Part of the promise of Christianity is that you can be restored and live out your God-given strength and purpose. If you truly realized all you are and all you have in Christ, and the plans God has for you to help advance His kingdom, you would unload your porn and never go back to it. You would be like the man who found a great treasure in a field, and then went out and sold everything he had to buy the field (Mt. 13:44).
Walking away from porn isn’t easy. But if you surrender to God and allow yourself to find the life your Creator meant for you, you will see that there’s a lot of godly incentive to walk away from it—not only because it’s immoral and fake, but also because God has made you for a life that is so much better than what you’ve been settling for.
Jesus rose from the dead to bring us back to a life of “freedom” and “ever increasing glory” where we are set free to live more as we were originally designed. This is why a Christian man does not lose heart but wants to renounce his “secret and shameful ways” (2 Cor. 3:17–4:2). As you leave your heart open to believe that there truly is a life of noble strength, adventure, and purpose for you in God’s kingdom, you’ll want to do whatever it takes to stay away from porn.
The bottom line is this: God has something far superior to offer, but you won’t find it if you continue to hold on to the idol of pornography. As the prophet Jonah realized while he was running from God, “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs” (Jonah 2:8). At times, it can be tough to believe there is more to this life than what our idols offer, especially when you can’t immediately see it like an image on a screen. And Satan is not about to let up with his lies. He’s going to keep trying to convince you that the world of sexually graphic images is as good as it gets. But that’s why faith is so important. Sometimes faith in the promise of something better is all we have to get us through (2 Corinthians 5:7; Hebrews 11:39-40).
God has something far superior to offer, but you won’t find it if you continue to hold on to the idol of pornography.
Although the ongoing hassles and heartaches of life in an imperfect world can make it hard to believe, there is so much more that God has and wants for us. There’s a larger story we belong to. And if you confess your sin and walk away from porn, you can return to God, find your place in His story, and begin to really live.
