Check out my new editorial called “5 Tools Necessary for Success“.
I am sure you will be blessed and encouraged.

* You should always stretch yourself. Do things that you have never done before.

* Don’t let anyone’s actions keep you from going high in life.

* We impose limitations on our life by looking at our mistakes and others gains.

* The only thing that disqualifies you is when you quit.

* It’s not enough to dream, you have to do the work.

Then God said “Be Quiet”.

You see, I had moaned and cried so much that I couldn’t “hear” what God what saying to me.
He told me that I didn’t have to keep asking Him to rescue me from my cycle of porn.
He told me that the Kingdom of God is inside of me.
With this Kingdom comes all the power and authority that Jesus has.

He told me that I have authority over every work of the enemy.
Including porn.

So from that moment I used my authority and spoke to the demons in charge of pornography and told them that they could no longer hold me hostage.
Whom the Son has set free is free in deed.

I thank God that I have been porn-free ever since (about 8 years now)!

Week after week, month after month, year after year, I watched porn.
I bought magazines and I rented movies. Tons of them for God knows how much money.

Later on I met a wonderful woman and got married.
I hid my problem for as long as I could until I got busted.
I did my best to convince her that it wasn’t an issue and that it wouldn’t come between us.

I knew that she wasn’t very sure about what I was saying.

A couple of years after we were married I was called into the ministry.
This was one of the best moments of my life. I finally found a place in life where I knew I belonged.

The only problem was that I still couldn’t shake my need for porn.

I was caught in the devils spin cycle.
You know where you sin, feel guilty, feel so guilty that you don’t think God would forgive you, the guilt weighs you down to the point where you think the only way to feel better is to do the sin again.

The burden of watching porn combined with the position I had in the church became almost too much for me to bear.

Every time I would fall, I would ask God to rescue me and somehow He pulled me out of the pit.
The only problem was that I would soon find myself in that position again.

This rollercoaster ride was sapping all of my strength and I was finding myself more and more depressed and withdrawn.

My wife tried her best to help but nothing worked.
I didn’t know what to do.

From the 7th until the 8th grade I was sexually abused by someone I looked up to and trusted.
Ironically all of this happened after I accepted Christ and was baptized when I was in the 6th grade.
Nevertheless, this 2 year period of my life felt like and eternity. I felt like I was trapped in some underworld. It felt like I was singled out to be a part of something wrong and dirty.

How could this happen?
Why me?

I couldn’t tell anyone. How could I? What would I say to my friends, my family?
Slowly my self-esteem got even lower. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on.
My schoolwork and even athletics weren’t interesting to me anymore.
My family and I went to church every Sunday but I didn’t understand how God could allow this to happen to me.

Eventually, as I entered high school, this abusive relationship ended.
However, what should have been a new beginning for me was a continuation of pain and confusion.
You see, my abuser exposed me to pornography. He had hundreds and hundreds of magazines available to me at any time.
At first, I was curious like most young boys would be. Then, after a while, it turned into something like a craving for me.
As I got to be an older teen, I would find various ways to get access to porn. I would try to get a glimpse of an unwrapped Playboy magazine at the bookstore or attempt to look at the late-night soft-core versions on a fuzzy television channel.

The more time that went by the more I would want to watch. It became something like a temporary medicine for me to cover the pain of my younger years.
The thing about me was that I didn’t watch porn for the sex.
Sure, it was exciting for my flesh to see what it was seeing but it was more than just that for me.
Watching porn was like entering into some perfect type of world. Everything in it was just right.
The people were beautiful, the scenes were perfect, and they were doing what people who love each other do, have sex.
No one was made to feel bad or upset. People seemed to appreciate each other.

That’s exactly what I was missing in my life, someone to appreciate me and tell me that I was loved. I wished that I could have told my parents about my issues.
Looking back on it now, I realize that I just didn’t love myself.

God has given me a special gift.
Through all the struggles and pains of life, He has placed me on this earth for such a time as this.
For many years I never thought that I had anything to offer anyone. I suffered from low self-esteem and almost no self-confidence.
I felt like it was my destiny to just blend into the woodwork of life, sort of alive but just content with being in the crowd.

Through the grace and mercy of God, I have been able to withstand the darkness of my past and come into the marvelous light of the love of God.
I am not special in and of myself but I am made righteous through my relationship with Christ.

I have been born (again) to let people know that you don’t have to be burdened with guilt and shame.
I want them to know that the chains of porn, addictions, and crap like that don’t have the power to hold them when they give their lives to the Lord.
Too often people struggle because when they look at Christians they see perfect people who seem to have it all together.
I don’t give glory to the devil with my testimony but I give all the glory to God for bringing me out.

For the next few days I will share what God has done for me.