When Paul says we are to “walk in the Spirit” he is writing to a church community, not just to random individuals reading his letter in their private corners. Keeping in step with the Spirit of God is a community activity, something we do together. 

 During anti-porn week, we identified from secular research what viewing porn does to a person.   This week presents practical advice of how to stay away from the influence of porn.

In other words, we keep in step with the Spirit by keeping in step with one another. We must live lifestyles of encouragement and accountability. 

Nothing slays the power of sin like confession. James writes, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). In confessing our sins to God we are promised forgiveness. In confessing sin to others we are made whole. 

Sin must be habitually exposed to the light of confession. This is called accountability: being honest with another trusted believer about our temptations, sins, and the state of our heart. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, after eating of the forbidden fruit, our knee-jerk reaction is to hide—to hide from God and from one another. Accountability is the willingness to habitually and regularly allow others access to your heart, your motives, your secret desires, your dark thoughts, and, of course, your sinful actions. 

How does this relate to pornography? The late psychologist, Dr. Al Cooper, believed three main factors draw people into online sexual activity:

1. Accessibility (porn is accessible easily from any Internet connection) 

2. Affordability (millions of free or very cheap images are available online) 

3. Anonymity (home computers and Smartphones have made it very easy to be secretive) 

He dubbed this the “Triple-A Engine” of Internet porn. 

These three factors work like three legs on a stool: remove just one of the legs and the stool will fall (or at least make it awkward to sit on).

The easiest leg to remove is the leg of  anonymity, or secrecy. We do this by becoming accountable to others about the time we spend online, taking away the option to hide our Internet activity. 

One way to do this is through the use of Covenant Eyes Internet Accountability. This software program monitors your home computer, work computer, or smartphone and then sends a detailed report of your Internet activity to a trusted friend, spouse, or mentor. Covenant Eyes, which pioneered this concept, also rates websites for mature content, flagging specific web searches and sites. 

Confession of sin is not the only goal of Christian community. In the face of each other’s weaknesses, we need to encourage one another to fight sin. The author of Hebrews says, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24-25). 

This can be called “responsive accountability.” When we give an account of our sins to someone else, in return, they should listen and then give an account of God’s gospel promises to us. 

In this text, God calls us to “stir up” one another—that is, to urge, to spur on, to provoke, to motivate each other—to love and good deeds. Each time we meet together we should be contemplating and praying, “God, show me how I can really motivate my friend to resist temptation and instead love You and others wholeheartedly.” We are to have a hardcore intentionality and thoughtfulness in our friendships. 

Like the embers of a red-hot fire, we stir up the fire not by adding heat to it, but rather by exposing the glowing embers to the air, helping to bring out of the embers the energy that is in them already. If the Spirit of God is in us, He has already planted His holy desires into our hearts. He has etched his law on our hearts (Jer. 31:33-34; Ez. 36:25-27). But He has also placed us in the family of the church, among trusted friends who are also filled with His Spirit, in order that we might stir up in each other what God has already put in us.

This post is taken from the booklet, YOUR BRAIN ON PORN by Luke Gilkerson.  The booklet can be found at:  http://www.covenanteyes.com/brain-ebook/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

For those who have been entrenched in pornography, how do we reverse these mind-warping effects? How do we renew our minds (Rom. 12:1-2)? 

During anti-porn week, we identified from secular research what viewing porn does to a person.  

This week presents practical advice of how to stay away from the influence of porn.

The Bible does not describe us merely as wayward, broken, and needing a “moral boost” but as those who are dead in sin (Eph. 2:1). Dead men and women do not need reform: they need resurrection. 

For the follower of Christ, the ultimate goal is not merely “quitting pornography,” but is something far richer and more comprehensive. If merely modifying behavior was the most important thing, there are any number of psychological tips and tricks one can use. But for the Christian, as it should be for all people, the goal is not merely recovering from pornography, but being remade by God Himself into the image of the perfect Man, Jesus Christ. 

This is the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Just as sure as pornography stirs up lustful cravings in us, the Holy Spirit is a source of new, holy cravings. Romans 8 tells us all true Christians have the Spirit of Christ within them (v.9). Galatians 5 says we are given the “desires of the Spirit” (v.17), and when we keep in step with these desires (v.16) the lusts of the flesh (leading to sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality) will not have their way in us. 

