“It will rewire your brain.”
“It will damage your relationships.”
“It will control you.”
You’ve been told these warnings countless times. You believe them. You’ve seen them in your life. And yet—no matter how many times you hear them—you eventually crawl back again to that phone, that laptop, that website.
“You’ll finally feel clean.”
“You’ll become more confident and in control.”
“Your sex life will improve.”
You’ve also heard these rewards countless times. And—again—it’s not that you don’t believe them. You do. It’s just that they don’t give you the power you need to stop.
Carrot and Stick. Punishment and reward. The logic of “If I stop I’ll get better…” seems obviously like the healthy road to recovery from addiction. But in reality, it’s not—it feeds it.
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Any addiction or vice—lust, substances, rage, theft, gossip, whatever—is just a manifestation of a more fundamental problem: sin.
Many people recognise this. Pretty much all Christians say this. But the problem lies in the move they make next. They misdiagnose what sin actually is.
Sin is distrust of God’s goodness toward me, and instead a misplaced trust in myself. Yes—porn addiction is sin. But even fighting it—by relying on myself—is itself sin.
This is why carrot and stick, warning and reward, in reality don’t help, but hinder. Because it feeds your self-reliance—the very cause of the problem. This principle is what the Bible calls “Law”: reward for obedience, and punishment for disobedience (see Exodus 20:5-6).
The Apostle Paul says explicitly in Romans 5:20 that “the law came in to increase the trespass.” Not to reduce sin. Not to manage sin. But to increase sin.
So, since that very logic of “If I stop I’ll get better…” is law, it is the very thing that feeds an addiction like porn. Not because the law itself is bad, or even wrong—your life does improve if you kick an addiction—but because of the way we human beings are.
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Many people will rightly say that Jesus is the solution. But how?
Sin works in a cycle like this:
1) I want to get something myself (in the case of lust—pleasure) —>
2) I fall/fail —>
3) Afterward I feel shame —>
4) So I try to repair myself “If I stop I’ll get better…” —>
5) My will power gets exhausted or I give up —> back to (1)
Law just feeds this cycle by feeding the false narrative that you can make yourself clean.
But in the letter to Titus, the Apostle Paul does something completely illogical and says the exact opposite:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, (Titus 2:11-12)
Paul says: it is not pressure, reward or punishment that trains us—it is God’s grace.
God’s grace is his objective, certain declaration over you at the cross of Jesus: all your sin is unilaterally forgiven, you are clean before him. He’s not waiting for you to be good. He’s in a good mood with you now, even though you behave badly. This declaration does not depend on any response from you at all. It is truly objective. It was made before you even knew about it. It was declared before you were even born.
That’s why Jesus gave us baptism—as a way for the church to apply these promises to us personally. Peter says the promise of baptism is even for children (Acts 2:39)—why??—because God has already made us clean before we even can respond.
Here’s how Paul describes what Christ’s work on the cross did for you (Titus 3:4-7):
when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
This is what is applied to you in the promises of baptism. It is given to you before you even knew what the word “porn” was.
You don’t need to kick the addiction to become clean. You ARE clean.
The medicine you need is neither a threat of punishment, nor a reward for progress: it is this pure, completely unconditional, promise.
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Paul describes what walking in that unconditional promise looks like every day. It involves using your baptism (Romans 6:4):
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Being buried with Christ means dying to the attempt to fix myself. Recognising I can’t overcome my addiction. Acknowledging there is no strength within me. This giving up of self-trust is called “contrition.”
Walking in newness of life means purely holding onto Christ’s objective promises. Recognising that I’m already clean, pure and perfect because of the cross. Acknowledging that my future is certain purely because of him. This trust in Christ is called “faith.”
Only when I am given faith do I truly have contrition. Together, contrition and faith are called “repentance”—a massively misunderstood word.
Repentance is not trying to be better. Not making amends. Not “really sincerely wanting” to change. Repentance is this:
I can’t make myself pure.
Jesus has already made me pure.
That’s contrition and faith.
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So here is how repentance—but in particular faith (which is the true heart of repentance)—actually interrupts that cycle of sin:
1) I want to get something myself (in the case of lust—pleasure) —>
2) I fall/fail —>
3) I look at Jesus and hear “I’m already clean in Christ” —>
4) I refuse to think of myself as condemned and shameful, because Christ was condemned and shamed for me —>
5) There is now no need to repair myself.
The Christian Gospel is this: you were freely forgiven, before you even knew about it. So many people today confuse and suppress that Gospel with the idea that you now have to do something to contribute. But that requirement to contribute is itself an expression of the Law that enslaves.
Come and receive the free forgiveness that actually frees you:
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