For twenty years John's life had been controlled by sex. His mind was constantly filled with lustful thoughts, and pornography and masturbation were no strangers. Even after accepting the Lord into his heart, this secret sin remained. He was in dire need of help, but too ashamed and proud to admit it. Several years ago, John finally let go of what he was holding onto and God broke the grip of sexual bondage. Today, his marriage is wonderful, and his relationship with Jesus is real and fulfilling. Men everywhere are asking what is the path to overcoming habits of sexual immorality. Some are perplexed because they have beautiful, loving wives and cannot understand the allure of pornography. Others try to justifying urges because their wives withhold sex or intimacy. But each came in search of answers to a problem plaguing men for centuries: How to have freedom from sexual bondage.

Sexual Immorality Hinders Our Relationship with God
God does not sit in heaven making up rules and waiting to punish you for breaking them. Instead, He purposefully created you in His image (Genesis 1:26) with the intention that you would not only love and worship Him (Matthew 4:10), but also be His child (John 1:12, 1 John 3:1) and His friend (James 2:23). The Lord is a personal God and is truly interested in a close and meaningful relationship with you. Consider this: What if you had an adult child that you loved deeply? He was working on an important project and might be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But he never visited, called or wrote to you.

When your thinking or actions become self-centered you move further away from your loving God. Sexual sins magnify this effect. For instance, our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives inside those who trust in Jesus. Therefore, sexual sins are sins against God’s temple (1 Corinthians 6:18-20). Listen carefully to what God is telling you: “In view of God’s mercy you are to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1). When you selfishly give yourself over to sexual desires, then sex becomes your master – the focal point of your life. But Jesus wants to be the center of your life, thinking, and actions. He also wants to meet your needs. Each time you lust, masturbate or look at pornography, you place God on a shelf and forget about the One who loves you and gave Himself for you. You turn away from Jesus and disregard the good things He alone can give.

The Root Problem
Even when people engage in sexual immorality, they need to realize that there are still deeper problems in their lives that must be addressed before bondage to sexual immorality can end. Masturbation, pornography and lust are not the source of the problems in your life. Rather, they are symptoms being fed by something else. In fact, there is a root which feeds and keeps sexual immorality alive. This holds true for all who face sexual struggles. The root cause is selfishness and the pride which accompanies it. Selfishness is being overly concerned with your own welfare or interest, and pride is the attitude and behavior resulting from an exaggerated self-worth. Together, these lead us to think that we deserve to be served and to have every desire fulfilled. Until you come to grips with the truth about the seriousness of selfishness and pride in your own life, and battle these root sins, you will never really have lasting freedom from the bondage to sexual immorality.

The best way I found to explain this is to picture your hand. Look at your palm right now. In the center of your palm is selfishness and pride. Stemming from that are your fingers. Each represents a sin, such as masturbation, lust, greed, envy and jealousy flowing from selfishness and pride. It is not enough for you to merely remove a particular sin. For instance, it may be possible out of sheer determination to bend a finger and stop masturbating for months or years. Maybe you can even bend over a few fingers at the same time. Yet, if you allow selfishness and pride to remain in your life, you will still have barriers that block the most meaningful relationship with God and you will still have the roots to sexual sins ever present in your life. Also, another selfish action, such as anger, will take its place.

When you make it your goal to overcome a particular sexual sin, such as masturbation, you set your sights too low and aim at the wrong target. Failure is assured. In fact, you will never be free from sexual bondage until you address selfishness and pride in your life. But how do you stop being selfish and prideful? By yourself you cannot. That is why you must trust Jesus and turn over complete control of your entire life to Him. Now this is not merely a slogan or something for your ears to hear. And it is not about being more “religious.” Instead, it is becoming a new person in Christ. The more and more you draw near to Jesus Christ and take on His character as your own, the less and less you will be consumed with “self” interests. When you live by following the Spirit of God, you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature because the sinful nature is contrary to that of God (Galatians 5:16). It goes like this: the more you seek to love and follow Jesus, the less selfish and prideful you become; but the more you withdraw from Jesus, the more self-centered you become – which leads to pursuing selfish pleasures, such as lust. That is why there is no freedom from sexual immorality apart from having a real, personal, daily relationship with Jesus Christ; one in which you seek Him with all of your heart.

