If you want to gain lasting victory over pornography and sexual immorality, take your focus off yourself and put it on God. The problem you face is not addiction, but rebellion. The pathway to sexual purity requires you to see your sin more clearly. You need the kind of vision that Joseph had.
Joseph was working as a slave in the house of Potiphar, the captain of the guard of the pharaoh of Egypt. Joseph was head of the household. Potiphar’s wife was soliciting Joseph daily to have sex with her. Finally, Joseph rebuked her:
“There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
Genesis 39:9
What Potiphar’s wife was proposing was straightforward enough, right? Having sex with her would make Joseph a fornicator, make Potiphar’s wife an adulteress, and make Joseph someone who betrayed the trust of his boss. In other words, she was proposing that she and Joseph engage in a great wickedness. But Joseph didn’t stop there in his estimation. Joseph saw that also involved in this wicked solicitation was a holy God who demanded holiness from Joseph.
Joseph didn’t see this sin as just a physical act between him and Potiphar’s wife, or as just a breach of trust against his boss. Instead, he saw the sin clearly as rebellion against his Creator. “How then can I do this great wickedness,” he asks her, “and sin against God?” The answer? He can’t. Why not? Because Joseph had found favor in the eyes of God. God had protected Joseph, and blessed him in Egypt, and given him favor, and made him successful so that all that Joseph did prospered in his hand. Even his master, Potiphar, saw that the Lord was with Joseph (Genesis 39:2).
How could Joseph have sex with Potiphar’s wife and sin against his God? He couldn’t. Because his eyes were not on himself, but on a holy God. Sinning with her on earth meant sinning against God in heaven, something Joseph refused to do. Because his vision was clear. Is yours?
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