By Precious Oli
15 Practical Steps To Overcome Pornography Addiction And Masturbation As A Christian
- Understand Your Body-Understand That The Desires Of The Flesh Is Always There.
- Understand Why You Are Going Through Pornography Addiction And Masturbation.
- Sincerely Acknowledge Your Weakness.
- Understand The seriousness And Weight Of The Sin Of Pornography And Addiction.
- Understand That You’ve Not Run Out Of The Mercies Of God
- Live By The WORD
- Deal With The Root Cause-LUST
- Hate Sin And Love righteousness.
- Build Consistency In Prayer
- Consecration
- Accountability Partner
- Engage The Prayer Of Deliverance
- Guard Your Heart.
- Place Boundaries Where Necessary-Stay Away From Triggers.
- If you fall, rise again
The struggle to overcome pornography addiction and masturbation is always overwhelming, you’ll surely find yourself in that spot where you start to ask questions like: is my Christianity fake? is my salvation incomplete? Does God not have a way of escape for me? Did I faint at the cross instead of dying? Am I ever going to overcome pornography addiction and masturbation?
Here’s my response: Your Christianity is not fake; God has a way of escape and you’ll surely overcome pornography addiction and masturbation. I’ve been there, done that, battled the struggle for years even as a Christian lady.
Now, I’m free. If there is anyone who understands how you feel and the frustration, you’re passing through in building a consistent walk with God, I understand more
Quick warning: Be careful of anyone who says this “Show me a more practical way OUTSIDE the scripture” especially when you need to overcome an addiction. There is no other way outside the scriptures. I’ll be sharing my story and journey of recovery with you bit by bit.
However, my experiences are never a yardstick of measurement nor is my story the same as yours. You’ll be delivered quickly and easily because you have a sister like me to help you.
A Christian Girl’s Life Experience And Victory Over Pornography Addiction And Masturbation
My struggle began the day I overheard my friends discussing sex, boys and self-satisfaction. I was in high school at the time; a new convert. To date, I usually wonder why my struggle wasn’t before I gave my life to Christ but after I met the dude (Christ). It bothered me for a long while.
I was in my hostel corner bent over my books when the girls started their dirty conversations. Before I could guard my heart, the name of the sites they mentioned already infiltrated my mind. I didn’t think much of it until I graduated and stayed home alone for a full year under the influence of depression and anxiety disorder.
At first, it was a way of escape and relief material from the anxiety I felt. I used to think it was safer than sleeping around with men, it was better than losing my virginity. What I failed to understand is pornography addiction and masturbation are thieves of purity
Sexual addictions can keep your hymen intact while your purity is gone with the wind. Soon enough, it turned into an addiction which I struggled with for years.
The ‘Gospel Of Discipline’ Alone Will Not Help You Overcome Pornography Addiction And Masturbation.
I wish I could tell you that human disciplines alone are enough: staying away from movies, avoiding the internet, avoiding dirty conversations. You probably heard all these tips and tricks. If it helped you overcome pornography addiction and masturbation, you wouldn’t be here. Right?
The question is what are you even doing in those places and environments as a believer? Na you wan to kill yourself like this because you think you’ve got the nerves and the strong will to guard your heart
Throughout the season I struggled with pornography addiction and masturbation, I discovered one thing: it is a raving mad obsession. I’ve also spoken with Christians who used to be and some who are core addicts of this demon. Most of them always have this to say “It almost seems like I’m possessed by a different spirit”
I had a friend who shared his ordeal, in his words “I usually heard the voice of this demon, I always knew the sexual scenes in every movie before the scene is shown “
Who Struggles To Overcome Pornography Addiction And Masturbation?
- Both Christian Men and Ladies
- Pastors
- Laymen
- Husbands
- Wives
- Children
- Youths
- Teenagers
This addiction isn’t selective of its victims. I’ve heard people wonder if Christian sisters struggle with pornography addiction, the answer is yes. You know, ladies have a way of holding tight to their struggles. So, you’ll never know.
Christian sisters also battle with the struggle of lust and overcoming pornography addiction and masturbation. 80% of sisters I’ve met are dying and strongly bedevilled by the weight of this addiction. This is also one of the lies young women believe
Why Are Christians Addicted To Pornography And Masturbation?
- The nature of MAN
- Lust
- Friends
- Sexual Abuse
- Unavoidable attack on the heart
The Evils Of Pornography Addiction And Masturbation On A Christian
- Pornography addiction and masturbation affect your walk with God. You won’t be able to grow as fast as you need and consistently too. This is because you’re walking in and out of iniquity. Always asking for forgiveness and pleading for mercy over a particular besetting sin
- Addictions make you ashamed to stand before God. Pornography addiction isn’t left out. It makes you lose your boldness and confidence as a child of God. You’ll suddenly find yourself always wrapped in the fear of hell and the threats of the devil.
