QUESTION:
I am Christian who is fighting a porn addiction.
I have to turn off Safari on my phone to make sure I don’t come to temptation but sometimes, if I keep my Safari on, temptation occurs.
One day I want to be able to surf the Internet without thinking about looking at porn.
Can you help me in some way?
ANSWER:
Wanting to be able to surf the internet without thinking about porn is a good and useful goal, though it’s pretty hard to deliberately NOT to think about something. Try NOT to think about a chicken. The very effort put into not thinking about something, makes that thing impossible to ignore. The only way we can NOT think about something, is if we are thinking about something else instead. Put your efforts into the right things to think about. As Paul writes in Philippians 4:8, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.â€
Also, it may not be possible at times NOT to think about porn when you go to the internet – but you can think RIGHTLY about porn. Does God think about porn? I would say he does. Porn breaks his heart. God is angry about the people who are used in porn and the way porn lies about people and about sex. God is grieved by the lives that are destroyed and the people trapped in the porn industry. It’s not that God does not think about porn. He just thinks rightly about it. If you are finding it impossible to stop thinking about porn, work on having the same heart and mind as God, and if you must think about porn, at least think about it rightly.
Lastly, remember that the goal of the Christian life is not about how you relate to porn or any other sin. That is important, but the focus is not your relationship with porn, but your relationship with Christ. Consider Hebrews 12:1-2… “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.†Sin entangles us and makes it difficult to run the race. We should “throw it offâ€, but that is not a goal in itself. Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. He is the one we must keep our eyes fixed on. The race of faith is not just one that we are running away from sin, it is primarily one that we are running towards Jesus. Sin will always be there, ready to tangle us up, but the race is all about Jesus. Make sure in all your efforts to battle this sin, you keep that focus, and remember that Jesus is the one who pioneered your faith and he will be the one to perfect it.
