Sex/Porn freedom in 30 days: day 24

Pride keeps people in addiction. High level pride is refusing to go to SAA. Refusing to seek help from a Pastor or Priest. Knowing that Mom or Dad or Brother or Sister is right when they advise you and ignoring what they say because you want to do things your way. Knowing you need rehab and trying every other method instead (we will still be here when you come back). Pride is not seeking help because you do not want to tell people you slipped up again.

A humble person reads great books on quitting addiction 3 times just to make sure they get it. They take notes when their Pastor/Priest gives them great advice and they review them often. They get more help from everybody involved because they show such a high level of appreciation for the advice and help they get. They go to extremes to put the advice into action (whether they believe it will work or not). They see that other people have helped them and loved them. So they plan to help the next person once they have cleaned up their act.

Pride is a test. Will you do things your way or your Pastor/Priests way? Your way or the legal way? Your way or Gods way? The Bible says that pride goeth before a fall. Most of us have already experienced that verse. Passing the pride test gives you another important key to permanent freedom. Make it a focus.

Hope is a critical element in overcoming addiction. Michael Cartwright in his book Believable Hope notes the following. “Believable hope is based on evidence that change has been experienced by others in conditions similar to yours and is absolutely possible for you. It helps to have some positive role models, mentors, or sponsors, or some reason to believe that you can actually change. One of the most effective means of developing believable hope is to enroll in a residential program where you can immerse yourself in a new mindset. Sometimes simply knowing that somebody believes in you provides the believable hope that you can be better.”

If you can find a mentor that would be great. He continues “A mentor’s experience often can provide a positive frame of reference. If they can change so can I. You have to truly believe that you not only can change but that you will.” More on hope below.

Should we condemn ourselves for slipping up again? Should we condemn ourselves for things from our past? Some people condemn themselves for things other people have done to them in the past. We somehow figure out a way to blame ourselves for what they did. We just can’t do that. We have to put the past to bed.

Many of us are still mad about things that happened years ago. We need to forgive the people who hurt us. When we don’t we go back into the anger cycle. First we are offended, then bitter, then resentful, then full blown rage. When we do forgive we regain a proper relationship with God. Mathew 6:14-15 says: For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Sometimes we let an emotional problem push us right back to lust. Instead of using sex or porn as a crutch when thing go bad find something you like to do that you do well, and do it over and over. If you spend your time doing things you’re not good at, it’ll frustrate you and cause you to feel defeated and unsuccessful.

Don’t let the way another person treats you determine your worth.

Keep your flaws in perspective. People with a high level of confidence have just as many weaknesses as people without confidence, but they concentrate on their strengths—not their flaws or weaknesses.”

The next question is, should you condemn yourself for going back to your addiction? The answer is no. But the best way to regain your joy is to develop a better plan to quit your addiction. The most important step to doing that is to get on the same page God is on. He wants you to quit your addiction so that you can fulfill your God given purpose. So first you ask Him to forgive you for your sin. Some of you have quit and asked for forgiveness 4751 times and you are losing your faith that God even wants anything to do with you.

For hard core people repenting is not simple. If you have fallen 247 times a tearful I’m sorry is just not enough. Explaining to her the 10 new changes you now promise to make, to make sure it does not happen again is a much better idea. Reminding her every day that you are living out these changes is even better. It is the same with God. Tell Him exactly what you are going to do every day to change. Write it down. Then every day tell Him that you are going to keep doing the things which will keep you from lust every day.

Now you must create a plan and do it. Don’t let laziness or lack of organization stop you. Be a fanatic about following a plan to quit your addiction.

Also plan for life’s disasters. Don’t let money issues or people issues drag you back into sex/porn.

Psalm 143:8

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

Lastly pray more. Pray the prayer of Jabez which is 1 Chronicles 4:10 (KJV)

^“10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.”

Remember, that we start to be under God’s blessing when we start to obey the Bible.

This is a great prayer to pray every day. There is also a great book called the Prayer of Jabez which I highly recommend.

Read John 21, 2nd Corinthians 5 and Proverbs 19

Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life.

Pray: Father give me wisdom to know what to say and do so that I can help other people. Pray: Father help people to be delivered from addiction and to be saved today.”  

