Overcoming Lust as a Christian: My Testimony

by

I struggled with sexual sin ever since stumbling across adult entertainment at a young age. As a young 10-11 year old boy, I knew what I was doing was wrong, I felt guilty, but I didn’t want to give it up. Around 11-12 years old I decided I was going to continue watching porn, and hardened my heart toward that feeling of conviction so that I no longer felt any guilt or conviction about what I was doing.

I always knew that this habit, turned addiction, was unhealthy, I wasn’t oblivious to that in my teenage and young adult years, however, my mind was conformed to the ways of the world, and ultimately I wanted to live according to my desires and chase worldly experiences while I was young.

Walking through deliverance with Christ

I gave my life to Christ at the age of 21, and I was able to quickly give up smoking weed, although it had been a habit of mine, it had never been a true stronghold in my life. Because of this, I thought lustful habits would be the same. However, it was almost like I couldn’t get past the one month mark of abstaining from lustful desires. This occurred over the first 4-5 months of my walk with Christ. I will share how I walked through that process and how the Lord delivered me from the primary stronghold of sin in my life.

I had made it a habit to pray and read the Bible every day, which greatly strengthened me and nourished my spirit. I truly had a pure desire to seek Christ and be the person God was calling me to be, rather than the person I used to be. My relationship with Christ and the Word of God helped me to get back up on my feet and not allow guilt or shame to pull me away from Christ after falling into sin, “For a righteous person falls seven times and rises again”(Proverbs 24:16).

My failure pushed me much, much deeper into prayer and seeking God, although the enemy tried to tempt me with guilt, shame and unworthiness, I would have none of it. The biggest mistake a Christian can make when struggling with sin is not running to the feet of Christ with repentance because they feel unworthy or feel like they can’t repent because they probably will just sin again. That whole mindset is not at all from God, he is not scared of the sin you are struggling with, he is so much bigger than it and is willing to walk with you through the darkest valleys. And so when I sinned, I got on my knees and cried out to God in repentance, saying I don’t want that to be a part of my life, I asked for forgiveness, I asked for strength, and I continued to seek God with my whole heart because I knew that my deliverance was in Him alone, I couldn’t do this on my own.

In months 2-3, while I continued to abstain from sexual sin, I began receiving sexual dreams. I believe that lustful spirits that had an attachment to me through my former life of sexual immorality were trying to influence me to go back to those former lusts, or to regain their stronghold in my life. Oftentimes, I would gain consciousness in my dream and call out to Jesus, and I would wake up and all lustful feelings would subside completely. Interestingly, I found that when I spent time in worship and prayer at night, I could gain consciousness, call out to Jesus, rebuke whatever was influencing my dreams, and wake up.. These dreams just pushed me deeper into prayer and seeking answers and deliverance from the Lord. I also recognized that the times I fell into sin were almost always times when I hadn’t been deep in the Word or in prayer that night. I realized that daily time in the Word and in prayer/worship nourished and strengthened my spirit immensely.

  • side note: when I prayed Psalms 91 at night, these lustful dreams would stop occurring

The Lord took me down a path of deliverance during this time period, from many things, not just lust. In times of prayer,` I would be reminded of traumatic moments throughout my life, and I was able to forgive and bless the people who hurt me. I was also able to  recognize and confess the areas in which I hurt other people or sinned before God, and in which I hurt myself. This process delivered me from worldly mindsets, defense mechanisms, and these strongholds of lust, pride, shame, and many others. My identity truly became more and more rooted in who God created me to be and who He says I am.

So there were probably 4 months where I wasn’t able to go more than a month without falling to sexual sin, and there were a couple other times after that where I fell to temptation. However, I can say that I am truly set free from this stronghold, and it has been over a year since watching any pornographic content online.

Practical Steps

  • Recognize that this behaviour is damaging to your body, soul and spirit, and that God can deliver you from these patterns
  • Pray/Worship/Read the Bible in the evening
  • Always bring your struggles and temptations to the feet of Jesus in prayer
  • Repent as soon as possible
  • Get out of bed and pray or worship if you feel strongly tempted

Extremely Practical Steps

Immediate steps to take if you are truly committed to Christ and want to cut off this sin from your life: “And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” (Matthew 5:30)

  • Fully commit to not having sex before marriage
    • If you don’t firmly decide this, then you will never truly overcome sexual immorality. Choose God’s way, he ordained sex to be within marriage for MANY good reasons.
  • Cleanse your social media feed
    • Like Christian content so that your feed becomes oriented around godly things or delete social media for a time period
    • Unfollow any social media page or influencer/celebrity that posts half-naked girls. Even those meme pages that post random advertisements of girls thirst trap accounts. Don’t follow any page that is willing to post that kind of stuff.
    • Unfollow every girl on social media that you don’t have a genuine friendship with or know personally, especially any girl who posts bikini photos or anything like that. You have no reason to follow them.
  • Train yourself to immediately scroll past anything online or in-person that would cause you to have lustful desires or thoughts. Because no matter how much you cleanse your social media page, there is always something crazy that could pop-up. So, immediately look away or scroll past.
    • “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)
    • “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18)
  • Ask God to help you
    • Like I said before, you are not going to fully overcome this on your own strength.
      • Tell God you don’t want to live like this or think like this anymore.
      • Ask God to cleanse your heart, to fill you with His Spirit, and to renew your mind.
      • Thank God that he is with you through the darkest valleys, and that he is your deliverer.
  • Read Psalms 23 & 91 in the daily and nightly
    • trust me bro

Therefore…

“Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded people! Be miserable and mourn and weep. Your laughter must change to mourning and your joy to sorrow. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.” James 4:7-10

Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord?
Who may stand in His holy place?
The one who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who has not set his mind on what is false,
and who has not sworn deceitfully.

Psalm 24:3-4

Leave a Comment

Leave a Comment