In addition, when you sin, such as masturbate, it leads to feelings of guilt or shame. This, in turn, causes you to hide areas of your life. In short, you become separated from God. Once separated, you continue to sin, heaping on more guilt and shame, leading to more hiding of yourself. Soon, you are caught in a spiral leading ever further downward. The only road that leads to a restored relationship with God and freedom from the downward slope of sexual bondage is in truly experiencing Jesus Christ on a personal level; one in which you become totally dependent upon Him each and every day.

God Heals Slowly for a Purpose
An everlasting commitment to yielding to the Lord marks the beginning of a new PROVEN™ life. Yet, don’t expect to be instantly freed from all aspects of sexual sin. God heals slowly for a good reason. Because you may have spent years developing ungodly practices, it will take time to work them out of your life. Another thing to remember is that if you were instantly freed of bondage you likely would boast that “I” overcame a certain sexual sin, but in the end still go on living a selfish or prideful life. In addition, because Jesus desires a personal and intimate daily walk with you, He wants you to develop a practice of meeting with Him every day. When you are taking the steps necessary to overcome sexual sins, you are putting into practice a relationship with Jesus! Don’t you get it? Jesus does not want you to merely lead a good life free from sexual impurity. He wants to be involved in your life and to be close to you. By requiring the healing process to be one in which you must rely upon Him over an extended period of time, you will be talking to and sharing with Jesus daily (if not moment by moment). In the end you not only will have freedom from sexual bondage, but you will have a strong, fulfilling and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ for the rest of your life! In essence, you will be a PROVEN Man™. It makes perfect sense.

Make a Commitment Now
God is calling you right now to put aside selfishness and pride and to follow Jesus Christ! If you have been sexually impure, go to Jesus right now. No matter what your sexual sin, He is faithful and willing to forgive and purify you (1 John 1:9). God wants to forgive you, but you must ask to be forgiven and you must trust completely in Jesus Christ for healing. This happens when you (1) acknowledge and confess that your selfishness and pride are sins against God, and (2) when you turn total control of all areas of your life to Jesus. True repentance must occur before you can be changed by God. Right now, close your eyes and admit that you made the satisfaction of your desires the focus of your life and acknowledge how your pride has blinded you to God’s truth. Confess your sins. Spend time asking Jesus to take total, permanent control of all areas of your life.

Do Battle on Both Fronts
Trusting in Jesus Christ for spiritual rebirth will not remove all sexual desire. In fact, we were created as sexual beings. But turning to Jesus does usher in a conflict of desires. Let me explain. When you trust in Jesus to be your Savior from sin and to be complete Lord of your life, He immediately gives you a new nature and the Holy Spirit. Yet the old nature still remains, which still seeks after selfish sexual pleasures. But the new nature desires sexual purity and holiness. Therefore, a battle rages inside of you between the dueling natures of self-centered and God-centered desires (1 Peter 2:11). Both compete for you. Which will you serve? Your new nature, when yielded to the power of the Holy Spirit, will give you mastery over the old nature. The key to victory over sexual bondage is to develop (and maintain) an intimate, daily walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. It starts by flooding the new nature with healthy influences, while at the same time starving the selfish nature by eliminating those influences which reinforce the old way of thinking and acting. These two things (eliminating self-centeredness and increasing God-centeredness) cannot be compartmentalized, but must be simultaneously incorporated into your very way of life.

Loving God with All Your Strength. Jesus told us that the commands of God could be summed up in this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength ... and Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:30-31).” These should be your guiding principles in life. If you follow them, you will not be permanently ensnared in sins flowing from selfishness and pride, because they are opposite to loving God and others.

Loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength means that you must pursue Jesus Christ with at least the same level of passion that you had pursued lust. The love of Jesus should be on your mind all day. In practical terms, loving God also includes setting aside time daily to meet privately with Jesus in open communication. Begin simply by talking to Jesus Christ as you would a friend. Tell Him about your struggles and fears. Ask Him to rescue you and to give you His strength. Pour out your heart to Him. The more you get to know and trust Jesus, the more you will want to praise and worship Him from your heart and desire to follow His ways (see Psalm 119:1-40). Another important way of experiencing Jesus in your life is by reading the Bible, which is one way God reveals who He is and the truth about life. Begin now by reading a few pages every day. Ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you while you read about Him.

