Freed By the Holy Spirit: Part III

Part I Part II

Testimony 3: A Restored Life
I was normal just like every other boy, sneaking down into the basement of my friend’s house to look at his father’s Playboy collection. I loved being normal when the swim coach asked me if I wanted to look at that month’s Penthouse with him.

I thought I was normal when someone asked me go into a private room while on the Internet and started “talking” to me. Wanting to be normal and having an addictive personality, each of the above activities led me further into my desire to be addicted to pornography.

Sneaking over to my friend’s house was not enough. The newspaper lingerie ads, Sports Illustrated, and especially my job as teenage lifeguard all filled my desire to lust to a certain point. But the desire kept drawing me further, it was not enough. Even though I would pray for the Lord to forgive me every morning, I would fall asleep reading my favorite magazine that I had stolen, because I was too embarrassed to buy it.

The desire to want more as a young teenage boy allowed me to be caught up in sexual abuse that, at that time, I thought was normal. The swim coach showing me magazines and then wanting to do “things” with me in the shower or in his “special place” in the basement of the local recreational center. Thinking I was normal, I continued with this behavior. Being normal also meant asking God to forgive me for actions that were wrong.

One day while at the firehouse, a young firefighter asked me if I had ever chatted online before. Innocently telling him no, I ventured into a realm of pornography so easy, so normal and yet so destructive. After asking some private questions in a private room while chatting and clicking on an appealing Internet site, I spent the next several years being “normal” while online. Once again, wanting to be normal. I would ask God to forgive and strengthen me each morning during my quiet time, and go back that night and chat.

Then it happened, I was more normal than before: divorced and alone. God why don’t you do anything?

Being alone, and obviously looking upset and distraught, an acquaintance of mine suggested I go talk to their pastor. The church I was attending had basically abandoned me to my sin and during the separation/divorce no one contacted me.

Then God allowed me to come into contact with this man of integrity and we just had breakfast and talked. For the next several months, we met every week and had breakfast, I mostly talked and—thank God—he mostly listened and prayed. Somewhere in there, God instilled in me the desire to say no, while the exact moment of change is unknown to me, I know that I am changed.  I started looking at women differently. My desire to lust and disappear into my fantasies was not an ongoing problem that occurred every day, like in the past.

While lust is still a temptation, I have the power to put away the temptation before it becomes sin. During this time frame, I desired to help someone in the same situation I was in. Never again will a man in pain and alone be in that position around me.

I saw a man who invested time and energy in my life, and decided that I would do [that] for the rest of my life. That has become my addiction—that God does heal and he does love us.

Several years later, I remarried and have been blessed with another little girl. I have reconciled with my other girls and they visit quite often. I really overcame and really became normal. Thank you, Lord. God does restore what the locusts had eaten.—Anonymous

Top 10 Principles to Sexual Purity

We live in a sex-crazed culture where sexual temptation is every man’s battle! Men, how can you learn to say “no” to sexual temptation? How can you gain and maintain sexual purity? How can you teach sexual purity to your children?

The following principles go beyond describing what not to do by detailing what you can do positively. I periodically return to these principles and renew my resolutions. May I challenge you to make the following resolutions to maintain sexual purity?

1. Maintain sexual purity through the power of Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:3; Rom. 7:24–25). Exercise self-restraint by bringing my body, mind, will and emotions under complete control through Christ (Gal. 5:16).
2. Never look lustfully at a woman, entertain lustful thoughts or commit adultery (Job 31:1; Matt. 5:28; Exod. 20:14, 17; Rev. 2:22).
3. Never make sexual or seductive advances toward another woman (Prov. 6:27–29) and resist any sexual advances from another woman (Prov. 2:16; 6:24–26).
4. Never allow my mind to pursue stimulation through sensual advertising, obscene or perverse material, nudity, indecent television programs, computer images, the Internet, movies or visit a place of sexual promiscuity (Ps.101:3; Rom. 12:2).
5. Hate evil and put to death earthly desires at work in me for sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil passions and greed. Run from sexual immortality (1 Cor. 6:18; Ps. 97:10; Col. 3:5; 2 Tim. 2:22).
6. Fill my mind with things that are pure (Phil. 4:8).
7. Use my body to serve the Lord and keep my body clean and pure as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:13, 19–20). Obey the desires and commands of God in all that I do (1 Pet. 1:14–16).
8. Always treat my wife with godliness and humility, honor and respect, dignity and purity (Eph. 5:25–28) and always have my needs for sexual intimacy met by her alone (Gen. 2:24; Prov. 5:18–19; Song 1:2; 1 Cor. 7:3–5).
9. Live as a Spirit-filled Christian in expressing value and worth to all people (John 3:16; Rom. 13:9, 15:7).
10. Quickly and fully repent of any moral failure and trust the Lord for full deliverance (1 John 1:9; 2 Cor. 1:10).

Click here for the article at CMAmen.org. The article was reprinted with permission from an article posted July 7, 2006, on the @Life website.