This is what the old Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection.” Laws, rules, and regulations can only tell us what is bad and why it is bad, but they do not change our desire for sinful things. These sinful longings can only be conquered by implanting new “affections,” new cravings, that counter our sinful cravings. This is what the Spirit does in us: He shares His own desires with us, changing us from the inside out. 

Paul tells us we must “keep in step” with the desires of the Spirit with us (Galatians 5:16). 

How do we do this?   Come back tomorrow for hope.

This post is taken from the booklet, YOUR BRAIN ON PORN by Luke Gilkerson.  The booklet can be found at:  http://www.covenanteyes.com/brain-ebook/


BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Last week was anti-porn week here at Ironstrikes.  I hope that you were able to read about the five topics:

1.  Porn and sexual satisfaction
2.  Porn and fake relationships
3.  Porn and women
4.  Porn and cruelty
5.  Porn is insidious

Readers have asked about the Zillman-Bryant study from which these five posts were taken.  In the early 1980s, Dr. Doll Zillmann of Indiana University and Dr. Jennings Bryant of the University of Alabama wondered whether continued exposure to video pornography had any impact on people's sexual beliefs and their attitudes towards women.  For their experiment, 80 male and 80 female college-age participants were divided into three subgroups, and each group was shown 4 hours and 48 minutes of media.  

1.  The first group, the “Massive Exposure Group,” was shown 36 non-violent pornographic films over a six-week period. 

2.  The second group, the “Intermediate Exposure Group,” was exposed to 18 pornographic films and 18 regular films over a six-week period. 

3.  The third (control) group, the “No Exposure Group,” was shown 36 non-pornographic movies over a six--week period

You may be saying, "that is an old study, what relevance does it have to today?"

At a 2011 conference, Dr. Mary Anne Layden commented about Zillmann and Bryant’s 25-year-old research. “When this study was done, what was called the ‘Massive Exposure Group" -- seeing five hours of porn over  a six-week period -- "I now call that the Friday Afternoon Group."

Her statement is far from an exaggeration.  A recent survey of 29,000 people at North American universities, shows 51% of men and 16% of women spend up to five hours per week online for sexual purposes, and another 11% of men spend anywhere from five to twenty  hours per week. What used to be “massive” exposure is now common practice.

Furthermore, the Internet has not only increased the public’s exposure to porn, but has also changed the way it is consumed. Dr. Jill Manning believes Zillmann and Bryant’s findings have greater applicability in the modern age because Internet porn tends to be more interactive and consumer-driven. Viewers can select exactly who and what they want to see, custom-tailored to their greatest specifications.

This week, I will be giving four solid tips in helping to curb your vulnerability to porn.

This post is taken from the booklet, YOUR BRAIN ON PORN by Luke Gilkerson.  The booklet can be found at:  http://www.covenanteyes.com/brain-ebook/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Pornography is tearing apart the fabric of our society. You may think this is an overstatement. After reading,“The Social Costs of Pornography” by the Witherspoon Institute, I think it may be an understatement.

In 2008, the Witherspoon Institute sponsored the first multidisciplinary exploration of the social costs of pornography. Scholars from various fields including philosophy, psychology, and medicine were included in the forum. Every major shade of religious belief was represented, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, agnosticism, and atheism. And both the left and right in American politics were present. They all agreed that there is a substantial multidimensional, empirical record of the harms pornography brings to society. Obviously, such agreement is rare.

Today’s pornography is different from any in the past in three ways. (1) Accessibility.  The Internet has made porn ubiquitous. (2) Quality. Today’s porn is much more hardcore. (3) Consumption. Porn consumption has increased radically with the advent of the Internet. 69% of men and 10% of women report viewing pornography more than once a month. 87% of men admit using it in the past year. The researchers conclude, “In sum, there is evidence that more people—children, adolescents, and adults—are consuming pornography—sporadically, inadvertently, or chronically—than every before” (15).

How does pornography actually harm people? The researchers list a plethora of ways. Each of these points is supported with empirical evidence in the report. Keep in mind that these are objective facts about pornographic consumption, not my subjective opinions.

·      Those who view pornography overestimate how frequently certain sexual acts are actually practiced, which increases one’s willingness to do unconscionable things (18).

·      Porn viewers physically map their brains based on the images they see. Pornographic consumption re-maps the physical structure of the brain (19).

·      Many men who view porn lose the ability to relate to or be close to women (20).

