Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript

Coming soon…

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript

Stephen: I’ve got Cory Schortzman on the line. Cory is the executive director of Transformed Hearts Counseling Center and the author of multiple books on recovery. Cory, what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

Cory: Thanks. Good afternoon, Stephen. A couple of main things I’d like to talk about as maybe kind of a typical… There’s always accountability, honesty, lying, these sorts of things that help men come out of pornography, and getting in groups. But the one thing that I don’t find a lot of people talking about is this addiction to being offended. I believe that underneath any and every addiction is an addiction to being offended. And I find this in my own recovery, my own sobriety. And what does this really mean? So these are people that generally to go and act out, underneath that is deeper issues of feeling hurt, real or imagined offences get us to a place to want to go medicate those feelings and emotions. I have a website. I do a lot of blogging and an offended test. The Anatomy of Peace, Leadership, Self-deception by The Arbinger Institute. These books have taken me beyond my 12-step program over the years and really identifying that it is true and God’s word, when in the last days, many will be offended. Many will be lovers of themselves. It goes on to say love will grow cold. As we know, lust takes… I like to define lust as taking fantasy, takes… Imagination is about giving to others. Love is about giving.

So they’re just some quick little tidbits here on what this assessment looks like. If you find yourself thinking and believing your qualities are better than others, or you find yourself thinking and believing that the qualities of others are worse than yours, you find yourself as judge, jury, and executioner. You think about getting even with those that have hurt you.

Number three, you’re quick to accuse, blame, and criticize others for your own problems, thoughts, and actions. Another one here, you find yourself unable to sleep and awaken at night, unable to fall back to sleep, having your racing thoughts and feeling disrespect that you’ve been done wrong. You’re easily angered and become defensive when you ask to change or are confronted about your behaviors. You believe that only if others change, then your relationships with them would be better.

Here’s another one: you allow your emotions to dictate how you act. Generally, typical things that I see… and there are several more of these as I’ve assessed. So if you explore five or more of these, you might have an addiction to being offended. And part of this assessment too is we hear a lot [inaudible – 03:49] parts [inaudible] is the lesser known. Everybody is familiar with sex addiction, but what’s lesser known is intimacy anorexia. And this is an intentional withholding of our hearts, feelings, and emotions with our spouse. And in my research, about 64 percent of the guys that come to our office are not only sex addicts but intimacy anorexics. So to do that assessment, I have also on our website. And it can be very helpful for the guy we’re trying to help. So if you’re a guy not finding much success, you’ve been in recovery for a while from your acting out, there might be a 6 out of 10 chance that you’re only dealing with half the addiction, and that is intimacy anorexia.

So if there’s one thing today, I guess there are two things I want to bring to the table, and that’s an addiction to being offended, which I believe is also underneath the anorexia addiction. So a lot of things. I don’t want people to feel overwhelmed like oh, I’ve got more stuff to work on. But we do want tools and information out there, so check out our website and the blog. I’ve been blogging now for over a year. We have some YouTube clips out there that can help get them started. Thanks, Stephen.

Stephen: Yeah, awesome. I think those are a couple of great resources. I encourage all the guys watching this to check out those assessments, fill them out, and just see. It’s amazing what you can learn from just answering some of those introspective questions. I know in my own journey that intimacy anorexia was something that I worked through with my counselor. And it’s not something that’s on a lot of guys’ radars. But once their eyes are open to it, then they recognize it in their life. And you can see how it really does play a big part in pornography addiction. So I’m glad you shared that, Cory.

Can you tell people where they can find out more about you and your ministry?

Cory: Yeah, absolutely. We are based in Colorado Springs, and we also have a satellite office in Denver. But surprisingly, most of our practice is by phone. So don’t let that limit you. Give us a call. Our website is transformedhearts.com. The phone number is 719-590-1350. We do free assessments. We have lots of books and resources, YouTube stuff, the blogs. We do 3-day and 5-day intensives. We do phone counseling groups. So really, at any point of entrance, depending on your budget and availability, we want to help you out. So give us a call and see how we can serve you. Thanks.

Stephen: Yeah, awesome. As always, all that information will be in the show notes. So if you guys didn’t catch all that watching, just scroll down below and you’ll see all those links. Cory, thanks again for your time, I love what you’re doing, and keep up the great work.

Cory: Thanks Stephen, be blessed.

Stephen: See you.

Cory: Bye.

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Transcript

Stephen: Hi guys. Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got Jerry Sinclair on the line. Jerry is from Faithful and True down in Jacksonville, Florida. Jerry, what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

Jerry: Well, Steve, it’s something that I think is a little surprising to some, but I want to share it with anybody that’s hearing this message – whether it be the porn addict, the sex addict, the adulterer, or the victim, the wife of someone. And that is there is no magical cure. But what advice I would say is that there is no real answer to sexual sin, no single one. I know you’ve had a lot of interviews over the last several weeks, months. But it’s a fact that the word magic really does not appear in the scripture as a single word. It’s always a part of a word, part of the word mystic or mystical or magical. The truth is that we are not immune to sexual temptation. Now probably 85 percent of the population has no problem with it. They deal with it. They have a struggle. They see something that may or may not trigger them. They deal with it, handle it, and then move on. They’re not addicted to it.

