March 15th

Prayer for Purity 

¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. ² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. ⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. ⁶ Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. ⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. ⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. ⁹ Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. ¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. ¹⁴ Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. ¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.  ¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. ¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:1-17 NIV 

I found this psalm of King David especially helpful to pray during my former sex addiction and the recovery period that followed.   I received both an instantaneous healing and a long-term healing that continues to work in me.  The instantaneous healing was from the compulsion to look at porn and masturbate.  The long term healing was learning how to control my eyes and thoughts in purity.  This was God’s answer to my prayer for a clean heart.   

God didn’t take the porn images from my memory, but he did help me learn self-discipline to not think on those images.  The more time that passes when I don’t think on those images, the more the images fade from my memory.   

No matter how many times you may have sinned, it is not too late now to ask for God’s forgiveness and help for freedom.  Consider what David had done prior to praying this prayer:  he had lusted after Bathsheba, committed adultery with her, had her husband sent into battle to be killed, and took her for his wife.   David suffered severe consequences from these actions, including the death of his child and strife entering his family.   Even so, God answered David's prayer of repentance and plea for purity.  (See 2 Samuel 11-12 for the whole story)  

I encourage you to pray Psalm 51 often if you are seeking freedom from a sexual addiction.  If you are battling with the temptations to view pornography, you can add this additional request to your prayer:  “Lord, please create clean eyes in me.  Please help me to not view evil things with my eyes.”   

Questions for further thought:

• Was David’s act of looking at Bathsheba any different from looking at pornography?

• David’s lust led to a sinful binge that had tragic results.  Can you think of an instance in your life when you allowed your eyes to lust after something and it led to more sin?

• How does confession of our sin help us to have truth in our inward parts (vs.6)? (1 John 1:9) 

Prayer:  Recite the above excerpt from Psalm 51 as a prayer.