"For
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-28).
PORNOGRAPHY ADDICTION
When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. -james 1:13-15
"Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word" (Psalm 119:37).
"Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness." -Jesus (Luke 11:34-35 NIV)
"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. &ldots;I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
--Romans 7:15-24 (NIV)
Eph 4:22-24 (NIV) You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Rom 8:5-9,12-13 (NAS) For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God... and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.... So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh--for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live...
Eze 20:7 (NIV) ..."Each of you, get rid of the vile images you have set your eyes on..."
Jas 1:21 (NAS) Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls
John 3:6 (NIV) "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit."
Gal 4:30 (NIV) But what does the Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son."
John 6:63 (NIV) "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing..."
1Pet 1:23 (NIV) For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable...
1Cor 3:19 (NIV) For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight.
PORN UPDATE 11/08 CLICK HERE!
THE TRICKS PORNOGRAPHERS PLAY: CLICK HERE!
RESEARCH SHOWS LONG LASTING EFFECTS TO EARLY PORN EXPOSURE CLICK HERE!
THE TRUTH BEHIND THE FANTASY OF PORN BY FORMER PORN ACTRESS CLICK HERE!
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM TED BUNDY(HE HAD A PORN ADDICTION) CLICK HERE!
THE TED BUNDY INTERVIEW CLICK HERE!
SOME PAST EMAIL'S I HAVE RECEIVED CLICK HERE!
PORN UPDATE 11/02 CLICK HERE!
PORN UPDATE 02/05 CLICK HERE
* There are 4.2 million pornographic websites. This represents 12 percent of all websites in the world
* Every day, there are 68 million search engine requests for pornographic material. That is 25 percent of all search engine requests.
* Average daily pornographic emails per user: 4.5 per user
* There are 100,000 websites that offer illegal child pornography
* Annually, there are 72 million worldwide visitors to pornographic websites
* The average age of first internet exposure to pornography is 11 years.
* 70% of teens have accidentally stumbled across pornography online.
* Pornographers disguise their sites (i.e. "stealth" sites) with common brand names, including Disney, Barbie, ESPN, etc., to entrap children.
* More than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the Internet every week (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 10/8/03).
* Pornography is a $12-$13 billion-a-year industry-more than the combined annual revenues of the Coca-Cola and McDonnell Douglas corporations.
* Americans rent upwards of 800 million porn videos and DVD's a year compared with 3.6 billion nonporn videos. Nearly one in five rentals is a porn flick.
* Hollywood produces 400 feature films a year. The porn industry churns out 11,000
* One is 4 American adults surveyed in 2002 admitted to seeing an x-rated movie in the last year.
* Playboy's headquarters received 4.7 million hits (electronic visits) in a recent seven-day period
* In November 2000 media reported that Internet pornographers had buried the names of popular toys in the metatags in their Web sites in order to reroute traffic to their Web sites.
* Psychologists say addiction to porn warp's a man's relationship with women, producing more divorce and sexual abuse in America.
Read the stats above and you realize if you are addicted to pornography then the cards are stacked against you. Even if you have a passing interest in pornography the odds are good you could be ensnared if you keep viewing it. For many men and now even women it's a addiction that is just as real as alcoholism, gambling, etc.. It can be just as destructive to your life, your friends, spouse and family as other more "acceptable" addictions, and the urge to spend hours wasting away in front of a computer looking for that one thing to turn you on enough to finish the deed can be just as great as a alcoholic looking for his next drink. It may start out simple, and even a racy picture in a non-nude magazine can help you masturbate, but as time goes on and you become desensitized you have to search longer and longer for that release. Things you thought were taboo are now no longer gratifying as you move on to heavier things. Maybe you store gigs and gigs of your stash on the computer, or maybe you have magazines. dvd's, etc... hidden somewhere in your house, or maybe you do both. It consumes your free time and maybe even gets in the way of time that should be spent doing something else.
The bad news is if you are addicted then there is no easy way out. If you AREN'T addicted yet, then I advise you stop viewing it immediately, you don't need the problem of this addiction and once you do become addicted it will take over a part of your life. If you truly aren't addicted then it should be no problem to stop viewing it.
This page is for the brothers and sisters in Christ who are feeling the conviction of God heavy on their souls. You know the feeling, you waste your time surfing for porn, you know its wrong, but you surf anyway. Afterward a part you is angry that you fell down that same dark hole again, you promised God you would stop, you promised God you would stand firm. The only thing you keep standing firm on is quicksand. You may jump around a little or try to move but the harder you resist the deeper you fall. You may even get to a point were you stop asking for forgiveness, you feel you don't deserve it, what's the point of asking for forgiveness when you know that no matter how hard you try you will fall back into the trap tomorrow or the next day. You may have even tried to repent once or twice, delete all your files, throw away all your dvd's etc.. you thought you were making real progress, I will show God I can take the trash out. The only problem with that is you can remove the trash from your hard drive, or your home, but until you remove it from your heart it will find it's way back in. We already established that porn is easy to get, it's everywhere, you can even break away and be on a hot streak of freedom then unintentionally fall into a trap web site, BAM back down the hole you go. You might even become belligerent to God, or get mad at God and figure it's not that bad of a sin. I mean come on, people are ripping off the poor everyday, stealing, etc.. I am not hurting anyone. But if you believed that you wouldn't be here reading this.