Loving God also involves participating in a Bible-believing church. Although some are reluctant to attend church, it is important for several reasons. First, it is where you can find support and strength, join men’s fellowship and Bible studies, establish an accountability partner, and develop relationships in which you share your life with other men. In addition, Jesus Himself established the church and He loves and cares for it today (Ephesians 5:25-32). It is also designed as a way for you to help encourage others (Hebrews 10:25). But attending or joining a church is not about being “religious” or simply part of a plan of doing a list of good works or performing penance. Instead, participate because you want to meet with God in His place of worship and to join up with other men who are seeking Him. Please, even if you have had bad church experiences in the past, find a church that really follows the Lord, where you can link your heart with others who sincerely love and serve God with pure hearts.

Learning To Love Others. God tells us that if we truly love Him, we necessarily will love others (John 13:34-35). Consider this: If you have a good friend but have a lack of concern for his son or daughter, what kind of a friend are you? God created people and wants you to love them. This means you look out for their interests. What about pornography? Are you showing a sincere concern for the woman in the picture? Of course not. This helps explain why selfishness and pride cloud your relationship with God. You should never use people for your own selfish desires or to treat them as objects. You need to replace selfish and prideful thoughts with that of a servant’s heart. This involves investing your life in others (the opposite of selfishness!). When you choose to love and help others instead of pursing selfish sexual pleasures, a wonderful byproduct is that the grip of lust will be continually diminished. In addition, the best cure for self-pity or loneliness is found in serving others. It will bring joy, satisfaction and healthy relationships into your life.

Eliminating Selfish Practices grom Your Life. Living a PROVEN life involves dying to selfish desires. It is time to rid yourself of all sexual immorality, including fantasizing, looking at pornography or masturbating. This means far more than following a list of things to avoid. Although it may seem like a sensible way of controlling your urges, the Bible says that simply avoiding certain practices will not relieve illicit sensual desires (Colossians 2:20-23). So how do you eliminate immoral practices in your life without merely following a list of things to avoid? As an initial matter, understand that by indulging in selfish practices you lost your sensitivity to sin (Ephesians 4:19). You need to recorrect your thinking to bring an end to the fantasy life. The key is to recognize the sin in it. Second, do as God says, which is to “hate” sin (Psalm 97:10, Proverbs 8:13, Romans 12:9). If you still enjoy fantasizing or looking at pornography or do not see these things as 100 percent wrong, then you are only playing a game at trying to stop. It must be viewed as an unhealthy, undesirable, unwanted evil in your life that is no longer welcome. Talk to God about this, and ask Him to cause you to see and hate the ugliness it is. Then make a stand. Choose to hate it, and hate it hard! Indeed, when you find yourself in the middle of a lustful thought immediately destroy it. Do not allow it to finish. Right then say to yourself, “I take no pleasure from this thought. Through the power of Jesus I reject it.” Confess to the Lord your sinful thought and repent. Then immediately replace the thought. The more you continue to do this, the less frequent tempting thoughts will occur. But, be prepared to do battle. It will take much discipline and effort to choose holiness and turn to God. Yet, trust that the Lord will give you His strength. Struggles and trials develop perseverance and hope, which the Lord uses to transform you into His likeness.

Having accepted the importance of loving God and hating sin, it is wise to establish certain boundaries to help in the battle against temptation. The point to remember, however, is not to rely upon boundaries as a way to obtain freedom from sexual bondage. It is a changed heart towards God which leads to a changed life. Again, this only occurs through an active, healthy relationship with the Lord.

Some practical things to do as a part of an overall strategy to reduce temptations include throwing away all videos and magazines that caused you to lust, even swim suit editions. Put a block on your Internet or, better yet, use a server which blocks sites for you. And do not go to Internet chat rooms, which breed false intimacy. If television instills in you selfish or lustful desires, then stop watching it! Replace secular music with Christian music. In addition, do not put yourself into situations in which you will be tempted. You must make every effort to reduce tempting circumstances, such as lingering at your favorite magazine rack. While you cannot avoid all contact with women, use wisdom about your interactions. For instance, do not flirt and do not go alone with a woman to lunch. Never talk to women about personal matters, such as her marriage or finances. Apart from your wife (if married), only men (not women) should be your confidants and friends. In addition, change any rituals you followed when you lusted or acted upon your lusts. For example, avoid old stomping grounds, such as the local store that sells pornography. Consider even changing your route home from work if you feel any temptation driving near a particular place. In sum, take inventory and then set boundaries that you will not cross, keeping in mind that they were things you did as a prelude to the type of sexual immorality you engaged in.

