How I did it: One holiday, I just became completely broken and helpless and started calling out to God each day for help, waking up early in the morning to pray every day asking for mercy and help. He then forged a habit of this, and disciplined Bible study and as I focused on him the desire to self-gratify was consumed. The support of friends was massively helpful too. This is the end of a seven year long on/off addiction. It will resume if I ever stop being dependent on God. I wrote an article about the whole experience. See below. 

Lessons & tips:
The Struggle to Cease Struggling
Overcoming
the habit of self-gratification



"Return,
O faithless children,
I will heal
your faithlessness."
-Jeremiah
3:22



"The
solution to the problem of life is to be found in the disappearance
of the problem."
-Wittgenstein

SUMMARY:
DON'T FIGHT SIN, FIGHT TO BE INTIMATE WITH JESUS.


This article
is for Christian boys and men who struggle with the sin of lust and
the masturbation that often goes with it. It was written by someone
who struggled with these things for many years, and is still feeling
some of the consequences, and could fall back at any time if he ever
decided to take his eyes off of Jesus Christ. It treats its reader
with the assumption that he is a male, a believer in Jesus Christ and
someone who, deep down, wants to be rid of this specific sin.


1. Why?
If you
are like me there have been many times when you have wondered "why?"
How is that you could have fallen into this trap so many times? Why
do you keep returning to your vomit like a sick dog (Proverbs 26:11)?
The first basic thing we must acknowledge is that our sin is
rebellion against our Creator. The Bible puts this in no uncertain
terms. Here's one example of a very great many: "I said to them,
each of you, get rid of the vile images you have set your eyes on,
and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the LORD
your God. But they rebelled against me and would not listen to me;
they did not get rid of the vile images they had set their eyes on,
nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt." (Ezekiel 20: 7) We
need to repent of this rebellion, to turn back, to "return to
the LORD with [our] whole hearts"(Joel 2:12). But secondly, we
need to acknowledge that God has allowed us to rebel against him for
a purpose. He works all things,
not just some things, together for the good of those who love him
(Romans 8:28). It is good to have in mind the lessons we have learned
because of our recurrent sin so as to know what we are working
towards. For this reason, the two practical sections in this article,
3 and 4, deal with ways of turning to the LORD and with reflections
on how our lives should look different if we are
turning to the LORD.
2. The
crux of the matter - Holiness
Holiness.
This is what it all comes down to. All we need is to be holy as he is
holy. Not to have the right theological understanding of the word
'holy', or to feel holy, but to actually be
holy, which is infinitely harder. If we are holy, we won't turn away
from God to feed our own limitless selfish desires. It's as simple as
that. Everything in this article is geared up towards holiness, is
asking 'How is it that we can be holy'? Elaborate. What is the
problem? The problem is that we are basically selfish. We naturally
tend towards seeking our own pleasure and satisfaction, in the
easiest and most immediate manner in which we can get it, so when we
are tempted, we masturbate, which in the short term is enjoyable. And
also, most of the time we only want to be free from a recurrent sin
for own selfish satisfaction anyway: We want a clear conscience, or
better self-confidence, or to get something that our sin stands in
the way of. But if we are only seeking to be holy for selfish motive
then the very second
we are really tempted, we will act in accordance with this selfish
motive and choose the path that will give us immediate gratification.
Each time we do this, as with every other instance we give into
temptation, we prove the proverbs "those who love pleasure will
suffer want"(Prov 21:17) and "The eye is not satisfied with
seeing nor the ear filled with hearing."(Ecc. 1:8b) to be true.
It ends in catastrophe. We realise we may have had a short stab of
fleeting pleasure, but it evaporates all of a sudden and we realise
our rebellion, and we feel guilty because we have not been living in
the way we are designed to live. If we do not properly return to God
in repentance and receive his grace, then the only thing that
distracts us from this guilt and malaise is another short stab of
momentary pleasure, and a vicious cycle begins that can last for
years. But if even our desire to break this cycle is itself steeped
in selfishness, how can we ever hope to break it at all? What is the
solution? The solution to the cycle of sin is here, in holiness, in
being holy. Where is the place in which our eyes are lifted off of
ourselves, but amazingly where we also find ourselves most deeply
satisfied? In holiness. "Holiness" does not just mean
"separated from sin". That is a meaning of the word, but it
is a secondary one. If one examines the Hebrew word qadosh
or he Greek word hagios
properly, one discovers the primary meaning, "devoted". God
was holy even before he created the sinful universe, because he is
devoted within himself, being three in one. Where is the place in
which our eyes are lifted off of ourselves, but paradoxically where
we also find ourselves most satisfied? In burning devotion to God.
For it is better to spend just one day in his courts than a thousand
elsewhere(Ps 84:10), and "at his right hand are pleasures for
evermore"(Ps 16:11). But note this is a different kind of
pleasure, of satisfaction. For one, it lasts. It is deeper, it is
slow-release, not coming in quick bursts, and involves the whole of
our being, not just our flesh. It is also never a prime-product, only
a by-product. When we seek it first we don't get it, when we seek God
first, we get it(Ps 37:4). It may also come with intense suffering.
We may find that in our flesh we suffer greatly but in our spirits we
are able to rejoice with unspeakable joy in holiness before the
throne of God. We need this kind of holiness, not temporary
self-manufactured, counterfeit holiness. How do we get this? Next
section.
3. When
you are rid of this sin, what will have achieved this?