But for the true porn addict, for the sex addict, for the one who struggles, I want to give you some hope, and that is don’t look for the magical cure. Don’t look for the word deliverance even in the vocabulary. The word deliverance is overused in our post-modern biblical word. But it’s more of a word that deals more with pain, with sickness, and also with captivity. But the word deliverance has very little to do with sin or temptation. I’ll quote scripture that I think would be very appropriate here. Hebrews 11:35b says, “And others were tortured but did not accept deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.” James 1:12 says, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised him that love him.” 1^st Peter 1:6 says, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” 2^nd Corinthians 10:5 is the one that’s really used a lot in scriptures. It says, “Casting down imaginations (or fantasies), and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

I think one of the things that we have to remember about captivity is we think about world wars, conflicts between nations. When they take someone captive, they’re smart enough to really tell their captives they don’t want to shoot them. They don’t want to put them on a firing squad. They want to interrogate them. And I really encourage anyone that’s struggling with sexual sin to take their thoughts captive and then find out what is it your soul is really trying to tell you. What are you trying to obtain? What is it that you really want as a goal? Now the average sex addict, the guy out there in the street, might say, “Well, I’ve just got this huge sexual need, and I’ve got to get it fulfilled.” I would say the apostle Paul deals with that very, very distinctly. When he talks about those that are single [inaudible – 03:32] so that you get closer to the Lord. And then if you must [inaudible] anyway [inaudible]. But then, all of a sudden, your attention is going to be focused to your spouse, not as much to the Lord. So there is always an outlet. There is always a release. There is always a place for someone to go. And that’s why I like Psalm 9:9, “The Lord will always be a refuge for the depressed, a refuge in the times of trouble.” [inaudible – 03:59] scripture though that I want to really encourage people with, and that’s Proverbs 11:14 where the scripture says, “Where there is no counsel, the people fall. But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” I think many people that watch videos like yours and read on that line and try to pray their way out of this by themselves are really going down the false pathway that leads to destruction, the pathway of fall, because the pathway of fall is which you don’t go down by yourself. But getting amongst other men that struggle with the same problem, if you’re a woman watching this and you struggle with pornography, getting around other women that struggle with this is also important. Now I realize that’s not always easy, but that’s really what you need to do. People in the church don’t always understand this. They really kind of avoid it. And church has been known for that for generations. But even in today’s enlightened world, it’s still an uncomfortable topic for many people. But if you get around people who are struggling the same way as you are that have maybe been down the path, the journey of recovery a little bit longer, they’re going to offer you a lot more wisdom than you doing it by yourself.

And finally, I compare this to try and play basketball against LeBron James. If you try to play basketball with LeBron James one-on-one, you’re going to get stuffed every time. You won’t get a shot off. He’ll score 20 points, game over. But if you’ve got four of your buddies that were also in recovery, struggling with the same thing you’re struggling, and LeBron James [inaudible – 05:27] and try to play 5 on 1 against LeBron James, you’ll get some victories. You’ll get some shots off. Your buddy gets some buckets. [inaudible] the final victory [inaudible]. There has really been no cure for this. There’s no magic bullet. There’s no shot we could take [inaudible]. It’s just a constant daily practice of doing the right things and eliminating the wrong things. And that’s kind of what I like to share with guys. Remember, there is no magic bullet, no magical cure. There’s no one answer. It’s just constant daily practice of doing the right things and eliminating the bad things in our lives.

Stephen: Great. A lot of great points there. I love what you had to say about taking thoughts captive and that analogy that when prisoners are taken in war, you don’t shoot them; you interrogate them. And that’s exactly what we need to do with our thoughts and figure out what is the desire underneath the desire? What’s driving you to the pornography? When you start dealing with that, you’re going to have a lot more progress in moving towards freedom than if you’re just constantly trying to eliminate desires or things like that.

Jerry: That’s an important word, progress [inaudible – 06:38] we look for. God is [inaudible]. So we don’t have to seek perfection. All we have to do is make progress and let God kind of take some of the things and take the pressure off of us. If we allow God to do that, I think we’re going to see a lot more freedom and a lot less [inaudible].

Stephen: Absolutely. Well, Jerry, can you tell people where they can find out more about you online?

Jerry: Our website is 904true.org. I encourage people to go there. You’ll find some information about us and some contact information as well. If they want to contact me directly, our hotline 24 hours a day is on a recording machine. That number is 904-443-0246. People can call us, contact us, especially if you live in the Northeast Florida area or you know someone that’s struggling with this. Even if you live outside the area, I have a lot of resources and friends and contacts in the various parts of the United States, in Canada, that would love to be able to connect you with someone that might be able to help you down this journey if you’re all alone.

