July 19th

Every Evil Thing

"For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there." James 3:16 NKJV

Self-seeking and envy are often involved in sex addiction. For example, people return to pornography or masturbation again and again because of the pleasure it brings to themselves. Fantasizing about pornography scenes involves a form of envy in that we’re lusting over the idea of being one of the participants in the porn . We’re using our imaginations to fill in the details about what it would be like to experience what the porn stars are doing.

As a result of the self seeking and envy, many sex addicts find themselves increasingly affected by a variety of evil influences. Left unchecked, these influences can engulf a person’s life and turn them away from God. For example, Paul wrote about such people in Romans 1: 21-31. These people formerly knew God, but chose to indulge in sexual sin repeatedly. As they pursued their cravings, they descended into all kinds of evil:

²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
²⁶Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
²⁸Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

These Romans were no different from people today. If we choose to open the door to evil through looking at porn or some other form of sexual sin, we can expect other forms of evil to gain footholds in us. Some of the evil influences that often accompany sex addiction include:

Tendency toward perversions (incest, bestiality, homosexuality, fetishes, bondage/BDSM, pedophilia, etc.)
Anger
Fear
Confusion
Lying spirit
Pride
Financial problems
Suicide
Lust
Obsessive / Compulsive
Rejection
Hatred
Violence
Murder

These are just of few of the many possibilities that the devil can oppress us with as a result of our sin.

If you have opened the door to evil through sex addiction, you can find healing and restoration for your spirit, soul and body. Jesus Christ can pull us from the downward spiral of sex addiction and set our feet on solid ground. Jesus loves you and wants to restore you to the person that God created you to be. The place to start is to place your trust in Jesus and ask him to show you the way to healing. He will help you and will show you the way. For more details about this, see our study Freedom Journey.

Questions for further thought:

Considering the example from Romans 1:21-31, how is looking at porn a form of idolatry?
How would you describe the peoples’ mindset in Romans 1:21-31?
What evils did they become filled with? (29-31)

Prayer:

“Lord God, I praise you for giving me life and knowledge of the truth. I thank you that you are God and that there is no God but you. Please forgive me for any self-seeking, envy or other sin that I have practiced. I repent of my sin and shut the door to evil. Please cleanse my conscience from the dead works of sin. I take authority over every evil that I have let into my heart. In the name of Jesus Christ, I command them to leave me and go straight to Jesus. Father I present myself to you as your vessel for righteousness. May I bring glory to your name in all that I do. Thank you, Father. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

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