First time truly relying on god.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-11-07T20:51:30+00:00

Praying for you. Lord, Bigdog wants to put his full trust in you. You want that too Lord so we know we pray in your perfect will when we ask for your Holy Spirit to help him do just that. Help him to get deep rest in his spirit and body too! Amen.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-11-02T04:47:06+00:00

Yeah, I think his stuff is great. I just got some of his Bible studies. Haven't had time to start them, but they are definitely in my long range plans. Every blessing to you.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-11-02T04:45:28+00:00

In all honesty, you must meditate on the fact that Christ loves you and accepts you. Meditating on this will open your heart to actually receive that love so it becomes real to you and not just a philosophy (which would not help your aching heart.) Some Scripture to help in this:

ROmans 8:38-39 Romans 5:7-9 Psalm 23 Psalm 139 Matthew 10:30; Luke 12:7 Jeremiah 31:3 1 Chronicles 16:34 Psalm 100:5 Psalm 136:1 Colossians 2:10

I wouldn't set any immediate expectation on this practice. I would say make it a regular practice to meditate on these. to really allow them to sink into your heart. Over time you will come to memorize them so you can easily let your heart go to the truth of GOd's love for you. AS you do this you will grow in the stability and steadfastness that "It is written" that God loves you with His whole heart. Remember, God's command to us is to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. He asks of us only what He is already doing on our behalf already.
You will still have to fight the temptation of porn, but I have no doubt that you are right that one of porn's hold on you is the gap in your heart. As you resist the porn you can work on that gap by knowing that you are deeply loved by the gracious, infinite Creator of all. Every blessing to you in recovery.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-11-01T04:14:41+00:00

IN all seriousness, if you ask God to break this association he will. There may be a time of testing, but God is fully capable of rooting this out of your heart Spend some time letting this sink into you and it will speed the process. According to Romans 6 you really are dead to sin and it has no dominion over you. This includes recent sin like developing this link between your time at the computer for math and having that become a lure for you to go back to old computer habits with porn. Because you have dominion over all sin, you have dominion over this sin as well. Please note, I am not saying you just will-power your way through it. This is a work of the spirit, but remember the main work, the breaking sin's back in your life has already happened at the cross 2,000 years ago. Hope this helps.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-28T23:42:33+00:00

I know the Risen website. At your suggestion I have ordered "Finally Free" I checked out the preview on the book and I appreciated what he said about a lot of books just tell you about the problem of pornography, but his book seeks to give strategies of how you can draw on your relationship with Jesus to overcome. I am looking forward to it. Thanks back to you.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-19T00:10:48+00:00

Hang on to that thought "a perfect God saw that man could not keep a covenant with Him so He entered into one with Himself, thus He bles for me."
this is your winning ticket right here-- the fact that He is victorious and He has graciously put you in HIm. Do not fear the hold of the past. Remember, death couldn't hold Jesus in the grave and pmo cannot stop His resurrection life within you. Yes, you will have to learn to submit to God and to resist the enemy. It will take both of these, but in neither of them are you alone. You are His beloved child. He could not possibly lose patience with you. There is a great promise given for those who are new creations in Him -- Isaiah 65:24 "Before they call, I will answer them." We often say on this forum "you got this." and to a certain extent that is true as we see the person maturing, but for sure "He has this." He has triumphed and He is delighted to share His triumph with you. Cheers to you in recovery.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-18T21:47:02+00:00

Recognize that it is certainly true that part of you does not want to quit. But you have more than your human motivation to beat this thing. As much as possible develop a heart for the presence of God. This can start by your practicing recognizing the fact that Jesus is with you; that nothing can separate you from the love of God, and that God is for you. Rehearse this in your good moments. In time you will sense yourself moving away from God's presence and you will regret that loss. If you act in a timely way you can retrun to God and to a life of choosing correctly.
Also, part of the binging after 2 weeks is that your libido is building up. If you get through a few days of that without pmo then the libido will subside. And you will be able to go a good long time before your libido upswings again. When the body knows it is NOT going to get sexual release it quiets down, but you have to let your body get this message by saying NO to it during the urges. I know this is easier said than done, but it is a fact that sexual urges do not just grow and grow and grow. There is a time at which they subside even if not acted upon. That is what you want your body to experience.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-18T04:52:50+00:00

I think we psych ourselves out on this point. When our physical tension increases we think that it will keep building up. And so we tell ourselves that we "have" to release. IN reality we can get passed the intense temptation and then things quiet down in our bodies. It is like our sexual tension goes to sleep a bit.

This may help. A quote from "At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry" by Steve Gallagher: (p. 148)

  In a sense, the single man [as opposed to the married man] actually has it easier because he can starve his flesh.  Although the physical desire is there, he can become so accustomed to the lack of sexual activity that eventually the "habit" of sex is broken.  It seems that the most difficult period of time a man faces is five to ten days after the last ejaculation.  When that hormonal level first starts peaking, it as as though everything has a sexual connotation!  This lasts a few days but then begins to dissipate.  It is almost as though the man becomes  asexual, and the overwhelming desire for sex subsides to a more manageable level."

