Promise Tewogbola is a Christian writer, behavioral economic researcher and author of several books. He has a master's degree in Public Health and a Ph.D. in Applied Psychology.
In 1995, the administration of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA released grey wolves into the park.
In less than 6 years after the introduction of the wolves, regions of the park that had been barren was now crowded with trees.
Even more remarkable, due to the presence of trees, there was less soil erosion and new pools began to form in the park, where there had been none before.
All because of the addition of wolves into the park!
In the absence of wolves, the balance in the ecosystem was distorted.
Because grazing animals were left unchecked by their predators, the grey wolf, their population in the park exploded.
In no time, unhindered overgrazing left vast portions of the land barren.
In a similar example, there’s evidence that thousands of years ago, North Africa and the Middle East used to be lush with green vegetation – yes, even the Sahara and Arabian deserts!
But, do you know what else was present at the time?
Lions! A keystone predator that brought balance into that ecosystem
The extinction of lions in that region correlated with dramatic climatic changes that led to the hot, arid Arabia and North Africa we know today.
My point?
You are a creative partner with God in the institution of order in the midst of chaos.
You were placed on earth for a reason and when you don’t play your role, you cause an imbalance in the ‘ecosystem’.
There are destinies attached to you.
There are other people’s stories that will not happen until you step up and fill your gap.
You are the answer to somebody’s prayer.
Awake from your slumber. Put on your strength. Put on your beautiful garments.
Arise and shine!
Big Idea #2 from Research
In a paper titled, “Implications of the Copernican principle for our future prospects“, astrophysicist J. Richard Gott III describes how in 1969, he visited the Stonehenge (which was estimated to be over 3000 years old) and the Berlin Wall (8 years at the time).
Gott then wondered which of the two structures will outlast the other.
As you probably know, the Berlin Wall was destroyed in 1991, while Stonehenge continues to exist to this day.
Gott then mathematically proposed an argument that the longer a thing exists, the more likely it will continue to exist.
This has been popularly called the Lindy Effect.
My takeaway is simple: More often than not, older is better.
Books that were written hundreds of years ago but are still in print today contain more wisdom and practical knowledge than books written in the past 10 – 20 years. And because of their current longevity, these classics will also continue to remain relevant for the next 1000 years.
The same pattern repeats itself in medicine.
Herbs were used by our forefathers to cure ailments and they still remain relevant today. On the other hand, numerous ‘modern’ drugs have been replaced. For instance, as a young child, I remember using chloroquine pills to treat malaria. Artemisinin and other drugs have long since taken the place of chloroquine as the go-to cure for malaria.
This point is instructive: While everybody is shouting about futurism and cutting edge technology, you will be better served to at least keep one hand on systems and structures that the Lindy Effect has vetted.
Big Idea #3 from the Bible
Proverbs 2:6 says, “For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.”
Many people mistakenly interpret knowledge as information.
As a result, they strive to consume as much information as they can. Usually, this leads to information constipation, where the individual is whipped into a state of action paralysis.
One of the Hebrew words translated “knowledge” is “madda”, which literally means “intelligence”.
Staff members of the CIA and FBI are usually called intelligence officers.
This isn’t because they are encyclopedias of knowledge, but rather because they have a specific, privileged awareness of the variables of a specific situation.
In the same vein, the men of Issachar were called men of understanding because they had privileged, revealed knowledge of what Israel had to do per season.
Understand this: Life is complicated as it is. There’s information everywhere – plenty of noise, little signal.
You really don’t need to know everything there is to know!
You only need to have the revealed knowledge of what works and the wisdom to work it out.
May the Lord give you Understanding in these things.
Disclaimer: I’m not advocating for coups, dictatorships, or human rights violations. Ensure you adequately understand the example before drawing your conclusions.
In 2019, I took an online course where the instructor made an interesting argument.
He said when you really detest someone, that person usually has some other traits that would bring you phenomenal success if you applied them to your life.
In recent Nigerian history, there’s no one that has gotten as much hate as General Sani Abacha, the military head of state who ruled Nigeria with an iron fist from 1993 – 1998.
I’m old enough to remember the celebrations of the masses when news of Abacha’s death filtered out to the street in 1998.
Over two decades later, Abacha’s name continues to stink to high heavens, even as the millions of dollars he embezzled from the country’s coffers continue to be restored.
Yet, for all his failings as a leader, Abacha understood something that so many people fail to grasp at an elementary level.
He had an understanding of the times
Between 1960 and 1993, there were 9 coups in Nigeria, with 6 resulting in the toppling of the incumbent government.
Out of the 6 successful coups, Abacha was involved in the planning and execution of 5 of them.
In fact, it can be said that the only coups that failed were the ones Abacha didn’t help plan.
Was this a consequence of Abacha’s wisdom as a master strategist?
No. I believe it had more to do with his intuitive understanding of the times.
The Bible says, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of the light”
Possessing an understanding of the times is a key distinction between the wise and the fools. Unfortunately, a lot of good people have good intentions but lack this intuitive understanding that Abacha possessed.
So, how can you develop an intuitive understanding of the times?
Apart from your personal walk with God, which I believe is the most important criterion for developing an understanding of the times, here are 3 points from Abacha’s career that you can apply to your life for positive outcomes.
1. Learn to keep your emotions in check
Right now, there’s a lot of hype fueled by the current COVID-19 pandemic.
On one hand, you have the news media throwing out the daily number of deaths from Coronavirus.
On the other hand, you have experts and life coaches motivating you to take advantage of the global lockdown to learn new skills.
The problem with the two scenarios is that they force you to take reactive actions in fear.
Because of your constant consumption of the news, you are forced to live in a realm where fear and anxiety becomes your daily reality.
Because of the constant noise from the self-proclaimed gurus and life coaches, you find yourself reacting in “sheep mentality”, learning for its sake, when you could really benefit from keeping your eyes and ears open to the times.
In an interview, Ibrahim Babangida, former Nigerian military president was asked whether he could have predicted that Abacha would have ever become military head of state.
After dribbling around the question in his usual “Maradona” manner, Babangida admitted that he didn’t see it coming.
Why?
In all the times they had been together, the only side of Abacha that Babangida saw was the loyal soldier.
Abacha mastered his emotions.
He never, at any point, allowed his emotions to betray his ultimate ambitions or the slightest indication of interest in the country’s highest office.
You can never go wrong when you make equanimity your friend.
2. Be patient
In a world of fast cars, fast food and fast internet, everyone seems to forget the power of patience.
When you are patient, life-changing opportunities will eventually come your way.
When you’re patient, your faculties of perception are sharpened and you are more likely to position yourself to be a beneficiary of the times.
That’s why there’s a lot of wisdom in the Preacher’s words when he said, “The race is not to the swift…nor the battle to the strong…nor favor to the man of skill; but time and chance happen to them all”
Buka Suka Dimka and Sani Abacha were both conspirators in the July 1966 coup.
Both men were ambitious and thirsty for power.
Yet, it was Abacha who was seated in Aso Rock by 1996.
At that point, Dimka had been dead for 20 years after he had hastily hashed out a coup that ultimately proved abortive.
Abacha’s patience allowed him to read the times clearly. And as a result, chance seemed to partner with him at every decisive stage of his career.
3. Know when to be decisive
Some people appear to be models of patience, but deep down within their hearts, they are afraid of taking action.
After a season of waiting, there’s always a window of opportunity that time and chance will bring your way.
When such an opportunity arises, you need to be decisive.
After Babangida annulled the June 12, 1993 elections in Nigeria and installed a clueless interim government, I can imagine Abacha rubbing his hands in glee, hardly believing his luck.
It was like everything in his life had been leading up to that point.
Because of his understanding of the times, Abacha staged a bloodless coup that saw him installed as the Nigerian military head of state for the next 5 years.
Now, imagine if Abacha had chosen to be more patient.
That window of opportunity would have been closed and Nigeria may have been in a much better place today.
Stories like this will continue to play out in history, especially when evil men possess an intuitive understanding of the times.
May the Lord give you Understanding in these things.
If you’ve noticed, I’ve not written anything explicitly about the COVID-19 pandemic.
This doesn’t mean I’m trivializing the whole situation.
As a man of science, I’ve been taking necessary precautions to reduce the probability of being infected.
But as a man of science with a Christian worldview, here’s my two cents about the currently unfolding events:
1. God is a good God and He always has an agenda.
This means two things: (a) God did not cause the Coronavirus to happen. He’s not using the virus to punish the sins of humanity. Coronavirus is happening because we live in a fallen world. It’s the same thing that plays out when droughts, famine, fires, etc. happen. (b) Coronavirus did not catch God unawares. It’s not like God was planning something and then the virus came from nowhere to ruin his plans. No, God always has His Ultimate agenda and His agenda will always come to fruition.
2. God’s agenda and systems for executing His plans are robust.
This also means two things: (a) In times of certainty, there are absolutely zero downsides to being sensitive to His agenda, and, (b) In times of uncertainty (like this season), aligning with God’s system is the surest foundation upon which you can build your life. That’s the way the economics of God’s Kingdom works, as opposed to the world system which crashes as the slightest hint of unpredictability.
Big Idea #2 From Research
In the journal paper titled, “Violence Risk Assessment and Risk Communication”,Paul Slovic and his colleagues asked some mental health experts to determine whether it was safe to discharge a psychiatric patient, Mr. Jones, who had a history of violence.
The mental health experts were divided into two groups.
To experts in group 1, they were told that people similar to Mr. Jones had a 10% chanceof being violent again after being discharged.
On the other hand, those in group 2 were told that out of every 100 patients similar to Mr. Jones, 10 were likely to be violent after being discharged.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
At the end of the experiment, experts who received information in the form of numbers (Group 2) were two times more likely than experts who received the same information in the form of percentages (Group 1) to deny the discharge.
Simply put, because of the way the information was presented to them, experts in Group 2 were twice as likely as experts in Group 1 to see Mr. Jones as a threat to society.
My key takeaway is that the motives of the information-bearer largely determines the manner in which information will be presented to you.
There’s an indication that if people want to play up the significance of a particular statistic, they are more likely to present it to you as raw numbers.
For instance, telling people “1 out of 1000 people who eat XYZ will get cancer” tends to be taken more seriously than saying “0.1% of people who eat XYZ will get cancer”.
Be wise in your information consumption during this period.
Big Idea #3 From the Bible
2 Chronicles 26:5 says, “And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God: as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper”
The distinguishing factor in Zechariah’s life was his understanding in the visions of God.
This doesn’t merely mean that Zechariah could see visions and dream up dreams.
It’s deeper than that.
It means Zechariah was in tune with God’s agenda per time and was able to interpret this agenda to king Uzziah, who is turn took appropriate actions and ended up prosperous.
In times of uncertainty, the world is always searching for interpreters who can make sense of the times and seasons.
Understand: Trends will pass, fads will wither, but those who can interpret God’s agenda will remain irreplaceable.
May the LORD give you understanding in these things
While planning for YOU TOO CAN BE FREE, I had
a discussion with my friend, about the contents of the book.
His response?
‘It’s about time that
a book comes out to address this plague destroying the destinies of Christian
youths’
Today, masturbation and pornography addiction
is a rampant endemic that is ravaging the lives of men, women, boys and girls
around the world, whether we want to admit it or not.
The shocking truth is that this cankerworm is
found among Christian believers too!!!
Nowadays, it is not hard to find a firebrand
brother or sister having daily private struggles with masturbation and
pornography.
He may have an innocent look and could be a
role model and mentor to others.
She looks pious outwards but feels dirty and
stinking inwards.
From the seat of masturbation, he rises up for
prayer meetings; from the depths of pornography, she mounts the pulpit and the
supernatural manifests.
The imaginations of his thoughts are an
abomination, but, somehow, he is able to speak words of comfort to those who
are weak and heavy-laden.
She lives in a blend between light and
darkness.
Day in, day out, he suffers in silence,
looking for a way out of the double-life he’s living…
In my personal experience, the height of this
double-life was when I was in my sophomore year at the University. A friend was
telling me of how a young lady was caught masturbating in the toilet of the
school’s hallowed chapel ground during a revival program. Yes, it was easy to
criticize the lady for her actions. But deep within me, I felt very discouraged
because the only difference between myself and the girl was that I hid my habit
better.
I think it is obvious now that I am not
writing from a position of stainless perfection.
I’ve had my own battles and I have been cut
and scarred in the warfare. I grew up with a strong Christian heritage and yet,
somehow I found myself caught in the same web as thousands, if not millions of
Christian youths all around the world.
In case you have not yet come to terms with
the scheme of things, as far as masturbation and pornography are concerned,
take a look at these statistics:
30 million users view porn with their mobile devices
56% of all divorce cases had one of the partners addicted to pornography
In the UK, porn sites are accessed more than social media and shopping sites
70% of people aged between 18 – 34 years visit porn sites at least once every month
From 2001 to 2007, the revenue of internet porn industry went from $1 billion to $3 billion in the US alone
1 in 8 internet searches online is for erotic contents
In a survey, 35% of the boys interviewed said that they had watched porn too many times to count
In another survey, 70% of the Christians interviewed said they were struggling with pornography in their daily lives
In a Christian conference, 75% of the men in attendance admitted to being involved with pornography
50% of all Christian men and 20% of all Christian women are addicted to pornography
In 5 Christian campuses surveyed, 68% of the males intentionally viewed a porn site
Over 20% of calls to a pastoral care line are for help on issues of masturbation and pornography
In another survey for Christian clergymen, over 30% of the men admitted to watching pornography. 61% of these were married men who masturbated. 82% of these masturbated at least once a week. 13% of these felt it was a normal practice to masturbate.
In a survey of 500 Christian men, 90% felt disconnected to God on account of pornography consumption
The statistics are alarming, but they present
a vivid picture of what is obtainable in Christianity worldwide today.
Masturbation and Porn are robbing the world of
Kingdom giants!!!
Perhaps you are holding this book now because
you are desperately looking for a way out of the habit that has held you down
for years.
You may have tried online filtering software,
accountability, and sexual purity books.
Maybe you have implemented the psychological “12 Steps To Overcoming Any Addiction” or perhaps, you have gone for medical or pastoral counseling.
Yet, it seems like you are beating against the
wind.
Well, I have good news for you:
The LORD God Almighty has mandated me to share
the truths – revealed to me through my personal experiences and studying the
Word – which would cause you too to be free from the claws of masturbation and
pornography.
In this book, I would be debunking myths
surrounding masturbation and pornography by revealing what these twin evils can
do to you physically and spiritually. After that, I would go into deeper
details on how exactly you can be free from masturbation and pornography.
It is my prayer that as we embark on this journey together, the LORD God Who delivered and set me free from the claws of masturbation and pornography would do the same in your life too.
NOTE: This post is over 20,000 words long and is available as a book. If you’d like to get the book, go here
God delivered me from the bondage of
masturbation and pornography.
The good news is that He has mandated me to
show you how you too can be free from the grips of those habits.
I have shown you what happens to you
physically when you watch pornography and masturbate. Before I go on, I believe
it is also my duty to open your eyes to see what also happens in the spiritual
realm when you masturbate and watch porn.
