But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
James 1:14
One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn about pornography is that I am tempted by it because I desire it. Yes, I call porn wicked. I say I hate it. I say I want to be free of it. But the fact remains that I am tempted by pornography still. And I am tempted by it because I desire it.
I am telling you this because this knowledge is part of your path to freedom. Your enemy isn’t only outward. Your enemy isn’t just pornographic websites or immodest women or Instagram or TikTok. Your principal enemy is lust. Your lust. Your enemy is internal.
James tells you and me that “each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” For you and me to be drawn away by something, we must first desire it. This is the heart of temptation. You are tempted only by what you desire. This is why you shouldn’t look outside of yourself for your remedy for your porn “addiction.” Your porn problem starts with you.
You know this is true because you know that you aren’t tempted by things you don’t desire. I am not tempted by heroin, for example, because I don’t desire the high (and the eventual low) that it delivers. I am not tempted to play the lottery because I don’t desire to be fabulously rich overnight with no effort. I am not tempted to murder because I have no desire to see anyone dead.
But pornography, that is another story. I started this daily devotional precisely because I wanted to be free of it. I don’t want it in my life. I never want to see it again. I don’t want to be tempted by porn ever again. That’s the theory, anyway. And that’s what I want to be true. But if I am still tempted to look at images I should not look at, then that means I must still secretly desire them, right? If I am still tempted by porn, then I must still desire it, at some level, to some degree. If I didn’t desire it, it couldn’t tempt me.
This is the truth that I wish wasn’t true. And since I cannot wish it away, I am working on my desires. I am trying to put Christ first. I am trying to forsake the world and the things that are in the world so that I don’t love the world. I am confident that, if I follow Christ and forsake the world, my desires will eventually change. Porn will lose its power because I will no longer desire it.
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