There are two issues which call for spiritual maintainence, whcih I feel deserve attention. I shall want to quickly address it here. The first is pornography, secondly, forgiveness.
1) On pornography
Now many a time a man, especially the Christian man, would feel a certain guilt in the midst of being addicted to porn. Many a man knows that there SHOULD be a restraining order on his part as he needs to “not live according to the desires of the flesh.” Many a Christian man ALSO knows that the symptoms, physical ones at least, DO NOT go away after entry level to salvation.
Now the issue here is not what a man SHOULD DO but how a man SHOULD HEAL. Remember that Jesus is all about healing in the new covenent.
I shall affirm my contention using John Eldredge’s quote: “where a man’s WOUND is, there will his GLORY be also.” I believe these words a trustworthy.
Now here is where the problem lies. If a man addresses symptoms, this is just symptomatic relief. It is fighting the flesh, fighting the good fight without a healed breastplate. I am talking of the breastplate of righteousness here. The fight must always be fought with a healed heart.
Many men who are addicted to masturbation generally have a strong need to be loved by touch. How does one expect to touch the world with healing if he himself has NOT been touched with healing. Here lies the answer, spoken by Eldredge himself: “you cannot be the man who rescues … until you are the man without a horse, the man who needs rescuing.”
2) On forgiveness
Here I’ll just give a short statement to keep it short and sweet. Forgiveness is a CHOICE, not a FEELING.
Up next I will be writing about the FEMALE HEART. Stay tuned.