Stephen: Great. Well, thanks for all that you’re doing and for putting yourself out there to help other people. I appreciate what you’re doing in the kingdom. So thanks again for your time, Jerry.

Jerry: Thank you, Stephen.

Stephen:  See you.

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Transcript

Stephen: Hi guys. Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m on the line with Gerry Breshears. Gerry is a professor of theology at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. He’s a pastor to pastors with a heart for troubled people, as well as a co-author of four books. So, Gerry, thanks for joining us today. What’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

Gerry: Well, it’s a very real struggle. There are a couple of things that make me think here. One is the understanding that Jesus is completely committed to the idea of helping us move toward faithfulness. So there’s basically pistus, which is faith or pure, and porneo, which is defiled sexual activity of all different kinds. His goal is to move us toward pistus, toward faithfulness, toward wholeness, toward purity. And frankly, it feels really good.

When I’m working with guys – and not just guys, women too – who are struggling with pornography and just the compulsiveness that that ties into, one of the things I try to remember is if you had a powerful regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, if you’ve gotten that new heart that comes through the work of the Holy Spirit, your deepest desires are for cleanliness. And as much as the desire is to get back into the porn because it provides a short-term thrill… It takes away the tension briefly. It really does give you a relief to do porn stuff. But then it’s like diving in a cesspool. You get dirty. So one of the things I try to think through is remembering that Jesus wants to help us move toward purity, toward cleanliness. And if you’ve got that new heart cleanliness feels good. And [inaudible – 02:07] easy to get there. But here’s what I try to think through: I am going to be most happy when I am pure because my desires are to be like Jesus, to be pure, to be pistus. So what I ask people when the wave comes and it feels like, “Man, I’ve just got to do it. I can’t live without it,” almost, is to stop and think. And that actually takes a bit to stop and think, prayer, got to Jesus, remembering that he wants to help, if possible, community, text a friend. Don’t do it by yourself. Satan’s agenda is to disconnect you from God [inaudible – 02:51], disconnect you from friends. They’ll laugh at you. And then when you’re connecting with Jesus, is then stop and think what will make me most happy, because my belief is that because Jesus helps us because you have that new heart, because you have the power of the Holy Spirit, that if we stop and think [inaudible – 03:14], in community and do what will make me most deeply happy, I’ll almost always do the right thing. But the porn thing is I’ve got to have it, have it right now. And you don’t connect with Jesus. You don’t connect with the community. You think what will get me through the next few minutes. And you dive in a cesspool. And I don’t want people to have to deal with a dirty cesspool. Jesus wants you to be clean. He wants you to be pistus. He wants you to be pure. And he will help. And with the power of Jesus, [inaudible – 03:45] desires of my new heart. There’s a lot of freedom [inaudible]. That’s my primary advice.

Stephen: Yeah, that’s awesome. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you for sharing that.

Gerry: [crosstalk – 03:58] better if you to go Titus, chapter 3, verses 3 through 8. You’ll find a lot of those [inaudible] talking about.

Stephen: Awesome, yeah, I would encourage anyone watching to check that out, Titus, chapter 3. Gerry, where can people find out more about you and your ministry?

Gerry: Well, I’m pretty active on Facebook. I started a couple of brewhahas here lately with some theological questions. And we have some pretty active dialogs going on there. I work on Western Seminary. We’ve got on active website here at Western. And a long email, gbreshears@westernseminary.edu. And I love to help people find purity.

Stephen: Awesome. We’ll put all that information in the show notes. Thank you again for your time. I love what you’re doing. Any chance I get to hear you talk, I’m always there because I just love your heart and the way you communicate what sometimes can be hard truths for people to get. I just think you’ve got a real gift of communicating them in caring and easy to understand ways, which is getting more and more rare these days, unfortunately.

Gerry: Yeah, I’ve given your book to a lot of different people, Steve, thanks.

Stephen: Oh, thank you. I appreciate your time. And thanks again, Gerry.

Gerry: God bless.

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Transcript

Steve: Hey, guys! Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got David Martin on the line. David is the co-founder and writer for Mychainsaregone.org. David, thanks for joining us today!

David: It’s good to be with you, Steve. Thanks.

Steve: So what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn?

