Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace

by Heath Lambert

Pour energy into your relationship with your wife.

Direct your sexual energies toward your wife.

The fruit of sexual expression is only fully enjoyed by the one who cares well for the roots and shoots of the entire plant.

The reason it’s so hard is that nobody can ever be certain if you’re doing it or not. But remember that Jesus knows. He sees the heart, the motives, the truth behind your actions. And he calls you to trust him and to lay hold of his forgiving and transforming grace that alone can equip you to achieve victory in this area.

Consider James 3:13–16: Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

The choice is simple and clear: you can look at porn, or you can be humble. But you cannot do both.

Men look at pornography out of an arrogant desire to see women in a way that God does not allow. They show arrogant defiance to God’s commands, rejecting the delight of sexual intimacy in marriage and deciding for themselves what they believe is better—looking at naked women in porn. They show arrogant disregard for God’s call to selfless marital love. They show arrogant derision for the female actresses whom they should be seeking to respect as women who need to hear the good news of Jesus. They show arrogant disdain for their own children by hiding their sin and inviting the enemy into their home and their marriage. They show arrogant disrespect toward all those who would be scandalized if their sin were known. The root problem with men who look at porn is not neediness—it is arrogance.