It is very likely that I would have missed the
spiritual implications of masturbation and pornography, were it not for a
chance event that occurred while I was still held captive to the habits.
After visiting a porn site and doing my thing,
I noticed that my phone started malfunctioning.
I couldn’t open certain applications on my
phone and my messages were inaccessible.
It was when I took my phone to the repairer
that my worst fears were confirmed.
My phone had been affected by a powerful
virus!
Needless to say, I had to ‘flash’ my phone’s
memory, losing all my applications in the process.
The experience left a bitter taste in my
mouth, but it also opened my eyes to see another fact:
If going to a porn site could physically
infect my phone with a virus, what would be the gravity of events occurring in
the spiritual realm?
Actually, a lot is occurring in the spiritual
realm.
In fact, the spiritual realm is the ultimate
reality. Whatever happens in the physical is only a reflection of the dynamics
of the spiritual realm.
2 Corinthians 4:18 says,
‘While we look not at
the things that are seen but the things that are not seen; for the things that
are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal’
With that at the back of our minds, let’s
examine what masturbation and pornography do to you spiritually.
When God created man, man was created to be in
God’s class of being.
Man was made in the image and likeness of God.
To make man, God breathed Himself into man.
As in, He took off His very Essence and Being
and inflated man with it. Man is a bundle of God’s raw, fresh and Divine
Inspiration.
Man was made to be like God.
He operated like God, with the display of the
very wisdom of God.
What’s more, God gave man absolute and total
dominion over everything that was on earth.
No wonder the Bible says in Psalms 82:6,
‘I have said, ye are
gods; and all of you are children of the Most High’
And to show you that the above statement was
not a mistake, Jesus repeated the same words again,
‘…ye are gods…’ (John 10:34)
Let’s briefly forget about the Original sin in
the Garden of Eden, and let’s chew on these truths for a moment.
Man was created to be god on earth.
He was created to exercise dominion and
authority here on earth.
If you look at the trend of things, despite
being in a fallen state, man has somehow been able to exercise his God-given
mandate to rule and dominate.
Man has been able to make wonderful
innovations and inventions.
He has been able to create beautiful works of
art and cure previously incurable illnesses.
Man has been able to dig deep into the heart
of the earth and find mineral resources to improve the quality of his life.
Man has also been able to extend his influence
beyond the earth through space exploration.
Man was created to have dominion and not to be
dominated.
When you masturbate and watch pornography, you
are actually allowing these things to dominate you.
When you masturbate and watch pornography,
what you are saying in essence is,
‘I am tired of being a
god, now I want to worship the idol of self-gratification’
When you masturbate and watch porn, you are
willingly stepping out of your position of dominion to a state of idol worship.
See, by masturbating and watching pornography,
you are limiting yourself and living far below what God created you to be. You
are making that deplorable step-down from being an individual in the class of
God, to a common idol worshipper.
It is at this stage that the devil can easily
get access to you.
Romans 6:16 says,
‘Know ye not, that to
whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey,
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness’
Did you see that?
When you yield your body to masturbation and
pornography, you are yielding your body to be a slave of sin.
The devil is the author of sin. So, when you
yield yourself as a slave to sin, you are yielding yourself to the devil.
It is a big matter we are talking about here.
By masturbating and watching pornography, you
are willingly walking away from all that God has made you be. You are giving
the devil free access into your life!
And when the devil gets into a person’s life,
he does not come alone. He comes with his hosts of demons that could manifest
in an individual’s health, career, family, destiny, peace, home and so on.
Surely, you are not bargaining for all these,
are you?
Exposing yourself to masturbation and
pornography would give you an imagination that would find it extremely difficult
to see things from God’s perspective.
Your imagination is a tool that is neither
good nor bad. However, it could be used for good or bad.
Let’s prove that:
Can you remember the road to your primary
school?
Okay, maybe that’s too hard. Can you count the
number of rooms that you have in your house?
Was that easy to do?
That’s the power of your imagination.
When I asked you to count the number of rooms
in your house, you did not drop the book and then start entering each of these
rooms one by one.
No, you simply imagined those rooms and
started counting them.
Furthermore, did the fact that you imagined
the rooms make them any less real?
Of course not!
In fact, it is because the rooms were real
that you could imagine them.
Now, if you can take it, pay attention to
this:
Your imagination is a door to the spiritual
realm
Remember 2 Corinthians 4:18?
‘While we look not at
the things that are seen but the things that are not seen; for the things that
are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal’
How do you think great inventions and works of
art are born?
Through the power of the imagination!
Remember I told you that man was created in
the class of God’s being, right?
So, if man can imagine, it is because God
imagines!
We were products of God’s imagination and that
is how we were created in His Image.
In fact, to show you how highly God esteems
the power of the imagination, look at what He said in Genesis 11:6,
‘…and now nothing will
be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do’
God categorically said that if a man can catch
a glimpse of anything from the spiritual realm, and he sets out to implement it
in the physical realm, such thing would not be impossible!
Such is the power of the imagination and it is
always very sad to see one fracture this powerful tool through constant
exposure to masturbation and pornography.
How? Good question.
You see, you think in pictures.
When I say ‘ball’, you don’t see the letters
‘b – a – l – l’. Rather, you see a ball. I could change the image that you have
in your mind by simply changing my words. So, I can say ‘a big ball’ or ‘a big
red ball’ and the image you see would conform appropriately to conform to the
words that I’ve spoken.
Now, when you take in pornographic inputs
(novels, pictures, and films), images are being impressed upon your mind. And
the more you watch these things, the more your mind conforms to these inputs
and the more you fracture your imagination. This continues until you get to a
stage where your default imagination is a sex scene. As a result, your
perception of spiritual realities become very warped.
You’d find it extremely difficult to engage in
any form of productive imagination.
It would be very difficult for creative ideas
to come to you.
You would not be innovative, inventive or
ingenious.
Instead, you might start seeing lies –
Like demons as big and mighty beings with
fangs and blood dripping from their mouths, ready to snuff the life out of you.
Or, you might start imagining yourself
involved in a ghastly motor accident or in a plane crash.
You might imagine that the roof you’re staying
under collapsing on you.
Or, you might find yourself manifesting
various psychosomatic symptoms with the doctors unable to find anything wrong
with you.
You’d find yourself walking in constant fear
every time.
Really, all these hassles are not worth
masturbating and watching porn over
Masturbation and watching pornography could
kill you because you’d have a constant expectation of evil from the devil.
After giving the devil free access into your
life. He and his agents have been empowered by you to ‘touch’ your health,
finances, academics, career, and so on.
Also, since you have chosen to yield yourself
to be a slave of sin on the account of masturbation and pornography, you would
have to do whatever that your master tells you to do.
Now, you no longer have faith in God or His
immense potentials that He has embedded in you. Instead, you start having faith
in the lies of your new master – the devil. And because you are in a state
where you believe his lies, anything he tells you, you would believe and start
seeing the manifestations too, with your fractured imagination working against
you.
Sadly, there are so many who have yielded
themselves to the devil in this way. By believing him, they could no longer
resist the devil’s lies. As a result, they have died – their imaginations
killing them!
For those who are fortunate not to get
themselves killed, their case is no better, as they are not living but merely
existing.
For these ones, the night cannot come fast
enough during the day.
And at night? The day cannot also come fast
enough.
This is how the days keep on rolling on and on
for them, with them unable to make anything out of it. Because of their fear of
death, their will to live is severely handicapped.
If you’ve noticed, there has been a pattern in
the occurrences that take place in the spiritual realm when you masturbate and
watch pornography. First, you open the door to the devil and then you fracture
your imagination. After that, you’d be in a state of constant expectation of
evil. Then, add the feeling of rejection and debt to that mix.
It is evident why that should be the next in
the sequence of events.
I guess I’m now sounding like a song on
repeat: Remember Romans 6:16?
‘Know ye not, that to
whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey,
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness’
If you yield yourself to the sin, the devil
becomes your master.
If the devil becomes your master, you believe
his lies.
One of the lies that the devil would
constantly tell you is that God hates you…and that He would soon expose your
little secret.
Personally, I had this experience when I was
held captive.
I would go for Christian meetings where the
prophetic was in full force. All the time, I was always expecting someone to
come and meet me with a ‘word from the
Lord’ concerning porn. As you must have guessed, such words never came
forth. Instead, I always missed out in having a personal encounter that could
have liberated me. Since I was having this expectation of someone coming to
officially tell me that God had rejected me, the devil brought a man operating
with an evil demon of divination across my path. Naturally, I was duped because
my defenses were down!
My point is that when you masturbate and watch
pornography, you have a warped view of Who God is.
You buy into the devil’s lies that God is bent
on embarrassing you whenever He has the chance to do so.
Masturbation and pornography would distort
your mind to a constant state of being indebted to God.
You’d find yourself running away from God, instead
of running to Him because you feel like you are owing Him something.
Jesus said,
‘…they that be whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick…for I am not come to call the
righteous, but the sinners to repentance’ (Matthew 9:12 – 13)
It defies logic why a person who masturbates
and watches pornography would want to run away from the One Who can and will
set Him free.
The reason?
Masturbation and pornography would make you
feel rejected and unworthy to approach the presence of the Father, even when
you are in a dire need of help.
When you masturbate and watch pornography, you
don’t become just plain stupid. You become really stupid!
Why?
Well, for one, sin has mastered your body and
you are ever obedient to the lies of the devil.
Then, since your imagination has been
fractured, you would have a warped view of the realities of the spiritual
realm.
Romans 1:21 – 22 says,
‘Because that when
they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became
vain in their imagination, and their foolish hearts became darkened. Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools’
Note the trend: Once your imagination becomes
vain (fractured), your heart becomes darkened.
When you masturbate and watch pornography,
your heart becomes darkened and confused; you become really stupid because you
are unable to tap from the millions of potentials you have within you as an
individual.
I keep on emphasizing on the fact that man was
created in God’s class of being. Despite the fact that Man lived physically on
the earth, what gave him life was the raw, fresh and Divine Inspiration of God
from God’s very Essence.
But when you watch porn and masturbate, you
are cut off from all these.
You are totally unable to draw out inventions,
innovation, and creativity from the realm of the spirit. Instead, you live from
your emotions and your physical body. All your decisions become solely based on
what you can feel, taste, smell, hear and see.
You’d find it extremely difficult to be
proactive.
You’d find yourself going through life, simply
reacting to whatever the environment throws at you.
Let’s look at Ephesians 4:25,
‘This I say,
therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other
gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in
them, because of the blindness of their heart’
Did you see that?
Masturbation and pornography cut you off the
life of God.
Your understanding is in the dark and your
heart is blind.
As a result of your heart becoming dark,
ignorance becomes the order of the day for you.
You become stupid!
Furthermore, if you base your life only on
what you can feel, taste, smell, hear and see, the Bible says you are carnally
minded.
See what the Word says about
carnal-mindedness,
‘For to be carnal
minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
can it be’ (Romans 8:6 – 7)
When you are sensual, you are solely dependent
on your five senses and what makes sense to your logic.
When you are sensual, you are carnal.
When you are carnal, you have death working in
your body.
You know why?
You have been alienated from the life of God.
You make yourself a total stranger to His life.
And as if that’s not all, masturbation and
pornography make you see God your enemy.
Note that Romans 8:6-7 did not say that God is
in enmity with the carnal mind.
The verse said that the carnal mind is enmity
with God!
‘For to be carnal
minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither can it be’
As we have established earlier, when you give
the devil access into your life, he becomes your master. You buy into his lies
and you end up looking really stupid.
Why would anybody want to be an enemy to God?
Well, it takes a stupid person to do that.
Furthermore, masturbation and pornography
would make you start rationalizing your addictions, despite the fact that you
feel guilty about it.
You’d find yourself saying extremely dumb
things like,
‘Well, at least I’m
not like other people who commit adultery. I don’t even steal or lie too much’
Masturbation and pornography would make you so
stupid that you start justifying your actions by comparing yourself with other
people.
Don’t you get it?
The actions of other people were never going
to be the standard of what right or wrong is. Within you, deep down there in
the core of your being, you know what the truth is.
It is stupidity to try and justify your
actions in the light of what other people do.
‘But exhort one
another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin’
Masturbation and pornography deceive you and
you end up becoming really stupid.
After that, your heart becomes hardened to
God’s voice.
Let’s take a moment to examine what ‘hardness’
means.
When your heart is hardened to a thing, it
means that you are insensitive to that thing.
For example, let’s assume that you are trying
to receive a phone call and the television is turned on. The truth is that you
would most likely hear what the person on the phone is saying, rather than what
is showing on the television. The reason is because you are more sensitive to
what the person on the phone is saying than what is being shown on the
television. Your heart was temporarily hardened to the television so that you
would be able to focus on the phone call.
The same thing occurs when you are reading a
book you are interested in. Regardless of the sound of traffic, or the movement
of people in the room, you are still able to read from the book because you
have hardened your heart to the distractions.
Masturbation and pornography make you
insensitive to God!
Each time you masturbate and watch porn, God
is actually calling you back.
But because you are yielded to the devil, your
heart is hardened to God and more sensitive to the devil. Because your
imagination is fractured, your understanding is darkened and you are cut off
from the life of God transmitted unto you.
The sad thing about having a hardened heart is
that even if God audibly spoke to you – you won’t hear His Voice because you’ve
sensually explained it away!
You become sensitive to whatever you give your
attention and become hardened to whatever you neglect.
Many people are giving more attention to
masturbation and pornography on a daily basis.
The result of that choice is that their hearts
becomes hardened to God’s love, wisdom, intuition, knowledge, plans, purposes,
understanding, and faith.
That is not God’s will for you…
*
We have been able to establish the fact that
masturbation and pornography can affect you both physically and spiritually.
Believe me, it was not an exactly pleasant
experience for me to open your eyes to all that these twin vices do to you both
spiritually and physically.
However, it needed to be done, so that you’d
be able to better understand the depths of what God has delivered you from and
appreciate it.
Without further ado, let us move on the way out.
NOTE: This post is over 20,000 words long and is available as a book. If you’d like to get the book, go here
By now, you must be itching to find out the
very first thing that would set you on your path to victory. How do I know?
I passed through this same stage when I was
looking for every way possible to be free from these same habits.
I read books.
I went online.
I went everywhere…well, almost everywhere.
Believe me, I was desperate.
When I finally got to my wits’ end, the first
step was revealed to me.
The first step which set me on the path to
total deliverance from masturbation and pornography is this:
You need to receive a
revelation of the gravity of God’s love for you!
That’s very simple. But if you’d grasp the
revelation, it would play an important part in liberating you from masturbation
and pornography.
It’s simple.
It’s profound.
We have already established that the people
who are meant to run to God, ideally should be the ones who are in a dire need
of His saving grace.
Understanding the depths of the Father’s love
for you would put you in the best position to do just that.
Listen to His heart towards you now,
‘…rise up, My love, My
fair one, and come away…Arise, My love, My fair one, and come away. O My dove,
that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me
see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance
is comely’ (Songs of Solomon 2:10, 13-14)
That is the voice of God whispering lovingly
to your heart.
