Freedom from Pornography: God's Way to Break the Chains of Lust

By Steve Mueller

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456861346

Steve Mueller

Bill Rogers earned his undergraduate degree at Trinity College, University of Toronto, in music and philosophy, and his law degree at Queen’s. In addition to his family law practice, he is a private music teacher and volunteers teaching music to at-risk youth. Bill is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in the Lawyers Weekly, National Post, and the Globe and Mail. Steve Mueller, now deceased, was a member of Mensa, a college psychology professor, and a bon vivant. He claimed to be able to talk to the dead due to supposed psychic ability.

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by Steve Mueller.

ISBN: Softcover    978-1-4568-6133-9

ISBN: Ebook        978-1-4568-6134-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

You may contact Steve Mueller at [e-mail]

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Introduction

Importance of Scripture

Overview of addictions-the electromagnet

Overview of this study—what we hope to accomplish

1    Commitment to Freedom and truth about identity

Identity

Our Identity In Christ Jesus

2    Where are we and how did we get here?

The wound and the lies. Why do I do what I do?

Are we Free?

Are your giants bigger than your God?

3    Community and Accountability

Community

Accountability

Being accountable to God

4    Confession and repentance.

Confession to others

Confession to God

Repentance

5    Forgiveness, Guilt and Shame

Receiving God’s forgiveness

Guilt

Shame

The Shame Lie

False Guilt

Spiritual Insanity

6    Forgiveness

Why give forgiveness?

The process of forgiveness.

Forgiveness exercise

Forgiveness Worksheet

7    Applying Truth To Break Sinful Habits

Temptation

Desire and Beauty

How to fight temptation:

How to battle the World, the flesh and the devil

Gods Truth About Our Sexuality

8    Lust and Masturbation

Lust

Masterbation

Seeing, Looking and Lusting: What’s the difference?

What can we do to avoid looking to lust and mb?

Lust in Marriage

9    Spiritual Warfare

The Basics

The Defensive weapons of our warfare from Eph six

10    The offensive weapons of our warfare

Offense from 2 Corin 10

Hebrews 9:14

Other Verses

11    The builder and the tree

Appendices

Appendix 1: A Plan of Action

Appendix 2: Forgiveness: The Life of Joseph

Appendix 3: Practical Questions to Determine Where to Exercise Liberty

Appendix 4: Lust Wisdom from Solomon

Appendix 5: Deception

Introduction

John sat alone again watching the tv. He felt the pull toward the computer, but vowed not to go there tonight. He wanted to quit, and he was in the process of proving to himself that he could quit anytime. He would just put a few more days together without going there and that would prove that he didn’t need to buy an internet filter.

As he watched his commercial came on again. He called it his because it featured her. She smiled at him and told him to buy her product. He doesn’t know what the commercial was selling, but he sure knew what she was selling, and he bought it. The drive to go to the computer was now too strong for him and he went to his favorite website and looked until he finally gratified his lust. He would start a new string of days without this habit tomorrow. His record now stood at five days. He felt guilt and shame, but really he had only been trying to stop for a couple months now he told himself. Yes, I’ll try harder tomorrow.

Eph 4:22-24 "In reference to your former manner of life, lay aside the old self; which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth . . ."

This book is designed to help men that are struggling to get free of lust related problems. We will deal with all the aspects: physical, emotional and spiritual. It is designed for Christians, but non Christians can also benefit greatly and my hope is that through this study they may also find Christ. We will deal with manhood, standing up against the enemy and living the adventure we were born to live. We will discover the plots of an insidious enemy who prowls around looking for a man to devour, so that his family and influence will be brought to nothing. But the enemy is not the only one to blame. We must take responsibility for our own choices that have developed into habits of weakness and made us ineffective warriors, insubordinate soldiers and reckless rangers. We have believed lies and they must be renounced and replaced with truth. Can you see how your choices have created a stronghold in your life? ________________________ What are some things that we have blamed for it in the past? Pain from someone else? Availability of lustful material? Were you seduced?

Importance of Scripture

In our quest for freedom from these strongholds you will notice that we will use a lot of Scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, and for reproof and for correction and for instruction in righteousness; so that the man of God may be perfectly adequate, equipped to do every good work. We want to do some teaching, some reproof, and some correction. Certainly some instruction in righteousness. You will find that anyone engaged in sexual immorality is not believing the truth in some area of their life. Jesus said that if we abide in His Word we will know the truth and it will set us free. (John 8:32) God said to Hosea that His people perish for lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4:6) Peter tells us that through a true knowledge of Him who called us we were granted everything pertaining to life and godliness. (2 Peter 1:3) The world the flesh and the devil lie to us. We want to replace those lies with truth, and the only source of Gods truth is Gods Word. That’s why so much scripture will be used, especially in the final chapters where we pick up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Learning how to use this vital weapon is our key to freedom. In Psalms 119:133 David said, Establish my footsteps in thy Word, and do not let any iniquity have dominion over me. Tired of a sin having dominion over you? Establish your footsteps in His Word. Psalm 119:165 Those who love your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble. Do you have great peace, or do you stumble in your sin? Learn to love His Word.

One of the paths to freedom will be to compare our lives with the Israelites as they escaped slavery in Egypt and journeyed to Gods promised land in Canaan. God gives us many examples to learn from and examples not to follow. There are tales of great courage and whimpering cowardice, songs of victory and the awful annoying sound of whining. We will relate our lives to theirs, discovering the lies they believed and discovering our own. We will go through the process of temptation and how God tells us to handle it.

