Okay, apparently my post on sexual addiction v. starvation drew a lot of men out of the woodwork, especially considering the number of PMs I'm getting about the subject. So, let's address this once and for all.

What Doesn't Work

I've read dozens of books on this subject through my time when I was struggling with porn. Most of them say pretty much the same thing: get accountability partners, put up internet blockers on your computer, memorize certain verses, when you're tempted try praying or reading the Bible instead, etc. These all tend to amount to a brute-force of the will.

Every now and then a resource will get the right answer: the Gospel. But then they'll totally drop the ball and assume that "trust Jesus" is actually a helpful phrase that means something on a pragmatic level. It doesn't. It's vague and nebulous and nobody knows what to do with it. So, let me break this down for you.


GUILT

The first step is to abandon your guilt. Did Jesus bear your guilt on his shoulders or not? If he did, then you don't have it and you shouldn't feel guilty. If you do feel guilty, did you really place your guilt on him?

Contrary to popular belief, guilt is a switch that can be turned on and off at our own will and discretion. It is not merely an emotion we feel; rather, the conscious decision to retain our guilt has emotional byproducts - but the emotion is not the guilt itself.

Guilt is a legal standard of judgment over you. If you have done something wrong, you are guilty. If not, then you're not guilty. It's that simple. So many people say, "But I feeeeeeeeeellllll guilty!" No, you feel remorse, shame, anger, hate, whatever. You feel that way because you place yourself in a legal judgment of condemnation for your actions. This legal judgment is incongruent with the Gospel, if in fact you have actually been saved.

If you are in Christ, you are not guilty. If you believe the Gospel and accept that you are not guilty, then why do you experience the emotions associated with guilt? Well, that's usually evidence that someone doesn't actually believe the weight and power of the Gospel. Simple enough, right?

So, Step 1 is to get rid of your guilt. Accept that Jesus bore your guilt on the cross for you so that you no longer stand in condemnation under God. And if God's not condemning you, why would you condemn yourself?

To be clear, this is not to be confused with conviction. Conviction is a positive internal motivator. Guilt is a negative internal motivator. The Spirit convicts us, but does not heap guilt, judgment, and condemnation on us if we are in Christ.


FRAME

Okay, you're past your guilt. Now what? Now you need to get in your own frame. In case you're new around here, a man's frame is his point of origin that shapes the way he perceives and interacts with the world. As Christians, at a technical level, we should all adopt the frame of our spiritual groom: Jesus. My point of origin is his frame and not my own. This is key, but a longer conversation than is warranted in this post.

If you live by others' expectations and standards, you are in their frame and not your own. So, when your attitude about your pornography struggle is influenced by how your wife feels about it, what your Bible study guys might say, worry over how to communicate another failure to your accountability partner, etc. - those are all examples of living in someone else's frame. Your internal frame of reference or point of origin is shaped and defined by their perception of you - their expectations on your behavior. This is bad and will not lend itself to a sustainable solution. That's why most of the books on this matter that I've read have never reaped consistent results - and to the degree they do, it's only because someone is exchanging the sin of pornography with the sin of idolatry of how others perceive them.

Ideally, you should reach a point where you can tell any of those people in the last paragraph, "I masturbated to porn last night. It was wrong. I repented. I'm fine with it and right with God. Can you pass the creamer?" When you can say this straight-faced with no internal compulsion to Defend, Excuse, Explain away, or Rationalize your behaviors - that is when you will be operating in your own/Christ's frame, unhindered by the expectations of those around you. If you feel compelled to have an emotional reaction to your sin after you have already repented, you're still in someone else's frame and not yours/Christ's.

To be clear, by establishing your own frame as your operating basis for dealing with your pornography, you are creating an internal solution that works for you. You are not doing it for someone else, which would then make moot your victory when that person's expectations change or they are no longer in your life. You are creating your own victory. And if your frame is synonymous with Christ's, as it should be, then it is really Christ's victory through you. I can't emphasize enough the importance of frame. The Gospel first, and then this, are the two foundational cornerstones upon which the solution below can actually apply with any longevity.


THE SOLUTION: SPIRITUAL SEX

Once you've accepted the Gospel that Jesus bears your guilt and developed your own frame on the issue, you need to set your mission. This is the real solution to the porn problem. I am 100% convinced of this. A lifestyle of evangelism and discipleship cures a lifestyle of porn. This should be your mission going forward - to gratify your physical desires through your spiritual spouse.

The Empty/Filled House

Suppose someone reads the ever popular Ever Man's Battle and finds some victory over pornography in their life. Most often I have found that these victories are short-lived. They were for me. They have been for the dozens of people I know who have also tried these strategies. But the Bible acknowledges that someone can temporarily kick out an evil spirit.

In Matthew 12 Jesus tells us that when an unclean spirit leaves a man, it wanders for a time and then returns. If it finds that the house is still vacant, then it re-enters the house, bringing with it many other evil spirits even worse than itself - and Jesus says this person is worse off than he started. That's right: if you follow the wrong way of addressing your pornography problem, even after momentary successes, you will find yourself in an even worse spot than before. Don't screw this up, guys.

