I want to show you how to seize two important aspects of God’s grace in your struggle against pornography.
Forgiving Grace
The first thing you absolutely must know about God’s powerful grace is that through grace God forgives our sins. Listen to what the Bible says about this forgiving grace in Colossians 2:13–14: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”
God describes in shocking terms how we can have these amazing blessings. We have life and forgiveness—but these things do not come cheaply.
Paul gives a sobering illustration of this when he compares the sins we have committed to a credit card bill—a “charge of our legal indebtedness.” The sins we commit do not vanish into the air, but are documented and preserved. Just like we must pay our credit card bills to avoid legal penalties, so the record of our sin debt makes demands on us that are legally binding. The legal demand of our sin debt is divine punishment. Sin must be paid for. But here we discover a glorious truth: even though you and I are entirely and solely responsible for our sin debt, God makes provision for the debt himself by nailing that debt to the cross of Christ and satisfying its demands. When Jesus was crucified on the cross, he paid for all of our sin. Every instance of treasuring images of sexual immorality in our hearts, every eager glance at pornography, all of our lustful gawking—everything—is paid for by Jesus in his death for sinners.
Transforming Grace
The news gets even better. Forgiving grace is only one part of the power Jesus gives. God’s powerful grace also gives us strength to live in new ways. Forgiving grace is wonderful and essential, but sinners need more than forgiveness. It’s not enough that our record of debt is paid; we also need grace to live like Jesus; we need grace that changes us so we can be like him in his holiness and love. In Romans 6:4, Paul declares, “We were therefore buried with [Christ] through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
Paul is talking about the death and resurrection of Jesus. For all who trust in Jesus, his death and resurrection is also our death and resurrection. Jesus’ death and resurrection not only pays off our record of debt and gives us forgiving grace; Jesus’ death and resurrection leads to our transformation. Through God’s transforming grace we can live a new life because of what Jesus has done for us.
Many people spend a lot of time pursuing forgiveness. They beg and plead for forgiveness after indulging in pornography, but they don’t know what to do next. The Bible teaches that in addition to confessing sin and seeking God’s forgiveness, you need to pursue God’s powerful transforming grace by believing the good news and walking in faith and obedience to the gospel. God’s grace pardons you and forgives your sin, and God’s grace empowers you to live differently and be obedient to him.
Oh, how you must treasure the sweetness of this grace! You need to ask for forgiving grace after you look at pornography, but don’t stop there! Ask for God’s transforming grace, his power to change you from the inside out. Because God is faithful to his Word and his promises, over time you will receive God’s power to never look at pornography again. God’s powerful transforming grace can give you a pure heart, and you can subdue your desires for pornography. You can honor your brothers and sisters in Christ when you look at them instead of dishonoring them. You can have all of this, and more. You just can’t get it in your own strength and effort. You need the powerful transforming grace of Jesus.
God’s powerful transforming grace is available to you, but many people don’t know how to make use of it. Having the power of Jesus to change without knowing how to use that power is almost like not having the power at all. It’s like being stranded on an island with a fueled-up airplane you don’t know how to fly. It is crucial to discover how to grasp God’s grace if you are going to benefit from it. If you want to use Jesus’ transforming grace, you have to do something so easy that many people find it impossible.
You have to believe it.
Transforming grace works when you believe that Jesus gives it to you. The moment you believe in Jesus’ grace to change you, you are changing. The more you continue to believe it, the more you will continue to change.
Paul writes, “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). Paul is saying that you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ when you count it to be true; that is, when you believe it. If you want to change and be like Christ—whether in the area of pornography or anything else—you must believe that in Jesus you have the power to change. When you believe the power is yours, it is yours.
Repentance and Grace
Forgiving grace and transforming grace are crucial for Christians to embrace. Repentance is the way we grasp and unite these two essential aspects of God’s grace. In the aftermath of sin, we must learn to interact with God through repentance. In the Bible, repentance describes the process of moving from sinful living to obedient living. When we repent, we must always take at least three clear steps. You can remember these three essential steps by using the acronym CAR.
The first step in the process of repentance is to confess your sin. The apostle John writes, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8–9). Sinners need grace more than anything else, including the grace to recognize and admit our sin. We reject grace when we deny our sin, according to John. When you deny your sin, you deny yourself access to God’s grace. When you admit your sin to God, you access his grace. The first step in repentance is to talk to God and tell him about your sin. He already knows this, of course, but we still need to tell God about the sin we are aware of in our life. In a marriage, when a husband has an angry outburst and speaks harshly to his wife, he must still admit his wrong and seek forgiveness—even though she experienced it and knows it happened. In the same way, every Christian who struggles with sexual immorality needs to humble himself or herself before God, telling God what he already knows.
