Confessions of a Good Christian Guy The picture was blurred at first. Then the lines on the TV screen separated enough for Andy to make out a faint image of two bodies. Cable TV had just come in, and Andy was alone in the house watching the scrambled adult channels. It seemed innocent enough. Andy was a high school junior, a Christian leader in his school and church. He was heading for Bible college in two years, intent on becoming a worship pastor someday. I’ve got to know what’s out there, he reasoned, so I can help my friends who might be struggling with this. But a pattern started. Scrambled cable channels soon seemed like kid stuff. Movies and magazines became more frequent choices. Andy knew his involvement with porn was wrong. Oftentimes months would go by without involvement. Then the Internet hit in the early 1990s. Suddenly Andy had unrestricted pornography available to him all the time. Andy found he couldn’t walk away now, even when he wanted to. Andy remembers the day well. He was sitting in church, now a married man with two young children. He had just come off the platform, having led the congregation in worship—and the split between his two lives overwhelmed him. His job, his reputation, his ministry, his marriage—all were based around leading his congregation into the presence of a holy God, Sunday after Sunday. Andy felt trapped. He knew what had started out as simple curiosity with scrambled cable channels had developed into a massive, habitual pornography problem by then. What would he tell his pastor? His elder board? His friends? His wife? Another Christian man named Neil has a similar story. Neil’s wedding day was the happiest day in his life. Not only was he marrying the girl of his dreams, but secretly, inwardly, he believed that getting married would solve his longtime problem with lust. Neil was thirty-two when he got married—and technically a virgin. He had messed around with a few girlfriends over the years, but he’d never “gone all the way.†Staying “pure†was something he believed good Christian guys need to do. Even then, pornography had always been a secret struggle for Neil. But now that he was married; he could see a naked woman anytime he wanted. Surely this would solve everything, wouldn’t it? In Neil’s first year of marriage, he was surprised at how difficult marriage turned out to be. In-laws, finances, expectations, arguments—the problems only seemed to add fuel to the hurt he felt inside. Sex with his wife was surprisingly more difficult than he ever imagined. Pornography and masturbation were always there—familiar antidotes to whatever troubled him. Neil knew he was on a dangerous path. His wife was amazing—he loved her dearly—but she certainly wasn’t flawless like the images of the women he had filled his mind with for years. Neil hated thinking about other women, but it soon became a pattern whenever he made love to his wife. He tried to focus his thoughts, but over time he found his sexual appetite for his wife slipping. Three years into their marriage, a two-month stretch went by without making love once. With tears in her eyes, Neil’s wife asked him one evening what she was doing wrong. He seemed so distant from her—so unavailable. Neil hated himself right then. He hated the person he knew he had become. He told her it was nothing—just stress at work—and he promised to be more attentive to her. But that same night, after his wife had gone to sleep, Neil slipped from under the covers to his den, flipped on his computer, and settled in to his favorite Web site.Another Christian man, Brian, started out much the same way as Andy and Neil. As a young adult, Brian landed a job where he traveled a lot for a Christian camping association. Porn channels were available in every hotel room. At first Brian resisted. He’d watch sports or sitcoms—anything—but the temptation was always there. Whenever he was alone in those hotel rooms, the adult channels called to him, no matter how hard he resisted. One night, he gave in. He paid the money, watched five minutes of an adult video, masturbated, and turned off the TV. The next morning, it was hard to even look at the charge for the movie on his hotel bill. But on his next trip, he purchased another video. This time he watched it all the way through. More trips came. More movies. The bills the next morning were never easy to look at—black-and-white reminders of where he had been. But soon, watching adult videos was a pattern of every business trip he went on. Brian swore he’d never watch them at home. Soon, he found himself longing for the next business trip, just so he could justify watching videos. It got even worse. One night, Brian was alone in a hotel room. His meeting that afternoon hadn’t gone well, and Brian sought refuge in a six-pack of beer and a bottle of whiskey. About halfway through the bottle, he clicked on a video. Before the video came up, an advertisement for “Swedish massage†came on. Drunk as he was, he still had reservations in his heart: Wait a minute, I’m a Christian! I’m married and have three kids . . .I can’t do this! The impulse proved too strong, the effects of alcohol only compounding his lack of resolve. Brian picked up the phone and called the number. When the woman from the “Swedish massage†service knocked on his door, Brian felt his heart pounding like never before. Surely this was way over the line. All he had to do was not answer the door. As the door swung open, Brian remembers the gaudy red lipstick she wore, the sharp pattern of her stockings, her faded faux leopard-skin jacket. She became the first of many prostitutes Brian slept with over the next four years. The business trips somehow became more frequent. The women became more exotic—and younger. The last woman Brian tried to sleep with he met over the Internet. He thought she was fifteen. She turned out to be twenty-six, a police officer posing as a minor. Only when Brian phoned his wife from jail did the string of lies and deception become revealed. At one time in his life, Brian had it all—a great job, an incredible family, a loving wife. He ended up divorced, living in a one-room apartment spitting distance from five lanes of freeway. Gone were Brian’s reputation, job, career, house, savings, wife, children, and self-respect. He lost it all. Men, Proverbs 7:26–27 is absolutely correct when it describes the harmful end result of where lust can take us. Many are the victims she has brought down;her slain are a mighty throng.Her house is a highway to the grave,leading down to the chambers of death. Whatever the specifics of our sexual sins, the Bible is clear that our sin will destroy us in the end. It’s just a matter of time. Scripture is clear that we will always reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7). It’s been said we seldom change until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. What will be the deterrent in our lives that becomes the catalyst for our change? Will it be the potential of destroying our family? Or the risk of contracting a sexual disease? Or the loss of our reputation? Or our self-respect? Our job? Our ministry? Our future hopes and ambitions? What is your deterrent? What is mine? We are not without responsibility in this struggle. Living in grace means we welcome that strange paradox of rest and responsibility. We don’t have to clean ourselves up before we turn to God—that’s the good news. Christ always welcomes us, no matter where we are and what we’ve done. But grace never means we lie down on the job—it means, rather, that we quit our attempts to change ourselves by our power. Grace is Christ’s leading us in a glorious new direction. Grace is us responding to Christ’s call. Even though we might be so wounded that Christ needs to carry us, we are still willing participants in His plan. With Christ’s help, our invitation is to take action now to safeguard our lives and our future. Our call is to take steps to expose the sin in our lives, to seek accountability and boundaries in this area. The answer is not that we stifle our sexuality. It’s to embrace our sexuality in the clear, pure way God presents in His Word. Our call is to run toward the God of all true excitement and abundance and life.
That can happen, even in the midst of our sin. It’s never too late to turn to God. By His power and might, God transforms our thoughts and hopes and gives us new desires. God heals relationships with people who have been hurt by our sexual sins. God soothes our smudged memories. He replaces our tainted desires for ones that are true, noble, right, and pure.

This article was taken from Confessions of a Good Christian Guy (Thomas Nelson