As is often the case, the conditional clause here is the operative and critical part of the lesson: IF the house is empty, THEN you're screwed. Solution? Don't leave your house empty. But what do you fill it with?

Filling the House

There's a lot of debate about this. Some people say to fill it with Scripture memory, prayer, quiet times, and other biblical disciplines. Those are all well and good, but I don't ever read in the Bible about prayer, for example, indwelling inside of us.

When I have searched the Scriptures on this point I have only ever found three things the Bible says indwell within us with any consistency:

  • God's Word: In Matthew 13 Jesus says that God's Word is the seed planted in us. This seed indwells us.

  • Jesus: In John 17 Jesus is praying over his disciples and notes, "I in them and you in me" - that he indwells within us. Colossians 1:27 also calls it "this mystery, which is Christ in you."

  • Holy Spirit: Acts 1:8 says that God would send the Holy Spirit to "come on" us, and we see other passages describing ourselves as His temple and affirming that He indwells within us.

Notice the pattern here? This is the trinity: the Father, Son and Spirit, in some capacity, are who indwell us.

The Indwelling Compulsion

But what's more significant is the immediate result of this indwelling.

  • God's Word: That same Matthew 13 passage says that if we are good soil (i.e. saved), when God's Word is planted in us it yields a harvest 30, 60 or even 100 times what was sown (verse 8). That's reproduction.

  • Jesus: The John 17 passage is all about Jesus commissioning his disciples to carry on the work of discipleship that he started. That's reproduction. That very verse I quoted above (17:23) ends, "Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them." Also, to give context to the Colossians 1:27 quote: "To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" - that is, it's about them spiritually reproducing among the Gentiles.

  • Holy Spirit: By now I'm sure you could have guessed it, but what does Acts 1:8 say will happen when the Holy Spirit comes on us? "You will be my witnesses."

The conclusion is obvious: when we enjoy an abiding relationship with God, we should see spiritual generations flowing from our lives. We should be engaging in spiritual reproduction and seeing fruit produced as a result of God in us.

Interestingly, Jesus has this weird parable in Luke 13:6-9 where a man wants to cut down his fig tree because it is fruitless. The vinedresser pleads with him to give him one more year to cultivate the land around it and water it and fertilize it. He concludes, "Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down." How many of you are the fruitless fig tree? I am your vinedresser. I pray that God would give me time in the lives of the men he has placed around me - including you all - to cultivate you and fertilize your souls toward bearing fruit. Needless to say, bearing fruit is very important to God.

Why This is Uniquely Sexual

As I will keep refraining on this sub: the physical things of this world were designed by God to parallel deeper spiritual truths that only make sense in the light of the Gospel. Just as physical marriage between a husband and wife parallels a spiritual marriage between Christ and his Church, so also does physical reproduction parallel spiritual reproduction. To be abundantly clear: Physical reproduction is when a husband enters into his bride, which under natural conditions has the potential effect of producing offspring; Spiritual reproduction is when Jesus (the Church's groom) enters into us, indwelling us as a husband physically indwells his wife, which under natural conditions has the potential effect of producing spiritual offspring.

When a man struggles with porn, let's face it: he's not compelled by the story. He is usually prompted by a desire for physically reproductive acts. But the Gospel says that the physical things of this earth are satisfied in God to whom we have been reconciled because of Jesus' death and resurrection. So, what you long for in a physical way, Jesus satisfies in a spiritual way. So, instead of looking to physical sex to gratify you, look to spiritual sex.

What is spiritual reproduction? Evangelism. And what is spiritual child-rearing, which the world pretty much unanimously agrees is the ultimate source of joy in life? We call that discipleship - and 3 John 1:4 agrees, "I have no greater joy than this: to see that my children are walking in the truth." When you begin to find your satisfaction in the spiritual source that physical sex was trying to point you toward in the first place, then you will be satisfied in Christ to a degree that you will no longer be enslaved to the physical compulsions of your sexuality. You will be fully satisfied in them because of what Christ does in your spirit. That is a promise.


CONCLUSION

So, go make disciples. Bear fruit. Don't drop the ball on this one. Just starting this process won't cure you, but running it to completion will. I am very, very confident about this result and it has a proven track record with at least 15 of the 37 guys I've discipled over the yeaers (on my way to the 60 yield!) who are now making their own disciples and seen the freedom that comes with this. Now, that's only 41%, which is solid but not great ... until you realize that of the other 59% of guys I've discipled, most of them never went on to produce disciples of their own, thus they never produced fruit, thus they never reaped the benefits of spiritual reproduction in their own lives (this is a sad reality of many discipleship relationships - especially before I knew how to balance the informational and relational aspects of discipleship) ... sigh. So, I'd wager the success rate of this method is probably a lot closer to 85-90% - and it's possible that some of those guys simply hadn't seen enough fruit in their lives when I last saw them, but have since overcome their struggle as they continued making disciples after my time with them. So, maybe the Gospel really does have a 100% success rate. Who knows ...