 Today, I'm going to share with you 10 steps that are going to help you break free and quit pornography for good, forever. They're not necessarily 10 simple steps, but they're essential steps. And I can promise you that if you watch through this whole video and you enact the things that I'm going to share with you, you're going to be on a really, really solid path to quitting pornography for good. Before we even begin this, I want you to take this video seriously. Let it not be another video that you watch about pornography that goes in one ear out the other and you never do anything about it. Make the commitment to yourself right now that you're going to actually follow through on the things I'm going to share with you today and it's going to make an impact in your life and ultimately free you up to serving God more fully. The first step is ask yourself this question. How will my life change once I'm free from pornography? It's not if I'm free from pornography, it is once I am free from pornography. How will my life change? You are setting up a vision for the future of what your life is going to look like, the freedom that will be enabled, the things you'll be able to do, the things that won't hold you back anymore because you're like, I know I'm in bondage to this. Just think about it, maybe even some of the guilt or the shame or feeling like a hypocrite when you're talking to other people or sharing the gospel because you know there's this thing that's hidden about your life that you haven't broken free from. Imagine the freedom and just the levity that's that would be brought to your life when you're actually broken free from it and you won't feel like you're living a double life anymore. You're going to be able to step into who God truly wants you to be in service to him. Second step here and this was the biggest one for me. I want you to be honest with yourself about where you're at. I want you to drop the good Christian facade. So many of us, especially within the church that have grown up within the church, we've known from early on that pornography is not something good, not something that we should get tied up into, that it's a sin, that it's against God, that it's harmful and destructive and disgusting. We know all of that and yet we've still been there. And so we hold these kind of two lives, this good Christian persona that we have that, no, I would never look at something like that or I would never even think about it and I'm a good Christian. I go to church. But then there's this hidden aspect of who we are or what we do where we're in bondage to the sin. And so what you need to do is just destroy that border is to realize, you know what, this good Christian facade that I'm putting up, it's simply that. It's a facade. It's not true. It's not actually who I am and that's okay. I think of the parable where the Pharisee went up on the hill to pray and the tax collector went as well. And the Pharisee was like, hey, God, thank you that I'm not like other men, these extortioners, these adulterers, all these, you know, this tax collector. Thank you that I'm a good guy. And the tax collector says, God, have mercy on me a sinner. I think that needs to be our orientation here. It's not trying to present ourselves as this good Christian or hold on to this good Christian mentality or persona. It's saying God have mercy on me a sinner. That is who I am. And that is the orientation that God wants us to approach him with. It is humility and not pride. When I was able to come to terms with that and say, God, I'm not a good guy. I've been living this kind of double life where I present myself as one thing. And in truth, this is a whole aspect of my life that I've yet to really confront and I make excuses for. And maybe I justify, maybe I battle against, but I'm not really winning this war. I just need to destroy that border and embrace it as, okay, hey, this is who I am. I'm struggling with this. I'm going to use this as part of my testimony. And in doing that, I can actually address it and stop making excuses for it. Third step here is send the text. I know you have somebody in your life right now. Maybe it's a close friend. Maybe it is a mentor, somebody that you can text right now, right here. As you're watching this video, begin to dictate this text to them. Say, hey, I need to be honest with you. I've been struggling with pornography for a set amount of time. I want somebody else to know. I don't want to be isolated in this. I want to confess to somebody and I want you to keep me accountable. I'm not exactly sure what that looks like, but if you're willing to check up on me and see how I'm doing and ask me about these things, that would be awesome. And I'd be truly appreciative. You send that text to them, something like that in your own words, something that feels natural and authentic to you, but get the conversation started. It's that first text where you break the seal of saying, this is something I struggle with. And the truth is, they won't be surprised. Every single guy that has come to me and said, Isaac, I struggled with pornography. Can you keep me accountable in this? I've not been surprised one bit. And it's not because I thought they were some dirty scumbag disgusting person. It's because a lot of men and women struggle with this. And so it's not, it's not as big of a deal as you feel like it is in admitting this, but it's going to free you up and it's going to provide you with so much relief to know that somebody else is in your corner. They're going to be fighting with you in the midst of the battle and helping you out. So