·      Porn viewers become de-sensitized to the barrage of imagery, and as a result, child pornography and violent pornographic images often lose their ability to shock and disgust (20).

·      Women often report distress and harm when discovering that their husbands view porn. They typically feel betrayal, loss, mistrust, devastation, and anger as a result of their partner’s behavior.

·      Porn users have an increased likelihood of divorce and family break-up (23-24).

·      Those who had an extramarital affair were three times more likely to have used Internet pornography than those who had not.

·      Porn leads men to place less value on marital fidelity and more value on casual sex (24).

·      Therapists report seeing fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys addicted to porn (29).

·      An Italian study reported that boys who view porn were more likely to report having sexually harassed a peer or having forced someone to have sex (30).

·      Adolescent girls who report using pornography are more likely to report being victims of passive violence such as sexual harassment and rape (31).

·      Today’s consumption of pornography encourages sexual exploitation such as trafficking (33).

·      Adolescents who view pornography are more likely to view women as sexual objects (35).

·      Porn consumption raises the risk of sexually risky behavior (35).

·      Men who use pornography are less attractive to potential female partners (37).

·      Exposure to pornography decreases sexual satisfaction with one’s partner for both men and women (38).

·      Chronic pornography use is associated with depression and unhappiness (38).

·      Users often report disgust and shame at finding themselves stimulated by images that would have once repulsed (39).

What do we do? For starters, can you help spread the word about the dangers of pornography? Please consider getting a copy of the report, “The Social Costs of Pornography,” and study it. Talk to your friends about it. Share it with your family and church. Blog about it. Or forward this blog to as many people as you can. There needs to be a renewed conversation about how pornography is damaging this generation. We can no longer ignore the most dangerous health hazard to this generation. Our kids deserve better.

This post was written by Sean McDowell.  The original post can be found here:  http://www.conversantlife.com/morality/the-social-costs-of-pornography

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Dreams are odd.  In dreams we can fly, shape shift, transmogrify, meet people that we admire and also be turned on sexually.   There is also a psychological technique called "lucid dreaming" where one learns the techniques to manipulate dreams.

Men, when they are teens, experience "wet dreams" that are usually intensely sexual.  So, men have a history from early in their lives of connecting dreams to sexual arousal.  Many of the men that I counsel tell me that their dreams often trigger their sexual acting out.  

How does one handle sexual dreams?  Often they are not under our conscious control.  So, are we responsible for our dreams?  Are we responsible for our acting out sexually when aroused by a dream?  How does one stay pure, even while sleeping?

You are VERY responsible if you practice lucid dreaming.  If you purposely manipulate your dreams, then you will be accountable for such.  

However, there are things that one can do to try and keep one's dreams from turning too sexual:

1.  Pay attention to what you think about while you are falling asleep.  
2.  Memorize scripture that you can repeat in your mind while falling asleep.  Philippians 4:8 is a scripture that is made for just such an occasion.  Proverbs 4:23 and Malachi 2:15  are excellent as well.
3.  Pray while you are falling asleep.  This is a great time to talk to God.
4.  In your prayer, ask God to protect your mind while you sleep.  God can do that, if you learn to count on His faithfulness.
5.  Pay attention to what you watch on TV, in the theatre and on the internet, especially right before you go to sleep.  You may have to take the TV out of your bedroom.  Dreams often are an amalgamation of our daily experiences. 
6.  If you work with a professional counselor, you can dissect your dreams to help understand them a little bit.  Even though a dream may be sexual, the core of the dream may also be something that y0u need to confront in yourself.

If you wake up sexually aroused from a dream, what can you do to prevent acting out?

1.  Urinate.  Many times an erection is simply the result of a full bladder.
2.  Read something non-sexual.  Opening God's Word and talking to God about what you are physically feeling is way of strengthening your relationship with HIm and beating temptation.
3.  Call a member of your accountability group.
4.  Take a cold shower.
5.  Stay away from TV and the Internet while you are aroused.
6.  Do not recreate the dream in your mind.  Distract yourself by thinking in a pure manner.

So, even though your dreams are often not under your conscious control, you can control what you watch and think throughout the day.  God is faithful.  If you ask Him for His assistance in this area, He will help.  Also, arousal does not mean that you have to do something sexual.  You can choose to act out or you can choose not to act out.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

A new study by Patrick F. Fagan examines the effects of pornography on individuals, marriage, family and community. Fagan is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion at the Family Research Council. He specializes in examining the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community, and America's social problems. This study is important for everyone to read as it demonstrates that it has damaging effects on individuals and families. In the summary Fagan explains,

Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual's concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability. 