You have to realize that if God didn't love you, then you wouldn't feel convicted, and you wouldn't feel your heart become heavy everytime you fail. The truth is God does love you and He wants the best for your life. Wasting your time filling it with selfish desires is not the best that you can be. You were made for excellence, yes we all fall short, but that doesn't mean we still don't continually strive for excellence. You rob yourself and your spouse or future spouse and children from the best person that you can be, when you are carrying the burden of this addiction on your back there isn't much room for anything else, you become dull and ineffective. Your prayer life will suffer, and your devotion to the Word will suffer. How can you pray to God or read His word when you are living a life of hypocrisy? How can you expect God to draw close to you, when you know your actions are causing a separation between you and Him? Your porn addiction is the 800lb guerilla in the room when you try to pray or connect with God, you can't ignore it!
What to do? There is no definitive answer. You have to take a warrior mentality and realize that you are in a war, a personal war. It's you against this culture, popular opinion, your self, and probably a very strong spiritual force. You can not and will not beat this addiction all by yourself. You will need scripture, friends, maybe even your wife if you are man enough to admit it to her, and hopefully some sort of accountability partner. I know this isn't easy to talk about, it's everywhere, but always in the shadows, in the darkness. Society will cram this crap down your throat but it sure won't give you a hand to help pull yourself out of this hole, they don't see it as a problem, you might even be mocked for even suggesting that there is such a thing as pornography addiction. It doesn't matter what society tells you, you know what your heart is telling you, and you know what scripture tells you. Anytime you go against the grain you will meet opposing forces. Does it matter? Are you going to be the man that God has called you to be, or are you going to be tossed around the sea like a ship with no rudder. It takes a real man to stand up for his convictions and beliefs, it takes a real man to admit he has a problem and ask for help, it takes a real man to want the best for his family, it takes a real man to sacrifice self gratification for the betterment of his life. Real man makes sacrifices all the time for their families, but this isn't even a sacrifice, it's a bondage and right now you are stuck in it, it is preventing you from being that real man.
It is true the first step should be to get rid of everything you have that is pornographic. Trash it all. The best thing you can do is get rid of all temptation that remains. You may have to take several steps, but you know what to do, you know what routine things you do that keep you in this trap. You must alter those routines, you need to get rid of web sites, habits, and any material that will force you to backslide. You need to be honest with yourself and recognize activity that brings on those feelings of addiction and try to eliminate those activities. You must also recognize even something that might not seem pornographic or "wrong" could still be the catalyst that you need to fall back into the addiction, you MUST eliminate those things.
If you are married you really need to man up and come clean with your wife. She can help to keep you on the straight path. If you really can't do that yet, then try to find someone that is honorable and would understand your problem and try to get them to be your accountability partner. This is a hard thing to come out with, but you aren't going to beat this alone. You also need prayer. You need the Word. You need to ask God to help pick up this fight with you. You won't have the tools you need to fight this effectively if you are uneducated in the Word or rarely read it. You need it and the more you grow in it the sharper you will become.
You must also realize this is a long road out. God may give you the strength to break this addiction cold turkey, but the chances of that are slim, otherwise you wouldn't be here in the first place. I have heard this happening, but this is probably going to be a struggle and it's probably a teachable moment in your life. God doesn't put anything on us that we can't handle. You CAN handle THIS! You have no other choice but to face it and start down the path to freedom, you were called for greater things than this, and the sooner you fulfill your calling the sooner you will be free and truly happy. You will stumble, and you will fail. Get UP and DUST yourself off. Realize you are in a war and not all battles can be won, but DONT use that as a excuse to fail. Like all wars there is strategy involved, if something you are doing is causing you to fail then you must readjust your strategy and go at it again. You must constantly be honest with yourself and recognize right away if something is causing you to backslide and deal with it immediately. Put the computer in a public room, leave the laptop at work, don't drive by the adult store, etc.... Take the temptation out of your life as much as possible. Stand up take charge of your life and stop being a victim. This is a fight worthy of taking on, this will draw you closer to God and rid yourself of the bondage. The ultimate goal is to be free and to have a stronger relationship with God, there is no better reason in the world to stand firm.
Contact me and I will pray for you, and help you in any way that I can. I am not a expert but I have dealt with this in my own life and I know how hard it is to get free when you really want to take those steps. When I gave my life over to Christ this was one of the first things that He dealt with in my life, I took up this fight in 1998 and I have had ups and downs but every time I took up the battle and didn't give up it drew me closer to God, you can't put a price on that. I can tell you freedom from it is much better than the bondage and trapped feeling and guilt it causes in your life.
Check back on these pages, as I will be updating them continually as I add to it and collect more information. This work will never be done as men and women break free from this addiction many more fall into it.