heart Archives - Make No Provision

Do You Hate Porn? Love Porn? Both? | James 4:8

by Alan Sharpe June 21, 2022

When you cleanse your hands and purify your heart, you drawn closer to God. The closer you get, the less you sin.

by Alan Sharpe June 21, 2022

Do You Struggle with Porn Because You Are Double-Minded? | James 4:8

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:8

If you are a Christian man who struggles with the sin of looking at pornography, your problem might not be porn, or lust, but double-mindedness. You are in two minds about your sin. Part of you loves your sin. Part of you hates it. And so you continue to struggle in defeat.

James tells you and me, in chapter 4 of his letter, that our walk with the Lord must be one of humility. We are to submit to God, draw near to God, cleanse our hands, and purify our hearts. And just who, exactly, are the ones who need their hearts purified? The “double-minded.” That is, those who are wavering and vacillating. The Greek word is dipsuchos, and means to literally be “two souled,” as if a person is split in half, a spiritual schizophrenic.

You likely know this experience of being dou

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Porn is a Heart Problem | Matthew 15:19-20

by Alan Sharpe February 3, 2022

The Bible says pornography and masturbation are heart problems for Christian men. Knowing this truth helps you stay sexually pure today.

by Alan Sharpe February 3, 2022

Porn is a Heart Problem | Matthew 15:19-20

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” Matthew 15:19-20

You can’t be tempted by something you don’t desire. Or, to state the case in the positive, you are tempted only by what you desire. I, for example, have no desire to see anyone dead, so I am not tempted to murder. I don’t long for wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, so I am never tempted to buy Powerball lottery tickets. But I do on occasion desire sexual satisfaction from sinful sources, and so I am tempted to look at porn and to masturbate. I wish this wasn’t so, but it is what it is, as they say. I have a heart problem.

In the Bible, the heart refers to the seat of the affections, desires and passions, as well as of wisdom and understanding. Jesus says the heart, my heart, your heart, is where adultery and

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Your Pornography Problem? You. | Mark 7:20-23

by Alan Sharpe December 14, 2021

Your challenge isn’t primarily adult websites, immodestly dressed women, Netflix or your smartphone. It’s you. You are your porn problem.

by Alan Sharpe December 14, 2021

If you have a problem with the sins of pornography or masturbation, don’t look only to outward solutions to your sin. Your challenge is not primarily adult websites, immodestly dressed women, magazine racks, or your smartphone. Your challenge isn’t them. It’s you. You are your porn problem.

You discover this truth about yourself from Jesus. The religious leaders of His day thought defilement came from without. Jesus set them straight. He told them:

“What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
Mark 7:20-23

Notice the sexual sins: adulteries, fornications (sexual immorality), lewdness. Almost 25% of the sins that Jesus lists are sexual sins. And they h

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To Quit Porn, Hide Scripture (Not Your Sin) | Psalm 119:11

by Alan Sharpe November 25, 2021

David found passages in the Scriptures where God commanded him to do something, or to not do something, and he memorized those holy commandments. Do likewise.

by Alan Sharpe November 25, 2021

To quit porn, hide God's word in your heart. Psalm 119:11

If you want to learn how to get victory over pornography and sexual immorality, ask a brother in the Lord who has been there, done that, and won the victory. Ask someone like King David. David wrote a large portion of the Psalms. In one of those psalms, he declares one practical step that he took to prevent himself from transgressing God’s commandments. You find his declaration in Psalm 119:

“Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.”
Psalm 119:11

David is speaking to God. When he refers to “Your word,” he means God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, particularly the law. Start at the end of the verse and you see that David had set a goal in his life. Notice that David didn’t simply want to avoid sinning. He wanted to avoid sinning “against You,” against his God.

So what did David do with his goal? Put it on a sticky note and pin it by his bathroom mirror? Start each day with an affirmatio

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Prevention

To Defeat Porn, Pluck Out Your Right Eye. Then Cast it Away. | Matthew 5:27-29

by Alan Sharpe November 12, 2021

Avoiding the cause of temptation in the moment is not enough if that person, place or thing causes you to sin again. You must pluck it out when tempted, then cast it from you so that it never tempts you again.

by Alan Sharpe November 12, 2021

If you struggle with the sin of watching pornography, Jesus has a remedy for you that is doubly difficult—but effective. You learn of this remedy in the Gospel of Matthew, the fifth chapter, in the passage that recounts the sermon that Jesus delivered to a multitude gathered on a hillside in Galilee.

This is what 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

Notice the double remedy for eliminating the temptation to sin by lusting with your eyes: (1) pluck out your right eye, and (2) cast it from

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At a Hotel or in Your Heart, It’s Still Adultery | Matthew 5:27-28

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by Alan Sharpe November 8, 2021

When you lust after a woman with your eyes, when you watch pornography, you commit adultery with a person, not an abstraction. You commit adultery with someone in particular, a woman you can describe in intimate detail. Where this happens is irrelevant.

by Alan Sharpe November 8, 2021

Will you commit adultery today? The thought may shock you, but only because you haven’t thought hard enough about what Jesus teaches about looking at women and lusting after them. Or because you have thought about what Jesus says, but think he means something else.

I am referring, of course, to the teaching that Jesus gives on a hillside in Galilee, a teaching that we know as The Sermon on the Mount. This is what Jesus teaches:

“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.”
Matthew 5:27-28

If you are like many of your brothers in Christ, you think that Jesus is teaching that looking at a woman to lust for her means you commit adultery only in your heart, that you don’t actually commit adultery. You think that look
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