Social scientists, clinical psychologists, and biologists have begun to clarify some of the social and psychological effects, and neurologists are beginning to delineate the biological mechanisms through which pornography produces its powerful negative effects.Some of the findings inside the study include:

• Pornography is addictive, and neuroscientists are beginning to map the biological substrate of this addiction.
• Users tend to become desensitized to the type of pornography they use, become bored with it, and then seek more perverse forms of pornography.
• Married men who are involved in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations and less emotionally attached to their wives. Wives notice and are upset by the difference.
• Pornography use is a pathway to infidelity and divorce, and is frequently a major factor in these family disasters.
• Among couples affected by one spouse's addiction, two-thirds experience a loss of interest in sexual intercourse.
• Many adolescents who view pornography initially feel shame, diminished self-confidence, and sexual uncertainty, but these feelings quickly shift to unadulterated enjoyment with regular viewing.
• The main defenses against pornography are close family life, a good marriage and good relations between parents and children, coupled with deliberate parental monitoring of Internet use. Traditionally, government has kept a tight lid on sexual traffic and businesses, but in matters of pornography that has waned almost completely, except where child pornography is concerned. Given the massive, deleterious individual, marital, family, and social effects of pornography, it is time for citizens, communities, and government to reconsider their laissez-faire approach.

This post was written by Ed Stetzer.  The original post can be found here:
http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-blogs/139251-the_effects_of_pornography.html/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

This post is preceded by "building monogamy" which should be read before this post as they went together when originally posted.  

Put simply, a direct correlation can be made between physical connection for a man and mental connection for a woman. The truth of this really hit home when I read Shaunti Feldhahn’s For Women Only. 

In her attempt to explain to women the significance of sex for men, she wrote,

"For your husband, sex is more than just a physical need. Lack of sex is as emotionally serious to him as, say, his sudden silence would be to you, were he simply to stop communicating with you. It is just as wounding to him, just as much a legitimate grievance—and just as dangerous to your marriage."

This explains a lot! What the body is to a man, the mind is to a woman. Women treasure mental intimacy like men prize physical intimacy. And just like men expect women to keep their bodies exclusively for them, women expect their men to do the same with their minds.

I am just now beginning to understand what women mean when they say the brain is a sex organ. And I am just now recognizing why a wife feels so betrayed when her husband allows pornography to fondle his mind. She is deeply wounded on at least two levels.

First, pornography violates a wife’s exclusive domain.Please bear with me as I illustrate the significance of this truth. My purpose is to help men appreciate the anguish women often experience, not to be offensive.

If you are a man, imagine your wife walking through a room full of men. They turn to notice her. Many leer. One reaches out and begins fondling intimate parts of her body. What do you hope she will do?

Every man hopes his wife will consider her body the exclusive domain of her husband, reserved for him alone—his eyes, his hands, his enjoyment—granting access to no other person. He hopes she will be offended, utterly outraged when touched by someone other than her husband. He hopes she will slap the violator’s hand away and then move quickly toward the exit. Every man expects his wife to guard her body from interloping hands, whether he’s present or not.

Now imagine the unthinkable. In response to the man touching her body, she pauses and smiles at him as he continues to grope. Another man sees an opportunity and touches another part of her. She doesn’t respond in kind, but she doesn’t rush for the door, either. In fact, she appears to enjoy the attention.

How do you feel right now?

This is how a woman feels when her husband allows sensual images to grope his mind, her exclusive domain.

Now imagine the additional pain you would experience if, after confronting your wife’s behavior, she justified or rationalized or minimized the incident. Oh, honey, it was harmless. I didn’t do anything in return. Besides, God made me an attractive woman; I can’t help what men try to do. The world is full of men who will try to touch me, should I lock myself away and avoid the whole world? You’re the only one for me, really. That incident didn’t mean anything!

There’s a lot of truth in what she says. She can’t help what a world full of men think or even try to do. Locking herself away isn’t a realistic answer. Perhaps to her it did mean nothing. But none of that is important. The facts are these: It meant something to you; she should care about that. She can’t control the actions of others; however, she can guard her response. She can’t stop men from leering, but she can avoid risky environments. Someday a man might try to touch her inappropriately, but she can slap his hand away and remove herself from the situation.

