has a bad habit ruins tomorrow. The big problem is that for many people tomorrow is now today. Today they are stressed out, strung out, and totally frazzled from what happened yesterday.
This mad cycle will continue until you put in the work to snap out of it. So first remind yourself 3 times every day how you will feel tomorrow if you live a vibrant Christian life today. Next remind yourself (use this one only if reminding yourself is not a trigger) 3 times every day how you will feel tomorrow if you go back to your abomination. If you want to quit a sex or porn addiction remind yourself 3 times every day for the rest of your life – “I will not ruin tomorrow today.”
Read Matthew 3 and First Corinthans 3
Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life
Today say as often as it takes: I will turn away aggressively from lust.
Journal overcoming addiction idea’s so you can refer to them any time.
Copyright 2015 © THR Publishing LLC
If this article has helped you, share it with your friends. Share buttons are below the index.
Thank you for reading day 6 of this program: How to pray to quit porn or a 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