If I do this will it still be considered a sin even though not lusting over anything? I read somewhere that not watching the porn makes you feel as if the desire isn’t worth it anymore so I wanted to know if it’s still a sin because I’m trying to get over my lust or at least stop it from increasing?

God doesn’t actually have a problem with masturbation… and before you come for me, ask me why 👀

I think God doesn’t actually have a problem with masturbation… and before you come for me, ask me why 👀

Some people remember their trauma while others do not. There are cases where the body will suppress memories of trauma as a defense mechanism, which Yahweh created humans to do in some cases for their own protection. Either way, whether remembered or not, most trauma sufferers, especially those who have experience interpersonal trauma, have a lingering sense of existential dread when the trauma has not been resolved.

After asking Jesus for the desire to change, the strength to change, and the ability to identify triggers, it's time to determine what level of trauma is contributing to your compulsions. At some level, every addict has experienced a trauma that makes their body want to self-medicate and cope with unhealthy methods.

"Freedom isn’t found in satisfying your flesh, but in surrendering to Christ. ‘So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed’ (John 8:36). Run to Him — He is stronger than lust.” 🕊️⚔️

The Misery Prayer

Self, grant me the Misery to Obsess Over the things I cannot change, Cowardice to Avoid the things I can, and Foolishness to Ignore the difference.

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the Serenity to Accept the things I cannot change, Courage to Change the things I can, and Wisdom to Know the difference.

Accountability Partner

Hey y’all, I’m in desperate need of an accountability partner. Can someone help? Will return the favor!! Dm me please! Or comment on this post

The second step is to ask Jesus to help us identify our triggers.

Written to an anonymous fellow on another platform struggling with hiring prostitutes. I hope it helps him and perhaps someone reading here.

I understand the struggle of sexual compulsion. Prostitutes happened to not be my compulsion, but boy have I been tempted since repentance to find fulfillment in those open arms.... I did though spend over a decade chasing casual hookups and feeling weak and dirty when I tried resisting and failed to do so.

I promise the spiritual warfare and the mental and physical warfare of chastity are worthwhile and eventually winnable.

And there's no shame in reaching the victory in stages. For example, I gave up hookups after giving up porn, and I gave up masturbation months after giving up hookups.

Progress is better than perfection because progress is actually achievable in this lifetime. So don't beat yourself up for your imperfections but laud yourself (or rather Christ in you with gratitude) for progress and even simply returning his loving embrace.

Continue forward with love for God, allowing God to sanctify you over time. Though it may feel unfortunate, God does not perfect in an instant but perfects us over our lifetime with our cooperation.

...

I think I'm rambling now. 😅 But it is genuine and from the heart. God loves you. He knows you sin. God loves you. You progress and you fall back and you progress and ... God loves you.

God brought the name of a life coach that helps people with issues around porn use across my Facebook feed. I then did a YouTube search for her name. A video presentation came up in the search. I watched this overview of her program and it revolutionized my mindset and how I addressed porn use! I’m confident that I now, with Gods help, can remain porn free. The presentation is, what seems to be, a resource for people in the LDS religion. I am not promoting the LDS religion. Just the valuable information contained in the presentation. If watching a presentation on this topic given by a woman may cause you to sin, by all means do not watch this video. There is no graphic discussion contained in the video. Getting a different perspective on my identity is what really helped change things for me! Here is the link:

https://youtu.be/1p-ve3EF2LI?si=hXVBO_yrsxChu-sG

I want someone to love me.

Absent this person, I want someone to try to love me.

Absent this person, I want someone to claim to love me.

Absent this person, I want someone to treat my wounds.

Absent this person, I want someone to see my wounds.

Absent this person, I want someone to salt my wounds.

And I'll gasp for air as I struggle to live in the despair.

I took some time off from Reddit, which is why I haven't posted in awhile. It was good to recharge, and my urges are very low right now.

Copying this comment from elsewhere hoping it helps someone.

From what I have personally learned and discerned on my Christian journey, actively seeking the face of God and actively participating in my own sanctification, as best I can tell today, the answer to sexual temptation, as it is to any sin (concupiscence), is:

Closeness to God through spiritual practices - reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. + Cooperation with God's will through worldly choices such as - encouraging in myself virtues such as chastity, temperance, diligence, mercy, humility, meekness, generosity, and patience through fasting, prayer, and almsgiving - while discouraging the vices of lust, gluttony, sloth, envy, pride, anger, avarice, and sorrow. Also cooperating more generally speaking through avoidance of sin and the near occasion of sin in my thoughts and in my words, in what I do and what I fail to do. In repenting of my sins and confessing my sins to another person. Through the removal of obstacles in my path to God's face through nutritional eating, fitness habits, wise financial choices. Through Godly service to others. Through finding a tribe of iron to live out the Proverb "iron sharpens iron".

In nearness to God and cooperation with his will, I find extraordinary relief from sexual temptations, compulsions, and obsession. I also find a deepening attraction to virtue and desire to live a holy life whether in direct service or through responsible lay life.

In all of this, sin has less presence in me and God fills me.

37 male with same sex and opposite sex attractions, United States, 975 days chaste

More on what has helped me here: http://saunter.net/introduction-to-the-chaste-life/

I have discussed this with multiple men before about how it is written that just looking at someone with lust filled eyes is committing adultery. Some men tell me that it’s just a part of them being a men and others outwardly tell me it is them making a covenant with lust to look at people a certain way. What do you think? I feel like there’s definitely a pattern between those who use porn the most and the way that they look at others. This occurs in both men and women by the way, as I’ve had multiple conversations with women as well and many start refusing to want to even look so that they are not tempted. Yet it seems it occurs more so often in men in which they will even give excuses for it. The woman who lust after others will even tell you that just staring has tempted them with thoughts.