Sensual images seem less significant, less threatening to men. But not to women. A wife needs to know—not merely by her husband’s words, but by his behavior—that his mind is completely devoted to her. She understands that the world will continue to assault men with sensual images; nevertheless, she wants—no, she needs her man to protect and preserve what belongs to her.

Second, pornography destroys the foundation upon which a wife builds security.Based on more than twenty years of research and innumerable hours in couples’ therapy, Willard Harley reduced the needs of women to a single word: security.

“A sense of security is the bright golden thread woven through all of a woman’s five basic needs. If a husband does not keep up honest and open communication with his wife, he undermines her trust and eventually destroys her security.”

Pornography is almost always a secret sin, the core element of a hidden other life. When a woman discovers that her husband has been devoting portions of his mind to sexually gratifying images and then closing off those areas to her, the revelation shakes her world to its very foundation. She naturally begins to wonder what other terrible secrets occupy the mind she thought she knew so well. And if she had been so mistaken about knowing her man’s mind, how can she be certain of anything else? Furthermore, his dishonesty destroys her trust, the essential basis of any relationship.

Ironically, when men discover they are victims of adultery, they frequently describe similar thoughts.

While men struggle to understand why women place pornography in the same category with adultery, we must try; or, at the very least, accept the testimony of women at face value. For women, whose intimacy rests upon a foundation of mental connection, the effect of pornography on marriage is very much the same as outright adultery. It destroys intimacy. It betrays trust. And, even when undiscovered, viewing pornography creates emotional distance. In the end, women suffer the same physical, psychological, and spiritual anguish men experience as a result of adultery.

Men, let us always remember that the mind we protect is not ours alone. When we allow an enemy to enter, our mate suffers greater injury than we realize. Therefore, guard your heart with all diligence. Your heart is more than the wellspring of your own life; it is also her fortress.

This post was written by Mark Gaither.  For the original post complete with comments, go to:  http://www.covenanteyes.com/2009/07/27/is-porn-the-same-as-adultery/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN

This is the follow-up to our anonymous blogger from yesterday.  

Sex was the fix for everything, whether it was with my wife, or some fantasy girl. Bored? Sex. Lonely? Sex. Angry? Sex. Tired? Sex. Sad? Sex. Happy? Sex. You get the idea. I was an addict. I felt shame for looking at porn. The shame perpetuated my loneliness and depression. So, I medicated those feelings with more porn. And round and round I went. It was sick. My desires became more and more deviant. I needed more and more. Even though there were often weeks and months between acting out, and I always prayed it would be the last time, it never was. I went to counseling again. I took pills for depression again. I got worse and worse again. This time it would get worse than ever. I felt no love for my wife. I just wanted to be married to some perfect woman that only existed in my deluded mind. Our marriage was falling apart and it was my fault. I wanted to die. The only thing that kept me alive was the fear of hell. I didn’t know if suicide would get you placed in the express lane for the lake of fire, but I wasn’t willing to gamble on that one.

However, I did get close to death once. I’m not entirely sure whether I was really trying to kill myself, or whether I was just crying out for help. But, for the reasons already given I tend to go with the latter. So, I harmed myself just enough to get me placed in a psychiatric ward, but not enough to get me six feet under. It was the loneliest, most agonizing 3 weeks of my life. I still wanted to die, but I feared that after death even greater pain would be waiting that I could never escape. My wife stayed at home alone for 3 weeks. Crying out to God, dying inside, weeping, caving in. I did that to her. I have to live with that. I hurt her severely. No one has loved me through so much pain as she as, other than Jesus Christ, Himself.

It was far from over after I got out. I thought about death more at that time than before I was admitted. I went through an intensive 6 week program for sexual addiction and depression. It kept me alive by giving me a place to be when all I wanted was to be dead. I have no excuses - no one to point a finger at. “Guard your eyes”, my mother said. But, I didn’t listen and people got hurt. I wish that had been the end of it. I wish I had come to my senses and left the old man lying dead in a ditch. But instead I invited him back from time to time, just as I always had. Dogs return to their vomit. Apparently,  addicts do, too. Then one day it hit me: This is psychotic. I cried out to God that it would be the last time. I prayed everyday that God would not lead me into temptation, but deliver me from evil. And He did, and He has, and He is. Though the intensity of the prayer has waned, I still very regularly ask God to keep me from that filth. It’s pure poison for the soul. Oh God, how I wish I had understood how vile it was, but I was a fool and I received the due penalty for my sin. The wages of sin is death. My body could have died, and my heart and soul did. but praise God, My savior makes all things new! 

