self control Archives - Make No Provision

Conquering Porn Is Not Either/Or | Romans 8:13

by Alan Sharpe October 7, 2022

This is great news if all of your self effort has delivered few lasting results up to today. And it’s also good news if you have been waiting passively for God to intervene to deliver you from your sexual immorality.

by Alan Sharpe October 7, 2022

man escapes from prison abstract concept

For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Romans 8:13

There are two mistakes you can make as a Christian man wanting to break free of pornography. There might be more than two mistakes, actually. But there are two big ones that you must avoid.

The first mistake is thinking that your sexual purity is entirely up to you. You believe you are responsible for your sin, and therefore you are responsible for forsaking it. So far, so good. But you also think your victory is up to you. You must read your Bible more. You must pray more often and more fervently. You must mortify your flesh more thoroughly. In other words, you think conquering sexual lust is all up to you. This is a mistake.

The second blunder is to think that your victory over porn is entirely up to God. You believe that you are “powerless over your addic

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Sanctification

You Need a Willing Spirit Plus a Subdued Body | Matthew 26:41

by Alan Sharpe October 5, 2022

When your spirit is willing and your body is under your control, you win. And you please your Lord.

by Alan Sharpe October 5, 2022

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Matthew 26:41

Victory over sexual sin doesn’t come just spiritually, and it doesn’t come with human effort alone. Your victory isn’t all up to God, and it isn’t all up to you, either. To forsake pornography and any other sexual sin, you require a willing spirit and a subdued body.

When the disciples fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus rebuked them for having willing spirits but unwilling bodies. Jesus asked the disciples to stay awake and to watch with Him as he prayed. But they fell asleep. Their spirits wanted to stay awake, but their bodies wanted to sleep. Their bodies won the battle, they fell asleep, and they disobeyed their Lord.

The lesson for you and me is that we must bring our bodies into subjection if we are to obey our Lord. We must subdue them, discipline them, make t

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Consecration

“Effects require causes.” || Henry Drummond

by Alan Sharpe July 10, 2022

Christian experiences are governed by law. Men, forgetting this, expect Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith to drop into their souls from the air like snow or rain.

by Alan Sharpe July 10, 2022

Nothing that happens in the world happens by chance. God is a God of order. Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and never at random. The world, even the religious world, is governed by law. Character is governed by law. Happiness is governed by law. The Christian experiences are governed by law. Men, forgetting this, expect Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith to drop into their souls from the air like snow or rain. But in point of fact they do not do so; and if they did they would no less have their origin in previous activities and be controlled by natural laws. Rain and snow do drop from the air, but not without a long previous history. They are the mature effects of former causes. Equally so are Rest, and Peace, and Joy. They, too, have each a previous history. Storms and winds and calms are not accidents, but are brought about by antecedent circumstances. Rest and Peace are but calms in man’s inward nature, and arise through causes as definite and as inevitable.

Realize it thoroughly: it is a methodical not an accidental world. If a housewife turns out a good cak

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Sanctification

Quit Porn Through Substitution, Not Just Elimination | Romans 6:19

by Alan Sharpe July 5, 2022

Porn isn’t something you renounce as much as something you replace. The path to sexual purity is substitution, not just elimination.

by Alan Sharpe July 5, 2022

Quit Porn Through Substitution, Not Just Elimination | Romans 6:19

I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
Romans 6:19

You don’t quit porn. You replace it. You don’t conquer it and walk away in victory. You subdue it by replacing it with something else. You don’t stop watching porn. You start watching something better.

I am overstating my case of course, but only to make a point. Of course you are to quit pornography, subdue it and stop looking at it. But the way you abstain from porn is through substitution, not just through elimination. This is Paul’s point here in his letter to the men and women at Rome. “You used to offer parts of your body as slaves to uncleanness,” he tells them. “Now, offer parts of your body as slaves of righteousness for holiness instead.”

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Accountability

Porn Is a Snare Because It’s Affordable

by Alan Sharpe May 11, 2022

Porn’s affordability is partly why you are in the trouble you are in. If it was crazy difficult to get hold of and impossibly expensive to acquire, you would be free.

by Alan Sharpe May 11, 2022

This post is part two of a three-part series. Pornography is a snare because it is:
Available | Affordable | Anonymous

There was a time when pornography was avoidable because it was unaffordable. Christian men like you and me had an easier time staying sexually pure because every form of pornography on the market, whether the open market or the black market, cost something. This made the battle for purity a lot easier because men never got snared by something they couldn’t afford.

