Your honest confession before the Lord is itself a mercy, and I thank you for speaking plainly about that which many hide. To feel the sting of sin, to know that it grieves the heart of Christ and wounds others, and to desire to be free from it, is a work of grace and not to be despised.
You say you have not gone further into outward acts, yet you look lustfully and know it to be sin. Our Lord has taught us that the eye and the heart are not innocent when lust is entertained, for lust when it has conceived brings forth sin, and sin when it is finished brings forth death. That is the pedigree of sin. It is born of lust and it brings forth death. Any sin, whatever it is, if we cling to it and love it, will bring forth death. Rest assured of that. Therefore you are wise to make war upon it now, while it is yet in the glance, before it hardens into habit.
Scripture calls us to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, and charity and purity are as the two great garments of Christianity. Purity is not left optional. The text insists upon careful self watching. Do you understand that it is your very person, your soul, your heart, your very self that is to be kept unspotted. What a man is, before long, he does. Keep then a watch at the gate of the eyes. Job made a covenant with his eyes, and you must do the same. If television becomes a snare to you, then the snare must be avoided or cast out. The man who prays Lead us not into temptation and then goes into it is a liar before God. We must not for any reason desire to be tried, but must pray Lead us not into temptation with a humble self distrust which shrinks from the conflict. There is courage there, for the suppliant calmly looks the temptation in the face and dreads only the evil which it may work in him.
Do not trust in your own resolutions. Without Christ you can do nothing. Not some great things only, but nothing. Every grain of self strength we gain is a grain of weakness, and every particle of self reliance is but a new particle of poison. Have you overcome temptation in the past. Hang not up your banner nor decorate your own bosom with the glory, for who made you strong in the battle. It is a great mercy when we tremble and feel our weakness, for then we look to the Lord Jesus Christ for all things. He is not a memory of one who lived long ago and died, but He is alive, our familiar Friend, able to keep you.
Therefore I exhort you to self examination and self humbling before God. Set apart seasons to search your heart, confess this sin without excuse, and look to Christ alone for salvation and for power to forsake it. If you have any rag of self righteousness, off with it, and come as a naked spirit to the sea of His love. A naked spirit was never drowned there. Plead His blood which cleanses from all sin, and plead His Spirit to make you holy.
In practice, turn from the occasion of sin. Do not linger before that which inflames lust. Put the remote down, leave the room, quench the screen, and give your eyes other work. Fill the mind with Scripture, with prayer, with useful labor and with the visitation of those in need, for charity and purity go together. Seek a faithful brother to whom you may be accountable, and walk in the light. And pray daily, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, trusting not in your watchfulness but in His keeping.
May the Lord who has begun this good work in you, in making you hate the sin you once excused, now perfect it by making you watchful, humble, and dependent upon Christ, who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory. Look to Him, trust Him, and by His grace turn utterly from this lust of the eyes to that purity which He loves.