BREAKING BONDAGE: THE PURE HOPE OF RECOVERY

What does it take to break away from the bondage of sexual addiction that pornography promotes?  I ended my last blog entitled “Sin, Suffering, and Sexual Addiction” with these words: “While terrorism is an external threat from without, sexual addiction to pornography is a threat from within.  Like other addictions, the sin of sexual addiction and the personal damage it does can be prevented and healed.  Restoration to purity can be a reality.”  PureHope is a non-profit organization that tackles the pervasive threat of pornography and promotes recovery from addiction in a sexualized culture.  You can find them at purehope.net/.  Their insight into the steps to recovery is derived from their thirty-year history in the fight. Here’s what they say about steps to recovery* . . . 

(1) Acknowledgement and Confession – Movement to freedom begins with acknowledging that there is a problem and honest confession.  Confession to a trusted, godly friend of the same gender is a start. Such a friend can speak the truth in authentic love and be a continuing source of accountability.  They can also help with disclosing the problem to one’s spouse.

   (2) Intimacy with Christ – God is intimate and just.  He is the one who saves.  He can heal and save with power over sin’s guilt, power, and shame.  Experiencing a deepening, authentic relationship with God our Father through faith in Christ is the key to overcoming addiction.  By God’s Holy Spirit healing comes “not by might nor by (your own) power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.”  (Zechariah 4:6)

   (3) Counseling – Professional, well trained Christian counselors and Christ centered mentors who have “been there” have helped thousands out of the pit of pornography.  They are essential to rescue, restoration, and recovery from sexual addition.

(4) Community – Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)  This is not a solo act.  It can’t be done alone.  Success requires fellowship in community with others who persevere with us on the journey of transformation.

Avoiding sexual sin can be helped through internet filtering software, being aware of entertainment triggers, remembering that porn is a lie of the evil one that ultimately destroys, and being aware of the camel’s nose of seemingly innocent curiosity that can give the devil a foothold.  Avoiding the darkness of porn is not enough.  Healing takes place in the light.  The pursuit of purity means living in accord to God’s design and his will for us.  A wholesome sexual life can reflect God’s truth, mystery, beauty, and goodness.  In Christ it is possible to have a life of purity in the sexual culture in which we live.

Pure Hope offers a four part message of hope in the pursuit of a pure life: (1) Prayer cultivates intimacy with God including time in God’s Word;  (2) Understanding by acquiring knowledge promotes healthy discernment;  (3) Resolving to be healed requires perseverance in repentance and commitment; (4) Engagement with others for support and accountability makes it possible to love others in word and deed and to love and respect ourselves.

On this last point, remember God’s Word – “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor:  If either one of them falls down, one can help the other up.  But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”  -  Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

*This particular blog relied heavily on the helpful literature from Pure Hope found in Recovery in a Sexualized Culture, Pure Hope Coalition, 2013, and at http://www.expastors.com/how-many-pastors-are-addicted-to-porn-the-stats-are-surprising/

For more info, see:  purehope.net/blog    facebook.com/findpurehope      recovery@purehope.net

SIN, SUFFERING, AND SEXUAL ADDICTION

There was a time when porn was propagated in the form of a magazine wrapped

in brown paper.  Then came Adult bookstores, XXX videos, and now the internet.  Like a growing cancer roaring out of control, pornography is no longer creeping into the fabric of society.  It demands attention, thrusts itself upon the most innocent of minds, and sucks purveyors into addiction.  We live in a sexualized culture.  What some now call soft porn is normative on TV in advertisements, cable programs, and movies on Netflix.  It is remarkably easy for a seven year old playing games on an i-phone to land on a porn site in just one click.

Pornography readily becomes an addiction.  Dr. Patrick Carnes states that it is “a pathological relationship in which sexual obsession replaces people.”  Dr. Ted Roberts says that at its spiritual core, “it is about idolatry – about where we are going to find life and fulfillment.”  It is real, enslaves and results in bondage, shame, and powerlessness.  It promotes a false, ephemeral sense of intimacy, comfort, power, and excitement.  Sexual addiction starts out as an entertaining exercise in fantasy, becomes a ritual, is often acted out in behavioral engagements (strip clubs, soliciting prostitutes, multiple affairs, voyeurism and other “false intimacies”), and ultimately leads to despair, hopelessness and helplessness.  Professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Mary Ann Laden, writes “Pornography is contaminating all of our relationships between men and women.  The marriage relationship is traumatically damaged and decreased in terms of the emotional intimacy, which is actually the cornerstone of the marriage.”