David: Wow, trying to keep me down to one piece. I’m not sure I can keep it there. I’ve got a concept but it’s got multiple facets to it so you might think that when I get done, I’m giving you more than one thing. But, oh well, hopefully, that’ll be hopeful. The one thing, the overarching thing that people need to know is that their struggle against porn is not a strategy problem, it’s a truth problem. When God set me free from my struggle with porn, I wasn’t even fighting it very hard at that time. Even though I was in pastoral ministry, I decided that the best I could really hope for was not too much, not too often. But then I began studying the bible to discern God’s view of the human form, the human body. And I came to some very different beliefs than I’ve had before. When I began to live in harmony with those biblically accurate beliefs, even the desire for porn melted out of my life and I was pretty surprised. And I had to find out what had happened to me and why because that sort of instantaneous freedom, delivery from porn is something that no strategy for porn you hear about today offers really any hope for. My search led me to John 8:32 where Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Now these were Jesus’ words and we see from the context that the freedom He’s talking about is freedom from sin, the slavery to sin. But notice what Jesus does not say. He doesn’t say the truth will point you towards freedom or the truth will give you the desire to be free or the truth will motivate you to be free, or the truth will give you the willpower to be free, or what often happens on porn support boards and what-not is you’ll see that He didn’t say the truth will redefine freedom to match your experience. He said it would make you free. The inescapable conclusion is that we are not free. We don’t yet know the truth. So that’s why I say that the bondage to porn is not a strategy problem but rather a truth problem. So therefore, the correct, the only correct strategy against porn addiction is one thing and one thing only. You identify the lies that you believe, replace the lies with the truth, and then most importantly, you live as if the truth is true instead of living as if the lie is true. Jesus said in Matthew 7:24, He said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on a rock.” Jesus’ words are truth but to benefit from them, we must act on them. We must live as if His words really are true. We must allow the truth to impact how we live, the decisions we make moment by moment, day by day, how we think moment by moment, day by day. Then when we put His truth into action, then we’ll be set free as John 8:32 promises. And this is why I really appreciate the approach of your book which I just dropped. Here it is so you can see it, 10 Lies Men Believe About Porn, because that’s really what it’s all about. We have to recognize the lies, we have to replace them with the truth, and then live as if the truth is true. Think as if the truth is true, make decisions in our life as if the truth is true. Determine our strategies for life, our patterns for life based upon the truth, not on the lie. And that’s when we’ll experience the freedom Jesus promises. But let me share with your viewers what I believe is the biggest lie that both men and women believe not about porn but about men. There’s a huge lie that men believe about themselves that I believe unless they reject it and live actively contrary to it, they won’t ever really realize the kind of freedom that God really desires for them and it is this. This might be a shocker for some of you. The lie is that God made men to be automatically sexually aroused at the simple sight of an unclothed female body or male body. Let me say that again. It’s a lie that God made men to automatically be sexually aroused at the simple sight of the unclothed human form. The truth is that God made men and women to be aroused sexually by relationship. He made us all relational. That is His intent. The visual arousal notion is a lie. It’s not God’s will for men and it’s not how God made us. It’s not normal, it’s not good. God is relational and He is motivated to love and unite with us because He has a relationship with us. Not because of how we look, we’re called to love as God loves. And the truth behind that is that God made both men and women’s bodies to be self portraits of Himself. We’re made in God’s image therefore the appropriate and most important response to seeing the human form is praise and awe for the One who so artistically stamped His own likeness there. Instead, our culture and sadly, the church consider the sight of the human form to be a sexual experience. Rather than acknowledging the glory of God, we assess the sight by its impact on the human libido. And to be sure, generations of men have been conditioned into visual arousal response. Well quite frankly, the pornography industry right now is trying desperately so that women will be aroused by visual response as well. But make no mistakes. It’s only conditioning. And that which can be conditioned can be unconditioned. This is why the bible never tells a man what he may and may not see of a woman’s body. Ain’t that a strange omission if that’s what God intended for us? You see what we see is not the problem, it’s how we see it. I like to put it this way. We sinfully view the human form because we have a sinful view of the human form. And the tragic reality is that most if not all of the strategies that are promoted in the church to combat porn addiction are based upon the assumption that the visual lie is actually true. And no strategy that affirms that lie will ever deliver anyone from the bondage empowered by that lie. And that, I believe, is why the success rates of all those strategies are so abysmally low. I know I’ve said some very strong and perhaps surprising things in this interview but given the epidemic of porn addiction even within the church, isn’t it time we reexamine some of the things we’ve been believing so unquestionably for so long? Let me summarize my one thing with a two-part declaration. First of all, bondage to sin, any sin quite frankly is not a strategy problem. It’s a truth problem. And God intend for men, all of us, men and women, to find sexual arousal relationally, not visually. If what I’ve declared in that second part sounds so unrealistic as to be laughable, let me remind you of a quote by Dresden James that I think is worth pondering. He said this, “When a well-packaged web of lies have been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker and raving lunatic.” Well guess what? I am not lunatic but what I proclaim is truth and it’s the truth that set me free. And I really hope and pray that all your viewers will experience that same freedom.

Steve: When you were sharing that, your lie there, the first thing that I thought of was, I remember back to when I was in college. I was an art major and I had to take figure drawing. And I remember at that point I was very much addicted to pornography but I remember that even when we had attractive nude models in class, I was surprised that I was not aroused by them. And that was the first time that I remember questioning whether or not that is an automatic response. Over the years, I found with myself that a lot of, for me, my addiction to pornography, a lot of that wasn’t driven from a, I mean it wasn’t ultimately driven from a desire to see naked women. It was driven by a desire to see the women photographed in a way where it implied that they desired me. So my lust of them was not strictly over their body. A lot of it was over their desire, if that makes sense.