I am the man who stands in the temple beating his chest saying: “God have mercy on me, a sinner!” God did not have to save me from myself. He didn’t have to give me grace upon grace upon grace. He didn’t have to die so that I could live despite the vile, despicable things I did. My wife had every reason to throw in the towel. In a sense, I was having multiple affairs with women I had never even met, in pictures and on websites. Somebody’s daughter. Somebody’s sister. Somebody’s mother. Somebody’s wife. Sick. Sick. Sick. Sin destroys and does so very efficiently. 

I owe everything to God. I owe a lifetime of love and faithfulness to my wife. I owe every person a debt of love, mercy, and grace. That is what was given to me. That is what I am expected to give to others as well. Heaven forbid I turn around and refuse to forgive others their debts after all that was forgiven on my account. I pray that God will help me to offer up myself to Him. The old man must stay dead. I couldn’t bear for him to come around again. By the grace of God I will continue to be renewed my the transforming of my mind so that not only that aspect of my life will be new, but that God would shine His Light in every dark crevice of my soul and weed out every last remnant of wickedness and narcissism, so that I would be wholly His and wholly faithful as a husband to my wife. 

Dear God, let it be so!

Anonymous will be reading your comments.  Feel free to to tell him what you think of his honesty.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Does porn really not satisfy?  I think many people would argue that it actually does satisfy and that is why they dig it.  So maybe we are into a case of semantics here.  What does it mean to be satisfied?  I have had a couple of friends tell me that they would look at porn for
8 hours at a time without a break for days in a row.  It was a full time job for them.  

Would you say that they were satisfied?

Satisfaction is a completion.  When a debt is fully paid we say it is satisfied.  When we eat a meal and are full, we say we are satisfied.  Satisfaction is closely related to contentment.  We are satiated, our content is full.  I don’t know about you but I would describe my 34 year addiction to porn as a state of discontentment.  I was not satisfied with anything.  Nothing filled me.  I was always looking for something else, whether it was a different kind of porn, a different look, a different car, a different job, and different friends, whatever.  When I found porn that I liked, I wanted more.  I was never satisfied.

So why is porn like drinking seawater to slake our thirst?  What we are looking for is for someone to love us, to want us, to say that we are the man and really mean it.  We are looking for relationship.  We are looking for a god that will meet these very real needs we have to be valued, acknowledged, respected, and desired.  Porn is a lie.  Porn says, “I love you, I want you, you are the man” but we know it is a lie because those people don’t even know us.  They only do what they do to get something from us, our money.  We sacrifice everything to those gods, our time, our money, our families, our jobs, our health, and our mental well-being and they don’t deliver on their promise.  We keep on sacrificing hoping that someday they will come through and we will be satisfied, content, and whole.

Being an engineer, I always come back to design.  We are designed to be completed in real relationships with real people.  The only god whose opinion of us that matters is the Creator God and He has already said, “I love you” in the most dramatic and authentic way that is ever possible, by taking on human flesh and dying on a cross to pay our sin debt so we can be in relationship with Him.  Porn tears us away from real relationships with real people, just ask my friend who thought porn would add spice to his marriage but lost his marriage instead.

When God instructed us to have no other gods before Him, to love Him with our whole being, and to love other people as we love ourselves, He was not being a selfish idiot.  He designed us to be complete when we are in relationship with Him and with our fellow human beings.  I know, I am repeating myself.  I want you to get this.  In my relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ is where I have found satisfaction and contentment.  That is what I want for you.

This post was written by Brian McGuinness.  The original post with comments can be found at: 
http://www.xxxchurch.com/men/why-porn-does-not-satisfy.html