"Come,
let us return to the LORD."
-Hosea 6:1



"If by
the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live"
-Romans 8:13



"put on
the Lord Jesus Christ, make no provision for the flesh, to gratify
its desires."
-Romans
13:14



"Live
by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh."
-Galatians
5:16

The
first thing to realise is that this is the wrong question. Nothing
can rid us of this sin, least of all ourselves. The correct question
is therefore not 'what'? but 'who'? And there is only one answer:
Christ. Here is the basic principle of this article, which I put
right at the start: DON'T FIGHT SIN,
FIGHT TO BE INTIMATE WITH JESUS. If the
phrase “intimate with Jesus” jars with you, then that is already
an indicator that something is up (and it may go in and out of season
with us as we go up and down in our walk -what a challenge: Are you
in love with Jesus?). It is only in turning to Christ and receiving
strength from him, following the lead of the Holy Spirit, knowing the
Father's love, rather than battling temptation in our own strength,
that we can be rid of our sin. This is relatively easy to apprehend
intellectually. Far more difficult is allowing this truth to sink
into one's soul. We need Jesus to kill us. We need to be totally dead
to ourselves, totally broken to Jesus so he can work through us. This
is the lesson of a lifetime, and in no way is it confined to our
particular vice. For this reason most of the following advice is
pretty well applicable to any sort of recurrent sin. Battling a
recurrent sin brings us right to the edge of ourselves, we discover
that not even our motive for purity comes from us. We need to get it.
Even repentance is a gift, since every good thing is from him and
repentance is surely good. That's another key one I had to learn and
am still learning and will go on learning: REPENTANCE
IS A GIFT. All we have to do is
recognise our own brokenness and worthlessness and uselessness and
cry out to God, asking him for the gift of repentance. We can't
manufacture a repentant heart ourselves, we have to ask God to create
one in us (Psalm 51, Psalm 107). As you and I have discovered many
times, it's no use resolving to stop sinning. Useless. Won't work.
But if we resolve to put our faces in the dirt and weep, if we
resolve to sit in sackcloth and ashes, if we resolve to affirm our
total worthlessness and bow our heads in desperate prayer each day,
then something might just happen. If we lower ourselves before him he
will lift us up (Matthew 23:18). When we declare our need of him to
him in brokenness he will meet us and set us on fire with love. WHEN
WE DECLARE OUR NEED FOR HIM HE WILL FILL US WITH HIS LOVE.
And he will make us holy as he is holy.


How can we
fight to be intimate with God?

(A)
Discipline


"God
did not give us a spirit of timidity but a Spirit of power and of
love and of self-discipline."
-2 Timothy
1:7

Here
is a paradox: There is nothing we can do to free ourselves, so how is
that we can be freed? After years of thinking about this, I have
concluded that the most active thing we can positively do in
"fighting" sin is to affirm
our own weakness,
our own total powerlessness, and turn to
Christ. THE
BIGGEST WEAPON YOU HAVE IS YOUR OWN WEAKNESS.
Why? Because God's power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cornthians
12). When you realise your own weakness you turn to the one who is
strength, so stuff happens. Why has God got it set up this way? I
have no idea, his ways are higher than our ways, but here's a clue:
Why do you think POWER and LOVE go together, as in the 2 Timothy
verse above? The place of power is the place of love. An isolated
island-man living out of his own resources is worthless. But a man
dependent on God is in love is powerful, or, more properly,
power-filled. Of course the place of weakness is the place of power!
Because out of weakness we turn, we turn towards God and disocover
what he has for us, so THE PLACE OF
WEAKNESS IS A PLACE OF LOVING DEVOTION.
We must “will not to depend on our own will”. What activities
allow us to do this?
N.B.
Note these spiritual disciplines are not ends in themselves, they are
means of affirming our own weakness and turning to Christ. Praying is
only worthwhile in that it puts us in communion with our Father.
Reading the Bible is only worthwhile in that it puts us in communion
with our Father. And furthermore, the disciplines are NOT means of
"fighting sin", they are means of holding on to Jesus,
which will have the secondary
effect of purifying us from our sins. Sin cannot be fought by us at
all, as it will always be enjoyable in the short -term, our flesh
will always desire it, and only God gives us the power to overcome
it. So we should fight not against
sin, as if our goal was on the other side of it, but towards
Jesus, in completely the opposite direction.
First
discipline: Prayer