David: If you read Proverbs 7, you’ll see there it talks about the woman who’s the adulteress. She goes out into the street and everything about how she tries to seduce young men is all about relationship. And the pornography industry knows this too because they don’t just show you pictures. They show you pictures of women with this come-hither look. And they also list, a lot of them, they list this is what this gal likes. And the guy, he’s going to be reading that, what she likes and what she doesn’t like, and he’s going to think to himself, “She would like me.” And there’s that pornography is trying to capitalize on that relationship component even while it’s selling the lie that it’s all visual.

Steve: Right. And if you believe that lie that it’s all visual, the chances of you finding healing are so much less because you’re not actually dealing with the root cause of what you’re after there.

David: That’s right. You’re fighting the wrong battle. You’re trying to say, “Hey, I should not find this to be attractive.” Yes, you should. God made it attractive. It’s His image. And we start fighting the wrong battle because we say, “Oh, I shouldn’t want to look. I shouldn’t want to see that.” But then we give in and we look and we believe that looking will automatically result in lust, and therefore, we don’t even fight the lust response. We’re literally fighting the wrong battle. In fact, that’s one of the titles of my article, The Right Battle, on our website. And so that’s great to hear what you said about that because what you experienced in that art class was you experienced the truth. And it wasn’t trumped up and built up in the way our culture has conditioned so many people, so many men for many generations to think this is what your response is supposed to be. Imagine if a man does not have that response. What will he do if it’s only through relationship that he finds his arousal? What will he do when he starts sensing the need and the desire in his body to express himself sexually? Well, if the sight of some other woman doesn’t do it, where is he going to go? He’s going to go right back to his wife because she’s the only one with whom he has that sort of relationship. And doesn’t that sound like that would be in keeping with God’s design? I think so.

Steve: Thanks for sharing all that. Tell people where they can find out more about your ministry and all that.

David: Well, several other pastors and I, a number of years ago, who we were set free similarly. And we’re like “What happened?” and God brought us together and we knew that we had similar understanding, similar experience, and similar perspective. And we said, “We got to get this message out” and so we developed a site called Mychainsaregone.org. And you might want to, the readers might want to, read this story called The Chain. It was the story I wrote, it’s an allegory, about how God set me free. And it was written out of gratitude for God that kind of became the metaphor for saying my chains are gone as a website. And there’s a whole series of articles. We encourage people to read them in order. We find a lot of times, they’re so radically different in a way people are thinking that they need to read them multiple times. But we find when people really get it and they really understand it, they are set free. And it’s not a strategy site. It’s not an accountability site. It’s a site about the truth and that’s enough, so I encourage people to read that. I’m going to give you a link to a message I gave called The Incarnation Scene 1 which I think gives a lot of theological background for the kind of things that I’ve talked about today. And then there is a pamphlet that one of the other authors, David Hatton, wrote called The Dangerous Meal Myth. And this is about that whole visual myth. He’s put it in a form, a downloadable PDF that’s printable. And you can distribute it to people and you can look it over and talk about it. So I’m going to give you that link as well. So I hope people come to the site and read through the articles and really prayerfully seek to say, “God, what are the truths that I’ve not been seeing and understanding? What are the lies that I have been believing? And help me make that switch.”

Steve: Awesome! Yeah, we will definitely add all those links in the show notes. Sounds like you got a lot of great resources for people to check out. Thank you for your generosity. And then just for your time for doing this.

David: Hey, it’s a real privilege and I’m just really thankful for the opportunity to do this. This is the calling of my life and to be able to share it like this, to reach more people, it’s God’s doing and I’m just so thankful.

Steve: Okay, well, all five of the people that read my blog will love it. Okay.

David: Well thanks so much, Steve!

Steve: Yeah. Thanks again, David!

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Transcript

Steve: Hey, guys! Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got Jeff Fisher on the line. Jeff is the founder of Puritycoaching.com, Porntopurity.com, and he also hosts the Top Tips for Sexual Purity podcast which you can find on iTunes. So Jeff, let me go ahead and ask you what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