Will you go on this great adventure with me? The Israelites took 40 years to take an eleven day hike. How long has your journey into Gods promised land taken? Are you fighting just to stay alive or are you making a difference for the kingdom? Are you attacking the very gates of hell or are you too tired to get off the couch? The Apostle Paul urges you, don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

I heard the other day that someone paid an astronomically high price for an old cigar box owned by John F Kennedy. That reminds us that value is determined by what someone is willing to pay for something. That box was obviously of great value to the person who bought it, because they paid a great price for it. I wouldn’t pay much at all for it, because it doesn’t hold any value to me. In our opening illustration of John, was he putting more value on his lust problem, or on freedom?

________________________________________________________

What is the price you have paid for lust and porn? Not just financial, but what has it cost your soul? ____________________________________

If your cost is as great as mine was, was it worth it? I look back and say, ‘what was I thinking?’ Why did I give it that much value?

What about freedom? Does freedom have any value to you? If yes, then what are you willing to pay? As the saying goes, freedom isn’t free. What are you willing to do to be free? List some specifics

________________________________________________________

And by the way, if value is determined by how much someone is willing to pay, how much does God value you? What price did He pay for your freedom? Something to wrap your mind around. We will discuss your value later.

Overview of addictions-the electromagnet

Have you ever been to a junkyard or scrap metal yard where they use one of those huge electromagnets to lift piles of junk from one spot to another? Tons of metal can be lifted with these magnets. When the electric current is turned off the metal falls away.

The lust addict knows the power of this kind of pull. Why couldn’t I say no? is a common question. We know we can say ‘no,’ but at the point of temptation we don’t seem to be able to. So we give in and say we will fight tomorrow. This is one of the main things common with all addictions.

Someone free from this addiction feels the pull like a regular magnet and is able to pull away fairly easy. But why is the power of this stronghold or addiction like an electromagnet? Because addictions have a spiritual component to them. We have opened the door to Satan and his demons through disobedience to the safeguards God gives us in His Word. Other times we may have been abused by others that opened the door to the enemy’s influence on us. However it was we became trapped, we must confess and repent of our cooperation with it and stop believing the deceptions that hold us in bondage. This is what this study will attempt to do with the aid of the Holy Spirit and your cooperation. This study will concentrate on the spiritual aspect of our lives first. How aware are you of the spiritual nature of this lust problem?

________________________________________________________

We will refer to this electromagnetic pull throughout the study. We will attempt to replace lies with knowledge of the truth found in Gods Word. When we repent of our actions and renounce the lies that invade our belief system, we take away Satan’s rights to us and lessen the power of the magnet, Now our addiction becomes merely a bad habit that we need to deal with with acts of obedience to God, not to earn our freedom, but to declare our trust in the freedom He has already won for us. We will learn how to do that through spiritual warfare.

3 things to remember

1    Gods goodness. We must understand the truth of God and His actions toward us and what that means to us. This will be chapters one and two.

2    Guidance. We must learn the truth of Gods Word and how to practically apply this to override our old sinful habits. This will be the rest of the book.

3    Growth. We must allow time for God to bring about these changes. But time alone will not renew our minds if we are not willing to apply truth to our situations. Growth takes time, but we must also learn from our mistakes, renounce lies from the past and walk in a new direction.

Overview of this study—what we hope to accomplish

First of all we need to believe what God says about us and not what the world, our own sin nature and even Satan tells us. We must learn the truth about what God says about our identity. We will look at accountability, and why community with other brothers is so important. Next we will look at how sin has crept into our lives and what it tells us about who we are. We will look at the truth about our freedom that we have in Christ, and that this is not a battle from defeat, but from victory.

We will look at confession and repentance, forgiveness and the shame lie. We will come to see that guilt is from God and is meant to turn us back to God, but shame is from the enemy and attacks our identity in Christ.

We will deal with the wounds that we have received through life and forgive those who have wounded us. After that we will look at the lies we have believed from those wounds and renounce them as lies to take the spiritual power away from our addictions. We will look at the nature of temptation. A practical discussion of lust and masturbation and pornography will be helpful to put them in perspective. We will see that we do not have the right to sin just because of what has happened and renounce that as a lie so that we can walk in the truth of what God says about us.

We will learn how to fight in the spiritual realm where the real battle is taking place. We will learn the weapons of our warfare and how to use scripture to submit to God. We will take a personal inventory and find out the patterns of our addictions so that we can be prepared to submit and resist.

Would you pray this prayer with me? This is a quote from martyred missionary Jim Elliot.

O Father, let me not be distracted by nonessentials. Bring the Word to me in power; subject these huge hungers to the obedience of Christ. Above all these things I would have holiness. Teach me the path of faith.

We walk by faith, not by sight. II Corin 5:7

Chapter 1

John was doubly excited. He heard about a group of guys that were meeting at the local church and going though some material on how to get free from porn addictions. He had set it up and was going to attend the next week’s meeting. But this was Friday night and the other reason he was excited had just pulled into the driveway. His new girlfriend, Sally Mae.

As they watched the movie she had brought, a scene got his juices flowing. The arm that was around her started to explore and too soon they found themselves not at all absorbed in the plot of the movie. They had talked last time about not going so far again, but as the guilt mounted, the ability to stop swept them away and they found themselves even further into lust and passion than before. The boundaries they had set were smashed, so they figured it was too late to go back, so onward they went.

Commitment to Freedom and truth about identity

Believe what God says about you.

In the Bible’s Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, the Israelites,