Silas
Beloved of All
The cry of your heart in this request reveals something profoundly true: you recognize that the real battle is fought long before the relapse occurs. You asked for prayer against making provisions for the flesh, and that is exactly where the spiritual war must be won. You are feeling the weight of what it means to sin against your own body, a kind of wound that goes deeper than many outward sins because this body was not created for that defilement. God did not give you your mind, your attention, your body, and your soul to be servants of uncleanness. He created you for Himself, for a loving and intimate communion with Him, spirit to Spirit.
You have spoken of feeling that you are damaging God by doing this. I understand the heavy sorrow behind those words. While the eternal, self-sufficient God cannot be diminished or broken by our sins, what is truly broken is the sweet fellowship you long for. Sin creates a separation, a walking in darkness that makes the statement “I have fellowship with Him” ring hollow. Your sin is not harming God’s essence, but it is severing your conscious union and communion with Him, and that is a terrible loss. The pain you feel is the cry of your spirit, which was made to be uppermost, being dragged into captivity by the law of sin operating in your bodily members. That inner war, where your mind wants to serve the law of God but your flesh pulls toward the law of sin, is agonizing. And your cry of “I need YHWH badly” is the echo of that ancient, wretched cry for deliverance.
The answer comes rushing in with one glorious truth: the old man, that old identity enslaved to lust, was crucified with Christ. This is not a gradual process you are trying to achieve; it is a past-tense, finished act accomplished by Jesus on the cross. The body of sin was put out of business. Its power to dominate you was legally and spiritually broken. You are no longer a slave, bound in chains you cannot break to do the bidding of a dead master. A dead man is freed from sin. It is hard to tempt a corpse. When that lie comes whispering that you must give in, you can reckon on this fact: that old, sin-ruled self was nailed to the cross with Jesus. That domination is a ghost of a defeated past, not the reality of your new life in the resurrected Lord.
But this truth must be acted upon by a decisive yielding. You know how to yield your body as an instrument for sin; you have done it. Now, with the same active volition, the call is to yield yourself to God as one who is alive from the dead. Present your members, your eyes, your mind, your hands, your very brain which you long to see healed, as instruments of righteousness. This is not a passive trying harder, but a deliberate offering. Consider the stark contrast: will you take the members of Christ and join them to that which corrupts? Your body is not your own. You have been bought with the ultimate price, the precious blood of a sinless Savior who became sin for you so that you could become the righteousness of God in Him. The very Spirit of God testifies with your spirit that you are a child of God, and your body is His inner sanctuary. To use it for sexual sin is to defile a holy temple.
Your desire for healing in your brain, attention span, body, and soul is a cry to have your whole being, spirit, soul, and body, brought back into its created order. When the spirit is reborn and ruled by the Holy Spirit, it is meant to lead. The mind is no longer set on the needs and demands of the flesh but on the things of the Spirit, which are life and peace. When your life is being led by the Spirit, your body finds its proper role not as a master demanding satisfaction, but as a yielded instrument for God’s glory. The only path to the healing you seek is the path of fleeing. Like Joseph, who did not stay to argue or wrestle but physically fled, leaving his garment behind to escape the sin. Fleeing isn't just a mental resolution; it demands physically removing yourself from the provision, the situation, the screen, the solitude that the flesh craves.
In your weakness, do not trust your own strength but cast yourself entirely upon the Deliverer. The answer to the question “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” is not a new technique; it is a Person. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has delivered. His grace is sufficient, and His strength is made perfect in your acknowledged weakness. You are praying for these things in the name of Jesus, and that name is the name above every name, the name in which the old man was crucified and the new man lives. Stand fast in that truth. Walk in the light, for the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, restoring that broken fellowship. The purposes of God for you are to have a beautiful, loving relationship with Him, unhindered by the chains He has already broken. Yield yourself anew to that purpose today.
You have spoken of feeling that you are damaging God by doing this. I understand the heavy sorrow behind those words. While the eternal, self-sufficient God cannot be diminished or broken by our sins, what is truly broken is the sweet fellowship you long for. Sin creates a separation, a walking in darkness that makes the statement “I have fellowship with Him” ring hollow. Your sin is not harming God’s essence, but it is severing your conscious union and communion with Him, and that is a terrible loss. The pain you feel is the cry of your spirit, which was made to be uppermost, being dragged into captivity by the law of sin operating in your bodily members. That inner war, where your mind wants to serve the law of God but your flesh pulls toward the law of sin, is agonizing. And your cry of “I need YHWH badly” is the echo of that ancient, wretched cry for deliverance.
The answer comes rushing in with one glorious truth: the old man, that old identity enslaved to lust, was crucified with Christ. This is not a gradual process you are trying to achieve; it is a past-tense, finished act accomplished by Jesus on the cross. The body of sin was put out of business. Its power to dominate you was legally and spiritually broken. You are no longer a slave, bound in chains you cannot break to do the bidding of a dead master. A dead man is freed from sin. It is hard to tempt a corpse. When that lie comes whispering that you must give in, you can reckon on this fact: that old, sin-ruled self was nailed to the cross with Jesus. That domination is a ghost of a defeated past, not the reality of your new life in the resurrected Lord.
But this truth must be acted upon by a decisive yielding. You know how to yield your body as an instrument for sin; you have done it. Now, with the same active volition, the call is to yield yourself to God as one who is alive from the dead. Present your members, your eyes, your mind, your hands, your very brain which you long to see healed, as instruments of righteousness. This is not a passive trying harder, but a deliberate offering. Consider the stark contrast: will you take the members of Christ and join them to that which corrupts? Your body is not your own. You have been bought with the ultimate price, the precious blood of a sinless Savior who became sin for you so that you could become the righteousness of God in Him. The very Spirit of God testifies with your spirit that you are a child of God, and your body is His inner sanctuary. To use it for sexual sin is to defile a holy temple.
Your desire for healing in your brain, attention span, body, and soul is a cry to have your whole being, spirit, soul, and body, brought back into its created order. When the spirit is reborn and ruled by the Holy Spirit, it is meant to lead. The mind is no longer set on the needs and demands of the flesh but on the things of the Spirit, which are life and peace. When your life is being led by the Spirit, your body finds its proper role not as a master demanding satisfaction, but as a yielded instrument for God’s glory. The only path to the healing you seek is the path of fleeing. Like Joseph, who did not stay to argue or wrestle but physically fled, leaving his garment behind to escape the sin. Fleeing isn't just a mental resolution; it demands physically removing yourself from the provision, the situation, the screen, the solitude that the flesh craves.
In your weakness, do not trust your own strength but cast yourself entirely upon the Deliverer. The answer to the question “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” is not a new technique; it is a Person. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has delivered. His grace is sufficient, and His strength is made perfect in your acknowledged weakness. You are praying for these things in the name of Jesus, and that name is the name above every name, the name in which the old man was crucified and the new man lives. Stand fast in that truth. Walk in the light, for the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, restoring that broken fellowship. The purposes of God for you are to have a beautiful, loving relationship with Him, unhindered by the chains He has already broken. Yield yourself anew to that purpose today.
