I believe that once we realize that we were so helpless to do anything (to fix ourselves, even with His help) that He needed to kill us and raise us a new creature that we would never be proud because all the focus is on Jesus and what He did in His death and resurrection. No place for pride there. How could I not rely on God? If it weren't for Him I would not take my next breath. I don't believe that God would keep us sinning so that we would be humble. The very thought that He made a way for me to NOT sin makes me humble every moment of every day.

I'm really not trying to bust your balls, you guys. I so know where you are coming from. I lived there for years. But now that I have been free for years it kills me to see people accept their sin as normal for a blood bought, Spirit filled, born again, child of the Most High God who is hidden with Christ in God and is dead to sin and has been freed from sin.

Sorry for sounding so judgemental. This is just something that I feel passionate about because I know how badly it hurt my life.

We are all Christian soldiers in a battle. Put on the full armor of God (I am reminding myself too)

I think this is an interesting subject, and I deeply pray for anyone who struggles with any and all temptation. but, we all know that the temptations will always be there... it is merely how we deal with them.

I know this is not a popular opinion, but I feel masturbation is a gift, a gift that has help many men (and women) reject even greater temptation.

 I for one, have been posed with the exquisite temptations, that unfortunately... I HAD the courage to yield to (all you dorian gray fans should enjoy that turn of phrase  )... that is the reason I quit Djing ... pale red heads with freckles and mild mocha hotties coming up and rubbing all over me was a little too much for me to handle from time to time. I had to cut that hand off.  I am strong enough to resist that now, and I am highly considering starting up spinning again.

the older i get the more I realize it is all about moderation with EVERYTHING... I don't go out and get drunk(actually, never did) but I really enjoy a glass of port with my wife... when I do go to a bar, I really enjoy a pint or 4 of Guinness, and a nice cigar... sometimes a cigarette or 2... but I am no longer beholden to the curse of sir walter raliegh... I dont NEED it. . . and that is where the rub is (excuse the pun) ... if it is ruling you... it is pulling you away from your walk with Christ. . . if it causes you to stumble ... take it away. that can also run into sexual sin... if you have the NEED to crank it every night, you have an issue... but if you are single, or even married... and you need to release that pressure valve ... it is far better to use masturbation than set yourself up for far greater temptation.... and danger.

it IS an absolute struggle... again, I pray for all who struggle... men AND women.

This thread has been very helpful to me to come to a new realization of what it means to be Christ's new creation. I think when you realize you're forgiven and you shouldn't try to maintain a front of not having struggles, you can deal with the situation effectively. For me, part of my liberation involved being straight up with my wife about my struggle which was very hard at first but it helped me establish that what I was doing wasn't who I am. There are certain sites that are blocked on my network at home. Paul wrote to the Galatians that people who eat everything shouldn't judge people who limit their diet for religious reasons and vice-versa. Some people don't need to web-nanny themselves; I'm one of those who Paul wrote about when he said you're only ready for milk not solid food. The way I am, it helps me to have certain sites blocked and know that I can give new sites to my wife to block if they become problems.

The other thing that helps, honestly, is having a regular exercise schedule. Don't try to will yourself away from masturbation. I tried to do that when I was in an accountability prayer group my freshman year of college and all it did was made me leave Christianity for a few years. You've got hormones that are going to come out in one way or another. Weightlifting and cardiovascular exercise help to deal with these hormones.

Also I've found that stress causes me to do stupid, impulsive things like smoke, drink, or beat off. Taking half an hour each day to do nothing but sit in God's presence can help you to de-stress. One thing I didn't really learn in the first thirty years of my life is that prayer is about being in God's presence rather than just rambling on and on to him about how thankful I am, how sorry I am, and what I need him to do for me. When you can be still in the presence of God rather than engaging in verbal diarrhea, he will give you true rest. The more true rest you have, the more you're able to serve him and not do things that hurt you because your anxiety level is through the roof.

So have faith in God; don't try to make yourself right without Him; at the same time, there are things you can do to manage your stress and hormones.

God's peace, Mr. G

Hi All,

I know I'm entering into this all quite late, but I'm part of a men's accountability group, and we have all encountered issues, and guys struggling with this addiction.  We have found however, that to "fight the problem" is never the answer.  When we take the problem on ourselves, we realise that it's more powerful than we are.  A few times, I have mentioned a scripture from Romans 6:

"But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master."  (msg)

When I've mentioned this I have often seen a real relief and release in guys, who realise that they aren't the ones who take out the problem.  It's Jesus who does that.  Our job is to focus completely on him, keep our accounts short when we fail, and allow him to renovate and renew us from the inside out.  This is the transformation of the mind that becomes permanent and miraculous, as it's not achieved by our own efforts. 

I've had issues in the past, but found that when I focus my eyes on Jesus "the things of earth grow strangely dim", and he (often over a fairly long period)  changes and renews the areas of my life which were pulling me back. 

My prayer for all who struggle with this issue is that you will find Jesus, and he will work through you for his glory.