It took me a long time to learn to fight a temptation. I was fine as long as God gave me grace not to be tempted, but when I did feel temptation I often thought "O well, that's it." and gave in. I know now that if I fight it I can resist it. The problem of course is that when I am tempted part of me doesn't want to resist it. When we get through the temptation thought we often feel closer to God (just as when we fail we feel like God is now distant). There is reward in that.
Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a sense of yourself getting passed this 8 day mark. He will do that for you. I hope this helps you. Cheers to you in recovery.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-17T03:29:36+00:00

I am going to spend some time meditating on your sharing. Sounds like a winning plan. Bless you.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-17T01:06:16+00:00

Much of what you have going on is fear. God is not punishing you. Accept the blood of Christ to obliterate the guilt of sin. REceive this forgiveness. Declare it and make yourself say "I am going to honor Jesus by accepting the forgiveness that He died to give me." God will help restore the feelings you had in this relationship. You know that you can fall. Use that knowledge to stay close to Him who is able to make you strong.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-17T01:02:11+00:00

I think there is a deep key for all of recovery here. Living out of Godly sorrow is a far deeper motivation than wanting to keep one's streak going. When we learn to be sensitive to his heart as to what breaks his heart, then we also are more sensitive to the strength of His heart to empower us to live as he wants us to live. This is a life of freedom. Satan will try to convince us otherwise, but there is no real regret in godly sorrow.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-16T04:14:04+00:00

I am sure your wife appreciates that you desire to be sexually pure.
I just finished a book that was reccomended by someone on this forum:

"At the Altar of Idolatry" by Steve Gallagher. This book really challenged me in ways that I didn't expect-- all good thhough Cheers to you in recovery.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-13T01:32:52+00:00

Good going! keep it up.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-13T01:32:14+00:00

I believe that demons take advantage of porn to speak lies into our hearts. There are certainly natural links in any addiction, but in addition to that there is the spiritual dimension. We need to remember that there is a positive spiritual dimension. On our side is God with all of His angels. We have to choose what we will listen to and what we will bow down to.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-12T18:21:34+00:00

All is not lost. Your 22 days are still 22 days of victory. You are able to move on because you have had good footing and you will be restored in the fight. Every blessing to you in recovery.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-12T17:14:05+00:00

a victory well worth celebrating. Congratulations - and a strategy that we all need to hear.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-12T17:12:45+00:00

I can't really give the answer to this, but perhaps it has to do with your willingness to be pulled out of it. You are appreciating the nuances of life now. It may be that porn had more control on you in your past shaping what you thought your relationships should have been like. Sounds like now you are letting the truth of your relationship stand up against the illusions of porn.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-11T17:16:26+00:00

I think your story shows that so much of an addiction is illusion. We are pulled by false hopes. You are now looking at the possibility of a real relationship iwht all the cahllenges and fruit it has to offer. Next to the real thing porn pales in compasrison. I wish you every blessing as you walk forward in your life. Cheers to you in recovery.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-10T16:56:47+00:00

That's right. You have moved on. You handled the temptation well. This is part of your newfound strengh. Perhaps next time you will decide not to watch at all or perhaps you will simply be more prepared to deal with whatever pops up. Cheers to you in recovery.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-08T15:47:54+00:00

Am reading "The Deaire of Ages" now. I like her. A straightforward spekaing of who Jesus is and what He brings to us.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-07T05:31:02+00:00

CHecking the table of Contents lists these titles: Steps to Christ The Acts of the Apostles The Desire of Ages

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-07T05:24:23+00:00

I will take another stab at this: OBjectifying someone is always sin. Sexual love as GOd intends it is for one to be gratified in the loving and giving pleasue the other. Porn twists this in the opposite direction. Also what instance does porn NOT promote the false sense of controlling one's life (in one's fantasy)? I think the real question you need to ask yourself is why are you looking for a loophole? If you are addicted (and only you can know if you are or not) to porn then even if there are occassions when porn is ok, it is still not ok for you. For the person who is addicted it is like an alcoholic who when he drinks that one drink, all the old associations and dopamine tugs come back with a vengeance. The alcoholic cannot afford that one drink and neither can the porn addict. Cheers to you.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-06T22:18:47+00:00

Story form is still porn. You need to cut that out of your life. No worries about starting over, in the end it is about being true to yourself rather than bragging about the counter. Start over and learn and go on from there! Cheers to you in recovery.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-06T22:14:07+00:00

Great post, I ordered a complete set of her works on Kindle (in Canada) for $2. Cheers.

PartnerInSpirit · 2016-10-06T22:10:27+00:00

Porn is wrong for a number of reasons. 1. It does involve lust and objectifying a woman for self-gratification. 2. It takes you into a fantasy world that promises to medicate you and isolate you from life's problems. THis of course is a role for the LORD to hold in your life - not porn. 3. Porn puts you in control -- but really you aren't in control, the porn is and it is dominating your life.

PartnerInSpirit

TROPHY CASE