What many do not realize is that pornography drives the mega-million dollar industry of sexual human trafficking enslaving men, women, boys and girls around the world.  The connection between the two are direct and real.  Rampant porn consumption fuels demand for the exploitation of women and children with as many as 300,000 youths trafficked into prostitution and pornography and

thereby exploited for profit in the U.S. alone every year.

Disturbingly, addiction to pornography is not just a problem in the public in general.  Of the 1,351 pastors that Pastor Rick Warren’s website, Pastors.com, surveyed on porn use, 54% said they had viewed internet pornography within the last year and 30% of those had visited within the last 30 days.  In the book Men’s Secret Wars, Patrick Means states that 63% of pastors surveyed confirm that they are struggling with sexual addiction or sexual compulsion including, but not limited to, the use of pornography, compulsive masturbation, or other secret sexual activity.  Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of pastors, seventy-five percent, do not make themselves accountable to anyone for their Internet use.

While terrorism is an external threat from without, sexual addiction to pornography is a threat from within.  Like other addictions, the sin of sexual addiction and the personal damage it does can be prevented and healed. Restoration to purity can be a reality.  But that’s a focus of another blog.

*Much of the information in this blog was found in Recovery in a Sexualized Culture, Pure Hope Coalition, 2013,  and at  http://www.expastors.com/how-many-pastors-are-addicted-to-porn-the-stats-are-surprising/

LIVING WATER OFFERED FROM A DIRTY CUP?

How often are pastors and lay leaders offering Living Water from a dirty cup?  The answer is “far too often.”  When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well he said to her, in contrast to the water drawn from the well and in referring to himself,

“Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water I shall give him will become to him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” 

Like the six water jars at the wedding of Cana (John 2:1-11) each holding twenty to thirty gallons, we are to be filled to the brim and transformed to bring the Living Water, Christ himself, into the lives of those who thirst.  In so doing we are means of grace, called to be filled with the very presence of God and to pass his grace and essence onto to a world of people seeking Living Water.

If sin remains and returns again and again into the life of the believer and is not dealt with, even the most serious, well-intentioned follower of Christ becomes a dirty cup in need of cleansing.  We can go through the motions of passing the water of life to others, but if we’ve sinned, if we’ve been disobedient, if we return to the old wells of carnality and sin, how can God use a dirty vessel.  He will not.

Pornography is a scourge in the lives of many.  It is no longer restricted to adult bookstores.  It dominates the internet, is readily available to children, and holds an insidious grip on many pastors and lay leaders.  It is directly tied to human trafficking.  Make no mistake.  There is great sin in the camp.  You may ask why the church is not being more effective in winning the world for Christ, why there is not a great awakening of to a movement by the Holy Spirit to transform the culture, why so many Christians seem asleep, dissipated in their faith.  Why is the preaching and teaching in so many churches ineffectual and lacking in God’s blessing and results.  The cup is dirty.  Too many, including pastors and lay leaders, are living in the deep abyss of sin with all the guilt that goes with it. God will not honor a desecrated life, a dirty cup.

We are not inevitably chained in bondage to sin and guilt of pornography or other sins (gossip, lies and deception, modern idolatry, self-centeredness rather than Christ-centeredness, and so on) that so easily beset us.   God can and will cleanse our hearts and lives and give us power over sin, but he requires obedience if we are to stay clean and pure within and filled with the Living Water of God's presence.  When temptations come, and they always will, the Holy Spirit can empower us to turn away from sin, to live life pleasing to God, and in obedience continuing in Christ. In the words of Oswald Chambers, "God does not save us from temptations.  He sustains us in the midst of them."  The Psalmist wrote (Psalm 51:10 -13) –

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and restore a right (steadfast) spirit within me.  Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore the joy of your salvation, and uphold me by your generous Spirit.  Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall be converted to you.

O Gracious Lord, Living Water, fill our cups.  We lift them up.  We will do our part and in obedience to keep our lives clean.  We will be vessels you can count on.  Because of your faithfulness, out of our hearts flow rivers of living water.  Amen.