There are no groups in the UK, certainly church groups, to my knowledge that deal directly with porn, sex and other related addictions and compulsions for heterosexual Christian men, whether single or married, in the UK or Ireland. I am ambitious for setting up a group in my local Merseyside area first, but not particularly ambitious to be some sort of leader because I am struggling with this issue myself and caught right slap bang in the middle of it sadly enough. I keep falling and struggling with this issue, and I know I am being disobedient to God but at least I am praying for forgiveness and asking Him into everything. I feel moved to involve myself in this issue because it has overwhelmed me before and it is overwhelming me now. And if this is affecting me, I know there are many other Christian heterosexual men going through the same painful and hard struggle I am going through.
I don't say to God 'It'll never happen again, I promise' because I have said that and I have done it all over again. I now say 'I truly don't want it to happen again and I am truly sorry and repentant at what has just happened and please be merciful to me and forgive me Lord.' It is all I can do at the moment. As you can imagine, I am desperate, distraught, feel at rock bottom and the lowest I have ever felt, and I know that I am disobeying God, making myself miserable and feel I am self destructing... and yet at the moment I just can't stop. So, that alone tells me I have a serious problem, and so I need serious help from as many quarters as I can get. But of course, I have prayed about this too. I feel called in some way to do something to help myself as I don't want it to get worse, and in the process try to bring some help to other men struggling with this issue too.
Now, you might say, 'why not a group for Christian men struggling with same sex attractions?' Well, primarily because I am not gay or have any of those tendencies or feelings, so would rather concentrate on what I do understand and what I am struggling with. I don't have a problem with heroin, so would it be wise to try and counsel others on a subject I know little about? You get my drift. If you do have issues with that particular struggle there are groups out there aimed at you. Or, start your own church group. Of course, that doesn't mean that if I can help in any way in helping you set up a group for other addictions I won't. I will be happy to do what I can, or at least point you towards who can help. We are brothers after all.
There is now no place for hiding. To get victory over this, I need to tell my church group or at least someone who will listen, but I also need serious accountability from someone who has struggled with this issue and overcome it with the precious blood of Jesus and who has gained victory through this battle by leaning on Jesus and asking Him into every area of this struggle. We also need to understand that as we need Jesus, we need each other, which is why I have called this particular Merseyside fledgling group, and hopefully UK and Ireland wide, 'Brothers For Purity' and the blog I have just set up of the same name, which I am just beginning to work on, which you can find here at: http://brothersforpurity.blogspot.co.uk/ Just as an aside, I believe we also owe it to our Christian sisters to help them understand the enormous struggle some even decent Christian men have with this issue and we need to be totally open and honest here, without of course being in any way graphic, specific or explicit. That is not a Christ like approach. We merely need to let women know that even when we know what we are doing is wrong, and revolts us to the core, we still struggle with it all the same. I now believe to get through some of this, we must and have to be open and honest about our struggle. So I suggest that a Christian woman or women set up a Sisters For Purity group and blog/website too, for women perplexed by this issue, and also may I add for women struggling with these issues themselves.
I am asking for people, heterosexual Christians primarily, who wish to get involved in setting up a men's group in a Merseyside church dealing with porn and sex and all related addictions and compulsions. I am not trying to set up a secular group here, it is purely and simply a Christian based and Biblical based group, but all men of whatever faith or none will be welcome too, with the knowledge that only Jesus can bring us all through this self destructive 'lifestyle', if you can call it that.
There is of course a need for general anonymity here, everything will be confidential and kept in group, for obvious reasons. I will leave my email address at the end of this post so you can contact me in complete anonymity without leaving a comment at all. I have put myself in the breach, so to speak, because someone needs to and I feel that a small part of my redemption and repentance will come about through being completely honest and open about my struggle. I also feel that part of my Christian life is going to be rather curiously bound up with this issue, but of course I am asking God into this too.
OK, so I suggest these things for the group. We are all strugglers together and can encourage each other in this struggle. We also need men who have overcome this issue, with God's Strength, the indwelling of His Holy Spirit and the covering of His Grace, to counsel us as a group and with private one to one sessions when we need that too. We need especially for general accountability in this area because without that we will be isolated and feel no one cares just because no one knows. It is first and foremost a Christ centred recovery and help group, there are secular groups if you want them, and it will be based on the understanding that only Jesus can save us from this self destructive addiction and set us on a new course, bring freedom in its wake and give us a totally new life where we live through Him, and not the faulty or disordered desires of our corrupt nature or the fallen world system all around us.
I just want to add this. If I am called to lead this group in someway, in many senses God has called the least capable, the least able, the most socially awkward person imaginable, with no money, a bit of an education and someone who could not be called religious in any way, and I am not a minister or pastor or priest and don't belong to any denomination, I am just trying to live as a Christian. But, I am learning to be a fighter, and I believe we have to be proactive in this struggle, although we see before us Goliath and the whole army of the Philistines, we can win this fight if we ask God into the struggle, of that I am certain.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteWoot! I am so proud of you for stepping out. Why not lead this group? You are right in the middle and I have always said the best leaders are those who lead from within. Those who have or are struggling with something, they know how to relate to others in the same situation.