"he
went up on the mountain to pray"
-Mark 6:45



"present
your bodies as a living sacrifice"
-Romans 12:1



We need to
have a daily habit of prayer. This is difficult. We need to present
ourselves before God and talk to him, and listen to what he says
back. We need to acknowledge him for who he is and thank him for what
he has done for us. We need to confess our total uselessness and
unfaithfulness to him. We need to sing to him in tongues. We are not
talking about five minutes of muttered liturgy learned by rote, we
are talking about lying down in his presence until he tells us to get
up.




Particularly
when we are struggling with sin, we also need to learn to simply be
still in his presence:



"the
LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be still"
-Exodus
14:14



"Be
still and know that I am God"
-Psalm 46:10



"In
returning and rest you shall be saved
in quietness
and trust shall be your strength"
-Isaiah
30:15



There will
be very, very, very hard times, believe me I know. There were times
where all I could do was sit in the dark for up to two hours at a
time because I felt so depressed (n.b. Sometimes these ended in
INCREDIBLE times of sung worship on my own), and there were times
when I had to sleep on my friend's floor because I didn't want to go
back to my room on my own. There will be confrontations with death,
it will be that hard, no melodrama here. Sometimes our only weapon
will be to stand or sit or lie entirely still in the LORD.

Second
discipline: Scripture
God
has given us a book that all of his followers the world over are
united by. It contains stories, poems, letters, teachings about the
people who have followed him down the millennia and, most
importantly, the words and deeds of his Son, who once walked on the
earth as a human being like us.We
need to drink from it each day. We are not just talking about a five
minute sound-bite devotional on half of a verse. We are talking about
devouring the scriptures, getting lost in them, meditating on them,
memorising them, letting them swirl around in our subconscious and
transform us from the inside out.


The best
example of this is when Jesus himself was tempted in the wilderness
by Satan. He quoted scripture at Satan while he resisted him. But
note also, Satan quoted scripture too! This is a lesson about having
the Bible in our heads, but also about having the WHOLE Bible, not
just bits of it, in our heads. And also DOING it, not just thinking
it (see James). This will happen if we drink from it daily,
prayerfully too.

Third
discipline: Worship
Worship
not just as singing but DOING STUFF TO THE GLORY OF GOD. This is so
important when it comes to sexual temptation. The psychoanalyst Carl
Jung talked about "libidinc energy", creative drive, which
most easily and readily channels into sex but can nonetheless be
"sublimated" into other activities. This is true. With God
you can channel your libidinc energy into other places. This is not
esoteric knowledge or weird new-age dogma, it is simply giving a name
to what lots of people do anyway: Be busy. The human sexual drive is
part of a wider instinct to simply create, to communicate with other
human beings and with God. If you want to be rid of your sin, be busy
doing something else. Put the energy you would usually put into
self-gratification into something else. This 'something else' is
different for everyone. What gifts has God given you? Are you a
musician, a builder, an artist, a teacher, a writer, an evangelist?
How does he use you to serve other people? Find those things and do
them. Here is the basic principle: Do
what God wants you to do, and you will draw nearer to God. Don't wait
to get fixed before you start doing what God wants you to do. He'll
fix you on the way. And then when we have communal and personal
worship times we'll notice the difference -there will be an overflow
of what is going on already, it will be a celebration of a consistent
lifestyle, a bubbling over, we won't need to trick ourselves with
flashy lights and loud music into feeling a certain way.
(B)
Amputation/Flight


"If
your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away."
-Matthew
5:29



"Flee
sexual immorality!"
-1
Corinthians 6:18



We must do
away with everything that causes us to sin, as far as is reasonably
possible. This means throwing away all pornographic material,
filtering internet access, whatever it takes.



