180 Recovery Podcast

I remember a time when I was about 9 years old when I did not just ask for help…I screamed for help. I loved to climb trees and we even had a tree fort in the tree in our front yard. I would climb up it and most of the time I would get down by just jumping off. It was only about 10 feet off the ground.

One day I decided to climb a different tree near the side of our front yard. I got up there and went out on one of the limbs. For some reason, I slipped and found myself dangling in the air. Not only was I further up than when in the fort but looking down there was a chain-link fence that was about 8 feet high and if I let go one leg would go on one side of the fence and my other leg would go on the other side…causing severe pain and injury.

Now I was not thinking that if I fell and my crotch took the blunt force of the blow, that I would probably never father any children…I just thought if I drop the fall and the fence would kill me. So, I screamed for help as my hands were starting to lose their grip on the branch. I realized that my only escape was to somehow get myself back up on the branch before my strength was gone. Thankfully I was able to do that and I survived.

So, how good are you at asking for help? Some guys are terrible at it. They feel if they ask for help then they are weak or appear dumb because after all are we not all supposed to know how to do everything…because we are the men who do not need help?

Thankfully for me, I did not think that made very much sense. I mean why not ask for help. It can save you time and energy and all it takes is to ask someone a question. Just the other day my wife and I were in Target looking for something in the pharmacy area…she wanders off looking at signs while I just asked the person behind the counter where the product was.

The problem with asking for help is it all depends on what kind of help for which you are asking. Thanks be to God I can now ask Siri or Google and get the answer to almost any simple question like finding an address or how many meters are in a mile. But when it comes to more complicated issues like sexual addiction and brokenness…sure you can find many answers on the internet, but our problem is not the needing for more information. Information is not going to completely solve the problem of porn addiction.

Information is an important part of recovery from addictions. However, we need more than just knowledge. In addition, we need two other things. First, we need the correct information and we need a community of others to help us take the actions we need to be taking.

When I was in my first year of recovery, I realized that I needed good and reliable information which I found in two places. The first were books that came recommended and were by reliable authors who knew what they were talking about. Having been a pastor for 26 years and believing that the Word of God is truth I studied my Bible searching for answers and truth that I could rely upon.

However, I also read books from sources both Christian and Secular. I wanted to learn the science behind addictive behaviors and what did I need to learn about our brain and how it functions relative to sexual temptation.

I know that it has become unpopular in some Christian circles to trust science. Some believe that things scientific are suspect because of some deep and dark state that is trying to destroy Christianity. And in some cases that might be true but most of the time science is simply studying and observing what happens, learning, and drawing the right conclusions.

So, I read books about the brain and what happens between our ears when we are tempted and become addicted to porn. I learned about synapsis and the creation of paths in our brain when we do something, like it, and want to do it over again. Electrical connections are formed that make the action easier and faster than before.

I learned that there are 5 chemicals released in our brain when we begin to become sexually aroused and how acting out to porn over years creates a heightened sense of sexual hunger so that we are almost always on the hunt to get another fix.

I also learned that there are things we can do to either accelerate the process or to interrupt the addictive choices by making right choices instead of wrong ones. That stopping the temptation process in its early stages is so much easier than dabbling with the things that are tempting us hoping we will not act out sexually again…and we both know that rarely works.

I also studied my Bible and found myself reading and studying it to find biblical answers to the questions about sexual sin, God’s love and forgiveness, and my eternal relationship with Him that does not become severed because we have looked at too much porn.

God does not save us and then uses porn so we can prove that we are good enough and worthy of salvation. Salvation is not earned or achieved by our good works and avoiding sexual temptation. He has not made us members of His family and then demands that we prove our worthiness by our obedience. That is not what the Grace of God is all about.

Salvation is the free gift of God…

In addition to my learning both the biblical truth about sexual sin and the science of how porn impacts our brains…I learned the other thing that has resulted in my being set free from a desire to look at porn. It is the accountability I have had for 16 years. I am weekly accountable to my 16 leaders in 180 and to the members of the multiple Online Support Teams that I lead.