- Pornography addiction and masturbation destroys homes and makes marriage unenjoyable. I’ve heard stories of divorce caused by addictions.
I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Galatians 2:20
15 Practical Steps To Overcome Pornography Addiction And Masturbation As A Christian
If you are tired of fighting this struggle on your own, let me show you a more excellent and biblical way out of this struggle. There is hope and a path of victory for you to overcome pornography addiction and masturbation.
1. Understand Your Body-Understand That The Desires Of The Flesh Is Always There.
Yes, you must reckon yourself dead to sin daily. Your sexual desires won’t go away even if you are drowned in the pool of anointing oil and fire. You must learn to subdue it and gain mastery over it.
I stumbled on a tweet on overcoming pornography addiction and masturbation, someone asked a question “Are you saying that when you feel the urge to masturbate, you simply grab your Bible and start reading? Then, the feelings die?” I believe this is a sincere question from a comrade tormented by this madness of pornography.
Let me be even more transparent right now. There are days you wake up feeling all sweet and savoury. The only thought in your head is to sleep with someone and by that, I mean “To have sex with a random person”. If you happen to be in courtship, it’s even double trouble”.
Listen, it happens to everyone. It happens because you’re human, you have blood and water running through your veins. You’re not immortal. You’re wired that way no thanks to the fallen world and corrupt nature.
It is the electric feeling of pleasure that makes sex so enjoyable. The psychobiologic sexual buzz involves our emotions, our bodies, and our cognitive functions. God designed these feelings for good. The sexual buzz occupies an essential role as an early phase of intimacy within the sexual union of marriage.
Without it, we would not become aroused and sex probably would not happen enough to keep reproduction going or marital ties binding. However, The sexual buzz is only appropriate inside the marriage relationship.
One of the days, I started a conversation with my Christian sisters. I already knew the kind of sincere and open sisters they were; it was easier for me. The question I asked them is “Do you guys ever feel any type of way? You know, during your ovulation or period? They kept staring at me, at first, I thought I made a wrong statement. Then, my oldest Christian sister who is a nurse replied “Yes, it’s a biological reaction as a result of your body hormones”
Further, I asked a Christian brother just to get a different perspective and understand why these things happen and if it does happen to tongue-speaking fire brothers too. “Bro, is it normal for a believer to feel sexually excited or having sex any time of the day?
He burst out in laughter “Of course, it’s normal. It happens to fire brothers too. There are some mornings you wake up feeling like you need to pounce on just anybody at all”
How then do you overcome this struggle? I know you’re probably asking this question as well.
When you understand your body, you won’t just fight the feelings of your body or the hormonal changes. You’ll learn to accept and appreciate your body. Besides, if you don’t ever feel that way, even for once in your life-ahh! You need urgent medical attention. Most importantly, as a believer; your feelings and hormone do not control your life. You’re in charge. This is why you have the Spirit of God in you
So, understand your body but do not allow your hormones to control your actions or your response.
Here’s a better illustration. If you’re on a 7 day fast, you’ll observe the first day is usually easy if you’re given to daily fasting of 6-6. The second day is where the breaking and the twist begins. Suddenly, it feels as if you’re about to kick the bucket, your body keeps telling you to feed it or you’ll die. Yes, you’ll indeed die but what dies isn’t the body rather the desires of hunger.
By the third day, you’ll lose appetite because you’ve begun to replace the desire for food with the sweet koinonia. The rest of the fast will leave you tired but not hungry as you spend more time with God. What you did was accept that your body has the right to be hungry and to desire food. However, your body doesn’t have the right to dictate your response.
“Sorry body, but we’re on fast and there’s no food for you”
In the same manner, your body has the right to demand certain pleasures but you must deny it that right because you don’t live by the flesh but by the spirit
So, you too, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:11
2. Understand Why You Are Going Through Pornography Addiction And Masturbation.
Have you ever felt strangely gloomy for days, like the world is suddenly colourless and oppressive? Have you ever felt a certain heaviness like an elephant is sitting on your chest?
Have you ever lost interest in the things you like to do or suddenly wanted to avoid people you normally like spending time with? Have you ever felt there is no hope for the future or that sleep is the only thing you’re interested in?
Pornography addiction and masturbation thrive in the face of depression, loneliness, anxiety, past sexual history, sexual abuse and other life issues. Pornography presents itself to be a warm blanket you can use to relieve the stress you feel or the frustrations around you.