This was a
very important lesson for me. I hesitated finding a way to totally
amputate internet access to porn for a long time because of the idea
that I needed to exert myself against temptation to "prove"
I can overcome it. But I can't overcome it at all! Only God can. It
is a matter of pride. One must humble oneself to cut off one's hand.
Does the Bible say, prove yourself by putting yourself in testing
situations? No! "Do not put the LORD your God to the test."
"Flee from sexual immorality." If you are truly repentant,
you will not even want the option of indulging the flesh. As one
church leader puts it, "STAY AWAY FROM CHOCOLATE CAKE." The
act of resisting the temptation is sometimes to be found in denying
oneself even the chance to be tempted. Be warned, temptation will
come, of that you can be sure, but do not go looking for it.



Think about
this way. Fleeing sexual temptation is actually an extremely sexy
thing. Imagine if you said to your wife “Oh, today at work I was
really tempted by my hot secretary who tried to seduce me”. Which
of the following is she going to prefer to hear from you as the next
sentence...?

1. But
   don't worry, I looked into her eyes for a full fifteen minutes, and
   even though I really really wanted to do it, I resisted and
   overcame the temptation, and was able to spend the rest of the day
   working in the same room as her without even thinking about her that
   much.
   
2. But
   don't worry, I ran away the instant I realised what was happening
   and called out to God to rid me of any impurity that might sneak
   into me, and came home to you straight away to tell you what
   happened, and I even picked up some flowers on the way as a gesture
   to show you how much I love you and tell you no-one could ever
   replace you. I've told my employers what happened and if she isn't
   moved or sacked then I'm quitting.
   

What is the
bigger declaration of love to God when we are tempted: To stay where
you are and fight it “in his strength”, or to RUN AWAY, GET FAR,
FAR AWAY, namely into his arms. There's not enough time in this life
for us to be messing around finding out how good we are at resisting
sin. Let's just chase after God.

(C)
Accountability


"Some
friends play at friendship, but a true friend sticks closer than
one's nearest kin."
-Proverbs
18:24



"He who
conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and
renounces them finds mercy."

-Proverbs
28:13



"And
though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A
threefold cord is not quickly broken."
-Ecclesiastes
4:12



"confess
your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may
be healed."
-James 5:16

You
are not alone in this struggle. Seriously pray about how and who, and
then confess to one of your close male Christian friends. They will
almost without fail
have similar struggles or have had them in the past. They may not
take the same form as yours, but if they love God and are really your
friend then they will listen to your confession. It is incalculably
helpful to pray and support one another in our struggles. When the
Devil accuses you of hypocrisy you will remember that you have
friends to whom you have confessed and who are supporting you.
4. When
you are rid of this sin, what will have been achieved in you?


As I say,
it's good to have an idea of what we're aiming for. I have concluded
from reading the Bible that there are two things a man, or woman, of
God should aim to be:

1. In need
   
2. In love
   

And that's
OF God and WITH God respectively.



I think as
we get free of habitual sin, we become dependent, humble and devoted.

Dependence


"Trust
in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own
understanding"
-Proverbs
3:5



"If
anyone wants to become my follower, let them deny themselves and take
up their cross and follow me."
-Mark 8:34



If there is
anything that a habitual sin teaches us, it is how useless we are
when we try and do things on our own. This realisation should produce
total dependence on our saviour. The kind where we constantly ask him
for help during the day, and live in continual brokenness before his
cross.

Humility


"Pride
goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall"
-Proverbs
16:18



"every
perfect gift is from above"
-James 1:17



We should
also have learned that there is no good thing in us or in our flesh.
When we are rid of this sin, if we start to attribute even the
smallest success to ourself, we will fall back into it. The thing is
to realise one's total worthlessness, and so to be so grateful for
God's grace and mercy all of the time, and to never judge others or
consider ourselves better than others. Humility isn't thinking less
of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

Devotion


"Love
the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with
all your strength"
-Deuteronomy
6:5



On the other
side, we will come out with a renewed devotion to God. We will be
different to when we went into the desert. This is holiness.
Depending on him, he will make us holy, he will cause us to be
devoted to him. This is the prime target, this is why we were allowed
to fall into the sin -to intensify our devotion to our God, which can
only really come with dependence and humilty.

5. The
gradual healing process


"I have
seen their ways, but I will heal them."
-Isaiah
57:18



"If I
do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I that do it, but sin
that dwells within me."
-Romans 7:20



"There
is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ"
-Romans 8:1



"If we
confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our
sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
-1 John 1:9



Do not worry
about having to struggle with bad stuff in your subconscious to start
with. Here is an excerpt from the settingcaptivesfree course:




"The
thinking of pornographic thoughts is typical for those who are new to
this course, and they usually begin to go away in the next several
months if the biblical principles in this course are followed."




