Repentance is the gift of God. In Hebrew, the word is “shuv” (Strong’s H7725), which means “to turn.” And in Greek, it is “metanoia” (G3341), which means “to change one’s mind.” The picture of repentance is one of a prodigal son who, realizing that he doesn’t want to be feeding the pigs, “came to himself” and decided to return home. Repentance is not self-deprecation. Repentance means making a conscious decision to come back to a father that loves us. It requires humility and personal resolve, but the Father bids us come as we are, regardless of any filth or shame.
In part 1 of this series, we looked at how grace (or pitching tents with God) is the foundation for breaking free from sin — precisely the sin of sexual addiction. If you’ve been trying to break free your own way in your own strength and you can’t do it, stop. Start by resting and receiving by faith what Jesus has already accomplished on your behalf.
This is not to say that there isn’t a place for standing firm, resisting the devil, and fighting the good fight. This is critical as well. But we fight from the place of victory in Christ, not for it. James 4:7 says:
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
We submit to God first: who he says we are, and the love he has for us. Being secure in our identity is a prerequisite. Then, from that place of submitting to his lordship, receiving his love, and being empowered in the Spirit, we resist the devil.
Jesus himself, when he was tempted, stood firm and rebuked the lies of Satan. It is essential to recognize that the devil didn’t try to do anything to Jesus; he couldn’t. Instead, Satan attempted to influence Jesus’s actions by telling him lies and half-truths. He does the same thing to us. Jesus, however, was so secure in who he was and the Father’s love for him that the lies didn’t penetrate his mind or heart in the slightest. We must seek the same strength and security Christ had.
With the assurance of our acceptance in the beloved, with the shame of our old sinful nature replaced by a spirit of adoption, with all our sins nailed to the cross, with Christ’s righteous robe on our back, with the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, we are invited (and commanded) to love our Saviour in return. What does this have to do with sexual purity? Jesus said, “if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.” Jesus wants to commune with us — he wants to hang out. But Jesus is holy (that is, set apart and dedicated), and we must be holy to enjoy his presence. The admonitions about sexual purity in scripture are numerous. From a place of loving gratitude for what our sins cost Jesus, (and the price that he values us) we need to hear them and seek God’s grace to perform them. The reward is greater communion with Christ and greater freedom in every area of our life.
There are key strategies which, if done in faith by grace (i.e. not striving in your own flesh, but believing in the grace that has already won the victory) will help you walk in freedom from sexual sin.
These are not silver bullets, one-time fixes, or band-aid solutions. These are cultivated habits and spiritual disciplines with the purpose of a lifestyle of communion with Christ through the Holy Spirit.
Cutting off Access
Jesus could very well have been looking into the future of his church when he said “if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” With multitudes in the church addicted to pornography and masturbation, this is a word that is incredibly timely and relevant for today. No, don’t mutilate yourself. Jesus is saying to cut out from your life anything and everything that causes you to sin. So, start by cutting out all access to porn on your devices. There is a wide array of excellent content blockers available for every browser and device. Cut off your internet access at the time when you know temptation increases. Cut out relationships or practices that are unhealthy. “You have not yet resisted sin to the point of shedding your blood.” If Jesus went as far as death on a cross in his resistance of sin, aren’t we willing to cast away the things that have been destroying are peace with God and paying us out in death?
Prayer & Confession
Prayer is essential to our ongoing victory over sin in our lives. It is how we connect to God and how we receive the daily grace we need. Charles Spurgeon once said, “prayer can never be in excess.” If you find prayer incredibly hard, ask someone else to pray for and with you. Confessing our sins to someone that we trust is vital to letting go and moving forward. James 5:16 says, “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.” At the same time, ask the Holy Spirit to teach you how to pray and commune with Him in a greater way. It may mean that you have to make sacrifices in your day, but it will be well worth it.
Scripture Meditation & Memorization
Romans 12:2 talks about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Exposing ourselves to scripture and meditating on it is how the Holy Spirit renews our mind in the truth. When Jesus was tempted, he immediately quoted scripture — the scripture that he had memorized! This is more than doing your chapter a day, devotional; this is about “hiding your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Print out some scriptures about freedom, victory in Christ, and righteous identity. Read them out loud to yourself every day. Memorize them. Then, when temptation comes, the sword of the Spirit will be ready on your tongue and the Word of truth will strengthen you in your fight.