What its victims do not realize early is that once it sets its dusty feet in your house, it litters everywhere with mud dragging you into its nature and burying you under the grave of guilt, shame and self-hate.
If you have been abused and as a result find yourself struggling to control your libido hence this struggle of addiction, you need to understand that the chains are broken off your life. You are a new man. LIVE IN THIS REALITY
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life].
2 Corinthians 5:17
3. Sincerely Acknowledge Your Weakness.
We live in sex craze world, rotten to the core and in need of urgent redemption. To overcome pornography addiction and masturbation is to admit you are not exempt from sexual temptation. You are human. And, sex and sexually explicit material are all around you.
You can’t get the help you need if you fail to acknowledge that you have a problem with pornography addiction. More specifically, you can’t fully accept help and guidance from God and others until you admit that you’re suffering from this addiction.
4. Understand The seriousness And Weight Of The Sin Of Pornography And Addiction.
A lot of Christians who are addicted to porn and masturbation do not understand the weight of this sin. For most people, its a better option than fornication.
Runaway from sexual immorality [in any form, whether thought or behaviour, whether visual or written]. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the one who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.
1 Corinthians 6:18
Did you read the verse? You’re sinning against your own body. Just because you’re watching the scene on screen or engaging in it alone, doesn’t make it a less serious sin. It is very serious, mainly because of the God you are sinning against.
It’s also serious because you are encouraging sexual immorality in the industry. It is serious because it affects your life and your relationship with Jesus, your future marriage if you are not married yet, and your marriage if you are married — this and many more.
5. Understand that you’ve not run out of the mercies of God
There is hope to overcome this pornography addiction. What I often see on the face of a sincere believer in love with Jesus and desires intimacy with him but caught up in this web of pornography addiction and masturbation is this deep despair — because pornography addiction is an inimitable sin.
It is unique to other sexual sins because you don’t have to travel anywhere to indulge in it. You don’t have to contemplate for long to fall into it nor do you need any external encouragement. It takes over you like the wind and covers you with a heavy blanket of death. There is often this kind of despair from men imprisoned by their sin.
Listen, there is hope for you to overcome this addiction even today. That same Jesus who died on the old rugged cross whom you heard about the first time is the same Jesus who can save you now. RUN TO HIM
6. Live By The WORD.
This is where the word of God comes in now. This is why I started this way- do not ever listen to anyone who tells you to give a more practical way out of pornography or any form of addiction outside the bible
It is the bible that showed me why my body behaves the way it does and desires the things it does. The bible made me understand that I have a body of flesh but only one man can save me from this body of flesh. The bible made me understand that I must gain mastery and subdue this flesh.
If the word hadn’t shown me these things, I won’t have found a way of escape. It is the same word of God that shows me that DEAD MEN NEED NOT SIN ANYMORE. When Christ died, I died with Him, I was buried by baptism and alive in him just as he is seated at the right hand of the father. Surely, I am free
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Romans 6
7. Deal With The Root Cause-LUST
Lust is always at the root of the issue of pornography addiction. If we want to overcome pornography addiction, we need to recognize what we are dealing with. A good place to start is to overcome the seed of lust sown in the heart which eventually germinates and seeks to express itself. When you can’t fornicate because you’re trying to keep your Christian dignity, you decide to stick to porn.
James says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Paul says in Romans 8:13, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” So, we kill specific sins by targeting them with lethal resistance.
When lustful thoughts or images infiltrates your mind, you’ve got five seconds to decide whether you’re going to let it win over or whether you’re going to overcome it with “No — you’re out of here. In Jesus’s name, you’re out of here!”
You must direct your attention to some superior promise: “I AM DEAD TO SIN AND ALIVE THROUGH CHRIST’. And you keep pushing until it’s gone.
8. Hate sin and love righteousness.
The first time God said to me “You love this PORNOGRAPHY’ I knew he wasn’t speaking false. It was the absolute truth. Furthermore, he said, “The day you hate this SIN and LOVE ME MORE, you’ll see the victory which you already have in me”.
We wouldn’t want to admit it, but our love of sin won’t allow us to get the freedom we desire. it is important to understand why pornography addiction is so evil and why we must hate it. The reason to hate pornography is that God hates it
Abstain from all appearance of evil.
1 Thessalonians 5: 22
9. Build Consistency In Prayer
If you must be set free from any form of addiction or even overcome pornography addiction and masturbation forever, you’ll need to build a consistent walk with God. Start today. You can build a consistent walk with God if you decide today.
If only you can put your feet down and follow an already drawn and mapped out skeletal framework to bring you to that height and depth with God. Except you are a hungry, strict and disciplined person, you will at some point fall out in your consistent walk with God. You need to be hungry enough to desire that consistent walk with God.
