6.Discipline yourself
Self-discipline is very important in this struggle. Often we want to leave all the responsibility for our deliverance to the Lord “it is up to Him to deliver me, I am still waiting for Him to give me strength”. We passively wait for deliverance, forgetting that we must collaborate with the Lord. If you think that it is only the Lord to deliver you and you, on your side, have nothing to do, then you will wait even for years and you will not experience the power of His deliverance. You have to discipline yourself! It is your responsibility; no one will do it for you.
The Lord said, "If your right eye causes you to sin, poke it out and throw it away. It is better to lose one part of your body, than for your whole body to end up in hell. Matthew 5:29
You need to identify the things that often make you lose control and then get rid of them. Ask yourself what often pushes you towards these kinds of videos. What makes you want to masturbate? Ask yourself this question, if you find the answer then separate yourself from these things. Get away from you, run away, any small thing that can cause you to fall. Don’t play with your weaknesses, you know where you often lose control so run away, run away, run away from every opportunity to fall.
What kinds of programs do you watch on television? What kinds of music do you listen to?
You can pray on the one hand, but if on the other hand you keep listening to this music that exalts sex, you will always keep falling. You can pray, but as long as you keep kissing your boyfriend or girlfriend, you will always keep falling because it will awaken sexual urges in you. You have to discipline yourself. Discipline hurts at first, but when you get used to it, it helps you a lot. Someone said that good habits are hard to develop but it’s easy to live with, while bad habits are easy to develop but hard to live with. Either you continue to live with indiscipline and fall off at any time, or you decide to pay the price of self-discipline to live happily. You know your weaknesses very well, don’t play with them!
If it is a friend who often posts these kinds of things, block him/her as he/ she becomes a source of temptation. If these are pages you have subscribed to on social networks, unsubscribe.
Discipline yourself also with regard to the use of your telephone, avoid connecting at night to the internet. When you connect to the internet you must have a specific goal. Don’t go wandering around without a precise goal, that’s often where you end up falling. Don’t go surfing just by watching random videos on YouTube, that’s when the enemy will offer you an obscene video. You need to have a goal-oriented mind. Don’t navigate life on sight. Have clear, written goals for your life, you will find that it will help you channel your energies.
Before connecting to the internet you must have a goal. What am I going to do on internet? If you have no reason to go, don’t go. We often get lost when we don’t really know why we are doing what we are doing.
Discipline yourself! The Lord may grant you the strength to give up these things, but if you are not disciplined you will always continue to fall like I did! I already had the strength, I really felt that I was delivered but I was undisciplined especially in the use of my phone. In reality the Lord has already delivered you, but you will not see the manifestation of these things until the day you go to confess your sins and begin to discipline yourself.
If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, chop it off and throw it away! You would be better off to go into life paralyzed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the fire that never goes out. If your eye causes you to sin, poke it out and get rid of it. You would be better off to go into life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fires of hell. Matthew 18:8-9
I will explain something that will help you a lot in self-discipline.
In the physical world, our five senses are connected to the brain, which is the seat of the nervous system. The brain controls all our thoughts and most of our movements. In the spiritual world, this is the role that the spirit plays. The soul receives information from the body (the five senses) and transmits it to the spirit. The spirit must now process the information to determine whether it is good or bad. Once the information has been processed, the spirit sends it back to the soul and the soul sends it back to the body. It’s a kind of round-trip arrows.
The dominant decisions made by your spirit come to settle in your soul and become your thoughts, and your dominant thoughts become acts manifested by your flesh. To be more pragmatic I will give you an example. Your eyes happened to see something obscene, this image that your eyes saw will be transmitted into your soul, your soul will take this image and it will transmit it to your spirit. It is at the level of the spirit that decisions are made. It is your spirit that must decide whether to reject this image or accept it. So to make a decision your spirit will refer to a spirit greater than itself. It is either the Spirit of Jesus or the spirit that rules the world. It is the spirit with which you are often in communion that will influence you to make a decision. If you are often in communion with the Holy Spirit through prayer, then He will tell your spirit to reject this image and He will give you the strength to resist. If you do not pray then it will be the spirit of the world that will influence you and tell you to accept this image, then he will cause you to fix your eyes on it. Once the spirit has made the decision, it will send it back to the level of the soul. And your soul in turn will return the decision to your body. Your body will then take the action depending on whether the image has been accepted or rejected at the spirit level. And it happens very quickly that you can’t realize it. Reread to better understand what I just said! This is the key to this fight, the Lord has revealed these things so that you will not remain ignorant.