The economics of porn in those days was simple: the harder the porn, the higher the price. So

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Sanctification

Is Masturbation a Sin in the Bible? Yes. | 1 Corinthians 7:8-9

by Alan Sharpe February 2, 2022

There are only two biblical outlets for sexual lust. One is self-control. The other is marriage. Pick one.

by Alan Sharpe February 2, 2022

“But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 NKJV

The remedy for raging teenage hormones, sexual urges, lustful thoughts and pent up sexual energy is never masturbation. This is the clear teaching of Scripture. Is masturbation a sin in the Bible? Yes.

Paul is writing here to the church at Corinth about sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 7:1-2). He says to the believers there: “Because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.” In other words, to avoid having premarital sex, a man should marry one woman, and a woman should marry one man.

But this naturally raises a question. What are single people to do with their sexual urges? What are widows to do with their

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Temptation

“Sin appears in the mind, and can be conquered there.” || Amy Carmichael

by Alan Sharpe February 2, 2022

We have been given the power to close the door of the mind.

by Alan Sharpe February 2, 2022

All the great staining temptations, to selfishness, ambition, and other strong sins that violently affront the soul, appear first in the region of the mind, and can be fought and conquered there. We have been given the power to close the door of the mind. We can lose this power through disuse or increase it by use, by the daily discipline of the inner man in things which seem small and by reliance upon the word of the Spirit of Truth. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” It is as though He said, “Learn to live in your will, not in your feelings.”

Excerpted from Gold by Moonlight by Amy Carmichael. Public domain.

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Obedience

In Your War with Lust, Never Carry a White Flag | 1 Peter 2:11

by Alan Sharpe January 31, 2022

If your fleshly lusts war against your soul, then that means you are in a battle. And your only job in this battle is to never, ever, surrender.

by Alan Sharpe January 31, 2022

In Your War with Lust, Never Carry a White Flag | 1 Peter 2:11

“Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” 1 Peter 2:11

If your fleshly lusts war against your soul, as Peter says they do, then that means you are in a battle. And if you are in a battle, then that means you have an enemy. But your enemy isn’t without. It’s within.

In your war against pornography and masturbation, you are at war with yourself, with your fleshly lusts. That is, you are engaged in a daily conflict with inordinate bodily, animal, unregenerate desires. These lusts come in the form of sexual fantasies, sexual temptations, sexual urges. They attack you when you are watching pornography, when you are lying in bed, even when you are sitting in church.

Your job as a soldier in this war is to never surrender to these fleshly lusts. You are commanded to abstain from them. You are to keep away from them as an alcoholic sta

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Consequences

Are You a Porn Victim? Or a Volunteer? | Ephesians 4:17-19

by Alan Sharpe January 25, 2022

Sin is always voluntary, never compulsory. No one, and no thing, forces you to look at pornography. You are never a victim. Only a volunteer.

by Alan Sharpe January 25, 2022

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”
Ephesians 4:17-19 NKJV

In the battle against pornography and sexual immorality, there is no such thing as defeat—only surrender. There is never a time when temptation defeats you, or when sin defeats you, or when the devil defeats you. When you fall to porn or sexual sin, it’s not because you are overpowered. It’s because you surrender.

Sin is always voluntary, never compulsory. No one, and no thing, forces you to look at pornography. No one, and no thing, compels you to masturbate. Yes, the desire may seem irresistible, the urge may appear i

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Lust

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful | 1 Corinthians 7:1-2

by Alan Sharpe January 24, 2022

The remedy for sexual desire in single men and women is marriage. The remedy for sexual desire in married men and women is marriage. Any questions?

by Alan Sharpe January 24, 2022

“Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.” 1 Corinthians 7:1-2 NKJV

When it comes to sexual immorality, the answer is marriage. Now, what’s your question? This is partly what Paul is saying in his letter to the church at Corinth. They posed a question to him in a letter. And Paul gave his answer to them in a letter that we know as 1 Corinthians.

Their question appears to be about sexual relations for single people, whether that activity is good or bad, permissible or forbidden, in their present circumstances. Paul says that it is good for a single man to not have sexual relations with a woman, assuming he is able to contain his desires. But, if he is unable to contain those desires, he should marry. Marriage is the answer for the single man and the single

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Accountability

What’s Your Instrument of Unrighteousness? | Romans 6:13

by Alan Sharpe November 27, 2021

If you want to quit porn, take control of your body parts. Stop offering them as instruments of wickedness.

by Alan Sharpe November 27, 2021

Who Else is in Your Cell? | 1 Timothy 1:8-11

Yes, the sin of watching pornography involves your eyes. But it involves other body parts, too, doesn’t it? I don’t have to name them. If you struggle with sexual immorality, you know that the temptation often starts with your eyes, but you consummate the sin with other parts of your body.

The Bible calls the parts of your body your “members.” And God has specific instructions on what you are to do, and not to do, with your members. Open your Bible to the New Testament, find the book of Romans, and turn to chapter 6, verse 13:

“And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
Romans 6:13

This word “members” in the original language of the New Testament mean

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