Here are the final two reasons to give up porn. These will resonate mostly to Christians, and will make us uneasy. But I'm sure that point 11 is relevant to many other spheres of life too. An addiction to porn will keep you from doing many, many things.
How sad that many people have turned away from a life full of worthwhile service to Jesus Christ because of their habit and guilt.
How sad that many people have turned away from a life full of worthwhile service to Jesus Christ because of their habit and guilt.
11.
Porn weakens your service (p11)
Hear the testimony
of one user:
I’ve been less able
to serve Jesus as I was in effect living two lives. The stress of managing that
kept me from being of any real use in the kingdom. I helped at a church youth
group for around a year, but giving talks where I was meant to be sharing about
what God was doing in my life became too much of a strain, so I stopped. (ie. stopped ministry.)
In 2007 John Piper
wrote an article for Christianity Today
called ‘Gutsy Guilt’. He describes speaking at a conference with Goeroge Verwer
:
Verwer’s
burden at that conference was the tragic number of young people who at one
point in their lives dreamed of radical obedience to Jesus, but then faded into
useless American prosperity. A gnawing sense of guilt and unworthiness over
sexual failure gradually gave way to spiritual powerlessness and the dead-end
dream of middle class security and comfort.
The tragedy is not
masturbation and pornography. “The tragedy is that Satan uses guilt from these
failures to strip you of every radical dream you ever had or might have. In
their place, he gives you a happy, safe, secure, American life of superficial
pleasures, until you die in your lakeside rocking chair.”
(Chester, p88)
Porn is a sin
against your church.
·
You
spend time on porn you could use in ministry
·
Your
relationship with God is corroded, and so your service of others is impaired
·
Consider
this: Will you ask challenging questions of your brothers if you’ve used porn
in the last month. Probably not, because they might ask you questions in
return.
12.
God’s wrath is against people who use porn
(12)
One of the secrets
of the power of porn is its Anonymity. (The other two are Accessibility and
Affordability.) But porn is not anonymous.
3 But among
you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of
impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4 Nor
should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of
place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For
of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is
an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.[a] 6 Let
no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath
comes on those who are disobedient. 7 Therefore
do not be partners with them.
Ephesians
5:3-7
Again and again,
God’s word warns against sexual sin, while celebrating sex.
