Letter to a Porn Addict

By Tim Hunter

Hey man, 

I’ve been there. 

I have. 

I remember the racing heart, the sweaty palms, the mumbled prayers for deliverance even as I opened the tab that I would search destructive things on. 

I remember the brief flash of pleasure, followed by immediate deep regret, followed by a dull, numbing pain. I remember the muttered prayers and promises to Jesus that I would only break again and again and again. 

I remember the scrambling to make sure that I had deleted all of my internet history.  I remember the racing thoughts of what people would think of me if they knew of this dark habit I kept tucked away in the closet of my life. I remember the false rationalizations, the half-hearted attempts to justify this sin in my mind. 

But most of all I remember the questions deep below the levels of regret and guilt. I had deep questions about Christ. Does his love cover even this? If the Gospel is so powerful how can I still be struggling? If I can just get the victory for a month over pornography maybe I can really start to follow Jesus.  

Underneath the struggle with pornography is a struggle with who God really is. What is he like? Does His gospel speak to me in my room on my laptop moments after defeat for what feels like the trillionth time? 

That’s why I am writing this letter to you, my brother. My heart aches for you. Heck, I might not even know you - but I still hurt for you. You are one of the millions of men that pornography is wreaking havoc on. And if you are anything like me you want to follow Jesus, maybe you even once dreamed of how God could use your life - but with this?

Let’s rewind. I am writing a letter to you and I feel like you should know some of my story first if you are going to listen to what I so deeply want you to hear from me. 

My Story

I was raised in a Christian home. I went to church a lot, like every Sunday and every Wednesday. I heard preachers rail and preach against the horrors of pornography as if it was as far away from my experience as the regime of North Korea would be to a boy raised in Kansas.

Until it wasn’t. 

Until it became my experience. 

I started watching porn at the age of 13 and this secret habit continued throughout my high school years. My parents didn’t know. And I never spoke a word of it to any of my friends or classmates or leaders at church. I mean why would I, you know what I mean. You feel like you are on an island. 

Until I was radically delivered from the grip of pornography by the powerful grace of Jesus. That’s why I am writing this letter to you. Because I know, at least in some measure, how it feels to be addicted to porn. But I also know what deliverance looks like. Now before you get any ideas of my deliverance from pornography happening at this moment where I went forward at a church altar call and had hands laid on me, let me tell you what it really looked like. 

It looked like a whole lot of ordinary. It looked like a whole lot of clinging to the Gospel, of stepping into accountability, of confessing impure thoughts and actions to God and people around me, of leaning into spiritual disciplines again and again and again. 

My brother, freedom is possible. I promise you - deliverance from the slavery of pornography is possible. 

But you must be willing to walk the pathway. Freedom from pornography often looks much more like a journey than a magical jolt. I do not believe there is some magic wand that can be waved over your computer that ensures that it will never beckon you to look at obscene images on its screen again. 

But there is Jesus. There is His Gospel. There is His church. 

Allow me to share the pathway that I found freedom on with you, my brother. I love you man, I believe in the core of my being that Jesus can free you and unleash you on a mission for His cause. So, please hang in there with me - don’t stop reading yet. 

You need to see the beauty of the Gospel 

This is what made all the difference in the world to me. Do you know the gospel? Maybe you do. But bro, do you treasure the gospel? Is it the most beautiful thing you have ever heard? Do you live for the gospel? 

See - we have so reduced the gospel of Jesus Christ that we often become disillusioned by it and think that to deal with real sin, like porn, we must go to other places. This is a lie and a lie that the enemy would want you to believe. 

You must dive deep into the Gospel. 

This changed everything for me. 

For example, Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Did you hear that!! If you, my friend, have repented and placed your faith in Jesus - there is no condemnation for you. What that means is that in Christ, you are completely and totally forgiven of every impure thought, every incognito search, every deviant sexual act. See, the Gospel provides real forgiveness and cleansing from porn. No other system, no other philosophy in the world does that. Dude - you have got to let this settle deep in your soul. 

This means that God’s love for you is not earned by a streak of not looking at porn. This means that God’s love for you is not kept by you resisting the urge to masturbate. This means that God’s love and acceptance of you as His son is not maintained to the degree that you maintain victory over lust in your life. It is maintained by the perfect track record of His son, the one who knew no sin, never knew a lustful thought. You are accepted in Him. 

The Gospel can forgive you of every single time you have looked at porn, every time you have taken advantage of image-bearers of God. My friend, don’t move past the Gospel in your struggle with sin, move deeper into it. 

Another example, Romans 6:7 says, “For one who has died has been set free from sin.” Do you see what this says? This is saying, and lean in close. The victory is already yours. If you have placed your faith in Jesus and have died with Him and rose with Him, your victory has already been guaranteed. 

My brother, you are not fighting for victory, you are fighting from victory. For every tactical defeat, you may face, know that the war has already been won by our great champion Jesus.

The gospel and the gospel alone are where both forgiveness and freedom from pornography are found.  Man, I pray that you would feel this and know this in your bones. This is the only way that you can hope to find real, lasting freedom. You need to see the beauty of the Gospel. 

You need some brothers around you

James 5:16 speaks to this, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another…” You need some brothers around you who you can confess to and will pray for you. 

See, every second that you cling to the anonymity of this porn addiction, it is driving your sin deeper into the soil that causes it to grow. 

Porn loves the dark. Sin loves the dark. But sins start to shrink when it is faced with the blinding light of community. 

Let me just say it bluntly: if you do not involve other people in your battle against pornography you will not win. You can’t do it alone. You must find brothers who are faithful to Jesus, who you trust, and who are willing to pray for your soul. 

And you must go to war with them. 

This was transformational for me. I prayed for God to send guys my way who could do this for me, and he did. We started a journey, and an awkward and painful one at times, of exposing the sin that we all wanted so desperately to hide. In the light of scripture and community, the power of porn was slowly weakened. 

You got to fight in the light, my brother. If you stay in the dark the darkness will win. Get some brothers to go to war with. 

You must fight

I think this is where a lot of so-called purity warriors get it wrong. They act as if the battle for purity is just about your own so-called purity. 

It’s bigger than that. See, we were created by God to be his partners. We were intended, even commanded to take dominion over the earth. We are made not to twiddle our lives away in navel-gazing attempts to stay pure. (See Gen 1:26-28)

We were made to fight. We were made to take territory. 

Micah 6:8 puts it like this: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” 

The goal is not to just not watch pornography. The goal is to fight the evil injustice behind pornography. 

My brother, I desire you not only to be freed from porn, but I desire to see you fight like hell the dark wickedness of porn that comes straight from hell. 

You were made to fight. Fight with me. 

Thanks for sticking in there and reading this letter. I hope it helps. I write it because I care. If there is any further way that I can help - please reach out. I mean it. 

Go fight, I believe in you. But way more important - HE believes in you. 

Your friend, 

Tim

Editors Note: The author understands that while he is writing this post with men specifically in mind that porn is a pervasive issue amongst women in the church as well. The intent of this article is not to imply explicitly or implicitly that porn is an issue that only men face.