Fasting
Fasting is often ignored as an essential spiritual practice, but Jesus said: “when you fast,” not “if you fast”(Matthew 6:16-17). The reality is that fasting is a profoundly effective spiritual discipline. Fasting in the power of the Holy Spirit brings our spirit, soul and body into proper alignment, bringing the flesh into submission to the Spirit. If you find yourself needing a particular breakthrough, a multi-day water fast can produce incredible results.
Prophetic Acts
We are defining “Prophetic Acts” as something that you do with your body and usually some other physical element. North American Christianity is, traditionally, not very physical. We take communion, and we baptize people. Perhaps on special occasions, we wash each other’s feet. But prophetic acts don’t need to be traditional, and they don’t need to be corporate either. There is tremendous power when an individual, led by the Holy Spirit, does an action in faith. We are spirit soul and body, and the sin of sexual immorality manifests itself in the body; the body should be activated in fighting against sin. Perhaps you take the “sword of the spirit” and cut down your invisible enemies. Maybe you write a detailed list of your sins on a piece of paper and burn it. Perhaps you anoint yourself with oil to receive more of the Spirit’s anointing. Whatever it is, the Lord can use these prophetic acts and break into our circumstances in powerful ways!
Undoing the Lies
People often keep returning to sexual sin because they are self-medicating their pain and the lack of wholeness they feel: loneliness, insecurity, shame, fear or unbelief. What they are really seeking is genuine comfort, security, and companionship. However, they don’t realize that they’ve been believing lies that the enemy has been feeding them for years. These lies produce false, subconscious beliefs (beliefs that would immediately be identified as false if they were articulated). We then develop behaviour or fantasies to compensate for these orphaned places of our hearts. Over time, these patterns of behaviour become fixed in our brains as neural-pathways, and we find ourselves addicted to actions that we don’t want or thinking things that we genuinely detest. To solve the problem of sexual addiction and sin at its most fundamental level is to identify the lies that we have been believing and to let the Holy Spirit minister the truth of God in these places deep in our minds and hearts. This is what is meant by “metanoia,” a changing of the mind. To do this, we must be brutally honest with ourselves about what we’re believing, and we must let the Lord into those hidden places. If we do, the truth will set us free.
Intimacy with Jesus
This is the most important part of to our journey to freedom. And actually, it is the most important thing in our Christian life. Jesus must take his place on the throne of our heart’s affections, and he must be the ruler of our bodies that he purchased with his blood. 1 Corinthians 6:13 says that “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” Ultimately our sexuality was created by God and for God’s glory. The place that pornography and masturbation occupy is intended to be a holy place for him. The flesh cannot run the show, and each of us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, must govern our bodies and put to death the sins which war against our soul — this is the oft forgotten doctrine of mortification, and it works in tandem with our sanctification. Our body is the Lord Jesus’s temple, and every believer must be daily at this work of putting to death the sins that rage against the Spirit. It is up to each of us to let Jesus into the deepest places of who we are, even if we feel unworthy to be His dwelling place. The Holy Spirit wants to dwell in us and enjoy us. Cultivate daily time with Jesus — get to know him, talk to him, and hear what he wants to say to you.
The truth is that only Jesus has what we’re seeking. Only Jesus satisfies. Porn and masturbation never satisfy. He wants to bring wholeness and peace to our spirit, soul and body. He wants to be that friend who sticks closer than a brother. He wants to restore what was lost. He wants to renew our minds and hearts as if we’ve never sinned. He wants us to love what he loves, but he also wants us to hate what he hates. Jesus hates anything that hinders love, and he wants us to be diligent in rooting out areas of compromise that would spoil the vineyard of his love (Song of Solomon 2:15). Our hearts are the Lord’s garden, the vineyard of his love. Let us, with renewed resolve, make ready our hearts that the King of Glory may come in and magnify himself in our bodies.