As it is, He is trying to woo you out of the
vice-grips of the destructive habits of masturbation and pornography!
The Almighty God – the Creator of the Universe
– is interested in you.
Listen to Him in your heart, calling and
tugging, whispering and nearly pleading.
‘…rise up, My
love…come away…Arise, My love…come away…’
He loves you so much and He wants you to wake
up to what He created you to be.
He’s seeing you hide in the clefts of
masturbation; He’s looking at you concealed under the stairs of pornography.
Of course, God is not looking to knock you out
with a deadly blow!
He wants to deliver you.
The Father is willing to bring you out of the darkness
within the hard, uncomfortable rocks. He wants to shine His healing lights on
the stairs where you are struggling.
He is aching to see you back in the way He
ordained you to be.
But the thing is that, if you keep buying into
the lies of the devil by seeing God as One watching out for your shortcomings,
faults and flaws, you would never have the confidence to approach Him for
deliverance in your time of need!
That is not God’s fault.
It is my belief that generations of exposure
to dead, routine religion has totally blinded us to the truth that God delights
in us and desires to have a Father-to-child relationship with us.
Listen up, if you can just grasp this point
now, you are already taking that first step on the path of deliverance from
masturbation and pornography.
I’ll illustrate from a popular story what a
revelation of God’s love can do for you.
Let’s examine John 11:3,
‘…Lord, behold, he
whom Thou lovest is sick’
Did you see that? As simple and innocent-looking
as that statement may look, it contains the heart of my message.
Note that the message to Jesus was not,
‘…Lord, behold, if you
had loved him, he would not have been sick’
You know why?
Lazarus’ sisters were fully assured in the
deepest core of their beings that Jesus loved them.
Do you get the gist?
They had a revelation of the love that Jesus
had for them and they were secure in that love. Of course, they were not
battling with some bad habit, but they were in need – just the same way you are
in need of deliverance from masturbation and pornography. However, because they
were already secure in the love that Jesus had for them, they were in the
perfect position to receive from Him.
Note again that Mary and Martha did not tell
Jesus,
‘…Lord, behold, the
one who loves You is sick’
They did not even attempt to try and impress
Jesus about Lazarus firebrand attitude to the cause of God’s kingdom.
Sounds blunt, eh?
But the truth has to be told.
I think everyone can pick a lesson from this.
We live in an age where the focus is on what
we can ‘do’ for the Lord. We want to be able to impress people with our zeal
and zest for the things of the kingdom. We want to be in a position where we
put in a good religious performance and can pat ourselves on the back because
everyone can see our passion for God. We want to be in a position where we can
say,
‘God, you know I’ve
done so many things for the advancement of your kingdom. I think I’ve earned
the right to be delivered…’
Okay, maybe we don’t use those exact words,
but our actions reek with the same emotions.
Look, I’m not against displaying fervor and
passion when you are in the gathering of believers. God forbid!
However, I think some people merely just want
to put in a good performance so as to earn a point with God.
Mary and Martha’s message to Jesus didn’t have
that.
They were totally focused on the love they
knew that Jesus had for them.
That Love had nothing to do with the presence
or absence of Lazarus’ requited love.
That Love did not have anything to do with
whether they had put in a good performance in the past or not.
That Love had nothing to do with Lazarus’,
Mary’s or Martha’s input to Christ’s ministry.
That Love had nothing to do with whether or
not Mary and Martha felt that God loved them!
That Love was totally God-initiated and
God-inspired.
It is no wonder that Romans 5:8 says,
‘But God commendeth
His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us’
What manner of human love can ever trump that?
Frankly, you shouldn’t even think of trumping it.
Just follow Mary and Martha’s example and
secure yourself in God’s love for you.
Whether you feel like it or not, grasp this
revelation: God loves you!
Rest in God’s Love for you.
Don’t attempt to earn or deserve it because you
cannot.
Until you are able to receive a revelation of
God’s love for you, you would continue to struggle with masturbation and
pornography.
Until you receive a revelation of God’s love
for you, you’d only end up prolonging your encounter with true and lasting
deliverance.
Matthew 11:28 says,
‘Come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’
Rest and enjoy the love that the Father has
for you and you’d see yourself on the right path to effortlessly walking in
victory over masturbation and pornography.
I would end this chapter by sharing this true
life story:
I had an encounter with a 17-year-old girl. At
that young age, she had already had sex countless times and had gone through
numerous heartbreaks. She also had a verbally abusive father who had only
recently separated from her mother. This girl’s life was spiraling out of
control. When I got talking with her, she started opening up to me. Probably,
she was expecting me to minister condemnation to her. Instead, I told her what
I’ve been sharing with you in this chapter – that God loved her. You can imagine the shock on her face. This
girl then started listing all the reasons why God could not love her – her past
sins, her moral failures, her shortcomings, her waywardness and the works. All
the while, I kept on telling her that God loved her. When she had exhausted all
the reasons she felt it was impossible for God to love her, I told her to
repeat these simple, but powerful words: ‘God
loves me’
That was the breaking point for this girl.
As soon as she uttered these words, the girl
broke down into tears. Her confused heart could not fathom how God could still
love her in spite of her imperfections. She got to the point that she knew she
could do nothing to earn the love that the Father had for her. As a result, she
was able to lay hold of the deliverance which God had provided for her in
Christ.
Luke 7:47 says,
‘Wherefore I say unto
thee, her sins which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little
is forgiven, the same loveth little’
The one that understands the gravity of God’s
love for him or her, in spite of the gravity of sins, would be in a better
position to receive forgiveness and deliverance from destructive habits and
secret sins.
You too can be free when you receive a
revelation of God’s love for you.
If you want that revelation now, just whisper
this softly, in faith, from the depth of your heart,
Father, give me a revelation of your love for me
NOTE: This post is over 20,000 words long and is available as a book. If you’d like to get the book, go here
We have established that God loves you with a
deep love that transcends human understanding. He loves you in the season, out
of season, when you do well, when you are not on your best behavior, when you
feel it, when you don’t feel it.
Friend, it is God’s will for you to have liberty
from the yokes and bondage of masturbation and pornography that is tying you
down.
It pains God to see the mess you’ve made of
things.
In His original Plan and purpose and design
for your life, He created you to be much more than what you are allowing yourself
to be on account of masturbation and pornography.
God created you to dominate and not to be
dominated.
Masturbation and pornography are not meant to
dominate you.
It’s not part of God’s intention for those
urges, drives, and desires that drag you back to the cookie jar to be springing
out from you.
He made you to be more than that.
But alas, you find yourself in this
depreciated state. You want to stop masturbating, but you cannot. You want to
strike out porn from your schedule, but you won’t.
Instead, you find yourself saying,
‘I do not understand
what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. For what I
do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep
on doing’ (Romans 7:15, 19 New International Version)
Friend, I have good news for you.
God loves you. And because of the gravity of
His love for you, He sent Jesus to come and save you!
John 3:16 says,
‘For God so loved the
world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life’
God did not just love the world.
He so loved the world.
He is so in love with you. That is why He gave
His only begotten son for your sake!
Jesus came to save you!
Yes, He came to save you from masturbation and
pornography.
Perhaps, you’ve heard people say that around
you before, but you had never given it a thought. Consider it this way:
God saw you in your lowly estate, living far
below your full potentials that He embedded within you. He saw you in your
struggles with your bad habits and evil cravings. God saw you in your struggles
with your bad obsessions and corrupt, dirty and evil desires. He saw all these
before you were born. He saw all the bad choices you would make and all their
unpalatable consequences.
So, what did God do?
The Almighty Word of God took on the form of
weak human flesh (John 1:14).
He came to the earth by a supernatural virgin
birth.
The Word of God – Jesus, lived a fully
righteous life as a full human being.
He lived above sin and its consequences. He
was the Perfect Man.
Then, the most awe-inspiring moment in history
happened: Jesus offered His Life for you and me.
He shed His blood on the cross of Calvary.
He took ALL our sins – past, present and yes,
even future sins!
He had to be able to cater for future sins
because we were not yet born as at the time He hung on the cross. We were still
in the future at the time. And since we have the fallen human nature in us, we
were most definitely going to sin!
So, Jesus Christ took care of the sin issue,
once and for all, at that One Moment on the Cross. He endured all our
punishments for our sins and totally delivered us from the power of sins, bad
habits, and their evil consequences.
Then something else of epic proportions
occurred.
We were given the righteousness of Jesus
Christ, while He bore our sins. The greatest exchange in history occurred at
that moment on the Cross.
“God made him (Christ)
who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 New International Version)
Note two things:
First, the Bible never said that ‘God has made Him (Christ) to carry our
sin’.
No, Jesus became sin!
The Bible also did not say, ‘God made us to carry righteousness’.
No! We became the righteousness of God!
Of the many things that were imputed into us,
we were also given the ability to walk victoriously over evil habits like
pornography addiction and masturbation.
All you have to do is just “confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and
believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead” (Rom 10:9) and
the exact life that Christ lived while on earth in a victory over sin and bad
habits can be yours!
You too can be free from the dominion of evil
habits and corrupt thoughts.
You too can be free from the prison of
masturbation and pornography addiction.
You were created for more than that. Just
align yourself and key into what Jesus Christ has done for you…and you shall be
free indeed (John 8:36).
Before we move on, if you are ready to respond
to the love of God for you by accepting Christ as your Savior, say this prayer
out aloud:
Sweet Jesus, I thank
You for Your saving grace upon my life. I appreciate You for delivering me
totally from my sins, evil habits, and desires by the virtue of Your precious
blood that was shed for me on the Cross of Calvary. Today, I accept and
acknowledge Your finished redemptive work of atonement for my sins; Today, I
believe You have saved me to the uttermost; Today, I confess You as my Savior
and my All.
Thank you Jesus; I am
now saved!!!
CONGRATULATIONS, you are now on the path of
freedom.
Permit me to use an analogy you might be very
familiar with:
Indian movies are quite fond of depicting
their female protagonists in very unfavorable positions where the odds are
heavily against them. The hero of the movie steps into the picture and somehow
manages to rescue the lady from her captors. The lady almost always falls in
love with the hero, despite him not asking for any return in favors.
I believe that in more ways, than you can
imagine, this is the kind of situation that exists between Christ and every
person that accepts, believes and confesses all that Christ did to save him or
her.
‘For scarcely for a
righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood,
we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we
shall be saved by his life’ (Romans 5:7-10)
Those are weighty words there.
We had been dirty, stinking creatures helplessly
sinking in the quagmire of sin and death.
We were so far off God’s gloriously righteous
standards.
Envy and Lust reigned in and reined in our
minds.
We were not able to churn out anything good in
ourselves.
As it stood, we were not useful to anyone. Hey!
We were even useless to even ourselves.
Yet, Jesus saw us in our deplorable states as
chief sinners and still chose to sacrifice His life for us.
For our sakes, Christ carried our sins and
gave us His righteousness.
For our sakes, He carried our deaths and gave
us His Life – a full and abundant Life.
He did it all for us of His own Freewill.
He did it all for us not asking for anything
from us in return.
The least we can do, if we fully grasp the
extent of what Christ did for us, is to give our lives unconditionally to Him.
I’m sure you now understand how my analogy of the Indian girl and the Hero fits
neatly into the grand scheme of things.
Remember Luke 7:47?
‘Wherefore I say unto
thee, her sins which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom
little is forgiven, the same loveth little’
The one who lowly esteems what God had to do
to cater for the sin issue, would also give a poor response to God’s love.
The one who highly esteems what God had to do
to cater for the sin issue, would also give a good response to God’s love.
In all seriousness, the very least we can do
is to surrender the entirety of our lives and choose to live for Christ.
‘I beseech you,
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service’ (Romans 12:1)
It is fallen human nature to be self-centered
and selfish.
You see, masturbation and pornography
addiction are simply ways that the individual practicing it shows God that he
only cares about the instant gratification that would be derived from these
acts. The acts show an individual that he/she just wants to live for his/her Self
without any consideration for any other person – including the very God that
gave him/her life. That is the height of selfishness!
When you come to terms with what Jesus Christ
saved you from, you would instantly accept and acknowledge Him not only as your
Savior but also as your Lord too.
This is where the plot twists for many
seemingly vibrant Christian males and females who have been caught in the web
of masturbation and pornography. They accept Jesus as their Savior, but they
haven’t started acknowledging Him as their Lord too.
The amazing thing about recognizing Jesus
Christ, not only your Savior but also, as your Lord, you would begin to notice that
you always want to do all that would please Him. Not because you want to earn
points with God. Rather, because you’ve started acknowledging Jesus Christ as
your Lord too.
Psalms 37:4 says,
‘Delight yourself also
in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart’
Many people interpret this verse as saying,
that when you delight yourself in God, He would start answering all your
selfish and lust-motivated desires.
What the verse is actually saying is that the
more you delight yourself in the Lord, acknowledging Jesus Christ as your Lord
over your life, the more He Himself would put Godly desires into your heart.
The more you recognize Jesus as your Lord, the
more Godly desires spring up in your heart. The more Godly desires spring up in
your heart, the less space is available for the urge to masturbate or watch
pornography. Those desires just disappear.
When you start acknowledging Jesus Christ as
your Lord, you’d start finding out all you want to do with your life is to
please Him.
You’d find that you have no need to please
yourself anymore.
1 Corinthians 6:20 says,
‘For ye are bought
with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are
God’s’
When you acknowledge Christ as your Lord, you
would want to glorify Him with the actions of your body and your spirit. We
would discuss this in greater details in a later chapter.
Your mind would not want to spew out evil
desires and thoughts anymore; No! You’d simply want to do everything that is
pleasing to your Lord.
You wouldn’t want to masturbate or watch porn
anymore.
Why? You have a new Lord over your life who
you want to please in your body!
You might be wondering about where you’d get
the strength to continue offering your life to your Lord Jesus Christ,
day-in-day-out. You might even be wondering if you wouldn’t die of boredom by
allowing Jesus rule over your life in everything you do…
Well, that would be discussed in the next
chapter – the Ministry of the Holy-Spirit.
However, for now, if you are currently reading
this and you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, but you are not yet
sure that you have started acknowledging Him as your Lord too, you can say this
confession out aloud:
Sweet Jesus, I just
want to tell You that I love You from the bottom of my heart. From this moment
on, I surrender by entire being – spirit, soul, and body, to You for Your use
alone. Dear Jesus, You are not only my Savior; Now, I acknowledge You as my
Lord. Take me, Lord; Use me, Lord; Lead me, Lord; Teach me, Lord; Guide and
direct me, Lord!
Into Your loving Hands, I commit my spirit, soul, and body for Your use.
NOTE: This post is over 20,000 words long and is available as a book. If you’d like to get the book, go here
For those of you who have been wondering where
you’d get the strength to continue offering your life to your Lord Jesus Christ
on a daily basis, I’ve got good news for you.
You see, the very moment you accepted Jesus
Christ as your Lord and Savior, something powerful happened,
Colossians 1:13 says,
‘It is God who has
delivered us out of the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the
Kingdom of His dearly-loved Son’ (Weymouth’s Translation)
That’s right! You were delivered from the
power of darkness.
