3. We have what its takes to be free.
Can one really be free from sexual sin? Can someone that has been addicted to sexual sin really be free? I remember asking myself this question during those periods of my struggle. At a point, I thought, “maybe it is only marriage that will stop it”. I found it difficult sleeping with a female on the same bed without me touching them though they were not often even aware that I was doing that. This was because I would pretend as if I had been taken over by sleep, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I devised all kinds of method of doing it without being caught.
Friends, regardless of how bad your life has been, you can be free. To those who are Christians but yoked to sexual sin, I have good news for you. You can be free. God will not demand sexual purity from us, if He has not given us what it takes to be free. Whatever He demands it is because He has given us.
Let me make a detour here briefly to talk on the methods people use at times to get free, which most times, are not really the way out.
Wrong Ways Of Being Free
1. When I am married it will stop.
Many of us think that marriage is an escape route for those who are struggling with sexual sin but most times this is not so. A man that cannot control his sexual urge without giving in will not be able to, when he is married. I know Paul the apostle wrote that people should marry to avoid fornication (1 Corinthians 7:1-2) but this doesn’t always work out. I have seen and heard of marriages that are having problems because of sexual sin. You will wonder how a man will have a beautiful wife but will still engage in sexual sin with another woman that is not even as beautiful as the woman he married. The issue is such people have problems with controlling their sexual urge. You will wonder why David had wives and he still had sex with Bathsheba, another man’s wife; a wife of one of his soldiers. It is not about getting married to stop sexual urge, it is a fact that such a man/woman has problem with lust.
That is why you must know how to deal with it just before you get married because though you are permitted to have sex with your spouse, but this will not happen 24hours a day and 7 times a week. Friends, God did not institute marriage as a tool to overcome sexual urge.
2. I need to pray, fast more and go for deliverance.
As good as prayer and fasting is, it is not really the solution for sexual addiction. Prayer has its place but this is not the foundation. This was one of my errors in those days of my struggle. I prayed and fasted so that I could be free. As a matter of fact; there was a day, I went for a three days retreat so that God could have mercy on me and so that I could be free from sexual sin, you will not believe the day I ended the retreat, I committed sexual sin with a sister. My life was going about in a cycle; I was falling and rising. I could identify with the experience that Paul the apostle was describing in Romans 7
“In fact, I don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't do what I know is right. I do the things I hate…I know that my selfish desires won't let me do anything that is good. Even when I want to do right, I cannot. Instead of doing what I know is right, I do wrong… But in every part of me I discover something fighting against my mind, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do. What a miserable person I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is doomed to die? Romans 7:15 -24 (CEV)
Friends, life was frustrating, I can’t remember how many times I asked God to forgive me. I knew I needed help but I was afraid to tell anyone because I didn’t know how the person would feel; a whole Brother Femi Bakare!!! Funny enough I was loved by people around me and my face looked so innocent as if I knew nothing. But I was really dying inside; funny thing about this thing is that during those periods my gifts were still blessing people around and I was really being celebrated.
I remember a brother was sharing his own experience with me that his struggle was masturbation. He said he had a three-day fasting without water and food for these days but to his greatest surprise he ended the fast with masturbation. I did go for deliverance, thinking maybe I was possessed with a demon of lust, so that the spirit could be cast out of me but friends, after the deliverance this thing still happened.
Is it that prayer doesn’t work? Yes, it does. I remember what my Pastor said; that God will not give you by miracle what He has given by principles. Could that be the reason why you’ve been praying all this while and it seems like nothing is happening because there is a missing link somewhere? Friends, if it is prayer, I prayed and I made vows. I even put a curse on myself; this is why I know that God has really been faithful and gracious to me, because if God answered some of our prayers, some of us will not be alive today.
To be continued…
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