pause this video right now. I'll give you a second and send the text. The fourth step here is I want you to download a program called Covenant Eyes. It's a program that will help you stay accountable. It'll send a summary of your internet usage to somebody in your life that can keep you accountable. And so you can get this app in the link in my description, sign up for a 30 day trial. It is free. It is an affiliate link. And if you're interested in continuing on, you can check out their plans there. And I think it will really, really benefit you in terms of just your internet usage, cutting down on temptation, just knowing, Hey, somebody else is going to be checking up on me in this area and it'll just snuff out any kind of temptation to be like, Oh, I can do this secretly. I'm isolated. I'm alone because the truth is no, I'm not. Not only is God there with me, but this other person is going to keep me accountable too. Step five is identifying the triggers and removing them. So what is a trigger? It's something that you watch or you consume or you see or you think that will trigger another response in terms of watching pornography. So you want to identify those kind of first steps or the things that get you warmed up to wanting to watch pornography or get you tempted to watch pornography. You want to snuff those things out at the beginning. So what could those things look like? Think about social media. Maybe you follow a lot of Instagram models and you're constantly scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and you're seeing these images and it's warming you up to the idea of watching pornography. It's getting you tempted. It's turning you on sexually. Maybe it's a YouTube video or TikTok or Netflix show or movie. This is when you got to be brutally honest with yourself and make some hard decisions. I know the concept of cutting out social media entirely can be daunting to folks. It's like, I know a lot of people on here. These are where my friends are. I get to keep up with folks or this is where I get the majority of my entertainment at the end of the day while I'm able to just, you know, sit back and relax and watch some YouTube. But if you're serious about breaking free from pornography and you recognize that this is a trigger for you, you got to make the decision that your spiritual life, your soul is worth more than your ability to be free online. So I would just advise number one, if you don't want to delete it entirely, block, mute, unfollow everybody on social media that tempts you. All YouTube channels, all TikTok accounts, all Instagram folks. Just get rid of it. You don't need that in your life. You don't need to be seeing those images or seeing those videos. Step six is kind of a continuation on the last one where we were identifying triggers before. Now we're understanding the roots. So we're saying, okay, what are some of the main, you know, key soul issues, the soul brokenness that's leading me to want to go to pornography. So some of the common ones are, well, I feel lonely in my life or I feel hopeless or there's a deep amount of anxiety and I'm looking for relief. Maybe it's just I want to experience sexual pleasure. When we dig the roots as far as they go, we find sin. The impact of sin on us and the sin within us. So our own sinful nature towards wanting to engage in sin, but also the destructive impact that sin has had on our souls that there are needs that we have for significance and security that could ultimately and should be met in God, but rather we've decided to try to find them in other things to find some sort of piece of connection or love or self worth in things of this world. And in the large way, pornography fills some of those gaps. It gives us some sense of security or peace or comfort in the moment, but it will ultimately not satisfy. Step seven is develop a meaningful prayer life. I think of King David and how he prayed, how authentic and vulnerable it was. So often our prayers, at least my prayers can consist of God help me with this or help me, you know, make it out of this temptation or give me this where instead I should just be letting out what's on my heart. God, this is what I've been struggling with recently. I think this is kind of the root of it. I feel this insecurity in this area or I've been lacking in this or I'm not trusting in you in this and help me trust in you in this. So I'm not turning to this facade, this, this thing, this, this thing that's not ultimately going to satisfy me. Help me trust in you, give me full assurance and confidence in your love for me and your acceptance of me. So I don't need to turn to these other things to find my acceptance or my love and just be really, really honest with him. You think about how you develop a meaningful relationship with anybody. Does the relationship really ever go anywhere if you're never vulnerable or authentic or you always have a face on and maybe you kind of say general things that you say to everybody, but does that really bring in a closer relationship? No, the same with God. If you're always just kind of saying the same things and it just becomes robotic, it's not really being authentic and there's no relationship being built there. So be real with him about what you're going through, especially in this area. I'm going to show the next step with you, but I want to set it up with an analogy. Think with me for a second about times in your life when you've been really, really hungry. What tends to happen? Well, you're either so hungry that you're going to sick and you're laying on the couch and you're like, I can't