Note the tense is in the past!
It’s not that you will be delivered.
You have been delivered from the forces
of evil urges and desires.
You have been delivered from the sphere of
influence of masturbation and pornography.
You have been totally delivered.
You have been set free from their authority,
jurisdiction, power, right and strength over you. They no longer have a legal
right over you.
See, if all Christ did for you on the cross
was just to wash away your sins, it wouldn’t have done you any good. Why?
Because you would still have an old nature
that could still be influenced by the power of darkness.
But thank God!
In addition to forgiving you of all
iniquities, delivering you out of the sphere of influence of the power of
darkness, you were also transferred, translated, carried and exchanged into the
realm and rule of Jesus Christ’s royalty!
Believe it or not, feel like it or not, you
are now in God’s Kingdom!
How can I be so sure of this? You may ask.
Well 2 Corinthians 5:17 says,
‘Therefore, if any man
be in Christ, He is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all
things become new’
The moment you accepted Christ as your Lord
and Savior, you became a new creation. Old things, old actions, old habits, old
urges have passed away and all things have become new!
Wow, I’m so excited that I’m already jumping
into the contents of the next chapter!
Let’s get back on track.
You are a new creation now and what’s more,
you have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you now, as we speak. Wow!
Moments before Jesus’ crucifixion and
subsequent resurrection, Jesus told His disciples these words,
‘I will not leave you
comfortless…’ (John 14:18)
These powerful words of Jesus Christ hold a very
profound truth.
Yes, you’ve made the decision to accept Christ
as your personal Lord and Savior. However, it is quite obvious to your rational
mind that Jesus is not physically present on the earth now.
Yet, Jesus Words to you are, ‘I will not leave you comfortless…’
By saying these words, He is assuring you that
He honors His Words above even His Name (Psalms 138:2). For this reason, He
would not leave you alone against the old urges and evil desires whenever they
rear up their ugly heads!
Christ is telling you that He would never
leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:8).
And to show you that He means whatever He
says, Jesus said,
‘And I will pray the
Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for
ever…
Howbeit when he, the
Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he
will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of
mine, and shall shew it unto you’ (John 14:16; 16:13-14)
That is the Ministry of the Holy Spirit.
That is Jesus fulfilling His Promise not to
leave you comfortless.
That is Jesus, through His Holy Spirit within
you teaching and guiding you into all truth. One of those truths is that you’ve
been delivered from the realm of darkness.
With the Holy Spirit, you cannot be confused.
With the Holy Spirit, you cannot be at a loss.
With the Holy Spirit, you would be able to
find the strength and will to live above the shackles of masturbation and
pornography.
But how can I have the Holy Spirit?
Good question.
Once you’ve made up your mind to accept Christ
as your personal Lord and Savior, you already have the Holy Spirit residing in
you, making your heart His abode.
1 Corinthians 3:16 says,
‘Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’
Remember, Jesus Christ is your Lord. He owns
you and you belong to Him.
And now, He has sent the Comforter to dwell
inside you. Christ has ensured that you would always have a choice not to turn
your back on Him and all He’s done for you.
Look at the statement again,
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?
It beats the imagination how the Almighty God
that created the whole heaven and the earth could choose to dwell inside you
like a house!
That is the Ministry of the Holy Spirit!
He makes your body to be a house for God!
Okay, let’s picture this:
If the president of your country decided to
spend a week in your house, the bedroom you’d host him would be littered with
dirty plates and dirty clothes, right?
Wrong!
You’d most likely ensure that the bedroom, the
house, the compound and even the neighbors’ compounds are all in order.
If you’d go that far for an earthly president
– a human like you – don’t you think you would handle what goes on in your body
with more care and respect, especially if you walk with the consciousness that
the King of kings is residing in you now, via His Holy Spirit!
Little wonder Romans 8:9,11 say this,
‘But ye are not in the
flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if
any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His…But if the Spirit of
Him that raised Christ from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwell in
you’
That’s so profound.
God’s Own Spirit dwells in you the moment you
accept and acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in your life. You can no more
feel programmed to fulfill the desires that your body would have normally given
into. You have the Spirit of God in you and that’s one more proof you need to
indicate that you belong to Jesus.
Furthermore, the Holy Spirit dwells in you and
He would quicken your mortal body. That word ‘quicken’ as used in the passage
means to ‘make alive, revitalize, and give life to’. In essence, God’s Holy
Spirit within you would make your body alive to fulfill God’s Ideals and
Perfect Will for your life. It implies that the Holy Spirit would make you
realize that your body – God’s Temple – was made for far more important things
than masturbation and pornography. You were living in dead works before, just
merely existing. Now, He would make you really alive, fulfilling your inherent
potential.
God has sealed you for Himself. He has marked
you as His Own. And to provide the evidence of that act, He placed His Holy
Spirit in your heart (2 Corinthians 1:22).
This is no child’s play!
This is no wishful thinking!!
This is reality!!!
In case you don’t know the gravity and worth
of the One Who dwells in you, let’s take a look at Ephesians 1:17-22,
‘That the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give unto you…revelation in the
knowledge of Him…that ye may know…what is the exceeding greatness of His Power
to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He
wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own
right hand in heavenly places…and put all things under His feet…’
Let’s, for a moment, assume that the power of
God’s Holy Spirit could be quantified into units.
If it took God 1 unit of unquantifiable power
to speak the world into existence, then it took one million units of
unquantifiable power to raise Christ from the dead and put all things under His
feet!
Listen to this: That’s the same power of the Holy Spirit that you have within you now!
So, you’re not alone, left out to hang and
dry.
No! You are now much more than a conqueror!
You can now walk with your head held high.
You can now walk without a single iota of doubt
or fear of slipping back into your habit.
One of the ways that Jesus told us we could
keep Him happy was to keep His commandments.
Funny enough, that’s really the only way we
can effortlessly keep His commandments,
‘If you [really] love
Me, you will keep (obey) My commands’ (John 14:15 Amplified Bible)
A heartfelt love for God is always the best motivation
for keeping His commandments. Many people in Christendom are keeping God’s
commands because they are motivated by fear. They do not want to go to hell, so
they keep on striving to keep God’s commands with all their efforts.
They do not enjoy it, and frankly speaking,
God doesn’t enjoy it too.
However, since these people see God as a
ticking bomb ready to explode, they do all they can to ‘appease’ the wrath of
God so that they can at least get to heaven when they die.
What a boring way to live!
Believe me, if you take that approach in your
attempt to stop masturbating and watching porn, you’d grow increasingly
frustrated with the whole exercise and you would eventually slip back into your
old habit, or at the very best, replace it with another habit.
I say it again: Love, not fear, is the best
motivation for keeping God’s commands.
And that is where the Holy Spirit comes in.
‘And hope maketh not
ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit which is given unto us’ (Romans 5:5)
The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in
our hearts stirs up Love for our Savior and Lord within us. And in turn, the
Love for our Savior and Lord would prompt us into keeping His Commandments.
It’s so simple and straightforward.
Look at the verse again:
It did not say that ‘the love of God WAS shed abroad in our hearts’ or ‘the love of God WILL BE shed abroad in our
hearts’.
No! The verse said: the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts.
That’s present continuous tense.
The Holy Spirit keeps on pouring a love for
Jesus and His commands into your heart every day, every hour, every minute and
every second.
The love He produces within you cannot be
exhausted.
It cannot finish.
It is there every moment.
‘If you [really] love
Me, you will keep (obey) My Commands’.
Look at another one:
‘If you love Me, you
would keep My Words’ (John 14:23)
Pay attention to the wordings of this verse.
Note that the verse does not say ‘you must keep My Words’.
Neither does it say ‘you shall or you have to keep My Words’.
It says ‘you
would keep My Words’.
It’s simple.
It is cause and effect.
It’s a simple natural order similar to the
gentle and graceful flow of a river along its course.
It’s as simple as knowing that when you throw
a ball up, it would come down.
No struggles. No tug-of-war. Just simple cause
and effect.
If you love Him, you will keep His Commands.
If you love Him, you will want to make Him
happy.
If you love Him, you will neither masturbate
nor watch pornography.
And all this is possible via the Ministry of
the Holy Spirit in your heart.
“There has never been
the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you
would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ
Jesus appears.” (Philippians 1:6 The Message Bible)
You can get started in this by partnering with
the Holy Spirit already indwelling you.
Saying this confession out aloud:
Thank you Holy Spirit
for Your sweet Communion and manifold Presence in my life at all times. I won’t
trade your Communion or Presence for anything in this world. Now, I receive the
grace and strength to yield to your promptings and delicate nudges at all
times, so that I’d be able to show my love for my Savior and Lord – Christ
Jesus, my Redeemer King.
Sweet Holy Spirit, I
give You the right of way in my life now!
In Jesus’ Name.
If you’ve made that confession, it is possible
that some syllables from a language you do not recognize starts rising up from
your heart to your mouth (1 Corinthians 14:14). As you speak them out loud by
faith (Acts 2:4), you are releasing the power of God from within you and
building yourself in the spirit (Jude 20). You can do this whenever and
wherever you like.
It doesn’t matter whether you felt a thing or not. If you believed in your heart that you received, then you surely did. God’s Word is the real reality. Believe it!
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We have all looked into a mirror at one point
or the other. In fact, many of us enjoy looking at the image of ourselves so
much that we stop by any form of reflective glass in a bid to take a look at
ourselves.
Consider 2 Corinthians 3:18,
‘But we all, with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’
That verse has depth, let’s look at it phrase
by phrase.
The first part says,
But we all, with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord
Who does the verse say is doing the beholding?
We are the ones doing the beholding, right?
We, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are
the ones looking into the glass (or mirror, according to the Amplified Bible).
I don’t want to lose you just yet. Let’s bring
this home, shall we?
You know, it is easy for us to realize that we
see our reflections when we stand in front of a mirror, right?
You don’t see your parents’ reflection,
neither do you see your siblings’ reflection. You see your own reflection!
The same is true concerning the spiritual
mirror.
When we look into the mirror, we see the image
of ourselves in the mirror!
So, putting two and two together, we can
conclude this truth:
We are the Glory of God!
Yes, as a believer, you are the glory of God!
I see someone thinking: Really? After all my
ordeals with masturbation and pornography, I sure do not feel like the glory of
God. I can’t even see any glory in my life
Listen to this: It is a certain truth and a spiritual
reality that you are the glory of God. In fact, as it stands now, you are
exactly like Jesus!
Wow! Now, a lot of eyes are rolling.
Perhaps you are thinking: Me? Like, Jesus?
Seriously?
I don’t have time for arguments.
1 John 4:17 says,
‘Herein is our love
made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment: because, as He
is, so are we in this world’
That is very profound.
The Bible did not say, ‘as He was while on this earth, so are we in this world’
You know, it would surely have been awesome
and quite fulfilling for many of us to find out that we can live the same way
that Jesus lived while He was on earth. After all, He raised the dead, healed
the sick, made the maimed whole, preached the gospel far and wide…
But that isn’t what 1 John 4:17 is saying.
Look again,
‘…as He is, so are we in this world’
That is in the present continuous tense!
It means that as Jesus Christ is right now,
that is the same way that we – as believers – are in this world.
So, the question now is this: How is Jesus
Christ right now?
For one, Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus is
the Image of the Invisible God. So, by inference, we also are the image of the
invisible God!
Why?
‘…as He is, so are we in this world’
This truth has the potential to revolutionize
your life.
And I’m not even started!
You know, when Philip asked Jesus to show Him
the Father, do you remember Jesus’ answer?
‘…he that hath seen
me, hath seen the Father’ (John 14:9)
Jesus was saying in essence that if one looked
at His words, His actions, His deeds, He clearly mirrored the Father.
Little wonder 2 Corinthians 3:5 tells us that
we ‘are manifestly declared to be the
epistle of Christ’
This simply means that if any unbeliever has
any doubts about how Jesus is, such a person should just look at me!
Why?
‘…as He is, so are we
in this world’
See, the truth is that as a born-again
believer with the Holy Spirit resident within you, you are like-for-like,
ounce-for-ounce, pound-for-pound exactly like Jesus Christ.
You have the mind of Christ (1Corinthians
2:16, Philippians 2:5)
You have His Spirit (Galatians 4:6, 1
Corinthians 6:17)
You have His Nature (2 Peter 1:4)
You are joint-heirs with Him, having the same
access to the Father that Christ has (Romans 8:17, 29)
You have His righteousness (2 Corinthians
5:21)
All these are your real reality!!!
And it brings us back to the question: If all
these are true, why do I feel dominated and defeated by masturbation and
pornography?
I really don’t want to over-flog the issue, but
it is paramount that I mention it again, as it would play a crucial role in
understanding who we really are.
We’ve long since established that man was
created in the image of God.
The raw, fresh and Divine inspiration of God
was what actually gave man life.
God drew of His very essence and inflated man
with it (Genesis 2:7).
So, man became alive and was given dominion
and authority to rule over the earth. In fact, it was because man was
manifesting God’s kind of wisdom, that was why he could name the animals
exactly what God had in mind (Genesis 2:19).
However, man chose to sin and was subsequently
cut off from the life of God. Prior to the fall, man had been living via his
spirit man – which was actually God’s inflated inspiration that He placed in
man.
When man fell, his spirit was cut off and
totally separated from God’s life. Man’s spirit no longer had the ability to
control his actions to reflect God’s nature. In short, man’s spirit man was
dead!
Man’s spirit was still there, but it was as
good as it was no longer there because it could no longer function the way God
had designed it to function.
At this point, man started producing children
that were in his own likeness, instead of the likeness of God (Genesis 5:3).
Since man no longer had the life of God in him, his offspring could not have
the life of God in their spirits too. They also were spiritually dead by
default!
As a result of all these, mankind became
sensual, carnal – living solely through his five senses. He was totally unable
to contact the depths of the spiritual realm.
Man’s spirit was dead, and he could only catch
glimpses of the spiritual realm via trial and error as he yielded himself to
God. This explains how inventions, works of art and some form of creativity
could be exhibited by man in the fallen state. By trial and error, man could
draw out of the spiritual realm and reproduce imperfect versions in the
physical realm.
What Jesus came to do on earth was to restore
mankind to the life of God (Ephesians 2:1-6). So, if you are a believer in
Christ, your spirit man has been quickened, regenerated and renewed (Titus
3:5). Your spirit man has already been restored back to the state Adam’s spirit
was before the fall! Your spirit man is already like Jesus (Ephesians 4:24).
Isn’t that awesome?
So, while unbelievers look at the state of man
before the fall and start having wishful thinking about how bad things have
gone since the original sin; you as a believer, can look back at the state of
man before the fall and start to thank God for the state that Jesus Christ has
restored you to!
Glory to God!!!
But what seems to be the problem?
Why is it that despite the fact that we have
been restored back to the life of God in our spirits, we still seem to live the
kind of ordinary, sin-plagued lives we lived before we became believers?
The reason you still live the same kind of
ordinary life you lived before you got saved is because you have an identity
problem!
