** Are you having less sex with your spouse or stopped having sex with your spouse because you are looking at pornography?
** Are unhealthy emotions overtaking your thoughts and controlling the outcome of your actions?
** Have you tried to quit looking at porn but can’t?
If you answered yes to any one of these then you are addicted. Anytime we are addicted to something it means we are under its control and have become a slave to it. Does being addicted to porn mean you are a bad person? Not necessarily.
What it means is that you have a sexual temptation that you desire more than you desire the goodness of self brought on by God. You are allowing the sin to overwrite the natural goodness of your character. Satan is pulling at your flesh to look at porn, while principles and mores are put on hold somewhere in your mind.
Bad people remain in their addiction all the while getting worse spiritually and emotionally. Bad people don’t even try to come out of their addiction but rather revel in it and eventually get worse in their sinful behavior. Bad people don’t know they are lost, they believe they are following the right path already. Bad people are literally holding hands with Satan.
Some of you might be playing a game of tug and war because your conscience is having a difficult time dealing with your actions. This is the flesh (physical and emotional feelings) fighting with the spiritual aspects of your nature. The spiritual aspect of self knows right from wrong. Which way are you tugging? Did you fall into temptation again?
If you are having a difficult time coming out of sexual sin then you are walking in darkness. It is not too late to come out of sin and walk in the truth and the light.
In a nutshell the “truth” is God loves you and the “light” is God’s love for you. All you got to do is grasp it, understand it, and apply it into your life.
“Because he loves me, ” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.” Psalm 91:14
Have you allowed God to rescue and protect you? In the darkness our sins are hidden from our own mind but in the light we see that we have sinned and truly want to stop the sin. Maybe you are a lost sheep waiting to be found.
We remain in sin because we are walking in darkness; hence, we remain blind to the truth and do not see the light. So are you a bad person? Only you can answer that.
Submit yourselves, then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4:7-8
Even good people have gotten lured into Satan’s malicious ways but they come out from its death trap before it can take hold of them mentally and spiritually. God is asking those who are in sexual sin to wash their hands of it. You do that by letting the sin go and accepting God’s truth for your life. God wants to forgive us. That is why God allowed His son Jesus to die! Christ’s death is our forgiveness of sins.
True repentance involves a commitment not to continue in the sin. We wouldn’t be really confessing our sins to God if we planned to commit the sin over and over again, now would we? True repentance means a change of heart and mind. Our thoughts are powerful enough to change our mind from being spiritually bankrupt to being abundantly spiritual. It is so very true that we do not have to be slaves to sin but be free in God’s love.
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions… Ephesians 2:3-6
We are not condemned because we have sinned; we are condemned when we remain in the sin! Do you love your sin more than you love God? This is the question that needs to be asked.
To overcome sexual sin, you first must have a repentant heart, stop the sin, forgive your self, and ask for God’s forgiveness.
Because, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1John 1:9
God wants to forgive us!
Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. I tell you there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. Luke 15:3-7
God created sex to be a beautiful and essential ingredient of marriage but sexual sin – sex outside of the marriage relationship and other sexual sins always hurts someone. It often brings disease to our bodies and brings anguish and shame to our inner self, which deeply affects our personality, character, and lives. This is not who we are, but what we made for our selves.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality, that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5