I looked at pornography for the last time on November 4, 2021. That was the day I purposed before God to leave my sexual sin behind me and to pursue holiness. That’s also the day I started writing these daily devotionals. My goal was to chronicle my journey, to discover what God’s word has to say about sexual sin, how to avoid it, and how to live a victorious life in Christ Jesus.
The primary lesson I have learned, and it’s taken me 11 months to get here, is that freedom from pornography and masturbation is really just the start of the change I am looking for in my life. As a Christian with a Bible, I knew that watching pornography was wicked. I longed to be free of its grip, free of the temptation to seek it out and to watch it. But now I realize that I wanted more than that. I wanted to be holy.
I don’t mean holier-than-thou holy. Or so holy that they name a seminary after me. I mean holy in the sense that I am set apart unto God. Set apart as his vessel, his instrument, to use as He pleases. I realize today that, what I long for is to be consecrated fully to Jesus Christ. I desire to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Him.
This longing wasn’t possible in the past because my sexual sin clouded my judgment, put a barrier between me and God, drew me into the world, filled me with shame, and made me reluctant to read my Bible and to pray. I now realize what a waste I have made of my life these past many decades. God wasn’t going to use a man like me for His service when I kept a secret sin, when I went back to my sexual sin year after year and never broke from it.
Well, now, by God’s grace, I have not looked at anything pornographic and I have not had sex with myself for 11 months. I have stumbled a few times with looking longer than I should at things that were inappropriate, but as far as pornography is concerned, I have abstained from it. But now I realize that my level of sexual purity is simply table stakes, as they say. Forsaking my sin is simply expected. I am only obeying what God requires of me. Gaining 11 month’s of victory over sexual sin is a big deal for me, but I am really just doing what I am commanded to do.
I have started again to read my Bible and to pray to God each morning, a habit I started as a new Christian but abandoned. I am reading Andrew Murray, Amy Carmichael, Thomas à Kempis and other devotional writers again. I am seeing sanctification, consecration, holiness, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, separation, worldliness, prayer and other topics in a brand new light. I praise God for a clear conscience. I am happier, too. Bonus.
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