You see, after spending so long living from
the soul (i.e., your five senses, your will, your emotions, and intellect)
before we came to know Christ, we had already been so used to having the soul
in the driver’s seat of our lives. As a result, even when we now have quickened
spirits reconnected to the life and nature of God, we still do not know how to
live from the wealth in our spirits.
Take note that the problem has changed from
being separated from God to being ignorant of the wealth within us.
And there is only one reason why you are
ignorant of who you are in the spirit: You are not looking into the mirror.
Remember the original text?
‘But we all, with open face beholding as in a
glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’
The glass/the mirror is very important if you
want to see the glory of God.
What is the mirror? You may ask.
Let’s check out James 1:23-25,
‘For if any be a
hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural
face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightaway
forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh unto the perfect law of
liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of
the work, this man is blessed in his deed’
Many of us look into a physical mirror for so
long in the morning. And any little chance we have to pass by any reflective
glass, we step by it to assess our looks, our dressing, our accessories, and
all. Now if any chance comes and we are asked to describe how we look, it is
not difficult for us to do so, despite the fact that we are not seeing
ourselves at the moment?
Why?
Simple. We have gazed at so many reflections
of ourselves all day long and we know how we look.
The same thing applies in the spiritual realm.
The spiritual mirror is the Word of God!
The text we just read tells us that if a man
hears the word and does not do it, such person is like an individual who has
gazed at himself in a mirror and then forgotten what he looked like.
The thing is that many people have heard or
read about these things that I’m sharing with you now. But they do not see the
manifestation of it in their lives because they refuse to believe in the mirror
of the Word that they have just heard. These people have gazed at the Mirror of
the Word only briefly and have forgotten the kind of person that they are.
For instance, do you know that since you are
born of God, you cannot sin? (1 John 3:9)
Try telling that to a carnally minded
believer.
But it is a basic truth of the Word!
We are born of God and we do not have the
ability to sin. The verse did not say, ‘you will not sin’. No! It says, ‘you
CANNOT sin’. You don’t have the ability to sin. It is no longer in your nature
to do so.
That is so profound.
Now, when you tell a believer such truth, he
is gazing at the Mirror of the Word at that moment, and he is excited at the
truth that he cannot sin.
But just give the typical believer a day or
two, and you’d find him battling with the same sins he or she should be
triumphing over.
You know why?
Such believer has forgotten the manner of man
that he was!
This is because he has refused to check
himself in the Mirror of the Word to see who he really is in the God’s sight.
You have to look into the mirror of the Word
of God and have the faith that the description you find is accurate.
When you look at a physical mirror, do you
disagree with the image you see reflected because you don’t feel that’s the way
you should look?
Of course not! You have absolute faith that
the mirror is showing you the accurate description of who you are in the
physical. The same applies in the spirit!
You have to have the absolute faith that the
mirror of the Word is the accurate description of who you are in the spiritual
realm.
See, the truth is that if you sin, God is not
angry with you!
He has already provided the blood of Jesus to
cater for the sin.
However, God is not also thrilled with your choice to
sin because it is a total downgrade from who He has created you to be
in the spirit.
It is very liberating to see that when you
sin, God is not mad at you. Rather, when you sin, you are living below your
nature and become an ordinary dusty being that the devil can have access to –
after all, he was condemned to eat dust.
You see, the more you gaze at the mirror of
the Word, the more you see yourself in the light of who you have been created
to be.
When you gaze into the mirror of the word
continually, you find out that you were actually designed to walk over sin, sicknesses,
temptations, precarious circumstances, masturbation, pornography, and yes – the
devil!
Once you constantly gaze upon the mirror of
the Word, you’d realize that the way you think starts to change.
Romans 12:2 says,
‘…be transformed by
the renewing of your mind’
When you change the way you think in the light
of who you are in Christ, you would find your actions and deeds the following
suit to conform to your spiritual reality.
Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 3:18 again,
‘But we all, with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’
Note the phrase, ‘…are changed into the same
image from glory to glory…’
See, you really do not have a pornography or masturbation
addiction problem. The real problem is an identity and consciousness problem!
The more you gaze at the mirror of the Word of
God, the more the way you think changes.
The more the way you think changes to conform
to the realities of your spirit man as described by the Word of God, the more
you manifest the glory of God – which is who you are in the Spirit.
The more you manifest the glory of God
physically, the more victory you would experience over sin, sickness, poverty,
masturbation, pornography and whatever the devil throws at your path.
You can say this word of prayer:
Sweet Holy Spirit, I ask you to draw my heart more to my spiritual mirror – which is the Word of God. Open the eyes of my understanding and cause me to walk fully in the light of who you have created me to be
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One of the most awe-inspiring portions of the
Bible to me can be found in Genesis 1:2-3,
‘And the earth was
without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let
there be light: and there was light’
Here, we see the Spirit of God moving upon the
face of the deep. There was formlessness, void and darkness and no matter what
the Spirit of God wanted to do to remedy the situation, He couldn’t do it. You
know why?
Verse 3 gives us the answer:
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light (Emphasis mine)
Powerful words there!
The Almighty God Who created the Heavens and
the Earth had to speak.
God wanted a change in the scenery.
He desired the change so much, but He did not
just fold His Arms and think,
‘Hey, I’m God and
anything I wish for must come into manifestation’
No!
The fact remains that nothing happened until
the moment that God spoke.
‘And God said…’
Now, if the Almighty God could not do
anything, until the moment He spoke out His desire, you think the same would
not apply to us?
We are created in the image and likeness of
the Father. We have His Nature within us and whatever applies to God is
applicable to us.
Over the previous chapters, we have been able
to establish many truths.
God loves you and the very moment you make
Jesus your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit indwells you.
We have also established that in your spirit
man, you are exactly like Jesus Christ and the more you look at the mirror of
the word of God, the more you manifest the glory of God and walk in victory.
Yet, in spite of all these truths, some people
may still find it challenging to walk in full victory over masturbation and
pornography.
The reason is not far-fetched: You are not speaking
the Word of God concerning your situation.
You know, it is one thing to study the
scriptures, and have the knowledge of who you are in Christ. It is another
thing to actively speak these words out.
You have to learn how to cooperate with the
Spirit of God within you by the words you speak.
You can’t expect to see many victories when
you say things like,
‘Oh, I’m just a common
masturbator’ or
‘I’m just too addicted
to porn’
If you are an unbeliever, that’s fine; but if
you are born again and have the Spirit of God within you, speaking such things
could limit the victories you’d experience over masturbation and pornography.
As ordinary as that may seem, you’d start
experiencing greater victories as soon as you start making use of this key.
Why do you think I add confessions at the end
of each chapter? For fun? To take up space?
Of course not!
I have been able to see in my personal life
that there is a lot of power embedded in the words that we speak.
Your words cause the spiritual realities
within you to be manifest in the physical realm.
Consider this:
‘The voice of the LORD
is upon many waters…the voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is
full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars of Lebanon…the voice
of the LORD divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shaketh the
wilderness…The voice of the LORD maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the
forests…’ (Psalms 29:3, 4 – 5, 7 – 9)
From there, you can see how powerful and
active the voice of the LORD is.
Can I let you in on a powerful secret?
Since we are created in God’s image, the voice of the children of God speaking
the Words of God has the same effect as though God Himself was speaking!
That’s profound!
Look at this one:
‘For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou
removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but
shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith’ (Mark 11:23)
To notice the gravity of giving your voice to
the Word of God over your situation, pay attention to the number of times that
Jesus implied speaking the Word. Jesus said, “say” or “saith” four times in one
verse! He did this because He wanted to stress the importance of the spoken
word.
When you are faced with mountains of
masturbation and pornography in your life, who do you think would remove the
mountains? The Spirit of God! And He is dwelling right inside you right now.
But the only way you give Him the right of way to physically manifest His Work
is when you give your voice to the Word of God regarding your situation!
The thing is that you don’t have to run
helter-skelter to find the exact word that would give the Spirit of God the
allowance to work with you.
Deuteronomy 30:14 says,
‘But the word is very
nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart…’
The Scripture was written by the Divine
Inspiration of the Spirit of God. However, the Holy Spirit is very economical
and does not waste words. So, if a particular statement is repeated in various
portions of the Bible, take extra great notice of it…because Romans 10:8 also
says,
‘But what saith it?
The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart…’
God had to speak the world into existence by
the Word of His Mouth. Without the Word, the Spirit of God could not do
anything, despite His express and unmistakable Presence on the face of the
waters (Genesis 1:2).
In the same vein, despite the wealth of
spiritual realities within you as we speak now – the indwelling Holy Spirit in
your regenerated spirit – you may not sense His Power in your battle against
masturbation and pornography because you are not speaking the Word.
Your words carry power!
Give voice to the word of God and see your
challenges responding to you as they would to God.
‘We having the same
spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I
spoken: we also believe, and therefore we speak’ (2 Corinthians 4:13)
Your choice to speak the Word of God is a
clear indication of the fact that you have a true belief in the spiritual
realities within you.
When you speak out the Word, rather than
merely thinking about it, you stir up faith within you. The Bible clearly
states that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17).
This doesn’t only apply to preaching to the lost, but also in your struggle
against masturbation and pornography.
The way the food you eat must pass through
your mouth before the nutrients they carry can reflect in your body is the same
way the words you speak out with your mouth have the ability to birth
manifestations in your world.
Psalms 45:1 says,
‘My heart is inditing
a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my
tongue is the pen of a ready writer’
Your tongue is the pen you use in writing the
manifestations you want to see!
In addition, when you speak the word out, the
devil also hears you and carries away his wares of tares from you. Note that
Jesus did not counter the three temptations by thinking on the Word. Nope, He
spoke the Word out aloud (Matthew 4; Luke 4)!
Let me show you how you can manifest victory
over masturbation and pornography by the words of your mouth,
For example, 2 Corinthians 2:14 says,
‘Now thanks be unto
God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the
savour of his knowledge by us in every place’
You can release victory over masturbation and
porn by personalizing the verse this way,
Now thanks be to God
who always leads me in triumph over masturbation and pornography because I am
in Christ. And because I am in Christ, He makes me manifest the sweet smell of
His Knowledge in every place I find myself – whether in secret or in open
Did you get that?
Okay, let’s try it with another verse,
Philippians 4:13 says,
‘I can do all things
through Christ which strengtheneth me’
To personalize the verse, you can say it this
way,
I can do all things
and break free from the bondage of masturbation and pornography through Christ
who infuses His strength in me
Search for more verses and personalize them,
reading and confessing the Word loudly with your eyes, mouth, and heart…then,
you’d fully appreciate the power of words.
With the full knowledge, you now have, say
this confession out loud and clear,
Father, I thank you for opening the eyes of my understanding to the power of words. Now, I know that sheer muscle and willpower would not make anything happen in my battle with masturbation and pornography. Now I believe and speak your Words that are both Spirit and life-giving. Thank you, Father because you always hear me.
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Imagine yourself walking through the street in
broad daylight. Everything is kind of uneventful until the moment you see a
hefty man holding a large, cold, black steel gun standing ahead of you. He’s
looking very mean, and just then, he casts a menacing glance at you. Then he
starts walking in your direction.
What would your reaction be?
Many people would instantly wet their pants.
Some would start yelling out for help, while
others would attempt to run away.
Few may consider bracing themselves up for a
session of mortal combat.
Okay, now let’s twist the plot a bit:
What if just across the street from where you
and the gun-slinging bad guy stood, there were at least a dozen cameras and
many more watchful eyes? What if a guy wearing a face-cap turned backward
suddenly bellowed something like: ACTION?
How would you now feel with all these
knowledge at the back of your mind?
Relieved?
Happy it’s just a film?
At peace, knowing fully well that there would
be no real gunshots and bloodshed?
Well, whatever your answer is, permit me to
tell you what happened between the two scenarios I painted.
In the first one, you were not aware that the
entire exercise was only a scene for a movie. This is simply because you were
not conscious of the cameras and movie director on the other side of the
street. In the second scenario, you were already aware that you’re standing on
the location of a scene from a film.
You know what happened? You just exercised the
Power of your Consciousness.
Many times in the battle against masturbation
and pornography, it almost always seems as if the temptation to masturbate or
watch porn is always stronger after one has stopped the habit for a while. This
happens because the individual struggling with the habit is exercising his/her
consciousness in the wrong way.
You see, despite your desire not to masturbate
or watch pornography, the very fact that you are thinking about these habits
would make you vulnerable to falling back into them. When you get to the state
where all you can think of is how you would NOT masturbate or watch porn, the
overall effect could be counter-productive.
The reason?
In your bid to make sure you don’t masturbate
or watch pornography, all you think about is the habit you are trying to
overcome! Eventually, your mind soon buckles under the weight of the pictures
you are giving it and then you find yourself back to square one.
Take a look at Proverbs 23:7,
‘For as he thinketh in
his heart, so is he…’
You are what you think about.
You manifest what you continually think about.
You are the product of your most consistent
thoughts!
So, if all you think about is masturbation,
pornography and how to overcome them, in essence, you are still a masturbator
and porn addict.
You have refused to accept what Jesus Christ
did for you by virtue of His Death and Resurrection.
You have refused to live in the realities of
the spiritual realm.
You have refused to acknowledge that the power
of God is resident in you.
Instead, you choose to be continually
conscious of masturbation and pornography and how to overcome them.
Proverbs 26:20 says,
‘Where no wood is,
there the fire goeth out…’
See, you have been given all you need to walk
in victory over masturbation and pornography. But the fact remains that you are
still feeding the wood of thoughts about masturbation and pornography into the
dying embers of your old habits and urges. The effect is naturally predictable:
the flames would rise up again.
Little wonder Jesus ‘said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for
your life…’ (Luke 12:22)
Jesus knew the importance of whatever we feed
into the streams of our consciousness by constantly thinking about them. He was
saying that we should not bring ourselves to the point where all we are
concerned about is our worries and struggles and battles.
Check out what Jesus later said in that same
text,
‘But rather seek ye
the kingdom of God…’ (Luke 12:31)
In other words, Jesus tells us to walk in the
full consciousness of our place in God’s kingdom – not just when we get to
heaven, but right here on earth.
Jesus is telling us to walk in the
consciousness of the truth that we are victors in Him. He is telling us to walk
in the consciousness that we are children of God. Jesus is telling us to walk
in the consciousness that we are joint-heirs with Christ and members of the
kingdom of God.
This is a powerful truth that could change
your life forever.
Don’t waste your days (and nights) plotting on
the strategies you would use in overcoming masturbation and pornography.
Instead, shift your focus to what Christ has done for you.
Colossians 3:2 says,
‘Set your affection on
things above…’
You are an ambassador for Christ (2
Corinthians 5:20) and you have been given all things to enjoy (1 Corinthians
3:21; 1 Timothy 6:17). You are from above and you are above all (John 3:31).
Therefore, you are given the right to exercise God’s Power here on earth. You
are entitled to all perks and privileges as a child of God.
These are the things that you should be
conscious of.
Philippians 4:8 says,
“Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are true…honest…just…pure…lovely…of good report; if there be
any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things”
You know the truth? God has given you victory.
You know what’s honest? You have every right
to utilize all that God has deposited in you. For heaven’s sake, He placed His
Spirit in you!
