woah
New Member
Posts: 44
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Post by woah on Sept 15, 2007 16:33:57 GMT -5
c4p, Long and short: I think there are many ways to be found to be free of P. Some are divinely inspired, some are from man. I chose the man inspired one before and ended up right back where I started. Now I have chosen to live my life according to God's plan and I am free indeed. But that does not mean I am free from temptation. It's out there and it's looking for me. However, God has given me armour to protect myself (scripture) and the tools to defend myself (prayer). Temptation is ever present, but for today I am equipped to handle it. I pray that tomorrow I will be able to defeat it again. Peace MrOuch That really made sense to me. Thanks for that.
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Post by ≈ cease4peace ≈ on Sept 16, 2007 8:57:10 GMT -5
I disagree. From my own emperical evidence I have never, ever, seen prayer itself make the temptation go away. Also, 12 steps are divinenly inspired in my humble opinoin. I know that some zealots would disagree and to be honest I would have disagreed too back when I was overzealous. But being too zealous didn't work for me in recovery either. Scripture is a great tool. I see it as knowledge of God, the word of God. I see it as instruction, I also see it as narration, and I see it as a promise. A good promise I also see prayer as a powerful tool, but I've never been able to pray the urges away. All the urges are still there. The bible is great, but just prayer and daily bible reading never worked for me in recovery. Sacrificing self to God is the only way. Just Daily scripture reading and Prayer doesnt cut it. Sacrifing to God is extremely hard for me and I find a roadmap on how to do it in the 12 steps. I hope i'm making sense.
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Post by h3h8m3 on Sept 16, 2007 10:24:31 GMT -5
Hey C4P, have you tried the SettingCaptivesFree.com Way of Purity course?
It's a Biblically based course that gives very real practical steps for overcoming temptation to pornography. It does not deal with our sexual sins as an "addiction" but as sin that Jesus can free us from. It's been an unbelievable blessing for me over the last couple of months.
I agree with you that just reading the Word daily isn't really enough. But I do believe all of the principles we need ARE in the word, and this course points us toward relevant passages.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
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Post by ≈ cease4peace ≈ on Sept 16, 2007 11:29:13 GMT -5
I tried the settingcap free course. I really liked some of the principles in it, The problem is I know very well how to bypass internet filters. I can bypass any filter. I did settincaps free but I was unable to be "radical" as they implied. Radical, would be me quitting my job, and living in the woods. So some of the things in setting caps free just didnt work for me. The safe eyes internet filter would be a gift to people but I am but a novice hacker and I can hack through safe eyes with ease. My job has been a blessing from God, truly from him. I also did not see the relevance with the woman at the well thing. The way they went over that lesson just didnt make sense to me. So settingcaps free just didnt work for me What I am going to try now, is spending more quiet time with God and spending more time serving others, and praying for others. Spending more time in God's word as well. That is my new active plan, which goes right along with 12 steps so yay for that. The main reaosn why I like it so much is that I can go to meertings and be around people in the flesh that have the same problem as me. It is great. Settingcaps is an internet thing and I need more than just internets to help me. Really I think the truth is we are powerless over Sin completely, the only way we can overcome Sin is through Jesus Christ. The addiction to pornography is really a disease but a small fraction of it, it's called the Sin Disease and I am powerless over it. That is step 1. Recognizing that I am completely powerless and on my own I cannot overcome being a sinful person. It goes way beyond the addiction to pornography. It is the addiction to sin itself, the addiction to be selfish, the addiction to exalt one-self over others and God. As "A Hunger for Healing" by Keith Miller points out: ISBN 0-06-065716-2 (plug plug) The 12 steps he goes through are not to overcome addiction to any specific thing, but to become the Christian that God has called us out to be. It is an amazing book and I recommend it to all Christians, even those who have no addiction problem. Because we all got problems.. Some are addicted to control other people and "fix" them for example. But there's so much more. Anyway, the bottom line is yes, you can say it's not an addiction. But really the flesh is ever present and the flesh does desire to exalt itself above Jesus. Every waking day, we are tempted and to kill the flesh is to admit we are powerless and to hand our day over to our Creator. That's how I see things right now anyway, subject to change, thanks for hearing me out. I just hope that my bros and sisters in Christ can see where I'm comin from because a lot of the time they try to simplify things and say all ya need to do is pray or read the bible and everything else falls into place. I tried that it didnt work. I'm trying to figure out who I am, who I am in the body of Christ, etc. I believe that overcoming addiction to P is also going to be a self-discovery journey, and to learn me how to put God first. I believe addicts are blessed among others because those who are addicts that overcome most likely have a stronger relationship with God then those who have not had to overcome adversity at all.
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Post by MrOuch on Sept 16, 2007 23:22:35 GMT -5
C4P,
Gotta agree with you on a number of points. It doesn't matter what you call it: addiction, desire, temptation, laziness, sloth, etc. The long and short of it, is that it's sin and it's wrong.