If, like John, you spent years developing habits of fantasizing, masturbating or viewing pornography, you likely will experience withdrawal symptoms, which can be nearly overwhelming. You may also feel a great temptation to continue in your prior routines or even feel like giving up. But stay the course. Although the setting of boundaries helps to reduce the struggle, it is only a small part of the battle plan. That is why it is vitally important that you are simultaneously engaging in the activities of loving God and others, as explained above. Otherwise the room in your heart that you have swept clean of lust will remain vacant, waiting to be filled, and you may find yourself facing troubles even greater than before because some worse selfish practice moves in and takes its place (see Matthew 12:43-45, 2 Peter 2:21).

Another point to remember is that if you do experience a set back, do not give up or throw in the towel. Confess it to Jesus and talk to Him about it. He will forgive you. He wants to forgive you if you only go to Him. Then, find out what caused you to stumble, and work all the harder at loving Jesus, at loving others and at hating sin. You may also want to reexamine your boundaries and tighten them. Make all necessary changes to help prevent a reoccurrence. This is also why an accountability partner is important. He is someone you should call day or night when you begin to struggle with temptations and before you give in. He also will be someone you can confess to if you stumble.

Including Others in the Healing Process
When John had tried on his own to stop lusting and masturbating, he felt defeated. It was as if there were no one he could talk to that would understand and not judge. John thought that he would take the secrets of my immorality to the grave. Perhaps the devil wanted to keep him isolated so that he would not turn to God.

In short, you cannot overcome sexual immorality on your own. It requires dependence upon Jesus. But God also wants you to confess your sins to others (James 5:16, Acts 19:18). Confessing sins and maintaining accountability to another is like a weight lifted off your shoulders. There will no longer be any area of your life that you must try to keep secret or hidden. God uses others to bring encouragement, if you permit yourself to be vulnerable. A trusted friend can also help hold you accountable. Replace pride with humility, and admit you need God’s strength and His use of other men in your life. Don’t go it alone. Turn to Jesus and let Him use other men in your life.

Tearing Down the Walls
Once you begin to turn away from sexual immorality, you still need to learn how to be vulnerable, caring and loving with others. Generally, those struggling with sexual sin have developed a “false” intimacy. You unconsciously substitute sex or fantasies for relationships. You bury your real feelings and rely upon sensual feelings – which are not feelings at all. Part of seeking after sex was a search for intimacy, but without the risks and pain associated with relationships. Even though you are forgiven for your sins when you accept Jesus into your heart, the past is not completely erased. The effects of years of hiding in false relationships do not just evaporate. The walls must be torn down in order for changes to be made in your life. Therefore, it may be necessary to spend a short amount of time evaluating how your prior influences (such as neglect or abuse) and learned relational styles (including ways of coping with hurtful experiences) have affected your current style of relating with others. For instance, defense mechanisms (or the walls built around your heart) may have been designed as protective measures; yet they now block you from really experiencing life as Jesus intended. But God wants you to constantly move forward and to daily be more like Jesus. You need to learn how to be vulnerable, open and honest in your relationships. After acknowledging that in the past you had blocked off your heart or shut off some of your emotions, you can break the cycle in your present relationships so that you may more fully express your love to Jesus, your family and friends. While it may be helpful for some to have a Christian counselor as a guide through some of these steps, when you do look backwards the goal always must be to move forward. Never allow yourself to become consumed with the past or focused upon the wrongs of others. Instead, tear down the walls quickly and race forward towards the prize of having stronger and more intimate relationships with God and others. Finally, don’t rely upon the counselor to keep you on the right path or allow him to be a crutch. Jesus is the answer, period. And you are the only one responsible for seeking after and yielding to Christ in order to be healed, transformed and renewed by Him.

Conclusion

If you want to overcome sexual immorality in your life, you cannot simply make it your goal to stop watching pornography or stop masturbating. Freedom from sexual immorality is a byproduct of a right relationship with Jesus. It is a passionate heart towards God which begins a PROVEN life. The result of truly living for God daily is the basis for victory over selfishness and pride, the roots of sexual sins. Do not delay. Begin a right relationship with God today and include others in the healing process. Selfishness and pride will begin to shrink, and no longer will you feel alone, helpless or trapped in sexual immorality because you now are pursuing Jesus Christ and allowing Him to bring healing, satisfaction and meaning in life.

Make a decision today to trust God with total and permanent control over your life. Leading a victorious life will follow!

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