Sexual sin can be a funny thing:
As Christians, it's something that we are warned about from the moment we turn 13, and yet it ends up being a pitfall that many of us fall into. The reasons are numerous: accessibility, willfulness, ignorance, you name it.The hard part is that, for all of the warning that we receive in our youth, what seems to be sorely lacking is practical wisdom on 1) staying out of the trap when it rears its ugly head, and 2) how to overcome sexual sin should it ever become part of our lives. I don't know about you, but that is information that would have really come in handy when sexual sin first entered my life.
And to be clear, I'm not blaming anyone for the sexual sin in my life; I'm simply stating that sometimes we need more of a tool than just "stay away from it," something like "this is what it sexual sin looks like" or "this is what sexual temptation may present itself as."
Now, there are a lot of different ways that sexual temptation presents itself, and there are a lot of different ways that sexual sin can enter our lives. Avoiding it, however, starts with self-awareness.
"What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, 'You shall not covet.' But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead." - Romans 7:7-8 (NKJV)
So, in case you haven't figure this out, sexual temptation will present itself to most of us at some point in our lives, if it hasn't already. The reason why self-awareness is a key component to fighting sexual sin is because to be self-aware is to know that 1) evil desires will try to arise in us because we're human, and we are naturally tempted to do what we've been told not to, and 2) there are times in our lives when we are more susceptible to fall in sin than others (Matthew 26:36-46 describes how the disciples were unable to maintain a watchful, prayerful eye because they were tired).
Now, in my life, I've overcome pornography and masturbation (I know, too much information), but I still have to think of myself as a recovering addict because I see in myself the tendency to still fall into sin if I'm in the wrong circumstance (i.e. my wife and I have a fight, or I've had a hard day or week at the office, and other situations that cause a lot of stress or fatigue). I've watched myself stumble again and again because I wasn't self-aware enough to realize that 1) I kept stumbling in the same situations, and 2) there was still part of me that wanted to sin, which was a big problem. It took me becoming self-aware of that fact that I hadn't completely broken the habit, and that I still wanted to sin, to realize that there were certain situations I needed to avoid, and certain stimuli that I needed to eliminate from my life in order to get rid of the sin and the desire.
Now, the things that cause us to stumble are varied, but common among all people (1 Corinthians 10:13; in other words, there's at least one other person in the world who is tempted or who stumbles the same way you do). Some people they can't hang out with the opposite sex one-on-one because they always end up in the sack. Some people can't watch shows that have nudity in them because it makes them want to look at porn. Some people can't be alone with their phone or computer because the first thing they're going to do is look at porn. Some people have to be diligent about going straight home after they work, lest they find themselves with a prostitute in their car. If we really examine ourselves closely, we can usually pinpoint the circumstances under which we are most tempted or most often stumble.
And that's the key: we have to identify the things that cause us to stumble (or, for those of us who have been blessed to have never stumbled, the things that cause us the most temptation). We also have to know ourselves well enough to know when we're at our weakest, whether we're exhausted, angry, depressed, or whatever other mood we may be in that causes us not to be in the right state of mind to resist.
Here's the thing: this article only scratches the surface of resisting sexual sin, or eliminating it from your life if it's already there. It's going to take a long time for us to cover all of it. But there is something we can do that is a big step in the right direction, and that's be aware of the things that tempt us the most, and the times when we are most easily tempted. Identifying and eliminating these situations will take us a long way in our fight against sexual sin.
God bless you as you continue to to fight the good fight.
