 |
| But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" - Matthew 14:30 |
Years ago, my Sunday school teacher would ask the class, “how many of you can
honestly say that you will go to heaven if Jesus was to come back right now?” Although I never
raised my hand, because it was the norm not to, I remember feeling like I would
go to heaven. I remember thinking to myself, “I may not be perfect,
but I’m a pretty good guy”. I remember looking around the room and thinking to myself, if I
don’t make it to heaven, than most of these heathens don't stand a chance.
In those days, I used to count and grade sins. To me, the more you
sinned, the worse off you were. Along with that, if you did the lighter sins,
you weren't as bad as those who did the heavier ones. I felt
God was more upset at those having sex before marriage than those watching
porn. So
when I would lock my room and turn the lights off, I’d feel guilty, but would
comfort myself with the thought that there were many more doing much worse. Sin has a way of
justifying itself, and if we're not careful, we can fall into the trap of
grading ourselves against others and feeling comfortable in our sin.
One day, I stopped looking at others and I looked at Christ.
Something new begins to happen when you study the life and words of Jesus. I
can relate with the young man who asked Jesus, “what must I do to
inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17) Although, he had been obeying the commandments
to a T, he could feel that something was missing. Looking at Jesus, the young
man could sense a feeling of, “I’m not quite there yet, there’s got to be
more”.
Indeed, there was more. When Jesus asked him to sell everything he had and to
follow Jesus, the young man cried, because he was very rich. For this young
man, giving away all his money was just too much to ask.
Giving up something that means so much to you or gives you a lot
of pleasure is not easy to do. For me, that was pornography and masturbation.
Although the satisfaction was short-lived and led to feelings of guilt and shame,
the short pleasure seemed worth it. Until I looked towards Christ, I didn't see the
need to combat this addiction. I would always make excuses for why it
was OK and not a big deal. But as I kept studying His Word and
spending time with Him, God began to make it clear that if I wanted to inherit
eternal life, this needed to go. He wanted me to drop my need for out
of place sexual gratification, and to follow Him.
In the first step of transformation, God changed my heart, and the
sin that I once used to look forward to each day, I now hated. Hating it wasn't enough
to stop me though. Although I hated to sin, I still enjoyed the pleasure.
I thought that if I prayed for God to break the chains, I would wake up hating
porn and never watching it again. But God doesn't operate that way. He’ll change our
hearts towards the sin, but He won’t force feed us righteousness. We must long
for it and direct our free will towards it. God had changed my heart,
I now needed to respond and change my ways (Colossians 3:5). Day after day and night after
night, I had to make the conscious choice to say no to the urges that had once
ruled my life. This period was one of the hardest I have ever endured. I spent
countless nights in bed, burning to open my laptop and browse the web in
incognito mode. I spent countless nights fighting the urge to masturbate to the
images of video vixens that had been ingrained in my mind from the porn
archives stored in my memory. The process sucked, but the results were worth
it.
|
I once read a story about a silversmith who was interviewed. The
silversmith was asked how he knows that the silver is ready after having placed
it through the fire. He responded, “When I can see my own image in the silver,
the refining process is finished.” In this same way, God took me through a
process where some filth had to be burned off. As tough as it may have been, it
was worth every burning night, so that God can look at me and see the
reflection of His image.
Today, the addiction is gone, but there are times when I still
fall. A big brother of mine told me once, “If you used to be a car thief, you
don’t forget how to steal cars because you've decided not to be a car
thief anymore. Chances are, you’ll always remember how to steal a car, but
every moment you pass a car, you have to make the conscious effort and decision
not to steal a car.” In the same breath, I still remember every porn site I used
to watch, and remember the stroke that feels best. Each day, I must make
the conscious effort to refuse to give in to my sexual urges. Not only that, but
each day I must continue to wage war against every lustful thought. Each day, I
must continue to “not look twice” when someone passes by and my imagination
wants to wander.
If I was to look around me and compare myself to others, I could
consider myself an angel among devils. But God has shown me to keep my gaze on
Christ. With my focus on Him, I am constantly reminded that I am not there yet,
that there has got to be more, that the biggest room in the world is room for
improvement, and that if it was not by the grace of God, I should have been
dead a long time ago (Romans 6:23).
Matthew 22 recounts the story of some men trying to trap Jesus.
They asked him, “is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” Jesus had them
bring out a coin and asked them whose image and inscription was on it. “Caesars”,
they responded. Jesus went on to say, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and
to God what is God’s”. A good question to ask here would be, “well Jesus, what is
God's?” To this, Jesus would have probably responded, “whose image and
inscription is on you?”
We were all created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). In this
world, we have all picked up some habits and tendencies that don’t quite look
like God. These tendencies may be emotional, sexual, mental, or whatever. My
prayer is that God will grant us a deeper spiritual sensitivity that we may be
able to target those things that are NOT of Him, that He might change our
hearts to hate such things, and that we might be determined to wage war against
them. Don’t get complacent in your relationship with God. Die daily my
friends.
Peace and Love,
David
No comments:
Post a Comment