Java with Juli: #524 Her Freedom Journey: A Powerful New Book Helping Women Overcome Porn And Sexual Shame
Full Transcript
I think every Christian at some level in their journey have asked the question, ‘why do I keep sinning?’
Maybe you have a struggle with pornography, or maybe it’s gossip and slander, or maybe it’s worry, or you fill in the blank, but there’s something you’re battling. And as hard as you try that sin just doesn’t seem to be going away. So why is that?
Well, when we come to Christ, we know that God cleanses us from our sin, and He also gives us a Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin. So actually, as a Christian, you’re probably more aware of your sin than you were before you ever met God, which can add to the frustration. And let me just say, you’re not the first person to be asking that question. I find encouragement to see that the Apostle Paul himself in Romans Chapter Seven, is wrestling with this in his own journey. He said, I know what it is to do right and I keep doing the wrong thing. Why is that? And his conclusion has really helped me to understand that God first gives us an awareness of sin, and then he begins to give us the power to overcome sin.
Now, this is really important to understand. When you become a Christian, you essentially have your old self or your flesh or your normal natural desires, and then you have this spirit of God living within you. You sort of have this tug of war of who’s gonna win. And Paul writes in Romans Chapter Six that there’s a battle. There’s a battle of, will you be ruled by your flesh and your desires, or will you submit and surrender to the power of the Holy Spirit?
I think one of the reasons that we struggle so much to overcome certain sins is because we try too hard in our own flesh. We try to overcome with willpower and discipline instead of realizing that the power to overcome sin is actually through surrendering to the power of the Holy Spirit. And that’s a journey. It means surrendering, not just the temptation to do something wrong, but surrendering our thinking, surrendering our wounds, surrendering the reasons that we hang on to something.
So for example, let’s take pornography. If you can’t stop looking at pornography, one of the things you might wanna ask is, why do I look at pornography? What problem does it solve in my life? And for a lot of people, pornography solves a problem of feeling anxious or feeling lonely or depressed or, or even being bored. They have this temptation to meet those problems with the solution of pornography. And God would say, don’t just stop looking at porn, but give that struggle over to me. I wanna be the one to guide you to know how to deal with your anxiety, your depression, your loneliness, your stress. And so the Christian life is not just about trying harder to stop sinning. It’s about learning to give up. It’s about learning even to give up our own pride in thinking that we can overcome sin in and of ourselves. And friend, let me just tell you, that is a journey, and it’s a journey that you need to be surrounded by with other Christians who can encourage you and pray for you, and you will find victory in time.
