Dear reader, let me paint you a picture. You’re a girl that loves the Lord. You respect His boundaries and repent when you don’t. You respect the sanctity of marriage. You know its wrong to have sex before the “big I do” (you have only heard it your whole life/every time you’re in church). You know to run from temptation (in any form, but especially sexual). But you struggle with masturbation. Yep, there it is. Glad we got that out of the way. The M word that no one wants to talk about, especially…the church?
If you relate, or you know someone that might relate (and I promise you that you do, even though you might not know it) then this is the blog post for you. For the girl that’s never told anyone. For the girl that maybe has only left the confession with more shame than before. For the girl that didn’t know how to respond to her friend’s confession through tears. For the girl that feels like a sex addict—that feels…dirty. If I was sitting across from you right now, I would lean over and speak to you all the truths the Lord says about you with the strongest conviction in my tone imaginable. But for right now you will just have to believe that I am passionately honest when I say that you are delighted in, pursued constantly and consistently by Christ, and loved immeasurably more than you could ever ask, think or imagine. If you didn’t get butterflies reading that, congratulations, you’re human! and words fail stupendously when trying to describe the character, majesty, and mystery of our God. But I want you to hold on to and remember those words as we unpack a little bit more of this topic together. God’s greatest mercy to us is that He will never let our sin satisfy us. And if you’ve made it this far in the post, I would venture to say that you aren’t satisfied and you’re looking for answers, help, or both.
I have struggled with masturbation since the ripe age of 12 or 13. I can’t quite remember how or when or why it started, but all of a sudden it was a part of my life sometime during the 8th grade. I didn’t know what it was though, so I didn’t have any red flags about it. I only knew that the thoughts that I was thinking, I would never be allowed to watch on TV. Eventually when the thoughts weren’t enough, I remembered a video that I had seen in the 6th grade when trying to answer a sex question that I wasn’t bold enough to ask my mom. Enter a pornography addiction here. I KNEW that was wrong, so I just decided that I would stop. Quit cold turkey. Obviously, I made the mistake that we all have a million times: we trust ourselves to manage sin that was never meant to be ours to manage. Sexual immorality is a part of the curse of sin that was decided for humanity in the Garden. Listen to me when I say this: your masturbation/pornography/fantasy addiction IS bigger than you. It will not go away on its own. You need to confess and tell someone that you trust that is significantly older than you, and that can help lead you to repentance. Your belief that you (on your own) are able to deal with a sin issue and make it go away is pride, and it is more sin that the enemy is using to lie to you. All sin requires a holy intervention, which you in your humanity are incapable of producing. To more gently explain, darkness festers and continues to perpetuate darkness until light is introduced. Consider “light” a confession and revelation of God’s mercy and grace, and the illumination of a path that was once hidden, your invitation to repentance.
Okay phew, that was heavy and hard to hear. I know because I’ve read blog posts like this before and stopped back there because it hurt too much and felt too hard. So what happens when the light comes on? When the path is lit up? And more importantly, what happens the next time I mess up…have I put the light out again? It is so easy to wallow in shame and let that be our excuse to continue to sin. It’s like “well, I’ve already messed myself up, so there isn’t hope that I will ever be ‘normal’ again.”
Paul writes a lot about sexual immorality, and it’s the number one sin he continuously mentions in a lot of his letters. Why do you think that is? Because it is so COMMON to man. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” (1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV) So let’s speak God’s truth over this issue: It is sin, and it is wrong, but it is NOT something that will define you should you invite God’s grace to redeem it. That is a well-kept promise of His. You are not weird. You are not unique in this struggle. You are not irreparable. You are not dirty. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39 ESV). The death that sin brings nor “anything else in all creation” will separate you from the love of God. This sin is died for, buried, and the freedom that Christ is offering you is just as alive as He is. (“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 ESV).
So how does this practically look whenever we fall back into temptation? First, we must learn to preach to ourselves. If the same truth of the Gospel is valid whenever we feel empowered over sin, then how much more powerful is that truth when we are in the thick of sin and temptation? I used to take days to come back to my Bible when I felt the guilt and shame of falling victim to temptation, but in reality, I should have let my sin push me to feel my need of a Savior and fling myself at the foot of the cross. It’s there where I am safest, and my sin doesn’t define me. This gap is explained by a misunderstanding of grace. When we don’t fully understand the character of God and all that he has done for us we misinterpret the heart of the Father towards His children. When we mess up, a loving Father convicts our hearts as a way of disciplining His Children. If He didn’t convict our hearts of sin in an effort to draw us closer into the safety of Himself…what kind of Father would that be? His conviction is His invitation to a closer relationship and His best for your heart and life. It was never meant to bring guilt and shame; He just doesn’t work like that. “Those who look to Him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:5 ESV).
After we have preached to ourselves, we must take practical steps to work towards repentance. Confession is such a victory! But a true understanding of the power in confession and grace is coupled with action that does not seek to abuse the grace that is given. Check out this verse from Proverbs 28:13 (ESV) “Whoever conceals their sin does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” Here are some examples in my life of how I work to find the Lord’s mercy: I keep the bedroom door open. Always. I plan well to stay busy when I know I will be alone. I have someone ask me hard questions once a week. I tell on myself when I fail. Accountability, when done consistently, and with someone who is NOT actively struggling with the same thing as you (and preferably much older) is a beautiful gift that the Lord can work through. You might say, “Meg, how do I not get legalistic in this?” I would say to you that if you have some “no sexual sin” streak that beats you up more than the actual thought of the sin that breaks the Lord’s heart…then you might need to reevaluate where your victory lies in your war against sin. And reader, when you’re walking in true victory that the Lord has handed you, you just can’t shut up about it. I pray that our testimony to the Lord’s faithfulness would sound a lot like it does for the prophet Isaiah when he exclaims “Do you not know?! Have you not heard?! The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary (of us! Who break his heart daily!) and His understanding no one can fathom (there is COMPASSION in his understanding of you!) He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak (that’s me). Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. BUT those who HOPE in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40:28-31 ESV). Don’t you find it comforting that the Lord’s understanding, “no one can fathom”? When you understand the compassion and mercy that the Lord has, you truly begin to live out the intention of this verse that invites us to BOAST in what Christ has done for us and how He has provided us with strength to war on against sin and temptation! All so that Christ’s compassion in grace would be the answer for the hope that is evident in our lives. You will find that after an initial first few confessions, the sin feels small, insignificant, and does NOT hold the same power that it once did. Run with it. Hold on to the truth behind that feeling, because you are human, and you will fail again, and maybe not in this area (praise God!) but in another. It’s all in the name of being human and broken. But as you learn the nature of sin in your life, you will start to long for something better, and it will push you to hang on to the corner of Christ’s robe like never before. You will recognize the constant and permanent healing that Christ offers us, and learn that it’s all in the fight, not in the losses. It’s all in the coming back, and in the becoming of a heart in pursuit of Jesus’ glory, where we get to grow in understanding of how much Christ rejoices in His victory over sin living in our lives, even though we fail to realize it daily. “His compassions are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness” to you, dear reader (Lamentations 3: 22-23 ESV) When you call upon His name, wait expectantly for His redemption. “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you” (Isaiah 44:22 ESV).
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