If you develop a consistent prayer patter, addictions will be far from your tent.
Make this prayer always Psalms 80:18 ‘Then we will not turn back from You; Revive us, and we will call upon Your name.’
10. Consecration.
Although holiness depends on God’s calling and choosing us, the total consecration of our lives depends on our embracing His choice.
This sense of consecration as a response to God’s call is expressed in 1 Peter 2:5:
“Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood” (NRSV). Because of God’s call, we in the church are a holy priesthood; however, in response to this call, we must become a holy priesthood by allowing God to shape us into a spiritual house.
Other aspects of consecration are outlined in Romans 12:1: “I appeal to you, therefore . . . to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (NRSV).
Consecration is an act of giving ourselves so completely to God that we are like animal sacrifices. A sacrificial animal no longer has a life of its own. It has lost its life and has been taken out of its natural environment.
As a sacrifice, it is good for one thing: a means of worshipping God. Romans 12:1 state that our consecration means that we are to live as sacrificial animals. We have lost our former lives. We have been taken from our former ways of living. We are now good for only one thing: the praise and worship of God.
11. Accountability Partner-The gathering of saints.
The biggest mistake so many people make because of embarrassment is this: we don’t want to expose ourselves to other people. When we refuse to expose sin, we are saying, “Instead of killing sin, I am going to cuddle it.
Instead of fighting sin, I am going to protect it. I am going to leave it over here in the dark where it can keep surviving and keep growing and go deeper into my heart.” If we want to kill sin, we have to expose it. We have to bring other people in and confess sin regularly.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
James 5: 16.
I take this healing also to mean sexual healing and healing from pornography addiction and masturbation. Find a Christian sister or brother even an elderly disciple you can confide in.
12. Engage The Prayer Of Deliverance.
A lot of Christians run away from deliverance meetings because they think someone is about to jump demons out of them. If you can’t pray yourself out, seek out a genuine pastor to pray for you and deliver you from the spirit of perversion. It might the best solution for you.
More so, Jesus is our Deliverer (1 John 4:4). Our salvation is found in His sacrifice (John 10: 9-11). He died so that we would no longer fall victim to or be bound by shame, distorted thoughts, or dysfunctional boundaries.
13. Guard Your Heart.
Your heart is the seat of decisions and conceiving of imagery. Any sin you first committed is because it was first in your heart. Proverbs 4:23 is one of my favourite passages in the Bible, I love the way it talks about guarding your heart above all else.
To overcome pornography addiction and masturbation, you need to guard your heart with all you’ve got. Guard your heart against sexual movies, guard your heart against dirty conversations, guard your heart against explicit sexual lyrics and worldly songs, guard your heart while you scroll through your social media feed. GUARD YOUR HEART always.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Colossians 3:5 ESV
14. Place Boundaries Where Necessary-Stay Away From Triggers.
You already know the triggers of this addiction. It will be utter foolishness and carelessness to expose your vessel to collecting specks of dust when you know it will clog your faucet, do not be available and open for all sorts of engagements.
Place boundaries where necessary. Prevent people from stirring your heart the wrong way. If you need to stop hugging. Please do. You might come off as too spiritual or sanctimonious. Endure the backlashes and save yourself first.
15. If You Fall, Rise Again.
Failing to overcome pornography addiction and masturbation doesn’t make you less Christian than anybody nor does it make your salvation less potent. You’re loved by God though he hates the nature of sin at work in your members. Dust your garments and keep trying until you come into the fullness of Grace.
If you fail, don’t stay down to grovel in shame, run immediately to the Savior who “came into the world to save sinners”
(1 Timothy 1:15)
There Is Hope For You Today
But if we walk in the Light as He is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin
1 john 1:7
There is a biblical pattern of overcoming addictions, transforming our minds and our hearts so that we are less vulnerable to sexual addictions and temptations. It’s both resistance against the flesh, temptation, urges doubt, the sexual world and embracing the sweet and enjoyable reception of Christ, through God’s word, acknowledging the preciousness, the beauty and the greatness of the cross of Jesus.
Brother/sister, you are set free from pornography addiction and masturbation. In Jesus’ name. Amen
This Is A Call To Faith Battle
Do you have any comments or questions for me concerning this post? Can you share your victory story on overcoming sexual addictions, in the comment box. You can also send me an email @ preciousjewelblog@gmail.com
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Do share this post, someone needs to read it for their freedom.
May I suggest you split into episodes or parts for people who don’t have endurance to read long texts at once?
Sure! Thanks for stopping by
It’s beautiful!
Sure👍🏻
God bless, this content is very helpful to we Christians.🙏🏻❤️🇹🇬
You’re welcome