4 Crucial Practices, Point No. 4: Engage The Enemy
Of the 4 crucial practices for purity and freedom now, and into the future, the 4th point is in many ways the one that gets neglected most often.
Sure it’s hard, but most men eventually get it that unless they come clean about their addiction to porn, nothing will change. And they can usually see the benefit of having a band of brothers. While many men will resist the idea of dealing with their wounds, over time — in the company of their band of brothers — men normally find the strength to venture into that intimidating territory.
But the final point, the need to engage The Enemy, Satan, in battle, so often gets lost, overlooked or deliberately neglected. Some men, for theological or other reasons, want to talk about their entire life as a Christian as though the Evil One does not even exist. Others, willing to admit that Satan is real, insist that he has no real power and generally does not operate in our lives.
Scripture tells a different story.
1 Peter 5:8-9 says:
8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says:
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Elsewhere in scripture Paul tells us to put on the full armor of God so that we can stand firm against the Devil’s schemes. What Peter, Paul and the rest of scripture understood was that there is a real Enemy, one who hates us fiercely, and we are to go through this world prepared for battle on the spiritual level. The strength we fight with is not our own, it is Christ’s, who conquered death and made a spectacle of the prinicipalities and powers of Darkness.
But to say that Christ has won the victory over Satan as a result of His death on the cross and the resurrection does not negate the reality that still we are called to engage The Enemy through prayer and the renouncing of strongholds.
For many years this was the component of my personal battle with porn addiction which was missing altogether. i was crazy in the way i constantly battled the addiction in my flesh, relying on my own strength and will power. The addiction to pornography is demonic at its core, because pornography is a deceptive distortion of God’s good gift of sex. There is only one Father of Lies, and he must be battled not with weapons made of flesh and blood, but with the diving power that demolishes strongholds.
Intentional Warriors 
One Response to “4 Crucial Practices, Point No. 4: Engage The Enemy”
[…] When dealing with pornography addiction, it’s impossible to find freedom without engaging The Enemy. […]