I leave you with a very interesting text for reflection, which I totally agree, as it is one of the answers to the success of my current streak. (225 days - 11/02/2020).
Sorry if there are errors, I translated by google.
Caption of the photo below: Pornography: never harmless, never private, never safe.
I know firsthand the seductive slavery of pornography. I struggled and lost at times during high school and college. I clicked on my first pornography website in sixth grade when a classmate sent me an email and disguised the link to look like something like a project.
At different times during that next decade struggling with my sin, experiencing small victories and often so many defeats, I thought that marriage could heal me. In the back of my head, I thought I just needed a wife to satisfy all my sexual desire and impatience. So I allowed myself to plunge into relationship after relationship, knowing that I didn’t deal with the impurity that plagued me.
The reality was that no relationship could have resolved my sexual sin - no relationship, that is, except by knowing Christ. I was looking for girlfriends and the hope of a future wife, to fulfill a desire that only God could satisfy. I was focusing on self-discipline, dating and marriage, when God was trying to teach me about joy and showing me where to find true pleasure.
The nap that never ends
- Pornography today seems to devour as many (or more) square meters of spiritual land as any other threat to young Christians. We need to take this weed more seriously wherever its prickly leaves begin to sprout. As harmless or private as it may seem, it is not.
- Pornography blinds us to God (Mt 5.8). She mistakes our eyes for her kindness, truth and beauty.
- Pornography trains us to treat women as objects, as less than human. She portrays them as goods to be used and enjoyed, and then thrown away.
- Pornography fuels sexual slavery - real people held against their will and raped repeatedly - all over the world, even in the United States, even in your city or in a major city near you.
- Pornography belittles real beauty - like the fear of the Lord (Prov. 31.30) - and replaces it with cheap, faded imitation.
Pornography makes sex small and momentary, like a cigarette, instead of solid and lifelong, like in marriage. - Pornography robs us of some of the pleasure we could have with our spouse. This prevents us from experiencing and enjoying them and their bodies without a haze of images from our past.
- Pornography quickly destroys trust in a relationship. It encourages us to lie and hide from others, to walk in darkness and then, in darkness, to build walls around us.
- Pornography grossly impairs our maturity, the development of our mind and our gifts - our ability to understand God and love others.
- Pornography seeks a graduate degree in selfishness, training us continually to focus on ourselves, prefer and serve ourselves.
- Pornography takes us away from all types of ministry, disqualifying many and discouraging even more.
- Pornography is teaching many children a horrible and evil distortion of love and sex, even before their parents explain the truth to them.
Pornography is not simply guilty pleasure. If we continue to be pleased with her, she will take everything from us. Pornography can cost us Christ and everything he died to give us: forgiveness, freedom, life, hope, peace and joy. Pornography silently kidnaps millions and leads them to conscious and endless agony, away from God and the glory of being found with him. It enslaves men and women, leaving them hungry day after day, never feeding them a full meal, until they are lost and hungry forever.
Pornography packs us to sleep. But it is not sleep; is the death. It feels like a short, comfortable nap, but we never wake up. And pornography forcefully feeds us in our society, coming out of every pore of our media and technology. The herb has spread relentlessly everywhere, even where it is not wanted, and will kill us if we allow it.
Nine ways to wake up
One of the most important moments for me, on my journey to victory over pornography, was realizing that it was not just a matter of self-control. The fruit of the Spirit does not work or grow like this. Our desires shattered by images or videos suggest that all fruits are rotting, not just self-control. Our struggle for purity is not just a struggle for self-control. It is also a search and expression of love, peace, patience, generosity, kindness, fidelity, kindness and joy. When we focus on willpower and selflessness and neglect the rest, we steal most of the weapons God has given us for war.
- Each time we look away from the lack of decency, we look lovingly at our (future) spouse, our (future) children and the indecent person in front of us, someone made in the image of God. .
- When we refuse to experience sexual sin, we celebrate our peace with God, purchased at an infinite price with the blood of his Son. We refuse to “recrucify him” with more rebellion, and we choose to rest on the forgiveness and life he has won for us.
- Not giving in to pornography or any other sexual activity before marriage can be, today, the brightest billboard of patience. No one in the world expects you to not click, but when you don’t click, you calmly tell God (and anyone else you know) that he and his plan are more than you could have ever dreamed of for yourself. - Sexual purity is as much, if not more, with patience than with self-control, because God wants you to enjoy sex in the best possible way - in the security and stability of marriage.
- By rejecting the distorted, corrupt sex distortion of pornography, we exchange manipulation and abuse for kindness. Instead of learning to use people for our own desires, we teach the world how to live for the interests of others.
- Pornography has hidden itself in countless web meshes, spreading evil in many corners of our world. When we decline your invitation, we decrease its reach and influence, even if only in one of these loops. And we give ourselves the opportunity, instead, to be an agent of good, to use social media as a channel for a totally different message. We can fill the web with links to the truth and beauty, to articles, videos and much more of what declares the greatness of our God and his love for us.
- Nobody praises fidelity to God when it seems that it costs absolutely nothing. Even when it seems that everyone else your age is diving headlong into the superficialities of lust, sexual activity and pornography - and bragging about it - we can live (and hope) in a radically different way. There is nothing strange or radical about getting involved and giving yourself over to the world, watching the sexually explicit movie that everyone is watching, or reading the sexually explicit romance that all your colleagues seem to love. What will stand out is our happy resolve to resist all evil in fidelity to our King and Friend in heaven.
- Pornography sex education encourages forced manipulation and even brutality. It’s just not real sex. Real sex - the sex that two people can enjoy for a lifetime without being bored or offending God - is patient, selfless and kind.
- Finally, the battle for purity is not a battle against your joy - it does not steal any real pleasure or happiness from you. It is a battle for your joy, yes in heaven, but even for now. You may be exchanging a little moment of pleasure, but you will receive an eternity in return.
Refuse to click and choose more from God
Those who choose to see less today will see more forever. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Mt 5.8). There are things that we see and allow in this life that blind us to God. There is nothing more spectacular and satisfying than seeing and enjoying God, but so swiftly and arrogantly do we exchange this experience for a few minutes of excitement.
Every time we expose ourselves and have fun with impurity, we are sacrificing our conscience and knowledge of the greatest kindness, the greatest majesty and the greatest love that anyone has ever experienced. And every time we deviate from pornography or other sexually stimulating material, we prepare to see and enjoy more of our greatest treasure.
Jesus says: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man, having found, hid. And, overflowing with joy, go, sell everything you have and buy that field. ” (Mt 13.44). When we refuse to click in search of a greater joy than we have in Jesus, we are selling what this world has to offer and buying a priceless treasure full of true beauty and true happiness.
Source: Pornografia: nunca inofensiva, nunca privada, nunca segura