It is difficult for my spirit and yours to process corrupted information (sensuality, hatred, love of money, etc.) received from the outside by the five senses and reject it right away. We constantly need the help of the Holy Spirit to reject anything that does not honor the Lord. In order for the Holy Spirit to intervene in place of your spirit, to help you make a good decision, that is, to reject everything that does not glorify God, you must be in communion with Him through prayer. If you do not have a serious prayer life, all the corrupted information that your five senses will pick up will be transferred to the soul, then to the spirit, and your spirit will process it without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The result is that you will make a bad decision. If it was information related to fornication, you will surely fall into fornication because your spirit alone is not strong enough to reject it.
The spirit of every believer is willing to glorify God, but alone it cannot do so. Our spirit constantly needs the help of the Holy Spirit Himself to walk in ways pleasing to God. This is how many people say, “I want to give up but I still fall”. It is true! You are still falling because, on the one hand, you are not constantly connected to the Holy Spirit through prayer, meditation, and spiritual songs that glorify Jesus Christ, and on the other hand, perhaps because of your lack of discipline. You are partly responsible for what happens to you. Note that your soul cannot send information to your spirit that it has not received from the five senses.
Your soul or mind cannot be affected by a sex-related image if your eyes do not look at it. I think you understand what I mean. That’s why, in order to overcome this sin that has been holding you back for years, you need to be careful about what you let into your mind. Pay attention to what you are looking at, pay attention to the music you are listening to, and so on. Close the doors to bad information and the fight will become easier. Separate yourself from everything that causes you to fall and constantly connect with the Holy Spirit through prayer, singing spiritual hymns that glorify God. Your firm decision to forsake these sins, your constant connection to the Holy Spirit, and your separation from the sources of temptation are the means that will help you overcome your dependence on these things. Add to this fasting.
Fasting is important because it helps you weaken your body so that the Holy Spirit can express Himself and empower you. Some spirits are driven out only by fasting and prayer, said the Lord (Matthew 17:21). Indeed, it is simple to overcome these addictions, it all depends on your firm will to break these bad habits you have developed.
So many people have not yet decided from the bottom of their hearts to fight these addictions. They have not yet decided to engage in a real battle against these things, which is why they are not always delivered. Jesus works for those who are sincere and serious in what they are asking. Sometimes we are just hypocrites, deep in our hearts we love sins but we want to make God believe that we want to be delivered. Listen! If you don’t decide from the bottom of your heart to fight those sins that have been holding you back for years, God will not be able to act to help you because He respects your will to choose Him or to choose sins. The first power that will set you free is your firm decision to stop watching these kinds of videos and practicing masturbation, then God will come with His power to help you. Jesus is not going to decide for you, all He will do is accompany your decision. If you decide to give up and show it in action, then the Lord will give you the strength not to fall again.
7.Don’t let go, persevere
I already want to inform you that it won’t be easy. It’s a battle, and as you know, in a battle it can happen that we also receive blows that hurt. While you are fighting to get rid of these yokes from the enemy, you must know that he will not leave you alone. He will pursue you as Pharaoh pursued the children of Israel, and it may even happen that you fall again. But don’t lose hope if a fall happens to you, I myself have experienced it, I don’t know how many times, even while serving God. Naturally, discouragement and guilt invade us, and this was also the case for me. I even remember once telling the Lord that I wanted to stop serving Him for a while because I was ashamed of myself. How can I, as a preacher, still fall into the same things? I don’t know if you understand my pain and shame every time I fell. But the Lord didn’t see it that way. Certainly it wasn’t Him who was behind my falls, as I told you before it was my lack of self-discipline, but He allowed it to happen to teach me self-discipline. I also understood what “Jesus’ forgiveness” really means. He supported me, He did not reject me.
If this also happens to you while you are struggling, know that the Lord does not condemn you. Don’t be desperate, don’t lose heart. Ask for forgiveness, learn from your mistakes and move forward. The one who has known the fall, who has risen up while learning from his mistakes is often wiser and more mature than the one who has never fallen. I’m not saying you have to fall, no! Jesus never fell, yet He is the wisest; we are all called to be like Him. What I am saying is that if the fall happens, don’t lose courage, learn from your mistakes and you will be wiser than before. Confess your sin, learn from your mistakes, avoid making them next time. If you fall seven times, get up seven times. Always remain in the light, do not go and hide in the darkness. If you fall, don’t stay on the ground, get up! Remember that woman to whom Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you, go, but from now on sin no more.” Read the story in John 8:1-11. Persevere until you are completely free, do not give up the fight. It’s not over…until you win!
Voilà! You have the knowledge you need to overcome these practices. You have Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You have everything you need… Go ahead, champion.