Real Hope (Stop Blaming Your Wife)
Luke Gilkerson at Breaking Free, the blog of Covenant Eyes, spent two days addressing real hope for husbands struggling with porn addiction. The first post about the pain wives feel; wondering if they are to blame.
Since the answer to that question is easy _ it’s No _ i am mentioning what Luke has to say about real hope.
The first point Luke makes is:
When we are tempted to gaze at “the other woman” (whether in person or on screen) we must not justify our lust, blaming our wives for not looking, acting, or sounding like the fantasy woman. This is falling to the same blame-shifting of our father, Adam, who pointed to his wife as the reason for his moral failure.
Great point about how we make the same error Adam made in the Garden when we blame our wives. Justifying lust is the norm in our culture, whether it be sexual lust or a seemingly less serious form such as a lust for possessions, power or prestige. One of the challenges we all face as Christian men is the renewing of our minds such that our thinking about lust changes from an attitude of permissiveness to a mindset straight from Colossians 3: Put to death what belongs to the earthly nature.
Another point Luke makes is:
When we are tempted to lust, we also must not try to resist using mere willpower, as if merely bouncing our eyes away will do the trick.
It is spiritual warfare when we fight against lust and pornography. The first tactic of our Enemy is to get us to think we can fight it in our flesh.
And a third thought is this:
Instead, we must believe the Spirit is doing something powerful within us, producing in us new desires to live like Christ. The Spirit is etching God’s law into the fleshly tablets of our hearts. He is drawing our mind’s eye to Christ, making Him our new obsession.
This is the beauty of what the Prophet Jeremiah wrote in Chapter 31 verses 33-34, when he relays God’s words that He will write His law on our hearts. The new hearts he gives us; hearts of flesh rather than hearts of stone, are able to love him and be _ in Jesus’ words _ noble.
That’s healing and transformation. That is our way forward.
Intentional Warriors 
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