The second step in the process of repentance is to affirm God’s forgiveness of your sin. John provides two directions to follow (see 1 John 1:8–9). First, he gives a command to obey: you must confess your sins. Second, he gives a message to believe: when you confess your sin, God is faithful to forgive and cleanse you. It is easier to talk to God about your sin than it is to believe you are forgiven. Perhaps this is your struggle.
You may find yourself thinking about all the pornographic images you’ve seen, the lustful heart you’ve nurtured, or the number of people broken by your immorality. These sorrows are part of the consequence of sin. When you dwell disproportionately on your sin and its consequences, however, you are neglecting God’s grace. There is a time and a place to be broken over your sin and to soberly consider its consequences (the next chapter is devoted to this topic). After you have confessed your sin, however, you must fight to affirm what God says about you. For all who confess their sin, God pronounces the verdict “forgiven” and “clean.” If God pronounces you forgiven and clean, you are forgiven and clean. While it may seem humble and modest to question God’s forgiveness, it is actually prideful and arrogant to refuse to believe what God declares to be true about you. Repentance means affirming what God says about you.
The third step in the process of repentance is to request Jesus’ grace to change. We have already seen the amazing power available to Christians in the work of Jesus. We must also recognize the biblical warning that is too often true of us as prayerless followers of Jesus: “You do not have because you do not ask God” (James 4:2). Having confessed your sin and trusted in God’s forgiveness, you now need to ask God for the specific grace
to be different.
It is important to talk about repentance because repentance is the means by which you lay hold of Jesus’ forgiving and transforming grace. It is possible to talk about how grace forgives and transforms us but never actually experience those graces. God does not just want us to know about these graces; he wants us to live them out. The way we practically live, experience, and are transformed by the grace of Jesus is to talk to God about it. Asking for and believing in God’s forgiveness of our sin and his power to change us is essential to experiencing it.
Knowing this changes the way we will respond to failure in the battle against pornography. We typically respond to moral failures with mental punishments. You’ve probably experienced this. You sin and look at pornography. Then you start thinking, I’m terrible. I’m awful. What was I thinking? If my friends knew what I was doing, they would never talk to me again. I can never be in ministry if I don’t quit doing this. What if my spouse finds out? What if my girlfriend finds out? What if my parents find out? What if my pastor finds out? What if people at church find out? I don’t deserve to be a Christian. Maybe I’m not a Christian. On and on and on it goes. You cycle through these mental punishments that grow out of guilt and fuel even more guilt.
None of this is helpful, but it’s what most people do in their struggle with pornography and lust. Mental punishments are not helpful because they deal with sin in a self-centered way instead of a Christ-centered way. Meditating on how miserable and pathetic you are only perpetuates the sinful self-centeredness that led you to look at pornography in the first place. Condemning self-talk still has you standing center stage as you reflect on what you think about what you have done, and as you describe what you think you deserve because of what you did. It’s all about you. The problem is there is too much you in all this. You need Christ. And the only way to break the vicious cycle is to get outside of yourself to Jesus. You need to stop talking to yourself in categories of condemnation and begin talking to God in categories of confession.
What I just shared with you is a big deal. You should pay attention to it and reread it if you didn’t catch it. As the Lord sets you free from the sin of pornography, this will be one of the biggest changes he will make in your life. You will learn to stop responding to pornography by talking to yourself with condemning words and thoughts and start responding to your sin by talking to God with prayers of confession. Self-talk and self-condemnation do nothing to lay hold of God’s forgiving and transforming grace. Repentance does.
The tide will begin to turn in your struggle against pornography when you begin to grasp forgiving grace and transforming grace, as you learn to repent. To experience freedom, you must repent. You will need to come to Christ in your brokenness, frustration, disgust, and shame. You must talk to him about it. Tell him what you did. Tell him what you were thinking and wanting. Be honest. Cry and ask him to forgive you. Ask him for grace to be different. As you do this, you are moving away from trusting in yourself as the solution to your sin and approaching the throne of grace where Jesus is ready to respond with mercy to help you in your time of need (Hebrews 4:16).
Hope and Grace
God’s grace gives birth to hope. There is a good chance you’ve picked up this book in despair. Perhaps you recently indulged in pornography for the zillionth time and have finally had enough. Perhaps a spouse, parent, coworker, or law enforcement authority discovered your secret indulgence and now you’re in trouble at home, church, or work, or with the law. Regardless of your exact circumstances, you’re despairing that change can ever be possible.