Covering you in prayer. :)
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Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI believe absolutely that, as you say, 'only Jesus can save us from this self destructive addiction and set us on a new course, bring freedom in its wake and give us a totally new life where we live through Him, and not the faulty or disordered desires of our corrupt nature or the fallen world system all around us.', and that the ones who can help are the ones who have come through it themselves. It is a good idea to form a group to help one another, and I believe prayer and seeking God through His word, together with encouragement from one another will bring all who put their trust in Jesus through all things. It is only after you come through a trial, particularly a strong trial that you realize how powerful God is. The devil is strong over the flesh, but the Lord is much stronger and when we realize what both have to offer there is no contest.
God bless you and make you strong in Him.
Thank you both for the encouragement. I am in a very dark place at the moment.
ReplyDeleteTim,
ReplyDeletewhere darkness and light come together, there can be only one winner, I know that the Lord is able to bring you through this. ' Only believe and you shall see the glory of the Lord.' were the first words I heard when I walked into the Adelaide Revival Centre thirty years ago, and they have proved themselves true, and still are proving themselves true, in my life.
I think if you keep the message of the Lord of the pharisee and the publican ever on your heart, humbled yet not thoroughly defeated, knowing the Lord is forgiving and kind to those who recognize His holiness and our own depravity, you are in a good place. Once you think you can conquer it (by doing or not doing A,B, and C) you are taking matters into your own hands. I recently saw a wonderful quote by Spurgeon:
ReplyDelete“The holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the un-holiness which remains in him”
The fact is none of us is perfect, and we all have no reason to feel that we are anything good, and when we feel we have "arrived" in a place where we can feel good about ourselves, we are in the most danger, because then we fall into pride, which is the worst sin because then we think we have a hand in our own salvation and goodness, which we do not. We have nothing to boast of and always must keep our gaze on the goodness of God, not on ourselves. If your focus is constantly on yourself and your own abilities (or lack thereof) you need to keep it on Jesus and His mercy:
"The cross exposes me before the eyes of other people, informing them of the depth of my depravity. If I wanted others to think highly of me, I would conceal the fact that a shameful slaughter of the perfect Son of God was required that I might be saved. But when I stand at the foot of the cross and am see by others under the light of that cross, I am left uncomfortably exposed before their eyes. Indeed, the most humiliating gossip that could ever be whispered about me is blared from Golgotha's Hill; and my self-righteous reputation is left in ruins in the wake of its revelations. With the worst facts about me thus exposed to the view of others, I find myself feeling that I truly have nothing left to hide.
...I give thanks for the gospel's role in forcing my hand toward self-disclosure and the freedom that follows."
Taken from Milton Vincent's, A Gospel Primer for Christians, p. 34
If we are proud of ourselves, we err, if we are continually humbled at our inability and God's sufficiency, we are right where the Lord would have us be.
Thank you both Brenda and Susan for your kindness, concern and scriptural wisdom and love. It has to be revealed or we keep it in the dark where it festers. And we have to be defeated in some way before we truly ask for God's help and realise that we can do nothing in our own strength. I am learning this daily. God be merciful to me a sinner.
ReplyDeleteDear Tim,
ReplyDeleteWishing you success in setting up this Christian group for heterosexual men, and I hope this will edify the faith of others as well as yourself.
All the best,
Frank.
Thanks Frank. We need all the prayers we can get, and all the encouragement too. God bless.
ReplyDeleteThis is great what you're trying to do Tim and I hope it works out. There are already several groups I have seen that are for women that struggle with sex too, but I have never, not even once, seen a group for men that struggle with sex. Although I have seen a group about porn addicts getting help resisting porn, it's a Christian group in the U.S., but groups dealing specifically with Christian men who are struggling with sex and lust and so on. I can honestly say I have not seen one, not a single one.
ReplyDeleteI mean there are men groups that meet in Churches, and being that I am not a man and haven't been to any of the meetings I don't know what they discuss, maybe stuff like sex addiction; but you know what, I doubt it. I doubt it because people, specifically church people, tend to shy away these days from topics like this. Topics about, abortion, sex addiction, homosexuality, drug abuse, domestic violence etc etc.
There are churches I have seen with tons of ministries but none of the ministries are focusing on the things that most people struggle with. As I was reading this post and saw you talking about your struggle, tears began to come to my eyes, because I kept thinking I wish I could do something, I wish I could say something perfect that would help you and every other man that I have come across that have struggles in this same area to overcome this issue once and for all. But I have no perfect words, but I pray. I pray that God may strengthen you, that God may help you to resist and endure the temptation you are faced with, I'm pretty sure if not every other day, maybe daily.
Tim you're different from many of the men I have come across who have these struggles. You have actually acknowledged that you have an issue, you have gone before God and prayed about it yourself. I believe He will and is already working on you Tim, just believe it. I think of all the things that men struggle with, of course I don't know all the things you guy's struggle with, but the most common thing is sex related, in some way. I pray Tim that God gives you the strength to endure, and this group you're putting together may very well be exactly what God may want you to do, continue to pray about it, you never know how many lives may be positively affected by the encouragement and brotherly love supplied by this group and other groups like the one you're doing. God bless you Tim.
Are you still with us, Tim? I looked for you at the other site, and nothing has been published there since last March, either.
ReplyDeleteBeen very busy with stuff, Jerry, and active in my church too, so little time for adding posts. Hope you are well.
ReplyDeleteAlso, couldn't access my account to get into the bloody blog either!!!! ;~)
ReplyDeleteThanks for getting back to me. I am glad you have regained access to your account and have been doing well.
DeleteHi Tim, I hope you are well. I was just thinking about you and thought I would come over and say 'Hello'. I miss your blogging and hope that one day you will return.
ReplyDeleteGod bless
Brenda.