From time to time God lays something on my husband’s heart that he wants to share. Today is one of those days! (I know he really needs a website of his own, we’re working on that!) I am proud to share this platform with him. Please welcome my husband, David Lawson as he shares his heart on an ever increasing sin issue for both males and females alike!

In a recent IMB blog (International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention), “How Porn is Sidelining Missionaries” by Greg Handley pointedly addressed the problem of porn with missionaries and church planters.   In his heartbreaking blog Greg pleas with porn-strugglers to get help.

In this brief reply, I want to offer help to those who are struggling.   If you are trapped in the struggle you feel helpless and embarrassed, I understand. But there is help! There are real and practical steps you can take to give you freedom.

As a young man, I was sexually immoral with a significant number of women, some of whom were married. This lifestyle lasted until I met my wife, BJ. And, by God’s grace, there hasn’t been anyone else since our first date. To go into detail would only sidetrack the point of this post, but I was as bad as I could be and I’m still too embarrassed to discuss most of it.

Three years into our marriage we became Christians. Overwhelmed by God’s grace and kindness, we never missed a church service. We loved the people, the church, the Word and, most of all, we loved God. But trouble wasn’t far behind. When the pastor began to preach, I began to remember and relive old relationships. The battle for my mind was on, and try as I might, I always lost. I was humiliated and embarrassed. I was afraid to talk to anyone, even my wife, for fear of receiving the rejection I knew I so richly deserved.

Help came in a way I never expected. Someone, who was unaware of my struggles, taught on Romans 12:1-2.

“I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

He suggested the path to a transformed mind is Scripture memory. I was desperate enough to try, and I chose Romans 6.

I wrote the entire chapter on 3 X 5 index cards, one or two verses on each card, and carried the cards with me when I went to work. I would memorize each card, one at a time.   My habit was to read the card I was working on three times a day. I would read the verse repeatedly until I had emphasized each word in the verse.

Let me give you an example from Romans 6:1

• First time through

  “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”

• Second read through

  “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”

• Third read through

  “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”

I would read the verse until I had emphasized each word in the verse. Then every time inappropriate thoughts or images came to mind I pulled out my index cards and started working on my memorization. I read and recited the verses until the battle was over.

Before I finished memorizing Romans 6, the war was won.

Four things happened

• The enemy helped me memorize Scripture.
• My mind was no longer being conformed to the world’s way of thinking.
• My thought patterns were God-honoring.
• Love replaced lust.

One final thing

I also mediated on what I had memorized. I let the verses roll around my mind and I pondered the application to my personal life. I wondered what it looked like in my own life to be united with Christ in the likeness of His death (Rom. 6:5).

In Closing

Try it!

For the sake of your own life, try it!

For the sake of your family, try it!

For the sake of the lost, try it!

For the sake of the Kingdom of God, try it!

For the glory of the great name of the One who saved you, stop being conformed into the mold of this world and be a mold breaker, transformed into the image of Christ by the renewing of your mind!

David Lawson