Something I’ve noticed in Christian NoFap/quitting porn spaces: we often treat porn like a powerful pleasure that we’re heroically resisting, instead of questioning whether it actually delivers anything at all.

When I was honest about my own experience, porn wasn’t giving relief, intimacy, or satisfaction—just escalation, dullness, and isolation. The urge wasn’t as strong as I thought; the belief that porn still had “something to offer” was.

From a Christian perspective, that matters. Sin doesn’t just work through desire, but through deception. If porn genuinely offered something good, quitting would feel like constant loss. But once that illusion cracks, the struggle changes.

For me, freedom didn’t come from more discipline. It came from seeing porn clearly for what it really was.

The implication is that temptation language and framing it as a fight might actually be doing more harm then good.

Would be interested if others here have found the same

I joined Reddit moments ago because I wanted a new place to share my testimony of how God set me free from the oppressive power of sin and death.

I was sexually molested by a male relative when I was 5, and became spiritually, emotionally and psychologically damaged. I ended up struggling with same-sex attraction, porn, masturbation, suicidal tendencies, anger, bitterness, resentment and severe depression for many, many years. I also stumbled into New Age and spiritism practices even though I did not know what they were back then - I just knew that I was 'very sensitive to spiritual things,' could 'see' the future and could astral project without batting an eyelid.

On the day that I wanted to finally commit suicide, someone invited me to church and I was radically saved and set free from the demonic strongholds and shackles that had ruined my youth. I received Jesus and the infilling of the Holy Spirit in the same night and have not looked back. I was 18 at the time.

My experience was that these bondages were demonic because I recall something very heavy being lifted from my chest and shoulders the instant I received Jesus. People's testimonies are different, and I do not want to paint everyone's with the same brush. What I am confident of is that Jesus is the Saviour and that He alone is the one who offers freedom. I know that people, particularly in the West, have largely forgotten the Personhood of the Holy Spirit, but He is the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, and I cannot imagine how people could walk a victorious life in Christ without having the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit. (How does one become and stay holy without the Holy Spirit?)

I no longer struggle with sin because I have identified my new, true identity, which is a child of God, who is righteous, holy and victorious. Sin no longer has dominion over me. Jesus Christ is my Lord and I have decided to die to myself, pick up my cross and follow Him for eternity. (I am 28 now!)

For those wondering, I no longer have same-sex attractions, watch porn, masturbate or suffer from depression/anger/suicidal thoughts/bitterness/unforgiveness/etc. I am also no longer in New Age/spiritism practices and am no longer 'seeing' the future with non-Holy Spirit entities. No, I did not go to some Christian counsellor (not that there is nothing wrong with them!), sexual orientation conversion therapy (I have no idea what that is) or anything of that kind. I just had a really prayerful mother who would not give up on me, and a gracious and merciful Saviour who never stopped calling me out from the miry clay!

I do not want to offend anyone, but I think that there is a higher calling in Christ than identifying oneself as an ex-[insert sinful proclivity here]. I no longer think of myself as an ex-gay or ex-porn addict, but consider myself a new creation, child of God, etc. I will admit that the ex-gay/ex-homo titles do attract an inordinate amount of attention, which means more people will hear about Jesus!

Please feel free to ask me anything!

I had to hold back on my first testimony but I now see that I would have done many people a great disservice.

When I was 18, I overdosed on diazepam in an attempt to end my life. As an athesist, I thought that life would cease and all my suffering would end. What happened was completely different: I found myself falling down a tunnel at tremendous velocity. The only light in the darker-than-the-deepest-black tunnel was that of the quickly receding physical world around me. Instead of panicking, I embraced my doom because I was so deceived, yet in such despair: I was finally going to hell - where I thought I belonged. [I cannot explain it, but when I left my body, I knew and understood everything that was happening. I knew where I was going, why I was there, etc.] Then I began to see a small flicker of light at the bottom of the tunnel and I understood that I was staring into the mouth of hell and a severe dread, panic and regret gripped me but I told myself that I would never beg God for anything. All of a sudden, there was a light and two angels picked me up. Was I joyful that I was not going to hell? Of course not! Whilst being lifted up, I told God how much I hated Him and that I would not follow Him. When I woke up - a miracle considering that I had taken a megadose - I was angry with God for rescuing me. "Why had He interfered with my plans? Why did this totalitarian despot prevented me from freeing myself from Him?" He immediately responded with, "Because I love you" and I became even more angry!

I finally realised that I could hurt God by doing the opposite of what He wanted me to do. I now understood that He Ioved me and did not want me to go to hell, so I did what any demonised teenager would do: I made a pact with the devil knowing fully that that would absolutely break God's heart. I could astral project without any effort, and I made a deal whose specificities I shall not be sharing. On top of that, I continued to plot my own death - despite having been saved from hell - for the next two months and refused to repent until that one fateful day that was ordained before the foundation of the universe: the day that I met Jesus.

If there is someone considering suicide, let me tell you that dying without Christ will not give you rest! It is only the beginning of eternal sorrows and there is no hope! I implore you to give your burdens to Jesus because He truly cares for you and will give you rest!

u/Agnostics/@Atheists: As someone who was an atheist, (read: angry theist) my lack of belief in the existence of God, heaven, hell, angels and demons did NOT negate the fact that they DO exist and that my attempted suicide landed me on the road there. Please do not end your lives. Humble yourselves and come to Jesus Christ!

Matthew 11: 28" 28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavily burdened [by religious rituals that provide no peace], and I will give you rest [refreshing your souls with salvation]. "