You know what’s just? You don’t have to hang
on to what Christ has shed His precious Blood for!
You know what’s pure, lovely and of a good
report? You are a victor and you shouldn’t think of yourself anything less than
that by refusing to walk in the consciousness of all Christ has done for you.
He is your sufficiency (2 Corinthians 3:3) and strength (Philippians 4:13).
Paul had this to say under the influence of
the Holy Spirit,
‘And herein do I
exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and
toward men’ (Acts 24:16)
When Paul made this statement, he was making
his defense to a Gentile governor after his religious countrymen had wanted him
dead. Paul could have decided at this point to let his consciousness linger on
the evil that his fellow Jews had in store for him. He could have blamed God
for all the things that had befallen him ever since he made the decision to
follow Christ. Instead, Paul chose to exercise his conscience to be free of
offense towards God and his fellow men.
By the way, the word translated as conscience
in this verse means moral consciousness in the original Greek text.
So, in spite of all that he faced, Paul
refused to let his consciousness linger on any lows of his life and ministry.
He refused to harbor any thoughts of hurt in his mind. Instead, Paul brought to
his consciousness the truth that he was a member of God’s Kingdom and an
ambassador for Christ. In place of bleak prospects, Paul saw an opportunity to
share his testimony and minister the gospel of Christ.
A reason why you may still be contending with
masturbation and pornography, as well as, other forms of sin is because you are
conscious of these things.
Sin-consciousness is never a good thing
because it would make you continually languish in the bondage of sin. Sin-consciousness
causes sin to have dominion over you (Romans 6:14)
Look at this:
‘This I say then, Walk
in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh’ (Galatians 5:16)
Note that the scripture did not say, ‘Do not fulfill the lust of the flesh, so that
you may be able to walk in the Spirit’.
No! Paul said, ‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye
shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh’.
This is another example of cause and effect.
It’s just like saying, ‘Buy one and get one
free’.
As a result of buying one item, you are
automatically getting the other one for free. Your aim is not to get one free
so that you’d be able to buy one!
Yet, that’s the approach many of us take with
our consciousness.
See, it is as a result of your walking in the
Spirit that you would naturally not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Instead, in Christendom today, you find a lot
of people trying not to fulfill the lust of the flesh so that they’ll be able
to walk in the Spirit.
Not only is it impossible, but is very frustrating.
Believe me.
You cannot trump God’s order of things and
still expect to see the same results.
You cannot work out your salvation without
consciously acknowledging His Work within you (Philippians 2:12-13).
You cannot go farther than the rest without
consciously recognizing the grace of God bestowed upon you (1 Corinthians
15:10).
You cannot be strong in the Lord without being
conscious of the Power of His Might resident in you (Ephesians 6:10).
In the same vein, you cannot overcome sin by
being consumed with the thoughts of how not to sin!
As unconventional as that may sound, it is the
truth: If you want to walk in victory over sin, don’t think sin!
Instead, continually be conscious of the Holy
Spirit and your regenerated spirit man.
By being Spirit-conscious, you automatically
overcome the sin issue.
The same principle occurs in your struggles
with masturbation and pornography. Stop thinking about these habits and how to
overcome them.
Instead, focus on the victory that Christ has
wrought for you by His precious blood.
Think of this and you become
victory-conscious, totally free from the stranglehold of masturbation and
pornography.
‘How much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Let us draw near with
a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an
evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water’ (Hebrews 9:14; 10:22)
This is great news!
This is the truth!
Your conscience (moral consciousness) has been
purged and made clean. That’s what happened when you became a believer of
Christ and His Redemptive Work. It simply does not pay to remain the old “you”
when the new “you” is seated with Christ in Heavenly places far above
principalities, powers, old habits and odd urges.
You are royalty! Now, walk in the full,
conscious awareness that truth.
You can make this confession out loud and
clear,
Heavenly Father, I
worship and adore you with the full awareness that you are here and you are
listening to me right now. O LORD, let Your Kingdom come with full force into
my life and cause me to always walk in the full consciousness and confidence
that you would never leave me nor forsake me in all my endeavors.
Thank You, LORD because you always hear me in the Name of Your Precious Son, Jesus Christ
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Do you remember the story involving Jesus and
Lazarus’ sisters that I shared with you in Chapter 3 of this book?
Well, it seems that we would have to revisit
the story again to pick a point.
John 11:6 says,
‘…He abode two days
still in the same place where He was’
I had to seriously resist the urge to name
this chapter: The Power of a Comma. You’d see why shortly.
As earlier discussed, the story in John 11
started with Lazarus’ sisters knowing that Jesus loved Lazarus and beckoning
Him to come over to heal their brother. I believe we’ve gotten the lesson
there.
John 11:5 reveals a key point that we need to
get before we move on,
‘Now Jesus loved
Martha, and her sister and Lazarus’
When I was studying this story in the original
Greek text, I found out that the love that Jesus Christ had for Martha, Mary
and Lazarus was much deeper than what Lazarus’ sisters attributed to Christ.
While Mary and Martha attributed a brotherly
kind of love to Jesus in John 11:2, the love that Jesus had for them was, in
reality, a deeper agape love that transcends human understanding!
Hence, ‘He
abode two days still in the same place where He was’
Hang in there, you’d be astonished by my
point.
When you consider the fact that the original
Greek manuscript in which the New Testament was first written had no commas,
look at what one comma would do to that verse.
Many would read that verse as: He abode two
days still in the same place where He was.
Not bad. But with the comma, consider this: He abode two days still, in the same place
where He was.
Friends, this verse is saying more than the
fact that Jesus continued to abide in the same place He was for two days. Jesus
wasn’t staying in the same place, on the same spot, sitting still – lotus-style
– for two whole days.
No, what that verse is saying is that Jesus
stayed in the same calm state of mind for two days!
Now, that’s profound.
You see, while He was on earth, Jesus was 100%
Divine and at the same time 100% human.
He was in every sense like us.
He slept (Matthew 8:24).
He cried (John 11:35).
He was tired (John 4:6).
He was hungry (Mark 11:12).
He was thirsty (John 19:28).
He was human!
As a result of the fact mentioned in John
11:5, ‘Now Jesus loved Martha, and her
sister and Lazarus’, I believe that Jesus had felt very strong emotions for
Lazarus, Mary, and Martha and must have been very eager to go down to Bethany
and get Lazarus healed.
However, if Jesus had done that, it would have
merely been an impulsive emotional response, rather than by the leading of the
Holy Spirit in Him.
Does this mean that our emotions are evil?
No, they are not.
In fact, like your imagination, your emotion
is a tool that can be used to God’s glory when used appropriately.
Jesus Himself was often moved with compassion
before He ministered healing, provision, and deliverance (Matthew 9:36, Mark
5:19, Luke 7:13 are just a few of numerous examples).
However, when your emotions become the driving
force of your life, rather than the indwelling Holy Spirit in you, there is a
high risk of you totally missing out in what God has in store for you.
You would find yourself susceptible to masturbation
and pornography.
Jesus had to stay two days in the same place
so that He would be led solely by the Holy Spirit within Him.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the
fact that Jesus stayed still (calm) in the same place did not mean that He disconnected
Himself from what was going on around Him. It does not mean that Jesus became a
monk or hermit for two days.
Rather, it simply implies that Jesus did not
allow His emotions to be the driving force for His movement. Instead, He chose
to be Spirit-led and Spirit-conscious, even as He was interacting with His
disciples and friends for two days.
As I mentioned in a previous chapter, Man was
created by God to be a sexual being. And if we would be brutally honest with
ourselves, there are times you would experience certain hormonal fluxes that
could catalyze sexual emotions that may make you tend toward masturbation and
pornography.
For example, it is normal for a male to have
an erection in the morning.
Now, when these hormonal spikes or sexual
emotions rise, you shouldn’t start feeling bad or dirty. These feelings are
perfectly normal, in fact, they are part of the things that make you human.
They would not be there if God didn’t design them to be there.
However, in the light of all the spiritual
realities we have shared thus far, these emotions should never dominate you.
God has empowered you to be in charge of your
emotions.
Your emotions should not dictate to you how
you should make use of your body.
Rather, you should be the one dictating to
your body and emotions how you want them to respond to things.
Psalm 119:109 says,
‘My soul is
continually in my hand…’
The way your soul – which is the seat of your
will, emotions, and intellect – acts is totally in your power!
You have to bring your emotions under your
control.
Before you gave your life to Christ, your
emotions reigned over your entire conduct.
Now you are a new creation.
The old has passed away and now you can rein
your emotions by the power that is within you.
A powerful way that would make it much easier
for you to rein your emotions is fasting.
You see, the body is nothing more than a
container for the real you.
That’s why if your mind is in a state of
turmoil, you may sweat profusely in an air-conditioned room.
That’s why if you are busy enough, you may
forget that you have not eaten the whole day.
That’s why an individual would start
manifesting the appropriate symptoms, once the doctor tells him/her that he/she
has such sickness – even if such person had felt perfectly okay before the
report came through.
The funny thing is that the symptoms would
instantly vanish in the individual if the doctor informs him/her that there had
been a mix-up and the report was another person’s own!
My point is that your body simply responds to
whatever your soul or your spirit sends to it.
We have already established the numerous
spiritual realities embedded in your spirit man. However, due to the fact that
many of us have become so used to living from our emotions – which is in the
soul realm – our bodies have been somewhat programmed to be more receptive to
our souls, rather than our spirits.
This is the point where fasting is important.
You see, your fasting does not move God.
Shocking? But it is true.
The Bible tells us that God is a Spirit (John
4:24) and as a result, He does not eat! You cannot hold Him to ransom because
you’ve decided not to eat for a few days!
Can I shock you some more?
The devil and his demons are spirits too, and
they do not eat too!
Seriously speaking, your fasting does not
intimidate the devil one bit.
The only person that is affected by your
decision to fast is you!
When you fast, you ‘hack’ into your body’s
program of responding to your emotions by default.
You are able to live from your spirit man with
more ease.
You are able to draw out of the riches and
wealth of the spiritual realities embedded in your spirit man.
You become more sensitive to the dynamics of
the spirit and you are able to manifest more wisdom, love, and self-control in
the physical realm.
Look at what David said in Psalms 35:13,
‘…I humbled my soul
with fasting…’
It’s not only your body that becomes subject
to your spirit when you fast; your soul is not left out too.
When you fast, everything about you becomes
subject to your spirit man – including your emotions!
In Chapter 5, we talked about the Ministry of
the Holy Spirit. At the end of that chapter, we talked about how we can partner
with the Holy Spirit.
You see, praying in the Spirit is one
effective way of reining your emotions under the control of your spirit man.
Jude 20 says,
‘But ye beloved,
building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost’
1 Corinthians 14:4 also says,
‘He that speaketh in
an unknown tongue edifieth himself…’
Both texts relate speaking in tongues with a
personal building/edification process that takes place in the realm of the
spirit.
A word picture I like to use to explain this
phenomenon is this:
Imagine two healthy men of the same age. One
of them has ripped muscles bulging in every part of his body while the other is
just ordinary-looking.
The question is this: Does the man with the
big biceps and 6-pack abs have an extra body part that is lacking in the other
man?
The answer is no!
The truth’s that both men have the same body
parts but while one has decided to discipline himself and build his muscles
towards their full potential, the other didn’t do anything about his.
Do you know that the same scenario plays
itself out in the realm of the spirit!
As believers, God has given us all that it
takes to live in victory in this life (2 Peter 1:3). He has put all these
together in our spirit man.
However, many believers do not pay any
attention to the development of their spirit man. Like the ordinary man in the
analogy I just shared, their spirit man is a bundle of godly potentials –
nothing more. In such people, their bodies are totally under the influence of
their souls and emotions. They are sensual, and as we have explained earlier in
this book, the Bible calls them carnal.
When you pray in the spirit, the spiritual
analogue is as if you’re are taking your spirit man to the gym and pumping your
muscles.
The truth is that the more you work out in the
spirit, the more power you see manifested by your spirit man. And when your
spirit man becomes activated in this capacity, your soul, your emotions and
your body would naturally become subject to it!
*
Friend, you too can be free from going back to
masturbation and pornography if you would follow Jesus’ example:
Be still, rein your emotions and let God by
His Spirit within you move through you!
You can say this confession,
Dear Holy Spirit, I
thank You for the revelation You have given unto me. I receive the grace to
draw out the strength You have infused into my being. Starting from now, I use your
Strength to keep my body and emotions in total subjection to Your will and
purposes.
Thank You Holy Spirit, because it is done.
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In the light of all the truths that have been
shared in this book thus far, it would be very misleading to tell you that the
fact that you are a new creation in Christ means that you would never, ever be
faced with the temptation to sin. Temptations would continue to rise because we
still live in this corrupt world, and people are still yielding themselves to
the devil on a daily basis.
Temptations are normal experiences that every
believer would face at one point in time or the other. As you know, it is not a
sin to be tempted, but it is a sin to fall into temptations. However, there is
no need to be afraid of them for the following reasons:
First of all, God is faithful not to allow us
to be tempted above the level of grace we are conscious of at the moment.
‘There hath no
temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who
will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the
temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it’ (1 Corinthians 10:13)
The fact that you may be facing a temptation
simply means that you have what it takes to overcome it. It also means that
there is always a way of escape from that temptation. If you did not have what
it took to overcome a particular temptation, God would not have allowed you to
face it in the first place.
Furthermore, we can be sure to overcome
temptations because Jesus Christ knows what it is like to face temptations.
Remember, He was 100% Divine and 100% Human.
Hebrews 4:15,
‘For we have not a
high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but
was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin’
Jesus Christ is our High Priest and He is
sympathetic with our challenges with temptations. He was tempted in every way
like us, yet did not sin. And because He did not sin, Jesus Christ is a willing
partner with us on overcoming the temptations.
Note that God is not the tempter. He is not
trying to test your resolve to see whether you’d fall back into masturbation or
pornography.
James 1:13 says,
‘Let no man say when
he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempt any man’
God is the good God. He is the Giver of good
and perfect gifts (James 1:17). He is the author of all that is good (Psalm
85:12) and no evil can be found in Him.
The culprit of all temptations is the devil!
However, the good news is that we can always
win the devil in the overcoming temptations he throws at our paths to make us
fall back into the habit.
Let’s check out how the devil was able to get
Eve to succumb to his temptation and consequently sin,
‘And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a
tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat’ (Genesis 3:6)
Look at the striking similarities between 1
John 2:16 and Genesis 3:6
1
John 2:16
Genesis
3:6
Lust of the Flesh
Good for Food
Lust of the Eyes
Pleasant to the Eyes
Pride of Life
Desired to make One Wise
The First Adam fell because the devil was able
to cause him to place all the emphasis on his Self.
To show you that the devil is not wise at all,
let’s see Luke’s account of the temptation of Jesus Christ,
‘And the devil said
unto Him, if thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
And Jesus answered him saying, it is written, that man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every Word of God. And the devil, taking Him up into a high
mountain shewed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the
devil said unto Him, all this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, ad
to whomever I will I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be
thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me satan: for it
is written, Thou shalt worship the LORD thy God and Him only shall thy serve.
