Silas
Beloved of All
Your honest prayer for forgiveness and healing is heard by God, and it is right to bring this struggle into the light before Him.
The good news of the Bible is that forgiveness with God is complete. When we forgive each other we often keep a record and bring it up again, but God does not forgive that way. When you come to Him through Jesus Christ and confess your sin, He washes it away fully. You are not just pardoned, you are justified, counted as righteous because of what Jesus did. King David prayed for this kind of mercy after his own sexual sin, asking God to blot out his transgressions according to His tender mercies, and God answered him. Even Manasseh, who went further away from God than most people could imagine and led a whole nation into idolatry and immorality, prayed and found that the Lord is loving and forgiving when we truly turn to Him. You have not gone too far for His grace. If you confess your sin, He is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you. That forgiveness is the greatest miracle of all, greater than any physical healing, because it settles your eternity.
At the same time, God understands the healing you are asking for, and He is a healer. Scripture shows that Jesus bore our sins and also our sicknesses, and that His body was broken for us. Healing belongs to His work. Sometimes that healing is instant, as when a person feels strength return in a moment. Sometimes it is gradual, like the blind man who at first saw men as trees walking and then saw clearly after Jesus touched him again. Both are divine. God has built healing processes into our bodies and our minds, and He also heals the deep wounds in our emotions and memories, the scars that sin leaves behind. Do not be discouraged if restoration is not all at once. A gradual healing is still a real healing from His hand.
It is important to see pornography for what it is. It is not a harmless habit. It is addictive, like alcohol or drugs, and it has a powerful hold that grows stronger over time. It takes a person captive and makes a slave of him, holding him in a tight grip. What begins with an image leads to a desire for more and for different things, and it is progressive. God designed sexual intimacy to belong only within the lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Any sexual activity outside of that commitment is outside His design, and it cannot bring the peace you long for. The prophet describes the person who keeps running from God as like a storm tossed sea that cannot rest. There is no peace in that restless way. But when you turn your life over to Jesus and receive His forgiveness and His healing, the war inside ends. He promises to restore comfort and to give a beautiful, lasting peace.
Your only power against this captivity is found in turning fully to the Lord and walking in His strength day by day. Bring your temptation to Him in prayer honestly and often. Remove access to what ensnares you, and do not trust your own willpower alone. Invite a mature, godly person you trust to hold you accountable. Fill your mind with Scripture and with worship, so that what is pure replaces what is impure. Keep coming to Jesus for cleansing whenever you stumble, and keep asking for His healing of your mind and heart.
May the Lord forgive you completely as you confess to Him, cleanse your conscience, and heal you in body, mind and spirit. May He restore to you a pure heart, renew your thoughts, break the chains that have held you, and fill you with His peace as you walk closely with Jesus Christ.
The good news of the Bible is that forgiveness with God is complete. When we forgive each other we often keep a record and bring it up again, but God does not forgive that way. When you come to Him through Jesus Christ and confess your sin, He washes it away fully. You are not just pardoned, you are justified, counted as righteous because of what Jesus did. King David prayed for this kind of mercy after his own sexual sin, asking God to blot out his transgressions according to His tender mercies, and God answered him. Even Manasseh, who went further away from God than most people could imagine and led a whole nation into idolatry and immorality, prayed and found that the Lord is loving and forgiving when we truly turn to Him. You have not gone too far for His grace. If you confess your sin, He is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you. That forgiveness is the greatest miracle of all, greater than any physical healing, because it settles your eternity.
At the same time, God understands the healing you are asking for, and He is a healer. Scripture shows that Jesus bore our sins and also our sicknesses, and that His body was broken for us. Healing belongs to His work. Sometimes that healing is instant, as when a person feels strength return in a moment. Sometimes it is gradual, like the blind man who at first saw men as trees walking and then saw clearly after Jesus touched him again. Both are divine. God has built healing processes into our bodies and our minds, and He also heals the deep wounds in our emotions and memories, the scars that sin leaves behind. Do not be discouraged if restoration is not all at once. A gradual healing is still a real healing from His hand.
It is important to see pornography for what it is. It is not a harmless habit. It is addictive, like alcohol or drugs, and it has a powerful hold that grows stronger over time. It takes a person captive and makes a slave of him, holding him in a tight grip. What begins with an image leads to a desire for more and for different things, and it is progressive. God designed sexual intimacy to belong only within the lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Any sexual activity outside of that commitment is outside His design, and it cannot bring the peace you long for. The prophet describes the person who keeps running from God as like a storm tossed sea that cannot rest. There is no peace in that restless way. But when you turn your life over to Jesus and receive His forgiveness and His healing, the war inside ends. He promises to restore comfort and to give a beautiful, lasting peace.
Your only power against this captivity is found in turning fully to the Lord and walking in His strength day by day. Bring your temptation to Him in prayer honestly and often. Remove access to what ensnares you, and do not trust your own willpower alone. Invite a mature, godly person you trust to hold you accountable. Fill your mind with Scripture and with worship, so that what is pure replaces what is impure. Keep coming to Jesus for cleansing whenever you stumble, and keep asking for His healing of your mind and heart.
May the Lord forgive you completely as you confess to Him, cleanse your conscience, and heal you in body, mind and spirit. May He restore to you a pure heart, renew your thoughts, break the chains that have held you, and fill you with His peace as you walk closely with Jesus Christ.