Jeff: Hey, Steven! Glad to be on your show and everybody out there. I think one of the biggest tips that I’ve learned in the process is that we need to keep coming out of isolation. There’s an initial coming out of isolation where I share my secret story, I share the things that I’ve been hiding and covering up for so long. That initial share is one of the hardest things to get over but finding somebody safe, finding an old friend, maybe paying to go to somebody who’s confidential like a counselor, or even setting an appointment with the minister, finding somebody where you can break the ice. Once you break the ice and start to talk about the struggles within in regards to your sexual purity, then it’s like God is just there and it’s this freeing up feeling and this fountain of relief. And it’s hard to describe that I can finally talk to somebody openly about what’s going on. It’s still scary and it still takes a lot of courage but that initial share, and maybe I haven’t talked about it in a long time or I haven’t talked about really the deeper things, and that’s what I mean is going to those levels where you’re breaking the isolation and you’re sharing. But you know the tip is to keep doing that. We who are in recovery from our sexual struggles have to keep doing that on a regular basis. It gets easier as we work through the pain and the difficult things. And people are good for it. Then I feel comfortable to share more and build trust. I think sometimes that I need to go to somebody like you, Steven, or somebody like our ministry, or another ministry that is equipped and is used to hearing people’s struggles. Sometimes, we can do enough work on the front end to find a minister or a counselor who is used to talking to people about their sexual struggles but I think that is one of the benefits of ministries like ours. We’re automatic safe people that we’re not going to flinch. It’s not that we’ve heard it all but we’ve heard a whole lot. And everybody thinks that their story is unique and the worst. And it’s not, it’s very common but we just are not around people that talk about it to know that our struggle is a common thing. And sometimes, the depths and widths of our struggle might be more unique but just the core of our struggle. For seven years ago was when the stuff hit the fan for me. I got caught, I got exposed and I was kind of forced out but then I had to still make a decision to keep sharing. So admitting that I had looked at bad stuff on the computer was one thing but then to keep sharing and keep opening up, that’s where God started to bless and that’s where I started to find the healing that I needed from the Lord.

Steve: I think that’s great advice. We have heard of that as walking in the light. And I know that was hugely important when I started recovery. It was just getting comfortable sharing my story and…

Jeff: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. I couldn’t agree with you more so thanks for sharing that, Jeff. Tell people where they can find you online.

Jeff: Yeah, sure. My wife and I, Marcia and I, we started Porntopurity.com about seven years ago, just as a way to blog about our struggles and then it started to turn into a podcast and so I started a podcast called Top Tips for Sexual Purity and you could find that on iTunes. That’s the best place to search for it. There’s a huge catalogue, huge back catalogue of episodes. So download whatever ones that you feel are good for you. And then our latest website is called Puritycoaching.com and that’s where we offer our support groups, offer a unique thing called Accountability jumpstart where I can help you get started in you accountability for 1, 2, or 3 months. I can be your accountability partner. And then there’s regular coaching where there’s a more comprehensive in-depth help to build your purity strategy so that it goes for the long-term.

Steve: Okay. We will be sure to link to all that in the show notes. Thanks again for your time, Jeff. I really appreciate it. And we’ll keep in touch.

Jeff: Yeah, thanks a lot!

Steve: Okay, see you!

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript

Steve: Hey, guys! Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries and I’ve got Randall Ajimine on the line. And Randall runs the web-based ministry, Churchandsex.com, and he’s also involved in the organization, Thank God for Sex. I met Randall. He’s a fellow contributor with XXXchurch.com so I’m aware of his ministry through that. And Randall is graciously jumping on the line with us today to answer the question, “What’s the one piece of advice that you would give to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Randall: Sure. I think my one piece of advice would be to be very gracious to yourself. I think one of the things that keeps people trapped in any kind of addiction and porn addiction is definitely one of them, is a kind of shame cycle where they might try to abstain from whatever they’re addicted to but then go back into it and then get kind of this shame cycle where it’s like “Oh my God! I’m no good. I suck. I can’t do this,” and then that might lead to another kind of bingeing round where they stop. But what this shame cycle keeps them from doing is getting underneath the activity that they’re trying to be free from because usually, any kind of addiction is kind of used to cover over some deeper thing that’s happening in their life and so. And the other organization that I’m involved with, Thank God for Sex, it’s kind of dedicated to helping heal Christians and even helped the church kind of talk and deal with the issue of religious sexual shame. I think the church can unfortunately be unhelpful in the realm of sex and sexuality. In some of the ways that it teaches around this area can lead to a lot of guilt and shame kind of feelings. And again, that keeps Christians and other people, but Christians from getting underneath whatever the addition is. And if you never really get to the root cause of what issue is this addiction covering over, if you never get to what’s underneath that, then it’s I think it’s always going to be this thing that keeps cycling through or even worse. Even if you are able to kind of move past a porn addiction, again, if you’re not getting through the underlining issue, it’ll move to another addiction, sometimes, anyway, yeah. So the only way out of this whole shame spiral is to really accept yourself as you are, to say, “I am looking at these sites” and to not get super judgy on yourself for it to say, “I’m looking at these sites. I did it again and I’m not going to just berate myself for it. I’m going to try to calm myself down a little bit and be curious.” I think the curiosity bit is one of the best cures for a shame cycle. Curiosity being is this idea of “What am I covering over? What I like try to avoid? What feelings, what doubts, what insecurities am I trying to paste over with these things that I’m looking at?” And again, the only way to get out of that shame bit is to kind of slow down and to just be gracious to yourself, and not always be just beating yourself up over whatever you’re looking at. So yeah, being gracious to yourself as God is gracious to you, that’s I think the first ten biggest step.