And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and
said unto Him, if thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down hence: For it is
written, He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee, lest at any
time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said to him, it is
said, Thou shalt not tempt the LORD thy God’ (Luke 4:3 – 12)
Again, we find the same trend in the way the
devil tempts.
1
John 2:16
Luke
4:3 – 12
Lust of the Flesh
Command this stone that it be made bread
(Luke 4:3)
Lust of the Eyes
Shewed Him all the kingdoms of the world (Luke
4:5)
Pride of Life
Cast thyself down hence (Luke 4:8)
I think it is very apparent that the devil is
always going to attempt to get you down through the area of lust and pride.
He’s going to want you to indulge in
self-gratification.
It is non-negotiable.
He did it with the first Adam, he did it with
the Last Adam, and he would try to make you fall into sin using the same
tactics.
Now, if you notice the two scenarios painted
earlier, you’d find out that the two temptations were very alike in their most
basic form. Of course, satan did not tempt Adam and Eve to turn stones into
bread; neither did he tempt Jesus to eat of the forbidden fruit. What the devil
simply did was to repackage the basic form of his temptations to fit into the
unique circumstances of his ‘temptees’.
Another way the devil repackages his
temptations is by making use of the first-person pronoun to plant thoughts in
your head. For instance, the devil would not come to you and say,
‘You want to masturbate’ or ‘You want to watch pornography now’.
Rather, the devil would use the first-person
pronoun to sow thoughts like these in your mind:
‘I need to masturbate’ or ‘I have to watch pornography as soon as
possible’
Notice that this tactic is true to his style –
pride, lust and a shift of your focus and attention to how you can satisfy your
Self!
Having an understanding of these things is very key in understanding how to overcome temptations.
‘But Peter said,
Ananias, why hath satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep
back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own?
And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived
this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto man, but unto God’ (Acts 5:3 – 4)
Here, Peter asks Ananias two questions:
The first was pertaining to why Ananias
allowed the devil to fill his heart to lie. On the other hand, the second was
why Ananias conceived the idea in his heart.
These questions look innocent, but both
contain the mechanism through which temptations lead to sin.
In Biology, we are taught that a man fills his
wife with the seed of copulation before the wife can conceive and get pregnant.
We understand that it is not every time that a man has sex with his wife that
she would conceive and get pregnant. However, the chances of a woman getting
pregnant increases with the frequency of sex.
The same thing happens when the devil attempts
to tempt you.
The devil would try to fill your mind – either
with doubts about the Word of God, self-oriented thoughts or a combination of
the two.
He did it with Adam; he did it with Jesus, and
he would try to do the same with you.
In Eve’s case, the devil tried to get her to
doubt God’s word concerning her welfare.
‘…hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of every tree of the garden…ye shall not surely die: for God doth
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as gods…’ (Genesis 3:1, 4 – 5)
Note how the devil first tried to twist God’s
words concerning Eve’s welfare.
How could God have placed Man in the garden
and then told them not to eat of every tree in the Garden?
To Eve’s credit, she was able to withstand the
first wave of the devil’s attacks on her mind.
Sadly, she couldn’t do anything about the
devil’s rebuttal.
Once the devil was able to fill Eve’s mind
with the suggestion that God could be hiding something great from her, only
then could she shift her focus and attention away from all that God had made
her to all that she selfishly thought she could be.
That was the point where the devil was able to
get Eve’s mind filled with constant thoughts about the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil.
In Jesus’ case, the devil came barely 40 days
after the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended like a dove and a
voice from heaven audibly said,
‘…This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3:17).
Do you know the first thing the devil said to
Jesus?
‘…if thou be the Son
of God…’ (Matthew 4:3, Luke 4:3)
Can you see the same trend there?
The devil tried to fill Jesus’ mind with doubts
about His Sonship, despite an audible voice from heaven declaring Jesus as the
Son of God!
At the same time, the devil tried to take
advantage of the fact that Jesus was on a 40-day fast and would have been very
hungry.
In your own case, the devil could come up to
you, warping and distorting God’s Words and standards, perhaps concerning
sexual purity.
He could try to fill your mind with
first-person thoughts like,
Why am I so hard on
myself, am I not free from the law and under grace? Or
The Bible says, Take a
little wine for the stomach’s sake…let me masturbate and/or watch porn this
once and I will ask for forgiveness later – after all, God is merciful and
plenteous in mercy
My spirit man is
safe…I can do anything I want with my body
Listen up, the devil knows that he only has a
short while and he is doing everything in his power to get the minds of men and
women filled with his seed of corruption – regardless of the method.
The devil is on a rampage and he is sowing his
wild oats into the minds of those whose guards are down because they are
ignorant of his devices.
He’s going to get through to some through that
innocent-looking comedy movie with numerous allusions to sexual acts.
For some others, he would trip them off with
that sensual advert on television, showing just a little nudity to start the
ball rolling.
He could use random and innocent gists about
the ‘sexcapades’ of your unbelieving colleagues and classmates to get at you.
Whichever way, the devil would continue to do
all in his limited power to fill your mind with these thoughts.
The devil’s strategy in trying to get you to
succumb to his temptations and fall into sin is ridiculously simple:
Filling precedes
conception!
This is why if you continually put yourself in
a vulnerable position where the devil can bombard your mind with this kind of
thoughts, you would actually increase the chances of an evil conception
occurring in your mind that would let you fall into sin!
James 1:15 says,
‘Then when lust hath
conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth
death’
So many people are very careless with the way
they allow the devil to fill them up with ease. They claim to be in control of
the situation and it is until they are neck deep in the situation that they start
looking for a way of escape.
That is not wisdom at all!
Which way do you think a woman can best avoid
a pregnancy: By abstaining from sex or by having an abortion?
Friends, wisdom is profitable to direct in
these matters.
Believe me, sincerely, the way to overcome
temptations is very, very straightforward too:
Filling precedes
conception!!!
Are you surprised? Don’t be.
If you have been paying attention to this book
thus far, you’d find that we have already discussed many ways we can prevent
the devil from filling us with his seed of corruption.
You need to continue to fill your heart and
mind with the engrafted word of God which is able to save your soul.
You need to continue to remind yourself of who
you are by looking in the mirror of the Word.
You need to speak out the confession of your
identity in Christ continually.
You need to continually shift your
consciousness to the spiritual realities of your born again spirit.
The truth is this: You can only be tempted with what
you think about.
And glory to God, you can only think about one
thing at a time!
So, if you continually fill your mind with the
word of God, it would be totally impossible for the devil to suggest evil thoughts
to you because your heart and mind is already filled up with God’s Words.
Little wonder 1 John 3:9 says,
‘Whoever is born of
God doth not commit sin, for His seed remaineth in him: and He cannot sin,
because he is born of God’
Note the same mechanism at work here again:
Filling precedes conception!
The more you fill yourself with God’s seed,
the more spiritual conceptions are occurring in the core of your being. The
more you realize that your spirit man is born of God’s seed (the Word of God),
the more you walk in the consciousness that you cannot masturbate, watch porn
or fall into temptation.
You simply cannot – you don’t have the ability
to fall into the temptation.
That’s God’s plan for every believer!
You can say this confession,
I am the righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus, I cannot sin
I am born of God, I
cannot sin
I have the mind of
Christ, I cannot sin
God’s love is shed
abroad in my heart, I cannot sin
The Holy Spirit is
resident in His Temple – which is my body, I cannot sin
I am a partaker of
God’s Divine Nature, I cannot sin
Glory to God!!!
NOTE: This post is over 20,000 words long and is available as a book. If you’d like to get the book, go here
One of the strongest battles encountered by
those overcoming the control of masturbation and pornography is the battle of
guilt. As it is a great obstacle to those who are coming out of the habit, I
deemed it fit to dedicate a whole chapter to it.
You see, when you chose to break the habit and
accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you were translated from
the kingdom of the devil to the kingdom of God’s Son.
But the devil would not want to give up on you
without a fight. The Bible tells us that much:
‘You used to live in
sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the
powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who
refuse to obey God. All of us used to
live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful
nature. By our very nature, we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone
else’ (Ephesians 2:2-3 New Living Translation)
Satan, who is the god
of this evil world, has made him blind, unable to see the glorious light of the
Gospel that is shining upon him or to understand the amazing message we preach
about the glory of Christ, who is God. (2 Corinthians 4:4 The Living Bible)
Now, the interesting thing about the battle,
as was mentioned in the previous chapter, is that it is fought in the
battleground of the mind.
You see, the Ministry of the Holy Spirit
entails Him suggesting the thoughts of God into our minds. If you are expecting
the Holy Spirit to visibly descend on your shoulder like a dove and physically
whisper words into your ears, then you have to do a reality check.
The Holy Spirit is not going to do that. Why?
He is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth (John 4:24). The Holy Spirit would always deal with your own spirit. He
would always suggest thoughts to you that your spirit deep down inside you
would know it is the right thing to do. This is why Romans 12:2 says,
‘And be not conformed
to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God’
When your mind is renewed, you are able to
easily follow the thoughts that the Holy Spirit places in your spirit and
consequently do the will of God.
How do you renew your mind?
As we’ve discussed many times in this book,
your mind is renewed by looking at yourself in the Mirror of God’s Word.
Now, there’s a catch: The devil primarily
operates by suggesting thoughts into your mind – as we have established in the
previous chapter.
1 Tim 4:1-2 says,
‘But the Spirit speaks
expressly, that in latter times some shall apostatize from the faith, giving
their mind to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons speaking lies in
hypocrisy, cauterized as to their own conscience’ (Darby’s Translation)
The devil operates when his deceiving spirits
and demons sow lies into the minds of his targets. Again, if you are expecting
the devil to appear before you with horns on his head and a pitchfork in his
right hand, you have to do a reality check now. As we have established earlier,
the devil, his deceiving spirits, and his demons are all evil spirits that you
can’t see with your physical eyes. And they operate by speaking lies into your
mind.
So, a little problem seems to arise:
If the Holy Spirit mostly operates by sowing
seeds of thoughts into our minds and the devil operates using a similar
approach, how can we tell the thoughts apart?
The challenge is always going to be a dilemma
for many believers. It’s normal; after all, they had previously spent a large
chunk of their lives in the kingdom of darkness, totally used to being led by
the lies of the devil and his minions.
But thank God, we now have the mind of Christ
(1 Corinthians 2:16) and we are not ignorant about Satan’s scheming (2
Corinthians 2:11).
Jesus Himself had already given us the way to
tell the wiles of the devil apart from the promptings of the Holy Spirit:
‘Wherefore by their
fruits ye shall know them’ (Matt 7:20)
You would know the source of the thoughts by
the contents of the thoughts.
Would the Holy Spirit arouse you with sensual
thoughts?
Would He prompt you to masturbate?
Would the Holy Spirit nudge you to watch
pornography?
Of course, the answer to all these is an emphatic
‘No’!
That was easy, right? Okay, let’s go one
better:
Would the Holy Spirit make you feel guilty
about the last time you masturbated or watched pornography, when in reality,
all had been catered for in the blood?
Would He shoot condemning thoughts about how
bad you were in the past before you were saved?
Would He tell you that nemesis would catch up
with you one day?
To answer all these questions, you have to
know what exactly is happening on your behalf at this point in time.
Romans 8:33 gives us that picture. I like the
way the Amplified Bible translated that verse,
‘Who shall bring any
charge against God’s elect [when it is] God Who justifies [that is, Who puts us
in right relation to Himself? Who shall come forward and accuse or impeach
those whom God has chosen? Will God, Who acquits us?]’
Did you see that?
It is God that is justifying you. He is the
one Who made the first move in putting you in right standing with Him. He is
the one Who rendered you innocent and just before His eyes.
Now, check the next verse,
‘Who is he that
condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is
even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us’ (Romans 8:33)
This truth is so profound.
It tells us that if anyone has the right to
condemn us, it is Christ Jesus. Remember, He is not only our Savior but also
our Lord too. He owns us now. But again, in an unexpected plot twist, instead
of Jesus to condemn us, in His love for us, He is making intercessions for us
before God. Right now!
That’s the gospel truth!
Furthermore, Romans 8:26 says,
‘Likewise the Spirit
also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we
ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered’
That’s right! The Holy Spirit is also making
intercessions for us whenever we are hopelessly unable to ever pray for
ourselves.
So, if God isn’t condemning us with guilt;
Jesus Christ isn’t condemning us with
guilt, and the Holy Spirit isn’t condemning us with guilt.
That leaves us with only one option – the
devil.
James explains better to us,
‘Let no man say when
he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth he any man
Every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights,
with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning’ (James 1:13, 17)
We are now in the kingdom of God. He loves us
so much and He would never, ever attempt to tempt us with evil! That’s simply
not His character. Instead, God blesses us with good and perfect gifts.
The sooner you get this truth, the sooner you
can be free from the weights of guilt and condemnation. Look, the devil no
longer has any power over you. You are no longer under the dominion of the
devil. No! You are now operating in another realm. You are now operating in the
kingdom of God.
The Bible says the devil is ‘as a roaring
lion’ (1 Peter 5:8). He is not a real lion. He’s merely pretending to be a
lion. He knows that the Holy Spirit is doing a great job in your heart so that
you are no longer enticed by your old lusts and evil desires. The devil can see
that your consciousness has been in the light of your identity in Christ and
masturbation and pornography no longer arouse you.
So, what does the devil do?
He attempts to attack you from another
extreme: guilt.
Friend, guilt isn’t from God. God loves you
and values you too much to shoot condemnation into your heart and mind.
Remember how we learned from the last chapter
that the devil would tempt you by shifting the focus to your Self!
But now, since he realizes that you are
growing in the light of your victory, the devil would try to come against you
through guilt.
The devil is not wise and he doesn’t have any
fresh tactics to make you fall, so, he repackages the temptation again to make
you doubt what God has done for you.
So, instead of him speaking thoughts like, ’I
feel like watching pornography’ or ‘I have to masturbate’ into your mind, the
devil would replace those thoughts with, ‘I feel so bad that I used to
masturbate in the past’ or ‘I wish I had never known what porn was’
It is very obvious that in both sets of
thoughts, the focus has been shifted back to the self.
If only you understand the depths of God’s
love for you. He values you too much to be shooting condemnation into your
heart and mind.
Romans 8:1 says so succinctly,
‘There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit’
You too can be free to walk away from the
constant thoughts of condemnation and guilt.
You too can be free to walk away in the
conquering power of God’s love for you.
There
is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear (1 John 4:18)
You too can be free from guilt and self-condemnation
from this moment onwards.
Just say this confession:
Thank You Lord for saving and delivering me to the uttermost; I appreciate you for always making intercessions for me. Now, I walk away from the shackles and chains of guilt that have tied me down to the past, limited my enjoyment of all You have for me in the present and have prevented me from walking into the future you have in store for me. I quench every fiery dart of condemnation shot at me by the precious Blood of Jesus. I believe I am free, I confess I am free, I know I am free. Thank You Lord!
NOTE: This post is over 20,000 words long and is available as a book. If you’d like to get the book, go here
You’ve read this remarkable book. What are
your reactions?
