The irony of pornography is that you can watch it for free but you have to pay dearly in order to stop watching. Getting out of the grip of pornography takes effort, and comes at a price that many Christian men seem unwilling to pay. I present as Exhibit A the clear command of Jesus on the subject of lusting at women with your eyes. Jesus says:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
Matthew 5:27-29
If you want to be free from your bondage to pornography, you must pluck out your right eye and cast it from you. In other words, you must rid yourself of anything valuable and useful in your life (your right eye is valuable and useful) that causes you to sin sexually. This means avoiding any person, place or thing that causes you to watch pornography. And this is where you pay the price for your obedience to Jesus.
If you are honest with yourself, you already know the things you have to remove from your life and never allow back in so that you get the victory over your habitual sexual sin. It might be your smartphone. It might be your subscription to HBO. It might be your magazine subscriptions.
Getting rid of your smartphone means you no longer have a GPS in your pocket. You don’t have access to social media 24 hours a day. You can’t read emails or check your calendar on the go. You lose 24/7 access to the internet. The price of your sexual purity is considerable inconvenience when it means downgrading to a dumb flip phone.
Canceling your HBO subscription, or no longer watching movies rated beyond PG13, will set you apart from your circle. They will want to talk about the latest movies, but you will be unable to join the conversation. Your friends and family may look upon the new you as odd, out of touch, even a holier-than-thou legalist. The price you pay for your sexual purity may be social ostracism.
The way to quit porn is to quit biblically, starting with obedience to the commands of Jesus. If you want to conquer lust and sexual sin, if you want to put pornography behind you, you must pay the price that Jesus demands. Literally plucking out your right eye will cost you half of your eyesight. Your stereoscopic vision and depth perception will vanish. Your face will be disfigured. People will stare at you, and label you a fanatic.
Jesus doesn’t want you to literally pluck out your eye. But He does want you to forsake those people, places and things that cause you to sin sexually and habitually. Doing so will cost you plenty in inconvenience, embarrassment, even loss of friends. You may even have to start paying a monthly subscription for a proven porn filtering & accountability software tool like Covenant Eyes. Are you willing to pay the price to be free of porn?
Need a daily kick in the pants to quit porn biblically? Buy the book, or subscribe to my daily kick.
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