Do not even
worry about the fact that you have sunk to such depths. Don't worry
about the crap that has passed through your mind, whatever it is.
Yes, it is terrible that it did pass through your mind. But if you're
turned to God, it's covered over by blood, it's destroyed. The truth
is, that as we discipline ourselves in lifting our eyes to Jesus, he
will heal us and restore us, and cause our lives to reflect the
salvation we have had in him since we accepted him into our hearts.
That old way of life, that stronghold, was not who we really are, it
was a bad habit that arose from our not being devoted enough to God.
Praise him that he allowed it to remain for a time to drive us to
come closer to him! Jesus will show us who we really are in him, and
totally wash away the effects of our sin if we keep fixed on him.

But we
should not be forever looking forward. God is the same yesterday,
today and forever. We change gradually as we focus on the Unchanging
One. If we are always thinking about what it will be like to be
totally changed and restored, we are still looking at ourselves, not
at Jesus, so we won't change.
Yes, as we consistently live in acknowledgement of God's grace, we
will change, our minds will be renewed, we will become more solidly
rooted in him. But this happens through fixing on him, looking at the
light source, drinking from the water source, not worrying about
ourselves, not obsessively charting our own progress. Just praise
him! He is good, all the time, and he has paid the price for us.
6. The
Biochemical Element
If you
have been struggling with these things for any extended length of
time, you need to understand that you are, technically, an addict.
This doesn't undermine anything else said in this article, but it can
provide some useful insights. All science does is describe the
visible world which is the form of the invisible (Christianity is
actually in a sense quite scientific: I hear God's word, I do it, it
works, I carry on doing it). And people have been through this before
so there have been scientific descriptions of what visibly happens.
For one, when you give up, expect withdrawal symptoms. We are talking
extreme anhedonia (loss of pleasure), depression, insomnia, intrusive
images, shivering, muscle pains, stiffness, depression, the works. I
have experienced all of these things
more than once when quitting. But the thing to remember is that they
will subside. The first two weeks are the hardest, then after three
weeks your testosterone levels will return to normal. After that you
will go through good patches and very bad patches that diminish in
intensity gradually as your brain chemistry returns to equilibrium.
It takes about 60 days for the main part of the physical withdrawal
process to complete. Who knows how long God will take to complete the
spiritual process? He'll do it in his own time -it's the slow
agonising ways of love.


[A word
about wet dreams. Yes, regular ejaculations do help to avoid prostate
cancer. But, trust me, if you leave it long enough you will start to
have them in your sleep -that's just biology. How is that any better
than masturbating, then? Well, surely unconscious lust is better than
conscious lust? Augustine and Kant agree with me on this. And not to
mention, the nocturnal emissions may be accompanied by bad images to
start with, but I have experienced them leaving as time goes on: It
is possible, and much easier, to have a nocturnal emission with no
conscious lust at all. Look at it this way: I have had nocturnal
emissions that I felt fine about, but I have NEVER masturbated and
not felt bad about it to some degree. I think the Bible agrees too.
Yes, the scriptures say nothing about masturbation (although...read
Ephesians 5 very carefully), but they do say a whole lot about lust,
and it is very hard to masturbate without consciously lusting. What
is more, the rules in the Torah about ritual purity do not talk about
masturbation, but they do talk about “an emission of semen”
making one ritually unclean (Leviticus 15). This falls into the same
category as women's periods. In other words, emissions of semen are
classed as NORMAL and INVOLUNTARY. I have heard of very few cases of
involuntary masturbation.]

The
other insight science provides has to do with it being so hard to
quit. When feeding sexual addiction, we actually do things to our
brain extremely similar to what happens when, for example, a heroine
addict injects their fix. Scientifically speaking, the cumulative
effect on the brain is extremely powerful. The neurochemical habits
that become ingrained are effectively humanly impossible to overcome
(=invisible spiritual stronghold). When we are going through
withdrawal, it is incredibly tempting to return to the sin, because
at the time biologically it is actually the case that only
that activity will give us pleasure.
But call out to God, let him carry you through this. With God all
things are possible. Depend on him and he will make a way. If in your
heart of hearts you desire to stop for God's glory, he will one day
heal you. That is a promise. "I have seen their ways, and I will
heal them."(Isaiah 57:18)
7.
Helpful verses


"against
you, you alone, have I sinned"
-Psalm 51:6



"No
testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is
faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear,
but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you
will be able to endure it."
-1
Corinthians 10:13



"whenever
you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you
know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let
endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and
complete, lacking in nothing."
-James 1:2-4

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May 23, 01:44AM PDT | 0 comments | 4 cheers