1) Acknowledge It is Sin and Repent
The first part is much easier than the second. If you have any faith in Christ then the Holy Spirit is in you, and you should be able to acknowledge that your behavior is sinful. However, choosing to repent and turn from your sin requires far more from you.
Repentance means you are choosing to move in the opposite direction. It's not simply scaling back your lustful desires. It is pursing righteousness. If you're not pursing something else, you'll quickly drift back to where you were at.
2) Confess Your Sin to a More Mature Believer Who Will Hold You Accountable
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
The reason that so many people have such severe struggles with pornography and masturbation is because they're ashamed of their sin and keep it hidden. They're taboo subjects among Christians, and demonized to the point that people are terrified to confess their sin. Therefore, they keep it to themselves, and ignore the thing which scripture says will bring healing.
You want to confess your sin to someone who is more mature than you, and who isn't struggling with lust. Two drowning people can't really help each other. You need someone who can pull you up.
- Give them permission to confront you and ask about your thought life
- Setup an account so they receive an email which tells them every webpage you visit
- Give them permission to call you at random to check up on you
28But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
Therefore, sometimes you simply need to cut off your access to the things which cause you to sin.
Lust has always been a universal problem for men, and sexual sin has always plagued mankind. However, the internet has given everyone instant and private access to pornography. It's easier than ever to commit sexual sin without getting caught. Therefore, it's essential that you restrict or eliminate your access to the internet.
There are a number of programs out there which can block certain websites or which will hold you accountable. I tend to encourage accountability programs over blocking programs because they're relational rather than mechanical. You want a person helping you out, not a computer. There are links to several good programs on the resource page.
While cutting yourself off from porn can help, they don't cut you off from the source of your problem, your sinful heart. That leads us to the next point.
4) Fill Your Life with Scripture and Prayer
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (New International Version)
16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
We live in a world which is filled with sexual imagery. Every news stand at the grocery store has multiple magazines covers of photoshopped women in bikinis leading men to lust and women to have unrealistic expectations. Every television program either explicitly or implicitly promotes an unbiblical view of sex. Every cologne ad makes it look like purpose of cologne is to have sex with women.
You can't go anywhere without being smacked in the face with sexual images...and we haven't even started talking about immodest clothing.
All that to say, if you're counting on one or two sermons to give you your spiritual fill for the week, it's not going to happen. On a very practical level, if you're bombarded by sexual images on a daily basis, but you only touch your Bible on Sunday...naturally you're going to think far more about sex than you do about Jesus. If you don't fill your life up with Christ, then the world will fill you up with sex.
5) Realize Your Sanctification is a Process and a Work of the Holy Spirit
Romans 8
5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
We don't just need Christ to live in Heaven.
We need Christ to truly live here on the earth.
Sometimes we get the idea that Christ gives us our ticket to Heaven, but then we need to figure out how to follow Him while on the earth. That just isn't the picture you see in scripture.
6) Realize It is a Life Long Battle
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
Every Christian who struggles with lust, porn or masturbation can resonate with the apostle Paul's words here. Paul wrote half of the New Testament, spread the gospel with great vigor than possibly anyone in history, but he called himself the worst of all sinners (1 Tim. 1:15-16). If Paul couldn't defeat sin, who am I to assume I'm more righteous than he?
I'm not aware of anywhere that God promises to completely remove our struggles with sin in this life. Never let your guard down. You will never be mature enough that you can stop worrying about sin.
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