Addiction of any sort is the story of this dark world.
There won’t be any form of addiction whatsoever in heaven. Don’t you love that? I do!
The Bible says, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” 1 Corinthians 15:19
We hope in Christ mainly for the life that is yet to come. Standing on this rock, on this truth, I will try to address ways to kill the masturbation addiction.
If you didn’t get a chance to read the past two posts on this page, I encourage you to that first before you read this.
Three main points:
- Know that you’re addicted!
You are addicted means, you are too obsessed with thoughts of how to break the addiction or how exciting your next experience will be and you cannot count a day or a week without engaging in the practice. If you don’t deny that you are addicted and you are determined to do anything to break free from the addiction once and for all, keep on reading.
- As a Christian, know who you are in Christ.
Your flesh, this dark world and the enemy of your soul, the devil, don’t want you to know your identity. They want you to doubt that you are indeed the child of God. If we do doubt that, you will be an easy prey for them.
They put you in this self-defeating and pointless rat race of: “I will break free from this addiction after I fast and pray with tears for three months,” and then after four months, you find yourself back in the addiction, the difference now is you are in the worst place in many ways than before. After staying in this rat race for a while, you conclude that Christianity is not for you or Christianity is one of those false religions.
When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, this was the one phrase that Satan used twice to make Jesus one of his catches in his net:
“If you are the son of God” (Matthew 4:3, 6) – Identity question!
Why?
If Jesus had some doubt about His son-ship at this point, we all would have been perished because the winner would have been Satan.
But thank God that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, did not have any doubt that He was the Son of God. So He didn’t need to go ahead and take the challenge the devil presented to Him to prove to Satan that Jesus was indeed the son of God (by turning those stones into bread and committing suicide to be saved by angels).
Make sure you see this point clearly.
Satan never changes his strategies. As he did with Jesus, he always does the same with you. He wants to plant a seed of doubt in your heart about your son-ship.
It’s crucial that you know your identity, who you are in Christ Jesus. Know that your struggles with sin do not define you but the word of God! And the word of God says,
“Yet to all who did receive him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
John 1:12-13
Amen! This is who you are. You are born of God. You are the child of God.
When you face your struggles, so be it masturbation addiction or drug or gambling addiction or lying or gossip, you start the battle by first buckling up your waist with the belt of this truth (Ephesians 6:14). Then,
- Leave your addiction alone!
Do you hear that? Yes, leave your addiction alone.
I am sure by now, you are tired of saying to yourself, “From this day on, I will never watch porn and engage in masturbation,” because you know it for sure that it is a lost cause. This is what will-power is.
Will-power is good to study hard for the exam to get A, but not to break free from any sort of addiction, such as masturbation addiction. It makes you look stupid again and again.
What do I mean when I say “leave your addiction alone?”
The Bible says, “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” 2 Timothy 2:22
It says, “Flee” – Well! How can you flee, run away from your addiction, leaving it all alone?
By “pursuing” the opposite of your evil desires, – by pursuing “righteousness, faith, love and peace” and here is the key, “along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.”
When I was in University of Maryland Pharmacy School, I remember what I learned in class about the mechanism of actions of some of the cancer meds that were still in the pipeline (not yet out on the market).
One specific mechanism of action that most researchers were interested in was to leave this aggressive cancer cell alone. When they try to mess with it, it has a tendency to metastasize into another healthy cells in a rapid speed and kill the patient. So they leave the cancer cell alone but they do something.
They starve the cancer cell to death!
How?
They cut off all the blood supplies that feed into the cancer cell and the cancer cell, without making any noise or movement, silently die.
Remember, when they cut off these supplies from the cancer cell, they at the same time supply to the healthy cells every nutrient they need, making sure that the rest of the body is healthy and strong.
Look how the Bible puts this strategy into action:
“Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” 2 Timothy 2:22
And
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. . . Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” Colossians 3:1-2,5
Wow, do you see it?
What is supplying all the nutrients needed for “the masturbation addiction” to takeover someone’s life?
Sitting idly on social media for hours and hours with no specific purpose, watching sexually suggestive or explicit movies/dramas/reality shows, hanging out with friends (Christians and non-Christians) who have no biblical moral standards and values, listening to music which promotes worldly lifestyles and total abandonment of all Christian disciplines (reading, studying and meditating the word of God, praying and having small group Christian fellowship).
You have to cut all these “nutrients” that feed the addiction. However, at the same time and at the same rate you cut off these supplies, you need to start supplying all “the nutrients” to your mental, spiritual and physical health such as “- – – pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” 2 Timothy 2:22 and “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” Colossians 3:2
How can we put our minds on things above?
By reading, studying and meditating the word of God and prayer. These are not things you just do one time, like you take paracetamol (or acetaminophen, Tylenol) pills for a headache. This is what a normal Christian do every day, it is a lifestyle a normal Christian.
Then you soon hear the announcement that goes something like this:
“It is reported that the cancer cell was found dead!”
Praise God!
But as you can imagine, to get to the finishing line is not easy as you read it here. You need to have persistence, consistency, patience and grace as you fight to break free from the addiction and you need to get as much help and encouragement as you can get from others who have gone through it. Relapses are part of the journey. So, you need to learn to forgive yourself and start the process all over again. As you may very well know, there is no “I am a lone ranger” kind of thing in Christianity, only in movies. You can’t win or keep your victory long by being alone, separating yourself from the body of Christ, from other believers. Your Christian well-being is very much depending on your fellowship with other Christians.
For some people, God, in His sovereign will, breaks the addiction in one second, in an instant, which we call supernatural miracle, but for most, the process to break free from masturbation addiction or any form of addiction takes a long but worthwhile process.
And listen to this: even those who claim to be free from masturbation addiction through supernatural miracle have to learn to live a normal Christian life, separating themselves from the world and clinging to God through His word and His people, the church. Otherwise, they will soon find themselves in a lot of mess, worse than before as the Bible says in Matthew 12:43-45. ///