Actually, I have had daily accountability and daily support from the men that 180 is helping…7 days a week and sometimes 2 or 3 times a day.

Are you brave and wise enough to realize that you need both more knowledge and strong accountability with daily support and putting into practice those things to begin to become unentangled from this sin? Three words…Online Support Teams…where you will gain the knowledge you need to know, both biblical and secular, and the weekly accountability with daily support that we all need.

Will you ask for Help? It will be the best move you can make to begin to recover from your sexual brokenness.

Did you know that when we continue our battle against our sexual brokenness one of the tools our enemy uses against us is our own feelings of condemnation? Condemnation really sucks…right? So, let’s focus on that today and try to find some relief from this lying accusation and dreading its existence in our lives.

Now I can say to all of you who have placed your faith in Christ to be your Savior from the penalty of all your sins that there is no condemnation for you. I do not care what you think or feel that is the result of an ongoing addiction to porn and sex…if you have truly been born again and sealed by the Holy Spirit as our guarantee of our inheritance in heaven…you are eternally a member of God’s family and there is no condemnation from God towards you.

Let’s see it in Roman 8:1…which I would highly recommend you memorize…

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation at all

This is a remarkable statement the Apostle Paul writes under the direction of the Holy Spirit. When he says “therefore” it means he is beginning to sum up his argument. And in the original manuscript, there is no chapter division between the last verse of chapter 7 and the first verse of chapter 8.

Paul is summing up his argument from chapters 6 and 7 with this once and for all blanket statement which is true for every believer regardless of whether you believe it or not. But serious consequences are in store for those who do not believe there is “no condemnation” and want to believe that we are to maintain our salvation by being obedient and no longer sinning. Like that set of people would be called the “null set” meaning there is nobody in that set of people…except Jesus.

No condemnation should be one of those ideas that lift the weight and the burden we carry because of our continuing to sin…off our shoulders. The word “condemnation” literally means a damnatory sentence. Before we knew Christ we were under the condemnation of our history of our sins, our present sins, and our future sins.

The wages of sin is death…and apart from the forgiveness of God offered to us because of the death of Jesus on the cross…for the sins of the world…we would still be living under condemnation. But we are no longer in that position. Hebrews 10 tells us this incredible message…

“…but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God…

For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”

And…verse 17 adds…

“And their sins and their lawless deeds

All sins…which includes all of my sins and all of your sins…past, present, and future…have been completely paid for. Were we guilty…of course we were. Should we have to die for our sins with our own death? Absolutely…except for the reality that God loves you…has always loved you…and will always love you. Therefore, we have this equation…

All of my sins + the Death of Christ = No condemnation

How many times do you pay for something when you pay for it ALL at the time of purchase? Just once…right? I bought a toilet at Lowes yesterday…paid for it on the spot and so it is now mine and shall become an important part of my house to be used multiple times a day. I do not go back to the store to offer more money for it…do not have to…because their price I paid once for all.

Ok…maybe that is a bad example comparing the death of Christ for all of our sins to me buying a commode…but I digress…

God has stated that He will remember none of our sins. The debt for all our sins was nailed to the cross. The blood of Jesus has turned my scarlet sins as white as pure wool. He has separated us from our sins as far as the East is from the West and has promised to remember them no longer.

Now I need to point out something to those of you who use the King James Version of the Bible. That translation takes a phrase that is supposed to be part of verse 4 and moves it to verse 1…which totally changes the meaning of this verse. The KJV says…

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,

In the best and earliest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament that we have Romans 8:1 ends with Christ Jesus…and the rest is found in verse 4. Now, this is critical to understand…

If one accepts the KJV of Romans 8:1…then our no condemnation…indeed our entire salvation becomes dependant upon us walking in the Spirit. And that, my friends, destroys everything else in the New Testament that tells we are saved by Grace, not of Works and our salvation is therefore conditional upon our walking in the Spirit. That destroys the Gospel being a message of the grace and love of God and we being able to always be walking in the Spirit.

There is NO CONDEMNATION for those of us in Christ…PERIOD!!!