IMO it doesn't matter whether you use 12-steps, settingcaptivesfree, or Barney the purple dinosaur. Any system that helps you control this problem is good.
What worked for me...worked for me. It may not work for another as well, because, well... because that person isn't me.
I can only speak about what helped me. God helped me. I was in a disastrous state, and God helped me up and lead me to freedom from P. And for that I am eternally grateful.
So, I agree with you, it is a self-discovery journey. May God go with you.
Peace MrOuch
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Post by MrOuch on Sept 16, 2007 23:32:11 GMT -5
Numbers 21:4-9
"4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" 6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 The Lord said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. "
Today's reading from the Old Testament book of Numbers finds the poor old Israelites doing yet again what they seem to have done through the whole 40 years of their trek from Egypt to the Promised Land. They were complaining: the diet is boring, this barren landscape is ugly, and we're sick of manna.
So, the story says, God sent a plague of poisonous serpents which killed many of their number. But was it really the serpents who killed them? Wasn't it a poison that was already inside them, their abiding bitterness and discontent with life, their cavalier refusal to trust God, who had liberated them from Pharaoh?
Too many of us ... are walking around with lethal quantities of poison inside us. And just as nature supplies almost infinite varieties of poisons, so do human hearts. Envies, jealousies, grievances cherished sometimes for decades and across generations, racial and ethnic resentments, ideological hatreds of every sort...
All of that bitterness and discontent keeps the Lord at arm's length and leaves us without peace and without joy. There is only one remedy for it, and that is to give it all to the Lord and keep giving it and giving it to Him and not taking it back, until it is truly gone from our lives.
Then and only then will the peace of Christ for which we have always longed truly be ours.
Peace be with you this day and always. Thank you Monsignor Dennis Clark for this very timely nugget of wisdom. I just wanted to post this here. It touches on some things I've been feeling lately. MrOuch
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Post by h3h8m3 on Sept 17, 2007 10:19:50 GMT -5
I completely recognize that not all people are going to be helped by the same things. As Ouch said, what worked for me may not work for anyone else. I am not trying to get you to go back to SCF.
But they put the word "radical" in front of amputation for a reason. If simply putting a filter on your computer wouldn't do the trick for you (and a filter is not valuable for me either) then you need to do more. If you're saying, "There's nothing I can do because I have access to the internet at my job" then I would say that shows you're making your job a higher priority than sexual purity. If you were an alcoholic bartender, maybe you'd need to quit your job right? (Sam Malone being the exception of course...) Seems like a similar situation to me.
I am not here to judge you. I have no right to judge anyone, ESPECIALLY not about the issue or pornography, after all the years I was stuck in it. I am simply responding to the point about radical amputation.
God bless you C4P. I am praying for you, that God will break through to you powerfully.
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Post by ≈ cease4peace ≈ on Sept 17, 2007 10:45:03 GMT -5
I have no education what-so-ever. Not even a GED. I have this job because I am good with computers. That's all I'm good at, it is a talent given from God (remember what God says about talents)
And listen, I make 40k a year, and I dont even have a GED! This is a gift and blessing from God. I cannot get a job like this on my own. If God wants me to be radical and quit my job, then surely he wouldnt make me go unemployed or to a job that makes considerably less which would cause me to be unable to pay off my debts.
I believe God wants me to keep this Job, I really do. Sexual purity is higher than this job, but with simple reason I can see quitting this job would bring on much more pain and much less gain.
Also, if I left this Job, my employer would be compeltely screwed over. I am the only person in this place that knows how to work this system.. Heck. Here: I AM the system. Quitting this job would not only be very painful for me, but painful to my employer as well. There's a lot at stake and I know withotu a shadow of a doubt that cutting the job out is not the answer.
the answer is when going to work I do my job instead of browsing the web, it's that simple. No need to get crazy-radical, because if I want to MB or view P, I can do so with imagination while laying in my bed at night. As dr phil said, Get REAL!
The bottom line is: I can't quit my job because I need the money and I can't find this kind of work from anyone else. I'm stuck here. Lest God find me a different line of work that can pay the bills and repalce me with someone good and not screw my boss over. Like I said, computers is all that I'm good at..
Radical amputation for me would be Castration.. lol
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Post by oufootball4ever on Sept 17, 2007 12:10:20 GMT -5
I Have Been Saved In The Blood Of Jesus Christ Our Lord, I Am a Sinner, I Have Recently Came to fact That I Do Need Help Not Something I Can Overcome Alone. I Know Its The Work Of the Devil. I have been reading about Sodom & Gomorrah & know that My Lustful Ways Is not HOW I WANT TO LIVE....
Pray for me. Feel Free To email positive notes as well.