It’s not as though despair is unreasonable. It makes sense to despair as you look at a devastating problem that has hooked millions of people before you and will trap millions more after you. It makes sense to despair as you look at life-altering consequences—a broken relationship with the Lord, a damaged relationship with your spouse, suspicions from your children, parents, or friends, and a lost job or ministry position. It makes sense to despair as you look within and see a total inability to change by means of your own resources. There are many legitimate reasons to despair when you consider these bleak realities.
The logic of despair is broken by the miracle of grace. The power of God melts despair when you grasp his forgiving and transforming grace through repentance. Pornography is a plague that has destroyed countless lives and can also destroy yours. The sobering truth is that you do not have the resources to change within yourself.
“But where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20).
No matter how terrible pornography is, no matter how much trouble you are in, no matter how flimsy and weak your resources are, you are never in a pit so deep that the grace of Jesus cannot lift you out. The great danger in your struggle is that you will devote all of your energy to thinking true and awful things about pornography and spend no time dwelling on the true and wonderful things about Jesus.
There is no porn user so enslaved that Jesus cannot set him or her free. There is no struggle for purity so intense that Jesus’ grace cannot win the battle. There is no consequence so steep that Jesus’ power cannot carry you through. Jesus’ grace to change you is stronger than pornography’s power to destroy you. Jesus’ grace is stronger than your own desires to watch sex. While there is no hope for you in looking at pornography, there is all the hope in the universe when you look to God and his grace.
Hope for lasting transformation begins when you cry out to God in repentance and plead with him for his forgiving and transforming grace. When you ask for these things in faith, he will never deny them to you. This prayer is the very first step you must take as you turn away from pornography. God’s grace is available to you right now. Do not turn the page until you sense that you have encountered God’s grace in repentance. When you are ready to turn the page, I will begin to unfold eight practical elements of God’s transforming grace that he delights to grant to his loved ones who ask.
Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace
1. Pray to God right now and confess your sin of looking at pornography. Seek God’s forgiving grace from this sin.
2. As you pray, ask God for his powerful transforming grace to bring change to your life.
3. Don’t stop praying until you truly believe that these graces are yours in Christ.
CHAPTER 2
Using Sorrow to Fight Pornography
Ryan sat in my office sobbing. Not crying, but sobbing. His hands were busy wiping oceans of tears from his face as he wailed confessions of sin and regret. His wife sat beside him with a face so hard it looked like it was chiseled in granite. Ryan and Lisa had been married for fifteen years and had three kids. They were meeting with me because their decade and a half of marriage was filled with Ryan’s love for pornography. After years of repeated discoveries, Lisa’s initial discouragement had spiraled into despair, and now her despair had twisted into disdain. Lisa was finished—she wanted to take the kids and get far away from Ryan. Ryan’s moaning and pleading for her to remain with him were so desperate and loud that it attracted the attention of people down the hall.
Dave had a similar story. He had been married to Marie for twenty years. He had periodically dabbled in pornography, buying a magazine every now and then. In the last year, though, he had discovered pornography on the Internet. When introduced to the ease and anonymity of viewing pornography on the web, Dave became totally enslaved. He spent hours looking at it and eventually became disinterested in his wife. Marie knew something was different but was not prepared when she discovered her husband was hooked on porn. Horrified, she left their house to stay with a friend. Like Ryan, Dave pleaded with loud tears for Marie to forgive him. He begged for forgiveness. He swore he would change. He vowed never to look at pornography again. He wept on his knees, crying at Marie’s feet in total brokenness.
Dave and Ryan do not know each other, but they have a lot in common. Both have serious problems with pornography and have had for some time. Both are “fami
ly men” with a wife and children. Both stand to lose their family because of their sin. Both are in desperate situations as they cry and plead for reconciliation.
I know Dave and Ryan, and I know how their stories play out. I can tell you that only one of them really changed. Only one of these men is reconciled to his wife and restored to a happy, porn-free life with his family. The other is now divorced from his wife and totally separated from his kids. One of them is restored and living a happy life with his family and is not looking at pornography. One of them was interested in real change on that day; the other was not. Which one do you think changed?
It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? Both men were heartbroken. Both were sincere. Both displayed an apparent commitment to their family. Both appeared willing to do whatever it took to change their sinful lifestyle. In spite of their outward similarities, these two men are as different as cats and dogs. Though they both displayed sorrow, their tears were drawn from two totally different wells.
Two Kinds of Sorrow
In a letter the apostle Paul wrote to Christians in the city of Corinth, he helps us understand the difference between the two men. Paul had a complicated relationship with the Corinthians. They were sinning in numerous ways and being led astray by false teachers, and it was Paul’s job to rebuke them and call them to faithfulness. These corrective measures produced some firm statements from Paul and led to a sorrowful response from the Corinthians. After the Corinthians began to be restored to Christ, Paul wrote these words to them about the sadness they experienced along the way.
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