No doubt, much of the things discussed here
are new to you.
Part of it may have confused you because it
took a totally different turn from what you might have been exposed to in your
search for freedom from masturbation and pornography.
But right there in your heart, the Holy Spirit
is bearing witness with you that the words I’ve written here are true.
I trust that your eyes have been opened to the
physical and spiritual implications of exposure to masturbation and
pornography.
I believe you also would embrace the mandate
of God and see to it that others are delivered from the deadly claws of
masturbation and pornography.
But above all, I trust that you are now fully
kitted with what it takes to walk in victory over masturbation and pornography.
The bonus is that these truths would give you victory in all aspects of your
life.
You’ve been equipped with a revelation of
God’s love for you.
You’ve also had an encounter with the Lord
Jesus Christ, acknowledging Him as your Savior and Lord.
You have been reminded of the Ministry of the
Holy Spirit in your life.
You’ve been taught how you should identify
yourself through the glass of God’s word.
You’ve been exposed to the power of your words
and you’ve been made aware of the power of being conscious of the right things.
You’ve been taught how to keep your emotions
in check and you’ve been empowered to overcome temptations and guilt.
In addition, it is important I tell you that
all that has been discussed in this book is not intended to be taken as a
step-wise approach to freedom from masturbation and pornography.
In fact, it is my deep belief that any
individual that has a revelation of the first step as discussed in this book,
i.e., a revelation of God’s love, would by default also walk in all the other
points mentioned.
The underlying theme of this book is in actual
sense, placing much emphasis on a more vibrant relationship with God.
The truth remains that a person in a genuine
relationship with God would not be entangled with sinful acts.
Furthermore, the only way a person can have a
vibrant relationship with God is when such person has a revelation of God’s
love for him/her and he/she responds to it.
No sinful habit can stand the heat of a
vibrant relationship with God – and it is my earnest prayer that after you have
read this book, your relationship with the Father would be stronger, fuller,
richer and deeper than you’ve ever known Him to be.
I am fully convinced that He who has begun
this good work in your life would also perform it.
The first of the 7 indisputable laws of Potential Crystallization is what I call the Law of Exuberance.
The Law of Exuberance states, ‘There is an abundance of lively potentials and possibilities bubbling
within and around you.’
In the world of computer programming, the concept of open-source software intrigues me every
time.
Here’s how it works:
From time to time, brilliant programmers spend
countless hours perfecting a software that is designed to solve a problem.
According to the laws of demand and supply, money flows wherever solutions to problems are. Therefore, it follows logic that whenever there’s a software that can solve a specific problem, the creators should charge people money for the benefit of using the said software to solve their problems. And that is what normally plays out in the normal marketplace.
But it’s at this juncture that the concept of open-source software makes an unexpected
detour.
Rather than ask the users to pay money as the software
is utilized, these programmers do the exact opposite – they share the program’s
source code, blueprints, and documentation freely with anybody that is
interested in it. That’s tantamount to spending years of research creating a
drug that can cure cancer, only to show everybody how to create it themselves
in 10 minutes!
Indeed, this kind of unhindered giving is only
possible with a perfect understanding of the Law of Exuberance.
When the creators of these open-source software develop them, their dominant paradigm is not
the fear that someone will steal their idea and profit from it.
Rather, on the contrary, their dominant paradigm is
two-fold: First, they know that that there is an abundance of good ideas bubbling
within and around them, from which they can always go back to draw from;
secondly, they know that their software is not in the most perfect form yet,
and that it takes input from others to bring the program to its full
capabilities.
The immediate goal of these folks is not to make as
much money as possible, but rather, to play their role as solution providers!
Perhaps, it is no wonder that these open-source programmers either go on to
establish great IT companies, or more likely, get snapped up by
multi-million-dollar companies who provide the money, the platform and the resources
to keep on producing programs and software that attempt to solve even more
ambitious problems.
The truth is that the vast majority of us were raised
with a scarcity mentality.
We were taught that there is never going to be enough
resources for everybody.
We were taught that there was only one way to win – finding
a way to ensure that every other person lost.
We were taught to act as animals in the jungle – totally
lacking in understanding and reacting solely on impulse.
We forget Proverbs 11:24 which says, ‘There is one who scatters yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty’
The more you give, the more likely you are to receive.
The less you flow into others, the more likely you are
to stink with stagnation!
Unfortunately, living from a paradigm of scarcity is
like having logs of wood in place of eyes. You will be rendered totally
oblivious to the abundance that is already around and within you.
If you want to crystallize your potentials without any
tears, your default belief system must be one of abundance.
Your outlook towards life must be abundance.
You need to deliberately acknowledge abundance in
everything you do.
You need to deliberately acknowledge abundance in
everything you say.
You need to deliberately acknowledge abundance in your
thoughts and reasonings.
This is not a call to trick yourself into living a
lie.
On the contrary, this is a call to acknowledge the
real objective truth – that there is an
abundance of potentials and possibilities around you!
At any given moment in time, there’s a range of behaviors you can perform.
I call this your behavioral repertoire.
Here’s an example that will help you visualize what I mean:
As you are seated/lying down in your bedroom, reading these words, you can decide to stand up and touch the wall closest to you. The probability of this happening is high, right?
Do you also know that you are capable of touching the ceiling with your feet?
But the probability of that behavior happening is very low. As a result, that behavior is collapsed within your repertoire. That’s why you probably can’t recall a time when you placed your feet on the ceiling in your room, even though it is something that is possible.
Now, let’s assume someone brings a double-bunk bed to your room and asked you to sleep on the top bunk. What would happen to the probability of you putting your feet on the ceiling (if you choose to)?
It will increase dramatically!
In life, some behaviors in your repertoire will bring you closer to your destiny, while others will collapse opportunities, thus taking you away from the destination God had prepared for you from the foundations of the world.
And still, some behaviors in your repertoire will never be expressed unless there are enabling factors in your immediate environment.
Here’s the wisdom in the paradigm:
Amplify those behaviors that will bring you closer to the fulfillment of your potential.
Extinguish those that will take you away from destiny.
Stay sensitive to discern whether a change is necessary in your environment for the right behaviors to be expressed.
For some, after they had taught the children, they were told ‘good job’. For others, in addition to being told they had done a good job, they were also told that other participants had done a better job.
After receiving feedback, the two groups of participants were asked to rate how happy they felt about their job performance.
Unsurprisingly, those who received the extra information in the form of comparison to an alternative group were less happy than those who were just told they did a good job.
My key takeaway is this: Don’t build your happiness on things that change. If you’re hell-bent on comparing yourself with others, you’d find that there’s always going to be someone wealthier, prettier, or more knowledgeable. If you must compare, compare yourself with where you’re coming from and where you’re headed to. Remind yourself: The story isn’t over yet!
Big Idea #3 From the Bible
Ecclesiastes 1:9, 11 says, “The thing that had been is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there’s no new thing under the sun…There’s no remembrance of the former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that come after”
Every question you’d ever ask on this side of eternity has been answered in some shape or form by people in the past.
This reminds me of a quote by German poet, Friedrich von Schlegel, who said, ‘The historian is a prophet in reverse’
By being a student of history, you can identify patterns in the past that will position you for opportunities in the present and future, when they arise.
This principle applies to both your personal history and historical events in general.
History is valuable when it compounds. However, if your memory of it decays over time, it will be useless to you.
Unless you take deliberate effort to harness the power of revisiting history, you will always be caught up in the present moment without an understanding of your roles in it.
There’s a reason the men of Issachar (1 Chron 12:32) were called men of understanding…
May the Lord give you understanding in these things.
Naturally, because of his prominent role in the struggle against inequality, MLK was subject to greater scrutiny by the powers that be.
What they found wasn’t pretty.
Behind the cool, calm and charismatic Reverend that gave the “I have a dream” speech, the FBI found a man who drank, smoked, spoke vulgar and had multiple sexual partners.
While some of the FBI findings were released sometime in 2019, this image of MLK had been painted by his associates in books they wrote as far back as the 1980s.
If you look through the annals of history, you’d find it littered with the blood and bones of great men who may have gotten public victories but were limited by their private battles.
I’m reminded of the story of the two wolves:
‘A fight is going on inside every person. It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil and the other is good. The wolf that will win is the one that is fed”
This story is instructive.
Take care of your private battles. Do everything in your power to avoid joining the list of casualties on the road to destiny.
Suppose you want to tell someone that you’re going to save money when you get paid your salary at the end of the month.
If you’re speaking English, you’d say:
“I WILL save money at the end of the month”
As you can see, there’s a separation between the present and the action you want to take in the future.
On the other hand, in Chinese, that separation doesn’t exist. A Chinese speaker wanting to express the same idea will say something which when translated to English will mean,
“I save money at the end of the month”
By running analysis with tons of data from different countries, the study demonstrated that people from cultures where the language did not separate the present from the future were more likely to save more, retire with wealth, smoke less and maintain a healthy weight. This seems to support the hypothesis that the way ‘future time’ is talked about influences the way ‘future time’ is thought about. If your language prevents you from seeing your future as disconnected from your present, you are less likely to take your actions in the present with levity.
My key takeaway from the study is that your words have an impact on your thoughts which will, in turn, influence your actions. To change your life, start with the manner you speak.
Big Idea #3 From the Bible
Proverbs 21:5 says, “The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but everyone that is hasty only to want”
The word translated “diligent” implies the continual act of mining for gold or digging a trench.
No one digs for gold by striking the topsoil once with a shovel before giving up.
Yet, when we think, we don’t hold our thoughts and spiritual impressions long enough for them to take root.
The Bible promises that if you’re diligent with the thoughts that God impresses upon your heart in the same manner a man mining for gold continues to digs, you will lead a fulfilling life.
Perhaps the reason you’re facing chaos in your life is because you’re too hasty in thought – refusing to consider a thought long enough before jumping into your next bout of busyness and distraction.
May the Lord grant you understanding in these things.
They got some dogs, restrained them, and, gave them about 64 electric shocks.
The following day, the dogs were placed in a special box with two compartments separated by a short barrier.
The idea was that if the floor of one compartment was electrified, the dog could hop over the barrier and escape into the other side.
However, that wasn’t what happened in Solomon’s experiment.
When the dogs were placed in the special box and the current turned on, they didn’t move an inch.
The dogs were in discomfort, yet, they didn’t do the one thing that could relieve their pain – Jump to the other side!!!
As it turned out, the experience of being restrained and shocked 64 times in one day taught the dogs one thing: No matter what you do, you can’t escape the pain
When going through trying times, humans forget that they are not the only ones who have experienced such circumstances.
No matter how rough the situation it is you’re going through is, there are people who have gone through worse and came through on the other side.
It’s easier to snap out of learned helplessness when you realize that: (a) your situation could have been much worse, and (b) other people in similar or worse circumstances pulled through.
3. There’s always a way of escape
Gavin de Becker once said, “When you worry, ask yourself, what am I choosing not to see right now?”
Learned helplessness is built on a foundation of faulty mental models that are in turn established upon incorrect assumptions of reality.
Once you understand this, you’d realize that you have no problem but a perception problem.
The fact that you’re faced with a situation means you have what it takes to get out of it.
Open your eyes and heart and stay sensitive, you’d realize that the answer is closer than you think.
There’s always an element of difficulty that accompanies the pursuit of mastery.
People who go on hiking or mountain climbing could use vehicles and helicopters to get to their destinations. But, in addition to the feeling of accomplishment that comes from completing the climb or hike, there is also something about the journey that changes those who embark on it.
The same can be said about a good book. When you pick up a book, you should experience a “stretching of the limits of your mind to new dimensions.” This stretching should be uncomfortable, as old patterns of thought are uprooted and newer ones installed.
Most people walk through life with unchallenged and untested assumptions about how the world works. A good book should give you the opportunity to test those assumptions. Whether those assumptions are right, wrong, or incomplete, a good book will cause tension which will give you the chance to examine the foundations upon which your life’s philosophy rests.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case today with the kinds of books in circulation. Nowadays, we have a glut of information and a poverty of attention. As a result, there are few books in pop culture that are capable of doing any stretching to your mind. Rather, what you’ll see is the same crap recycled over and over again.
That’s why I’d say about 80% of the material in the self-help space is filled with simple, post-modern, watered-down, feel-good, motivational fluff camouflaged as books; each riding on the latest fad while claiming to be the best thing since sliced bread. And the more of these books you read, the more likely you are to suffer mental decadence, as well as action paralysis – a situation of inaction induced by the frequently conflicting ideas that self-help books offer. This is WHY you’re not getting anything out of popular books !!!
To start getting the best out of books, I recommend replacing self-help books with any from these three categories:
Biographies
There’s really nothing new under the sun.
Every challenge you will ever face has been faced in some shape or form by someone in the past.
When you read a biography that is presented in a balanced manner, you are free to objectively consider the events in the individual’s life without anybody force-feeding you with their opinions. As you are thinking about this person’s life, you are also indirectly examining how you would think if you’re in situations similar to the ones you’re reading about.
In addition to reading about the characters in the Bible, I like researching the stories of interesting people scattered throughout history. I’ve used the stories of people like Hakeem Olajuwon, Barack Obama, Dmitri Mendeleev, Harry Truman among many others to expound upon ideas in my posts.
Historical books
It’s often said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again with the expectation of a different result.
People who ignore history do so to their detriment.
When you read the story of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, it’s hard to understand how the same events could still pan out years later in the Iraq War.
Many unnecessary pains that we face in contemporary times could be avoided if politicians and policymakers paid a little more attention to history.
As of this time, in addition to the Bible, my favorite source of history books include anything written by Robert Greene and Ryan Holiday. I enjoy listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast – Revisionist History.
Recently, I’ve also been trying to read more about the history of the Yoruba people. In what I’ve read so far, I’ve been amazed by the level of societal organization and technological development that my people had as early as the 1400s. I highly recommend you not just reading contemporary global or foreign history, but more about your culture and people.
Books from other fields
If you want to genuinely change your life, you cannot afford to be confined to the self-help space.
Understand this: The idea that will change your life is common knowledge in another field
Ideas from chemistry inspired this quote which I used in my post, ‘Wisdom Shouts in the Streets: “Everything resorts to chaos, order is enforced by power”
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was fully formed after he read books from Geology and Economics.
Read books from biology, economics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, chemistry, physics… And even maths!
They will enrich your mind with metaphors that will expand your mind to see the world in ways you never thought possible.
Even more, you don’t need to buy textbooks stuffed with formulas and all that jazz.
Nowadays, there are tons of books that will give you the gist of big ideas from other fields without boring you with mathematical proofs and other unnecessary details. Examples of good ones I’ve read in recent times include The Ghost Map (public health), The Fabric of the Cosmos (physics), The Impossible Will Take a Little While (sociology/political science).
Conclusion
The bulk of self-help books in print today will spoon-feed you with low-level information, thus depriving you of the experience of having your mind stretched.
The way a chick helped to hatch is condemned to life-long weakness, your choice to be spoon-fed mediocrity is severely limiting you.
By changing the kinds of books you read, you can start getting more out of every reading session
