Lust And Sexual Addiction
By Kevin Leapley, MA, LPC, CSAT on Saturday, January 9th, 2016 in Christian Counseling Blog Archives. No Comments
What is the Problem with Lust?
So, what is lust? That is a huge question. Lust is the opposite of love. Lust tries to take the place of love. Lust takes the place of God. Lust is about taking, while love is about giving. Lust is never satisfied and it always wants more and more.
Here are some other problems with lust that I thought about:
Lust causes spiritual darkness
Lust hardens a man’s heart and it takes his focus off of serving God and into serving and feeding lust.
In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus teaches that: ” If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Lust corrupts our ability to love God
John explained that lust is a way of loving the world rather than loving God. He wrote,
“If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world..“ (1 John 2:15-16).
Lust turns your love inward rather than outward toward God and Others. It is a very self-centered sickness.
Lust forms a stronghold
The more a man entertains lust, the more enslaved he will become by it. In Romans 6:16, Paul describes how giving yourself over to someone, “you are slaves to the one whom you obey.”
Sexual lust destroys marriages and families
Viewing pornography causes husbands to have unattainable expectations of his wife.
Lust Corrupts the Truth of God (Reality)
In Romans 1:21-25, Paul writes,
“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened…they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images…Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity”.
What is the Solution? The 5 “R”s:
- Recognize that giving into lust leads to Bondage and Separation
The first “R” that one must take in order to resist sexual temptation is to recognize that lust is a major problem and that giving into sexual temptation will ruin your relationship with God, yourself, and others. We must take the battle seriously and take actions to be prepared for the eventually attack. Lust wants to isolate you from others and eventually kill you!
Our minds have been so flooded with deception and lies from our culture that we have a difficult time knowing God’s Truth. The first step is to know the difference between our culture’s false truth from God’s glorious Truth.
Jesus said in John 8:32, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Our culture tells us that lust, pornography, and sex outside of marriage are no big deal. Just do it! Yet when we do it, we become it! If we allow just a little bit of lust into our minds, lust will fool you into thinking that it isn’t that big of a deal, no one gets hurt, and I can be a Christian and look at pornography.
Yet Paul knew that this kind of thinking allows sin to increase in our lives.
In Romans 12:2, Paul wrote: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
To fully recovery, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to become free from sexual bondage. In Matthew 5:29, Jesus’ teaches:
“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”
By the end of an hour counseling session with a man, I usually know whether he is ready to give up the sexual compulsion. Is he willing to do what ever it takes to heal? A man who is willing to do whatever it takes, is a man who is broken. This is a man who has run out of excuses and finally gives up. He is ready for instruction.
But if he is not ready, he will give every excuse as to why he can’t attend a group (has to work), or why he can’t read homework assignments (I don’t like to read).
There are no half measures to fight off the bondage. You must Realize that there is a major problem with lust and to be free; you are in the fight of your life!
- Reveal the Truth (Confession)
The second “R” in resisting sexual temptation is continued from the first….you must reveal or confess the truth about your past and current struggle with sexual sin to another trusted man. This can be a pastor, counselor, or a friend. Someone that won’t shame you or judge you.
Revealing your secret struggle with lust can be the most difficult part of recovery because there is so much shame involved in it. But there is no way around it, if you want to heal, the secret sexual struggle must be revealed and shared to another trusted man.
James writes: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16)
Also, John writes in 1 John 1:7-9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
James writes that we need to confess our sins “to each other” and John writes that if we confess our sins, God will forgive and purify us.
When we confess our sins, we are “giving the sins away” and no longer holding onto them. We are humbling ourselves and refusing to hold onto the lie that we are something greater than the reality. We are no longer “getting away” with sin. We are facing the sins by painfully telling another. We are refusing to live in darkness (secrets) and committing to (via action) walking in truth. The truth is setting us free!
In the counseling group I facilitate for sexual addiction recovery, I have the group members present their secrets list, list of unmanageable moments, and their 10 worst moments. These exercises allow them to face their shame and take responsibility for their past actions. One member stated, “I now know that I am a good person who has done some bad things.”
We can give up perfectionism and accept the fact that we are imperfect. Confession forces us to admit that we are not God and increases our dependency on Him.
- Rebuild Relationships with Others
The third “R” in resisting sexual temptation has to do with building intimate relationships with other men. We cannot fight sexual temptation by ourselves…Satan is too crafty.
I believe that lust is a counterfeit relationship replacement for real intimate relationships with others.
I recommend that the men join a counseling group, church sexual broken/integrity group, accountability group or even better, a 12-step sexual addiction recovery group (i.e. Sexaholics Anonymous or Sex Addicts Anonymous).
- Resist Sexual Temptation by Surrendering to God
Ultimately, healing from sexual sin is about growth…specifically it is a spiritual growth journey.
In James 4:7-10, James writes:
“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (James 4:7-10)
The key to victory over sexual temptation is to submit every area of your life to God. I believe this means to daily ask God to help you to surrender your “right” to lust and to commit your focus upon fleeing sexual temptation when attacked. Surrender giving up all your rights to God. Once again, this means giving up ALL YOUR RIGHTS TO GOD.
Surrender also means to throw out and avoid all things that we have used for feeding lust. This may require you to throw out television, all magazines with lustful images (soft included), disconnect the internet, move the computer to an open area (no more confidentiality), or placing a filtering software on your browser. You know what triggers you to lust. So it must be you who eliminates the triggers.
- Recommit Daily to Resisting Sexual Temptation
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24)
Jesus teaches in this verse that following him requires that we must be willing to give up our rights (all rights) and follow him at all cost. This is a daily commitment. Meaning yesterday has no bearing on today’s sexual temptation…we must commit to follow Jesus afresh everyday.
The last verse, Jesus teaches that we must be willing to “lose” for him. Jesus is instructing us to surrender our lives and in doing so, we will save it.
This also means that I may have to flee any and all sexual temptations. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:22:
“Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”
To me, fleeing sexual sin means attending an accountability group, confessing any sexual temptations or slips, calling other members of my group, prayer, reading scripture, and surrendering all my rights to God. Being vulnerable to other men is a key to recovery.
Surrendering my eyes means: bouncing off of women who I may lust after, putting a filter on my computer that also sends a report to my accountability partner, avoiding television shows and movies with sexual scenes, and looking down wherever I go versus rubber necking. It works for me.
If you are struggling with sexual lust and/or other sexual behaviors and recognize you need help, call our center today and setup an appointment with one of our sexual addiction counselors. Begin your journey of recovery, healing and freedom today! Call 303-933-5800 or fill out our contact form. A counselor will call you within 24-hours to setup a time to meet.
Kevin Leapley, MA, LPC, CSAT
Latest posts by Kevin Leapley, MA, LPC, CSAT (see all)
- Relationship Panic & Attachment - September 18, 2018
- Anger Management Coping - January 22, 2017
- How Do People Behave In Anger - December 31, 2016
- Anger Management Distortions: Overgeneralization - December 3, 2016
- Two Basic Traits That Help Relationships Last - November 22, 2016