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

“See? Told ya. Only one way to kill a werewolf.”  – Rudy from The Monster Squad

I was five when I saw my first PG-13 movie.  For some reason the older kid in the neighborhood out of his own good graces invited my juvenile self and a buddy over to watch The Monster Squad.  It’s a super dated teen monster movie from the 80’s.  A surprising fact, it never won an Oscar.  I know, I couldn’t believe it either.  Anyway, onto the plot:  A band of buddies find themselves battling a horde of monsters with Dracula as the ringleader in order to save the world…kinda like Goonies but with mummies and vampires.  The genius of the film (if I can use such a phrase) is in the scenes where the kids are determining what weapons are appropriate for which monster.  They spend time arguing about the necessary accoutrements for killing a vampire and so on.  On one occasion, a kid named Rudy proves himself right by successfully taking out the werewolf with a silver bullet and then exclaiming, “See? Told ya. Only one way to kill a werewolf.”  Now, how in the world am I planning a segue from a terrible 80’s B-movie to porn?  Well, for those who didn’t know, this blog is a very belated ‘part 2’ of my previous blog, “All In the Family:  Lust and Her Ugly Cousins”.  In that post I sought to resource you with practical ways to experience freedom from lust’s stronghold.  But practicum does us no good if we don’t know the type of monster we’re dealing with.  You can’t really talk garlic and crucifixes until you’ve decided it’s a vampire and not a werewolf in your living room (trying to stay relevant for all my Twilight readers J).  So I want to talk ‘big picture’ in this blog.  What’s really at the heart of our battle with lust?  Just what sort of monster are we dealing with here?

For a while I thought about sin, and in particular my porn addiction, as a violation of God’s law, the 10 Commandments.  I was committing various crimes against God’s standard and thereby indicted myself before a holy God.  My sin, my monster was primarily an activity-based issue.  Of course, the point of this blog is not to deny that.  The Bible is profoundly clear that our sins are activities of the mind and body against God’s perfect standard, His Law.  But I believe there to be an even more profound lens through which we can understand the monster of sin and in this case, lust:  Sin is not just a violation of Law, it is a violation of appetite.

The Old Testament is one giant train wreck of sin.  We get two good chapters and then the earth goes to pot.  I don’t just mean Adam and Eve.  I don’t just mean those pagan nations that all end in the suffix –ite, either.  I mean the nation for which God selected for Himself, Israel.  It took about 34 seconds after God led them out of slavery in Egypt for them to start grumbling against Moses and God because they were hungry.  Then you arrive at the 10 Commandments scene.  Moses comes down from the mountain, having been with God for 40 days receiving His Law to find the nation having a giant orgy and worshipping a bunch of earrings they melted down to look like a cow.  Fast forward to the years of the Kings.  These kings are charged with leading the people of God into obedience of God’s statutes.  They were to be models to the people of grace and servant-hood.  Instead, they were some of the biggest criminals of all:  erecting statues to false gods, practicing unspeakable sexual immorality, some kings even sacrificed their own children to idols by burning them alive.  Greed, murder, deception, idolatry, adultery, theft and pride riddled this people.  And then, we arrive at the Prophets, where God spells out His indictment against this vile nation.  Jeremiah, the weeping Prophet, doesn’t get two chapters into his book before he lays before the people what God believes to be their crimes.  I was shocked by what I read.  I expected a laundry list and what I got instead was two charges.

“My people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.”  (Jeremiah 2:13)

Wow.  All the things God could have said, and He chose instead to boil their crimes down to two things:  They forsook God, the fountain of Living water.  And They tried to drink from wells that could not satisfy them.

Maybe we’ve struggled so long under lust without experiencing real freedom because we didn’t understand what type of monster it was.  We thought we could beat it with silver bullets but we didn’t realize we were battling Dracula, not the Wolfman.  We’ve attacked lust by trying to choke it out with willpower, self-denial and the like, but we haven’t considered that maybe the solution is found in quenching our thirst in Jesus, the fountain of living water.  Our monster is one of appetite, and to beat it we must satisfy our appetites in the person of Christ.  This is the solution.  This is the only solution.  Our wooden stake in the heart of sin.

Jesus once said to a crowd of people “I am the bread of life;  He who comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” (John 6:35)  I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Jesus is telling the truth.  He really can satisfy us in such a profound way that our hunger for sin will wilt away.  There is a way to not hunger and thirst for lustful images by feasting on the Satisfier, Jesus.  Take Him at His word.  Sit with Him daily.  Read the Scriptures and allow Him to leap off the pages at you.  Speak to Him.  Listen to Him.  Invite Him to fill your soul with water that quenches and bread that fills.  Maybe for the first time in your life, you won’t need to fear your monster anymore.

This is a reprint from a blog post written by Christian song writer and performer, Jimmy Needham.  For the original post go to:  http://www.jimmyneedham.com/2012/07/what-monster-movies-and-porn-have-in-common/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.