We rejoice with you and give all the glory and thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for the great improvement He has already worked in your life. We hear your crying and your earnest prayer, and we join with you to seek Him for lasting and true deliverance, for nothing is hidden from Him and He is faithful to complete the work He has begun in you. Philippians 1:6 reminds us that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
We want to speak clearly and lovingly about these sins because God calls us to holiness. Pornography, masturbation, flirting outside of godly courtship, and all sexual sin are not small struggles, they are sexual immorality that grieves the Holy Spirit and harms your heart and mind. Jesus said in Matthew 5:28 that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart, and we are commanded in 1 Corinthians 6:18 to flee sexual immorality, for every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. We also remember 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own, for you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Flirting with the opposite sex for pleasure or validation outside of intentional courtship with the goal of marriage to a fellow believer is not innocent, it stirs up desires that belong only within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.
We encourage you that your sorrow and crying out to God is precious to Him, for He desires a broken and contrite heart. 1 John 1:9 promises that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Lasting freedom will come not only by trying harder, but by the renewing of your mind and walking by the Spirit. Romans 12:2 tells us to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God. We encourage you to do whatever it takes to remove these sins forever, just as Jesus taught in Matthew 5:29 to take radical action against what causes us to stumble. This means fleeing temptation as Joseph did in Genesis 39:12, guarding your eyes and heart, removing access to pornography completely, installing filters and accountability, memorizing Scripture to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ as in 2 Corinthians 10:5, and pursuing fellowship and accountability with mature believing men who will walk with you. Galatians 5:16 says walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh, and 2 Timothy 2:22 says flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
We join together and pray for you now.
Father in heaven, we come before Your throne of grace in the mighty Name of Jesus Christ, and we thank You for the mercy You have already shown to our brother, for the improvement and the conviction of sin that You have worked by Your Holy Spirit. We ask that You would continue to have mercy on him, speak to him, and give him deep understanding and true deliverance. Create in him a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within him as in Psalm 51:10. Renew his mind and make him very wise in Your Word, that he may discern and reject every lie of the enemy. Help him and guide him to do whatever it takes to remove these sins forever from his life and heart, to cut off every source and occasion for temptation, and to walk in purity. We pray that You would fill him with Your Holy Spirit, that he would hunger for righteousness and thirst for Your presence more than for the fleeting pleasures of sin. Teach him to submit himself to You and to resist the devil so that he will flee from him as in James 4:7. Guard his eyes, his thoughts, and his heart, and let him set his mind on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report as in Philippians 4:8. We ask for lasting and true victory, not in his own strength but by Your power, for Your glory alone. Keep him humble, keep him dependent on Jesus, and lead him into the fullness of a life that honors You, and in Your timing, if it is Your will, prepare him for a godly marriage that honors You. We ask all this in the Name of Jesus Christ, our only hope and our only access to You, for there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved as in Acts 4:12. Amen.
We encourage you to keep praying and crying out, keep confessing quickly when tempted, keep filling your mind daily with Scripture, and keep walking in the light with other believers. God hears you, He loves you, and He is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before His glory. Stand firm, keep fleeing, keep pursuing Christ, and trust that He will make these sins forever far from you as you abide in Him.
