Okay I’m about to open up here.

I’ve been dealing with masturbation/porn/lust for a few years now and I’m so tired of it. Yes it brings quick satisfaction but it makes me feel guilty every time. And just about everything else in my life spiritually is going well, I feel this holding me back. Usually I repent but then 2 or 3 days later slip up again. I know praying and putting my faith in Jesus is sposed to help, but what is a practical thing to do when I feel an urge?

For me, I ended up getting really angry every time an urge showed up and that helped a lot. That along with getting up and doing something totally different. I had to be frustrated and done with it enough to have the will power to resist it and separate the mind from the body temporarily. In my mind I don't want to and I know it isn't good but my body is biologically wired in that way so I've only been successful when I can efficiently separate the two and take up mental residence opposite the desires of my body when an urge came up.

I noticed how easy it is to get caught in the haze mentally and the next thing you know you've relapsed. So I took the battle to my mind, always being aware of what's controlling it: me or my body? If let my bodily urges snake its way into controlling me, all is lost even before you..... get ready to relapse. Master the flesh with your higher faculties: your mind and your faith.

It's a constant battle, especially for anyone who is or was ever an addict. That's the only practical way I know, personally. Others may say take a cold shower or work out when you feel urges which is cool, but the battle for me is in the mind, where you have to literally wrestle and override the mind of my body with my higher mind. Because if I don't it'll override me. You have to win that in order go for the walk or the shower or the gym in the first place. It's pretty trippy the things you find when you examine what is physically controlling you.

Guard the mind. I'm sure there are specific verses on guarding the mind, I'd look into that

Thanks bro. One thing I’ve done that has helped is casting down those bad thoughts. I just have to actually do it with intention and it usually works.

Get up and move. Go meditate. Go work out.

Just like all feelings, lust is temporary. If you hold out a couple of minutes it'll go away. Start breathing and feel the feeling of urges without indulging. Become the observer. You are bigger than your flesh.

Sunday Service album been slapping and JIK has grown on me a bit more.

Wish this song wasnt so short. So good

Thanks. I haven’t relapsed in a few days and one thing that helps is to not set myself up. For example, if I was watching p*** and masturbated, the issue was me watching the p*** video in the first place. Also, I did what you said. Got up and walked around or did some homework, prayed.. whatever it was I got up and did something. It takes my mind off it.

I love the Sunday Service album Jesus Is Born. More Than Anything, Ultralight beam, Lift Up Your Voice, Rain, Weak, and their arrangement for total praise at the end are really nice

yo

Abuna Yemata Guh is a monolithic church located in the Hawzen woreda of the Tigray Region, Ethiopia. Perched 650 feet above a steep cliff in Northern Ethiopia, visitors face a 45-minute climb up the cliff’s vertical face in order to access the precariously positioned church.

"When someone plants a tree, every time it moves the tree prays for that person to live longer."

also really cool idea that the surroundings of the church should resemble the garden of eden

The Kingdom is within you

@Bestowed How's your journey with fornication? Feel like I'm at the point now where I could wait till marriage but the hard part is finding a mate to be on the same wave. You be going on dates?

Yea I still go on dates tbh but finding someone without kids and is on the wave is tough.

Granted I’m in the PNW and there’s not too many of us in general. Been thinking about hittin up the south.

Also bro, I maybe wrong 🤷🏿‍♂️ but from what I understand on how fornication and adultery are defined:

Adultery is espousal cheating between a man and a married woman or if a woman has s***outside of marriage. This includes idolatry.

Relationship Idolatry would be like Jada’s constant day dreaming about 2Pac.

Fornication is sexual deviancy. This includes inbred, worshipping other gods, homosexuality, masturbation, zoophilia etc. Also s***with a divorced individual is fornication.

When a man and woman have s***they become one flesh(1 Corinthians 6:16) This is tantamount to getting married(Genesis 2:24)

S***with anyone other than your wife is considered fornication. It's a tough battle but we must fight everyday.

"Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." Corinthians 7:2

"But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." Corinthians 7:9

@commonwrongdoer that’s amazing thanks guys! That clears up a ton of questions & is really a release.

God bless y’all, I’ve straight up never viewed it that way. My previous perspective was more of an OT way of a man can have a wife and a gf but does so in an orderly manner. I’ve never wanted to obtain that but that was essentially my doctrine and error.

I thought it was just a religious mandate vs Gods Word.

Even the words woman, Virgin, wife and widow are the same word in the NT. There’s no separation, it’s all one.

Wow