I am a new member as you can see. And I'm learning not to be ashamed but to try to understand it's an addiction and there is treatment. I deserve better, My Wife deserves better MOST OF ALL THE LORD DESERVES BETTER. FOR WITHOUT HIM I WOULD TRULY BE LOST.... SO HUMBLING AND BRINGS YOU TO YOUR KNEES KNOWING THRU EVEN THIS HE STILL LOVES ME.... Thank you for taking the time to read
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Post by h3h8m3 on Sept 17, 2007 17:39:32 GMT -5
So what's the plan? What are the steps that are going to bring you freedom from this sin? "Keep trying" hasn't got the job done for you, for me or for anyone else.
If you can't leave your job, how about confessing to your boss that you've spent some of your downtime surfing the web, and you'd like accountablity on that? Is that also crazy-radical?
I fully understand that my posts may come across as too harsh to you, but I am not called to sooth you, I am called to speak the truth as I see it. When Jesus called the rich young ruler to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, that man chose his riches over salvation. When Jesus told three of his disciples to leave everything they had to follow him and become fishers of men they left what they had and changed the world as a result.
There is no extreme too far to escape sin. Perhaps God is calling you to stay in that position, I cannot know his will for your life. But I do know for sure that he's calling you to stop sinning, whatever the cost.
Please read this post as it is intended, in the love of Christ. If I held my tongue I would not be honoring the call I feel from God. But this will be my last post on this issue, I am not here to nag.
God bless you.
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Post by h3h8m3 on Sept 17, 2007 17:42:59 GMT -5
Well, even if you ARE an OU fan, I'll respond to your post :-D Welcome to this place for support. This thread is mostly used for inspirational verses (in spite of the conversation you walked into) and a tad bit of accountability. I would recommend a few places for you as you seek freedom from your sexual sins. First, in the Accountability Circles section of the site there are two Christian groups, Followers of Christ and Disciples of Christ. Both of them have a focus of holding each other up in prayer and sharing victories and struggles with other believers. The other place I would recommend you to is the Way of Purity course over at www.settingcaptivesfree.com. It has personally changed the entire battle against pornography for me. I have been sexually pure for 10 weeks (as of today in fact), in part due to the biblical principles I found in that free course. Keep your eyes on Jesus and it's awfully hard to look at porn.
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Post by ≈ cease4peace ≈ on Sept 18, 2007 6:29:37 GMT -5
h3h8m3, why last post on the issue? Don't feel like you're bothering me because you are not nagging me at all. I can't tell my boss. looks like I'll just have to use the computer properly. Since I've used the computer properly for years without P before when I had other outlets to MB I know I can use the computer properly now.
At any rate, until I've exhausted all my options (and there are still plenty my brother) I'm not quitting my job.
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Post by rockwell on Sept 18, 2007 8:52:29 GMT -5
Prayer and Temptation
This is in response to cease4peace's post above.
I agree that prayer does not take away temptation. In my own experience I am speaking of. But what prayer does is to enable me to chose to do right or chose not to do wrong because prayer connects my soul to the Almighty one. Prayer connects me to the ultimate wisdom in the universe. And although I have and face sexual feelings and temptations, I do not have to give into them because of my awareness of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
I have actually found that when I am feeling closer to God, sometimes the temptations are even more powerful! I am not sure why but that is what I have experienced. Nevertheless, we know what God's will is for us in this area of our lives and we know the consequences for disobedience to him. And the consequences are NEVER good.
So keep up what works for you. 12 steps, support groups, journaling, etc. But continue to pray pray pray. For yourself and the rest of us.
rockwell
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Post by ≈ cease4peace ≈ on Sept 18, 2007 9:08:48 GMT -5
Rockwell, I wanted to just take a moment and share with you an experience I had in my early walk with Christ.
When I first came to the Lord, I was so "on fire for God" that I Felt like reading the Bible everyday, and I felt like praying, and I Felt like praising, and I Felt like leaving TBN on in the living room all the time, and I Felt like witnessing to every stranger I saw.
Was that healthy? No, because I was behaving on my feelings. And that is what addicts do best! They behave on their FEELINGS.
Instead of: THINK > ACTION > FEEL an addict is like this: FEEL > THINK > ACTION
Just like Prayer is an action, to decide(think) to pray(action) can change the way we feel, then praying DESPITE how we feel is better then just praying when we FEEL like it.
I dont want to get to side-tracked, but the thing is I went on for 3 Months of FEELING like following God.
But the funniest thing, and I mean ironically. .....
I go and get baptisted some 90+ days later after I gave my soul to Christ, and rigth after baptism I MB'ed!!! Can you believe it!??! And after that MB I have struggeld since. I even had a spiritual falling out as I was so ANGRY at God for not taking away my desire to MB.
But God wants me to deny the flesh. And for ther first 90+ days of my Christian walk, the flesh wasn't being denied, because the flesh wanted to get "high" off of being a Christian. Does that make sense brother??
So thank you, and Yes, I'll keep praying.
h38hm3: I have decided to radically amputate Myspace, and any other site that has women on it.. PERIOD. I think that should help!!!
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Post by rockwell on Sept 25, 2007 11:58:46 GMT -5
Radical change is GOOD. Cut off temptations at the source and renounce their power over you.
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