eat anything because it's been so long and maybe that's if you haven't eaten for multiple days or a couple days or whatever. But other times you're just really, really hungry. You're going to look for anything to satisfy yourself. So you're looking at the cupboard, you find a bag of chips, you're like, okay, this will suffice. Even though it's not the most nutritious, healthy for me, it's going to satisfy my hunger for a time. But after you eat that bag of chips, you're really not satisfied. If anything, you kind of feel more sick because it wasn't really nourishing. Now, the truth is we have a spiritual appetite. We are constantly consuming all the time. And if you're not fed by God's word, then you're going to be fed by the world. You're going to consume anything just to satisfy your hunger. So if you're not getting in the word and you're not satisfying that hunger by pouring into what he has to say to you on every day, then you're going to be allured by the things of the world to satisfy that deep desire to be fed. But just like the bag of chips, what the world has to offer won't truly satisfy. Okay, I know what you're saying, you know, you've been told to get in the Bible so many times, but it's just too intimidating. You don't know where to start. And I would just encourage you to start two places for me. Okay, two places. It's pretty easy. One place in the Old Testament, one place in the New Testament, you do this, you're going to be on a good path. So I want you to start in the New Testament in the book of John, and that's going to be so thick and rich for you. As you go along, ask yourself questions about what each verse means. And if you're asking yourself and you're like, I don't really know what's going on here. Check out the Matthew Henry commentary online. It is free and it will help guide you through some of the more challenging and confusing portions of the Bible. Now in the Old Testament, I want you to start in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is so rich with wisdom. Every single line is just like packed. And so I want you to meditate on it. I want you to hone into maybe one or two verses just in Proverbs and write out, okay, what does this mean? How does this apply to my life? Even now, how can this change the way I'm living my life and orient my life more towards wisdom and less towards the wisdom of the world and what I might have considered to be wise before. Okay, the last step and it's an important one. Get plugged into community. Now I'm not just saying go to church. I'm saying get plugged in at church. So maybe there's a young adults group or a men's group or a small group somewhere where you can be more authentic and be known actually because if you're just attending church, maybe you stay a little bit afterwards, but otherwise you're heading out the door. Nobody really has any sort of input on your life. They don't really know you and if the circumstance presents himself where there's no groups that really fit what you what you need, I just encourage you. Hey, are there a couple guys in your life, maybe one, two or three that you can invite over to your place that you guys can chat about what you're learning in the scripture, what's going on in your life on a semi regular basis. It's going to take somebody reaching out, but ultimately you're going to be a blessing to those guys as well. And I just really encourage, especially for the more intimate and vulnerable conversations that you're going to have to make sure that it's kind of only within guys, if you're a guy and within, you know, a girl's group, if you're a girl because some of this stuff you just can't be as vulnerable as you need to be in a mixed crowd. If you made it to the end of this video, congratulations. But this is where the work begins. Hopefully you've sent that text earlier on in the video, but this is when you enact all the other steps. I want you to work through them. It's going to take you some time, but if you're intentional about it, you're going to see so much benefit in your life and it's going to set you on a path to ultimately breaking free and quitting pornography for good. This isn't about willpower. This isn't about necessarily the steps themselves, but rather inviting God into the equations and God work in my life in such a way where you are delivering me from this temptation because this isn't merely a pragmatic and meaning that it's not just about me breaking free from pornography. So my life can be better, but rather wanting to honor God in everything that we do, especially in terms of our sexuality, what we watch, what we take in, how we orient our lives. We want to glorify God in that we know that God is faithful to deliver us from temptation. So every day we're going to ask him for strength and courage to continue to follow him. Thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed it and got something from it, I ask you to subscribe because I'm putting new videos like this out all the time. A huge shout out to everyone on Patreon that enables what I do here, my mission of equipping people to follow Jesus daily. If that's a mission that you want to get behind or if you just enjoy the videos and you want them to continue, I'd ask you to sign up on Patreon in the link in my description. I have all sorts of rewards there for you. Joining on Patreon would be such a blessing. I don't like to take sponsorship deals to crowd out the content that we actually care about. So it enables me to not have to take those and just focus on the mission that I've been given. So thank you so much and until next time, God bless.