 I want to tell you the story of a young man named Tyler. Tyler is 22 years old. He attends church most weeks. He has a job at the local electronics store. He enjoys playing video games in his spare time. He has one or two close friends from high school that he sees once in a while. If you were to have a conversation with him, you'd come away thinking that he was a quiet but thoughtful person. What no one knows though about Tyler is that he's a frequent porn user. He doesn't believe he's an addict. He just uses it as a means to calm his anxiety and give himself a sense of relief after a hard day. To Tyler, his pornography usage feels calculated. Sure he's thought about quitting from time to time but ultimately he feels like it doesn't impact any other aspects of his life so his desire to quit has really dissipated. He knows God's not a big fan of it and sometimes he will feel guilty and when that happens he asks God for forgiveness and at the end of that he usually feels pretty good. But here's the sad thing that Tyler didn't realize till his early 30s was that he allowed pornography to invite him into a fantasy land that would pacify his motivation his desire and his purpose. If you don't want to make this mistake keep watching. Remember this porn pacifies people to buy into a reality that doesn't exist. Think about the sexual element for a minute. Pornography enables almost instantaneous sexual gratification with zero risk and zero effort. That's not real life. The truth is that God has instituted good and natural motivators that should push us into action. Think about it the fact that you have a desire to eat pushes you to work. It drives you into the action and risk of applying for a job and showing up at that job and enduring the challenges that might arise. But then at the end of two weeks you get your paycheck and you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. That desire for food drove you to take a risk and be consistent at a job that didn't invite you into immediate gratification but ultimately led you into purpose. Okay let's be really straightforward here bringing it back to the realm of pornography. Okay you desire to be with somebody sexually most people do. What pornography invites you into is that instant gratification. So your desires and your motivation is nulled because you can get it from the screen. But ultimately if you're walking in God's purpose and his design then that desire which is a good desire is an okay desire is going to push you to become the person that the person that you would desire would actually want to be with. It begins with transformation. It begins with growth saying looking in the mirror and saying okay man nobody is going to want me as I am right now and rightfully so let me continue to grow. Then pursuing somebody taking that risk of rejection and why do you take that risk? Well because you have the desire you have the motivators. Now I should definitely put a caveat here. Your desire to pursue somebody shouldn't be only motivated out of your sexual desire right. There should be other elements in there as well but that is an aspect of it and when it comes to pornography this is something that is being kind of squelched. So you're pursuing somebody you're loving them sacrificially you're navigating the ups and downs of relationship and the challenges that come with that. You're seeking to serve them and help them grow closer to God. And ultimately if that works out and marriage is on the horizon when you enter that you engage in selfless sexual intimacy. But that all begins with that deep desire right. It pushes you into action. It pushes you into risk. It's a key thing to remember next time you're tempted to watch pornography when you pacify the desire you nullify the movement. By watching pornography you are stifling the movement that God wants to bring about in your life. Here's how I think about it. Pursuing God's calling on your life requires risk whether that's building a relationship, starting a business, being vulnerable, seeking to serve people. You have to put yourself out there. You have to take these risks. You have to be okay with receiving rejection. But in order to accept the possibility of rejection and failure you need to be secure in your identity and who you are. The really troubling thing is that porn kills confidence. It kills identity. It kills internal security. So that being the case the idea of stepping outside of what we've grown accustomed to in our kind of safe bubble of fantasy land. The idea of stepping out of that seems that much more intimidating. So how do we begin? How do we begin to build and stop pacifying these good desires? First we must take the words of God to heart when he says, flee sexual immorality. We need to flee it. It is deadly. It is dangerous. It is waging war on our souls. And one of the practical ways that you can do that is to just eliminate temptation in your life as best you can. Very practically unfollow people on social media that tempt you. Get website blockers on your computer and on your phone. And one of the other things you can do is be accountable. One of the best services that I've come across is covenant eyes. They will monitor your search history and they'll send a report to somebody in your life so you can stay accountable to them. I have a link that can offer you 30 days free and so you can try it out, see if it helps you, see if it benefits you. I really do hope that it will. If you're interested in that, click the link in my description. It is an affiliate link but I truly support the work that they're doing there and I think it'll help you in this area. So in the midst of fleeing sexual immorality and fleeing sexual temptation, you need to come face to face with what is real and stop making excuses for your actions. You need to take responsibility. You need to take accountability. I want you to be really real with yourself right now. Are you a Christian? Are you a non-Christian? Maybe you're a Christian that's put on a face for a long time and you're just scared to admit that this is an issue because it's confessing something about yourself that you held as your identity that I'm this good Christian. And now the idea that you have to admit that you're not as far along as you portray yourself to be, that's painful. But what God calls you to today is to be real with yourself and real with him because he already knows where you're at. He wants you to humble yourself before him and in that you will receive forgiveness. You will receive healing and he wants to call you into something greater. He is calling you into something greater to take dominion but you can't do that if you're not taking dominion over your own life, over your own decisions. And ultimately that's not just about willpower. It's not just about I'm going to try harder. You need to be committed to God and you need to pray to him and surrender to him and in him you will find that strength and as you find the strength you're going to begin to take dominion over these different areas of your life decision by decision. Oh I'm scrolling on Instagram and I see somebody attractive and that tempts me or that triggers me and I'm thinking okay you know I'll watch this other thing. No, you're going to say no to that decision. You're going to say no I'm going to continue to follow God and I'm going to pray without ceasing and I'm going to say you know make that decision. Take dominion over that action and as time goes on you're building that confidence. You're building that track record to yourself building the confidence to say no I'm just not somebody that goes with the waves to and fro into whatever my you know internal fleshly desires lead me. No I'm a man of discipline. I'm a woman of discipline. I can say no to these temptations because I am a child of God and his spirit lives within me. As we glorify God and stepping out of this fantasy land that's where we find our most fulfilling life in him as we're delighting in him as we're glorifying him by continuing to rely on him in everything not on the escapism of the past that made us feel warm and fuzzy that we relied on to give us a sense of relief or a sense of joy or pleasure. No no no no we put that aside and now we're looking to Christ and we're looking at his calling on our life and we're taking dominion over these things in our life and that's gonna man that's gonna fuel you that's gonna propel you that's gonna launch you you're gonna begin to see so many aspects of how God has gifted you that you never saw before because you were so pacified and subdued by this pornography in your life but now when you're free man oh you can just see all these avenues all these doors open up because you're stepping outside of what is safe and taking risks and being okay with rejection because ultimately you know where your identity is found and you have confidence in who God has made you to be and where he's taking you. Thanks so much for watching this video if you enjoyed it subscribe because i'm putting out new videos every single week a huge shout out to everyone on patreon you guys know it's my heart it's my mission to continue to make content on this channel that equips people to follow Jesus daily a pornography addiction is something close to my heart that i think so many people struggle with and i don't want to compromise in what i say on these videos but that often means that monetization isn't that good and i want to stay independent i don't have to take a lot of different sponsors or things like that that will kind of muddy up the content and so you guys through your support on patreon enable me to just focus on making gospel christ-centered content that can go out and share be shared to the world if you want to help me continue to do that i ask you to sign up on patreon for as little as five dollars a month that makes a huge difference for this ministry so i'd ask you to consider it and thank you so much for all of you who do sign up i will see you guys next time god bless