Silas
Beloved of All
We thank God with you for the improvement you have seen, and we give all glory to the Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy and work in your life. Your honesty and your tears before God are precious to Him, and your desire for lasting and true freedom for the glory of God is exactly the heart He wants to cultivate.
What you are describing is a battle that begins in the heart. Scripture teaches that temptation comes when a person is drawn away by his own desires and enticed, and that desire when it is followed through brings forth sin. It also teaches that the things that dominate this world can be summed up as the craving of the flesh, the craving of the eyes, and the pride of life, and none of these are from the Father. They are passing away along with the world itself. When the eyes and the heart are fed with images and fantasies that inflame sensual desire, that desire does not stay contained. It creates pressure toward further sexual sin, whether in thought, in flirting, in pornography or in other acts outside of God's design. Many have found that pornography in particular takes hold like a drug and becomes a bondage that a person cannot break in his own strength. It enslaves the mind and then seeks to be lived out.
God's design is for purity, and He has made sexual intimacy to belong only within the lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Anything outside of that, even when it is called love, is in truth an expression of lust. That is why true deliverance must go deeper than outward behavior. It must be a work in the heart and mind.
We join you in praying that God will show you mercy and grant you full deliverance. We pray that He will renew your mind through His Word and make you wise to recognize temptation at its first appearance in the heart and to turn from it before it takes root. Do not lust after beauty in your heart or linger on what stirs desire. Cut it off at the beginning. God has given us exceedingly great and precious promises in Scripture so that through them we may share in His divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. Lay hold of those promises, let His Word wash your mind clean day by day, and be strengthened to grow in Him.
Remember also the principle that whatever a person sows, that he will also reap. What is sown into the mind through impure images and flirtation will reap bondage, while what is sown through purity, prayer, and the Word will reap life and peace. Prayer is not to get our own will done, but to seek God's will and His strength to do it. He is able to free you from the power of darkness and to keep you.
We pray for you now that the Lord will speak to you, give you understanding, guard your eyes and your heart, and lead you to take whatever practical steps are needed to remove these sins permanently from your life. May He fill the renewed space in your heart with love for Christ, with a love for purity, and with wisdom that keeps these sins far from you. May He make you pure even as He is pure, and may you walk in holiness and righteousness before Him, increasing day by day in His grace and in His Word.
We will continue to pray for lasting freedom and for a mind fully renewed for the glory of God in Jesus' name.
What you are describing is a battle that begins in the heart. Scripture teaches that temptation comes when a person is drawn away by his own desires and enticed, and that desire when it is followed through brings forth sin. It also teaches that the things that dominate this world can be summed up as the craving of the flesh, the craving of the eyes, and the pride of life, and none of these are from the Father. They are passing away along with the world itself. When the eyes and the heart are fed with images and fantasies that inflame sensual desire, that desire does not stay contained. It creates pressure toward further sexual sin, whether in thought, in flirting, in pornography or in other acts outside of God's design. Many have found that pornography in particular takes hold like a drug and becomes a bondage that a person cannot break in his own strength. It enslaves the mind and then seeks to be lived out.
God's design is for purity, and He has made sexual intimacy to belong only within the lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Anything outside of that, even when it is called love, is in truth an expression of lust. That is why true deliverance must go deeper than outward behavior. It must be a work in the heart and mind.
We join you in praying that God will show you mercy and grant you full deliverance. We pray that He will renew your mind through His Word and make you wise to recognize temptation at its first appearance in the heart and to turn from it before it takes root. Do not lust after beauty in your heart or linger on what stirs desire. Cut it off at the beginning. God has given us exceedingly great and precious promises in Scripture so that through them we may share in His divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. Lay hold of those promises, let His Word wash your mind clean day by day, and be strengthened to grow in Him.
Remember also the principle that whatever a person sows, that he will also reap. What is sown into the mind through impure images and flirtation will reap bondage, while what is sown through purity, prayer, and the Word will reap life and peace. Prayer is not to get our own will done, but to seek God's will and His strength to do it. He is able to free you from the power of darkness and to keep you.
We pray for you now that the Lord will speak to you, give you understanding, guard your eyes and your heart, and lead you to take whatever practical steps are needed to remove these sins permanently from your life. May He fill the renewed space in your heart with love for Christ, with a love for purity, and with wisdom that keeps these sins far from you. May He make you pure even as He is pure, and may you walk in holiness and righteousness before Him, increasing day by day in His grace and in His Word.
We will continue to pray for lasting freedom and for a mind fully renewed for the glory of God in Jesus' name.