I want to affirm what Kevvo is talking about but I also want to respond to the thoughts that some might have who are reading it the way I would have read it a few months ago. Romans 6 and other scripture verses contain sublime truths that can be read hundreds of times, deconstructed to shreds, and analyzed in a Ph.D. dissertation without really "getting it" in your heart. It is only quite recently and actually by the grace of God as a result of this exact same thread several months ago that I started to get things in my heart rather than just on an intellectual level. I'm 30 years old; I was baptized at age 7; I asked Jesus into my heart (again) at Young Life camp at 15. I felt God's call to come to seminary and so I came here in the fall. Only now do I realize that God brought me here to school and helped me find tastyfresh.com not because I was a good Christian who had important things to share but because he wanted me to finally become a Christian for real.

A few months ago, I was kind of frustrated with reading on here what seemed to be the claim that you should go read a Bible verse and all will change. I guess what I want to say is that what Kevvo is talking about is so true, but if you're in bondage right now, don't beat yourself up if you can't sort of hypnotize yourself into saying wow, I just read a Bible verse and my life is completely different. God will speak to you on his time. A big part of avoiding Satan's oppression is making peace with the fact that God reveals all things on his time. God could have made Paul a Christian when he was a kid but instead he let him murder dozens of Christians before he confronted him on the Damascus Road. If you think, OK, now all I have to do is memorize Romans 6 and every other pertinent verse in the Bible and say them over and over again in my head until they "click" then you're just doing a different version of the same self-oppression you're doing by having elaborate schemes of avoiding sin.

There are basic truths that you have to realize and they come from reading the Bible, but truly believing is different than just saying yeah, I agree with that, even if you try to smile really big and say YES I REALLY AGREE WITH THAT! I have a feeling that many Christians out there are oppressing themselves right now not just on this issue but on other issues because they think that they have to find a way to convince the world that they have faith. And because they think that having faith means "not trying," but giving it all to God (which is true but so often horribly misunderstood), they try their hardest to make themselves perfect in a way that no one can accuse them of "trying."

The effortless perfection facade is one of Satan's greatest tricks for oppressing Christians. What being saved by faith means is not that I have to smile all the time and pretend like nothing's going wrong so people won't think I don't have faith. It means simply that I know I don't have to apologize to God anymore because he forgave me before I ever did anything. He's not standing there scowling at me; he's trying to wake me up from my trance as I stand at the empty tomb of my old ways so that I can move forward into the new life that he's given me. The cross is there not to make me ashamed or feel like I'd better be grateful or else... The cross is the place where I can take off my chains of guilt and give them to God.

I can speak with truth and confidence and authority not because I'm anybody but because I'm nothing and it doesn't matter since God is everything. That's not to claim that I have special powers or a special phone line to God; he speaks to all of us but when we've got all these lists of things that we feel like we've got to apologize for and things we think we can argue our way through defending, we can't hear him talk. I used to think that to "stay saved" or something like that, I had to make sure I apologized and repented of every sin I made. Yikes! He's not mad at us when we spend all our time with him apologizing and rationalizing; he's just kind of waiting quietly and patiently to get a word in.

It's sort of like we've got the attitudes of presidential candidates, trying to show our best game possible to God and spin every mistake we make like we really meant to do it and it was the right thing to do because X or Y, and God just wants us to know that he's our Daddy and we can run up and hug him and cry on him and be real with him and tell him anything we want to.

So what does this have to do with anything we're talking about? I would say by all means, don't try and trust God, but I would include in that advice not to kill yourself trying to appear like you're not trying. Not trying and trusting God means we make ourselves available to God simply by making time for him with no earth-shattering agenda though devotional guides can be useful. It means that we wrestle with his divine truths by reading his word and stepping back and saying if God spoke that verse to me aloud right now with everything I've got going on, what would he mean by it? It's OK not to understand his word and even to disagree with it (which means only that we need to leave a particular verse alone for a while until we figure out the deeper way in which it really makes sense). It's OK to ask other people questions about it. Thinking that this in some way makes you look dumb is again another form of self-oppression that Satan tries to throw in.

In terms of your lifestyle and other circumstances, you're actually *trying too hard* and self-oppressing yourself when you tell yourself that you aren't allowed to eat healthy, seek community with others, exercise, and/or put limits on what websites come up on your computer. Don't avoid doing what feels like it will help to prove that you have amazing "faith." Do whatever feels like it will help but know that God is the reason that you will change when you do and he will see your desire and honor it and heal it.

I'm not sure how I did in capturing this. When you stop oppressing yourself and hear God's voice, it's an unbelievably wonderful thing. I don't really know how to put it into words. I hope this is helpful to any folks who are in a place where I have been.

God bless you. Stop beating yourselves up! God loves you and he's talking to you now and will never stop talking to you.

Shalom, Morgan

  BRAVO! BRAVO!!!

make this into a bumper sticker and a t-shirt and you will make a million.

That's right, the shame cycle is a huge deal. I don't remember the steps in the cycle exactly, but basically the principle of doing something... which you later feel shame about... which you keep a secret... and secret sin then begins to own you... so you do something... which you later feel shame about...