Steve: Great! Well thanks for sharing that, Randall.

Randall: Sure.

Steve: And so where can people find out more about your ministry?

Randall: Sure. I’m on Churchandsex.com will leave you to my blog where I do a lot of writing and linking to articles. And I have the same username as for Twitter, Twitter.com/churchandsex. And those are the two primary ways. I’m working on getting on other social media platforms but those are the two kind of prime ones right now.

Steve: Okay. We will be sure to link to those in the show notes and in the video description. But thanks for your time, Randall.

Randall: I super enjoyed it.

Steve: Okay, see you later.

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript

Steve: Hey, guys! Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m on the line with Jon Snyder. Jon is the founder of Mighty Men Ministries. Jon, thanks for joining us today.

Jon: It’s my pleasure, Steve. Thanks for having me today.

Steve: Yes. If you can give one piece of advice to guys struggling with porn addiction, what would you say?

Jon: Okay. Well, you’ve prepped me nicely on the question but I wouldn’t have needed to think long and hard about it at all. I think the number one thing that most guys and actually, most Christians, this is a broader issue than even just porn addiction. But certainly, all the guys who’ve come to our ministry, I think the number one thing that keeps guys tripped up over and over again is just not being in right relationship with God as it relates to how they respond to a fall and how they are connecting with God in order to receive what they need from Him in order to get the heart healed and the wounds healed. So I can unpack that a little bit. I know that we’ve got a few minutes. But do you have any questions before we kind of like go into expanding on that a little bit?

Steve: No. Yeah, why don’t you unpack that? I think that will be good for people to hear kind of some details on that.

Jon: Yeah. Good. Okay. So the Bible says that there’s a right way and a wrong way to repent. Not a lot of people realize that. In 2 Corinthians 7, it says that there is worldly sorrow that leads to death but godly sorrow creates zeal, indignation, vehement desire, no regrets, all these very healthy emotional fruits that should be present when we repent. So the way that you can judge whether you’re repenting properly in a godly fashion or whether you’re stuck in this whole worldly sorrow thing is immediately after you fall. What do you do? Do you feel like you have a desire to run right to God? Do you feel like a fall actually improves your relationship with God? And I can get into that in a minute. What I find that most guy’s experience is the opposite of that. After a fall, you get into this like “I can’t believe I did that. I’m such an idiot. I am just so dirty. I’m like the scum that dirt washes off of itself.” So there’s all this self-beratement, there’s all this shame. And people feel like it’s driven a wedge between them and God. I believe the statistics is something like 92% of Christian men, when they were asked if they feel like pornography affects their relationship with God, the answer is yes. And that shows that at least 92%, and in my experience more, at least 92% of guys are responding to God out of the old men rather than responding out of who they are in Christ. And the reason that’s such a big deal is because you literally can’t get out of this. And God doesn’t give you help to get out of this until you’re relating to Him properly because it shows there’s a few things happening in your heart. It shows that you are trusting in your performance to make you acceptable to God more than you’re trusting in what Christ has already performed to make you acceptable to God. That is worse in God’s eyes than you struggling with porn. It shows that you have a worth that’s based in works and God says, “No. I want you to come to know that your worth is based in something far deeper than that.” So it’s all about Jesus Christ and your dirt doesn’t make his righteousness dirty. So I always tell guys when they come to our ministry, I say, “If you are upset with you when you fail, it was your strength that you were relying on and not Christ’s strength for you.” So the bible talks how do we actually overcome sin? Well, the bible says in 1 John 2:5, it says, “If anyone is able to keep his word, truly the love of God has been perfected in him.” And so we tend to think “I got to clean up my act, I got to get it all right, and then I can come to God.” It’s not. It’s the exact opposite of that. It says “If you run to Me, then I can give you what you need in your heart” that’s going to give you a healing of the heart wound that took you down that path in the first place. It’s going to give you the love and acceptance that you need for that love to go deep so that like the bible says if you can keep his word, the love of God is perfected in you. That’s what we should be going after. And so when we blow it, if I can take just one more minute, kind of the process that I’m going through in my life, at first, it’s going to take some rehearsing for the guys who are out there because it’s completely foreign because most of us have just been immersed in this whole you feel unapproachable with God until you clean up your act, and that’s completely backwards. So what I’ve done is I’ve got kind of a bunch of life scriptures that I’ve just kind of jotted down so I remember them for this interview but it creates a dialogue that I started to rehearse with God. So when I would feel dirty or when I would feel unacceptable, or whatever the case may be, I would have these things that I would talk about with God. I was “reminding” God of what his words says but really I’m reminding my own soul so that I don’t go down that path again. One of them I love in Hebrews 7:25, if anybody wants to look it up, it says that we have this high priest who is able to sympathize with us [inaudible 6:08] weakness so that we can come boldly to the throne of grace, find help in time of need, and it says that he always lives to make intercession for his saints. So that means at our dirtiest, right after we messed up, if we could run into heaven, what we would see is Jesus interceding for us, doing the same thing He did on the cross. “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” He has the sympathy for us. So I would say things like “Jesus, right now, even at though I feel like I just blew it so bad, You’re interceding for me.” I would do other things like in some of the verses that just blow my mind is John 17:23 and John 15:9. That’s when Jesus is talking to the disciples and he says, “Father, help them to know that as You have loved me, so I love them.” So Jesus loves us as much as the Father loves Jesus. That’s crazy to me. And then He also says in 17:23, He says, “I pray that they would come to know and understand that as You love me, You also love them.” So the Father loves us as much as He loves Jesus, do I would include that in my dialogue with God. I would say, “God, You are radically in love with me. You love me as much as you love your perfect Son, Jesus,” awesome stuff. “You die for me all over again if it were even possible.” That comes right out of Romans 5:8-9. It says He died for sinners, how much more than those who are saved? Paul said when he’s struggling with sinning, “That’s no longer me who sins. The sin dwelled in me.” So I would say things like “That’s not the real me. That was just some dead guy,” things like that. I am the righteousness of Christ, not I have the righteousness of Christ because that might say it can come and go. But the bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, it says that we have become the righteousness of Christ. So just like if you think would Jesus have any shame coming before the Father? Would he have any hesitation asking the Father for something? No. And He would have this full confidence that He can receive from God. So I would come with that same confidence, and I would say, “God, there is nothing standing between You and me because I am the very righteousness of Christ. I have as much right to be in Your presence as He does even at my worst.” So this is some of the dialogue that I’ve developed with God. And I allow that so that if I were to fall, I would get up, I would run to God right away rather than go on to hiding, rather than go on to that downward spiral for a while. I would run and fall forward if you will and say, “God, you love me. You’re radically in love with me. I have as much right to talk to you now as Jesus does.” And just go through these things that the bible said to me until I had this. And at first, it’s like “Man, do I even believe that? No.” But as you rehearse what the bible says about you, it becomes part of who you are. And that puts you in the place in right relationship with God so that you can receive everything that you need to overcome. And it’s all about Him anyways. It’s not by our might, it’s not by our power but it’s by God’s spirit. If we walk in the spirit, we don’t carry out the desires of the flesh. So this is so foundational to being able to walk in the spirit and to have the access to the Father that we need to heal the heart to overcome the sin. And if you don’t have this right relationship with God, you don’t have any of the tools spiritually that you need in order to overcome. So that’s why I think it’s the first and most fundamental thing that I would tell anybody struggling. You need to be in right relationship with God. You need to be operating out of this new man and relating to God on that level so that you can receive what you need to get over the sins that are ensnaring you.

