I am writing this because I feel like this is an area the church is not addressing yet majority of the young people in church are struggling in. How do I know this? Because some time last year, every time I tuned in to my favorite radio station in the evening. Majority of the young people who called or texted had an issue with lust, masturbation or pornography.
I know. I understand because I have been exactly
where they were and didn’t know where to get help.
How can
something that started as silly and harmless become this endless cycle of
addiction that I now found myself in? My
21-year-old self asked this question aloud to nobody in particular because I
was all alone in the house at the time.
At 22 years of age, I encountered God’s mercy and grace
and got born again and Jesus delivered me from the spirit of lust and masturbation I had struggled with for 9
years since I was 13 years old. Crazy
huh? The devil never plays fair.
You have to understand the devil is a master
deceiver. His ultimate goal is to make sure he keeps us from having a relationship
with God. Satan will provide avenues, which try to substitute the place of God
in our lives. My avenue was pleasing myself. This leads us to spend our lives,
running from one addiction to the next without finding fulfillment.
The meaning of the word deceive is “to make someone believe something that is
not true in order to get what you want.”
Here are some of the lies I had believed;
1) This isn’t hurting anybody. Huge lie because sin does eventually hurt us. Masturbation
and pornography does hurt somebody you! (1 Corinthians 6:17-18, The Msg) “Since we
want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of
sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us lonelier than ever—the kind
of sex that can never 'become one.' There is a sense in which sexual sins are
different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own
bodies, these bodies that were made for God–given and God–modeled love, for
'becoming one' with another.”
2) You are in control and you can stop this whenever you want. In the beginning we feel like we are in
control but like any other addiction eventually we realize we never were in
control and even if I want to stop now I don't know how to.
3) At least you are not sleeping
around. Truth is God
never classifies sin , there’s no such thing as minor sin and major sin to Him,
to Him sin is sin no matter how we choose to look at it.
4) There’s no place in the bible that categorizes
it as sin. Well the bible says sin is anything that
separates us from God; do you think God feels welcome when we are busy having
sex with ourselves and idolizing our bodies?
5) Some day when you get married you
will no longer need to please yourself, your future husband or wife will cure
all your lust issues. If this was true then we wouldn’t
have the issue of unfaithfulness that is so prevalent in marriages today(especially in church) now would
we?
Jesus came to set the captives free and that is what
he did for me, I was a captive to the spirit of lust.
Because of a decision I made when I was in my teens. The devil could not trap me in a chain of sexual
escapades and soul ties. Therefore, he looked for an alternative. Same offer wrapped in a
different package.
Therefore, through lust, I opened a door for the
enemy to create an area where he could exert control over my life.
How
do we get free?
Here are some practical steps that I have applied in
my life for years that has enabled me to live a life free of lust.
1) Submit your life to God
, the only way the devil will release the control he has in your life is if
your life is fully submitted to God .I submitted my life to God when I got born
again(I accepted the free gift of
salvation that Jesus died for me to have). Anything that had nothing to do
with God had to leave, because now I was under new management.
If you are already born again and you are
struggling in this area, I suggest you recommit your life to God again. The
word of God is clear James 4:7 Nkjv, “ submit to God, resist the devil and
he will flee from you.” You cannot be resisting the devil and you are busy
trying to run your own life.
2)
Quiet
time. This is a specific time set aside where I hang out
with God. Spend some time in prayer. Prayer
is paramount, Jesus told His disciples, “wake up and pray that you do not fall
into temptation.” Put some worship music on; it really helps in
cleansing the mind and the heart allowing us to focus on God and who He is. Study
the bible; God will never speak to us outside His word, so when I study the
word then I can learn to know the voice of God apart from other voices.
3)
Clean
house: to have a new life means I have to change the way I
have been living. Change the way I have been thinking. Because lust is not really a body, issue but a
heart and mind issue.
Romans 12:2 NLT says, “Don’t
copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a
new person by changing the way you think.”
I have no ability to change the way I think on my own I need God’s help.
And that’s what He did and is still doing for me . This is not a one time thing
its continuous process that lasts a lifetime.
4) Guard your heart. We
have to be careful what gets into our hearts because it will overflow into our
lives .I had to let go of some friends because all we discussed was their
sexual escapades or some sexual movie they watched. Whenever one of my friends had sex, she would
come and give us all the gory details.