We are His work. He has made us to belong to Christ Jesus so we can work for Him. He planned that we should do this. Ephesians 2:10Living Bible (TLB)

Hope

We have all lost hope in some sense at some point in our live. Maybe it was our favorite sports team that gets so far behind in points that there was not hope in them winning. Maybe it was a little more serious, maybe you there was time when you were without a job and with no money. Maybe it was a health issue where you thought there was no hope for you or loved one.
During those times perhaps you want to take the advice of Job’s wife, who told Job to “Curse God and die”.

Hope let us realize is necessary to the human spirit as oxygen is to the physical body. When we lose all hope we are overcome with feelings of senselessness, purposelessness, and despair. Lack of hope can destroy our very lives.

The word Hope occurs some 52 times in the New Testament alone. And if you take the time to look up those 52 passages you will find that it ALWAYS is connected in some way to God. God is the author of hope, Romans 15:13 tells us “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Our God is the God of hope, and here there is a prayer that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But what exactly is hope? One of the definitions I read for hope stated, “Hope is, desire, with the expectation of getting what is desired.” One cannot hope for that which he neither desires or expects to receive.
Sometimes our hope can be misplaced. There are those who hope to receive eternal life in heaven without acknowledging Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour.
There are those who hope to grow in Christ without reading His word or going to God in prayer on a regular basis. There are those who hope to live happy lives even though they are in rebellion to God.
All these are misplaced hopes, false hopes, hopes that our not founded and based in God.

Life can be difficult and harsh, and there are times we may think that it will not get better. But there is hope, true hope in Christ, and there is hope no where else.

I want to give three reason for the type of hope Paul mentions in Titus 1:2.

The first is The WORD OF GOD GIVES HOPE. A verse that we referred to a lot when we did that series of sermons from the OT a while ago. Romans 15:4; “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

The scriptures give to us hope. The stories of old give us hope. This verse can be looked at in the context of both the Old and New Testaments.
You see folks are problems are not now. We may think that our problems our unique to ourselves, but there has been someone else who as gone through them before.
God ministered to them in their situation and He will do the same for us. The same God who dealt with those saints of old, deals with us today. God ministered to their needs and He will ours.

Are you lonely and depressed. Look at Elijah, he thought he did not have a friend in the world. He thought he was the only one who still loved God. He was alone and depressed. But Elijah found that God was still with him, that God was there. God sent fire from heaven to show him that He was with him.

Are you frightened? Something in your life has gotten out of control? Look at David, he fought a 9 foot 6 inch giant and beat him. God was with David, no need to be afraid when God is on our side. As the Bible states, “if God is for us, who can be against us?”

Are you being treated unfairly? What about Joseph? He was treated unfairly. He treated unfairly by his family, by Potiphar’s wife, by Potiphar himself, and the list goes on. Yet His hope was in God. He rose for prison to be the second most powerful man in Egypt.

Are you in some sort of crisis? Talk about a crisis how would you like to be facing a group of hungry lions with nowhere to run! That’s were Daniel found himself. What did Daniel do? He prayed, because He knew where his hope was, it was in God.

These stories and more are given to us that we might have hope. Hope in God, knowing that He is still there, that He cares for his children. None of our problems are new, God has seen them before. Maybe the outcome will be different then what we see in the Bible, but let us know where our hope is!

The promise found in the Bible give us hope. In Hebrews 13:5 “…For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Jesus will not leave us, He is always with us. Even when we go places we should not be, or say things we should not say, or do things we should not do, Jesus is with us, our hope is there.
No matter what our situation, hope is there, that Hope that is Jesus Christ.

The second reason for hope is the Cross of Jesus Christ. The cross ought to remind us that someone loves me, and that someone is master of the universe, He is Lord of all, King of kings. Listen to Jesus words in
John 15:13; “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

There is no greater love then the love Jesus Christ as for the saints of God. A love by which He came to earth and died for our sins, paid the price of our sins with His own blood. We cannot even begin to understand that love of Christ.
That love ought to give us hope, because that love demonstrates to us, how much Jesus cares for us. How much the Father cares for us and desires what is best for us.
Romans 8:32 “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

Our hope is in God because He has demonstrated to us through the cross of Christ that He desires for us what is best.

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Thank you for reading day 24 of this program: Reasons to Quit Porn.

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

Day 16: Self Control

Day 17: Self Control continued

Day 18: Learning to pray

Day 19: What kind of prayers does God answer

Day 21: Finding a Church that can help you

Day 22: Why is it so hard to quit

Day 23: plan plan plan