Steve: Yeah, you’re telling my story, man. That was one of the first major turning points in my recovery journey was exactly what you talked about there. For years, every time I sinned, I felt like I had to hide from God, I had to clean myself up…

Jon: Yeah.

Steve: Before He would accept me.

Jon: Yeah.

Steve: All the shame and guilt would come in and it wasn’t till I realized like those verses that you shared, those were the same verses. “Come to the throne of grace in my time of deepest need.” Well when does my time of deepest need?”

Jon: Yeah. Right.

Steve: You know for me, it was when I just looked at porn.

Jon: Yeah.

Steve: And so realizing that God loved me in that moment…

Jon: That’s right.

Steve: And so then what happened, instead of responding with shame, I would start like every time I would fall, I would start responding, “Lord, thank You that this doesn’t define me. Thank You that Jesus paid for this.”

Jon: Yeah.

Steve: “Thank You that I’m forgiven for this sin and this doesn’t separate me from You.” And I would start…

Jon: Yeah.

Steve: Praying those verses. And like you said, it’s crazy. It’s like it’s almost as if your sin starts drawing you closer to God.

Jon: That’s exactly it!

Steve: Yeah.

Jon: That’s exactly it. You just hit the nail in the head and you got to repeat that for the guys. If your sin is driving you away from God, your whole paradigm needs to flip upside down. Your sin needs to drive you into God’s arms. And when that’s happening, then you’re in right relationship with God. So good, Steven.

Steve: Yeah. Well hey, thanks for sharing all that. Jon, tell people where they can find out more about your ministry and what you do and all that.

Jon: Okay. Check out Mightymenministries.com for more about us. There’s all kinds of great resources on there, and the Mighty Men Manual, and the work book if you want to do it with your small group at your church or whatever, two great resources where we take guys through all these foundational steps, then we give them tools, and then we take them through like just good old identity change. So it’s kind of this three full process that builds a platform to kind of get up and out of addiction.

Steve: Awesome! We will be sure to link to all that in the show notes. Thanks again for your time.

Jon: Thanks, Steven!

Steve: And all the awesome stuff you’re doing for the Kingdom, so keep it up.

Jon: Likewise. Alright!

Steve: See you!

Jon: Blessings!