The friends we keep really define
who we are and who we want to be. If who you want to be is not being reflected
in the friends you keep then you need to let them go.
5)
Guard
your eyes and ears gates. whatever gets through our eyes and
ears gets to our heart and mind. we therefore have to be careful what is coming
through these ‘gates’ this means what I
read , what I watched , the music I listened to that was lustful or
sexual had to go. You have to be vigilant to take out the devil or he will
take you out.
This saying is true garbage in, garbage out. Godliness in,
godliness out.
I remember about 3 weeks after I
got born again my youth pastor told me ,I had to find some new music to listen
to. I asked him you mean I can no longer listen to my music? He said No!
I went home opened my computer I
had over 1,000 songs , I love music ,I had since I was 7 years old I felt like
God was stealing life from instead of giving me life. Even though it was hard,
something in me knew I had to trust that God
would bring me some new music to listen to so I cleaned my computer. Yes, I
deleted everything!
All
the Chris brown, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Beyonce, Usher Raymond, drake, lil Wayne,
nickleback, had to go.
Here
is a fun fact today I have over a 1000 songs on my laptop, and all of it
glorifies God! Now I listen to music that breathes life
into me rather than music that takes life from me.
6)
Train
yourself to flee. Yes to run away if you have to. Sounds a bit over the top but its true. You
can clean out your life but that doesn’t mean everyone around you will clean house.
You will live with people who love to watch or listen to lustful stuff, they
maybe Christians even because you know yourself you have to do whatever it takes.
if you find yourself in a situation that would cause you to compromise,run.
1 Corinthians 6:18Amp says, “shun sexual immorality and all sexual looseness
(flee from impurity in thought, word or deed).”
The
meaning of the word flee is ‘to run away, as from trouble or danger.’
7)
Know
your purpose. God didn’t just put you in this world so
as you can live and die. He created you for a purpose. Life is more than
getting an education, a job, getting married and getting some babies. God put you in this world as a solution to
a specific problem.
When you get a vision for your life. All the
above becomes very easy because you will understand what you are running towards
in life. You will be angry enough to no longer allow lust to steal the purpose
that God has for you.
Joseph is a guy who finds himself
sold as a slave in a foreign country. God was with him and made him successful
in his master’s house. The master’s wife casts her eye upon Joseph. This woman
was probably drop dead gorgeous. She keeps pestering Joseph to sleep with her,
but each time Joseph would tell her no! He said “how can I do such a thing and
sin against God?” she would not hear ,one day she caught him by his garment and said “lie with me,”
but Joseph left his garment and fled
and got out of the house. (Genesis 39:6-12)
Joseph had a purpose. He knew if he
gives in to this woman, he is done. Your temptation might not be a woman or a man,
it could be a phone, a computer, magazine or it could be yourself. When you
understand God has a purpose for your life none of this things will stand in
the way.
8) Become a living sacrifice.
Surrender your body on the Altar; let your body become a sacrifice before God. Here
is the thing is with living sacrifices they can walk off the altar unlike dead
sacrifices. Therefore, this is a daily thing. You can do it in your Quiet time and tell God “here
is my body it’s yours and not mine.”
When God owns your body. You can no
longer do with it as you please. You will live a life that brings glory and
honor to Him.
9) Have an accountability partner or
talk to someone you can trust. When we confess our
shortcomings one to another then we deny the devil the power to hold it over
our head, with guilt and condemnation. Confessing also allows people to pray
for and with us. We are not meant to walk alone in this life so don’t choose to
die with your struggles when God has provided a community that can hold you up.
10) Get an understanding of Gods
purpose for sex. When
we get a healthy understanding of God’s intentions for sex and marriage we
will not put unrealistic expectations on another human being. I will know it’s
not my future husband’s job to heal my lust issues. Moreover, everyone comes
with issues in marriage, how can two broken people help each other? it’s my job to get my soul whole ,my heart
whole and my body whole before marriage so that when I do get married what
I will be bringing into the marriage is
wholeness. Do your part. God will help your future spouse to do their part.
Masturbation, pornography and sexual immorality in
themselves are not the disease. They are just symptoms of the disease and
unless we treat the disease, we will forever be dealing with symptoms that keep
resurfacing. Lust is the disease and when you take out the disease, the symptoms
will eventually disappear.
God bless you,
Lucy
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