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shedlight
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Posted: Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 04:09 am |
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Hello Brothers:
I had been fighting Porn addiction for the last 7 years of my life and had been addicted for almost 16 years. I have finally been set free and I mean free….yes…free of the bondage.
Jesus will deliver you too! I know you already know this but you are still struggling with pornography. The Bible says that Our people were destroyed for a lack of knowledge!
I have documented some of that knowledge at the website below.
http://www.JesusOvercame.com
Please help me spread the site around and let’s close the door to this giant once and for all!
God Bless 
Last edited on Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 03:52 pm by shedlight
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There is hope and yes...the compulsive urge will stop. Go to http://www.JesusOvercame.com
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TimM
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 01:55 am |
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Welcome, shedlight!
Neither here nor anywhere I could find on your website do you say anything about your own story. I wonder if there is anything about your own journey you feel comfortable sharing? I always find accounts of people's own experience much more helpful and illuminating than abstract theological doctrine, but that may just be me.
Welcome, in any case.
Tim M.
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shedlight
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 02:13 am |
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Tim,
The whole website is designed upon the wisdom that God showed to me through my struggles. You can email me at mail@jesusovercame.com to discuss anything you want to know regarding specifics. I don't have any problem sharing them with you.
God Bless
____________________
There is hope and yes...the compulsive urge will stop. Go to http://www.JesusOvercame.com
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bigj714
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 10:25 am |
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good site.....the part that helps you hate porn.....really convicting.......thanks
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TimM
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 12:56 pm |
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shedlight,
I guess what I meant was that the website seems to be phrased pretty heavily in terms of what's true for "you", a reader. I didn't feel like I learned anything about the experience of the author himself. Reading the site, I couldn't tell whether it had been written by a sex addict or not. I couldn't tell what the experiences of the author were. I couldn't tell whether the author was now free, and how long the author had been free, and what the author's life was now like. I couldn't tell whether what I was reading was based on real experience of a real person who had been through it, or on theories that the author hoped might work for him or for somebody else someday.
I'm sensitive to this for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I spent an awful lot of years thinking I understood how temptation should be resisted and how faith should be built, but unable to do those things in my own life. I could talk about theology, but I couldn't actually get sober. My own experience includes decades of hiding from myself and others and at the same time inadvertently misleading myself and others. When someone tells me, "Here's what you have to do," but doesn't share their own experience, I therefore naturally worry that I may be hearing what the speaker believes and wishes were true, but not what has actually been true in their own life. And when someone who hasn't told their story talks about what will happen to "you" in ways that don't match my own experience, then it's not easy to relate to their message. For instance, I'd be much more interested in hearing your experience of failure with 12-step programs than in just hearing a blanket assertion about how they will fail me, which has not been my experience.
Second, I'm sensitive because boards like this are full of people starting into recovery full of enthusiasm and sure they have found the solution for real this time. These folks often march in full of commendable enthusiasm ready to change the world and sure they know what's right for everyone else, even though they themselves have only been sober for a few days or weeks. Often they haven't yet thought deeply about themselves, and so they give advice to others. Often their ideas end up not working for them or for others, and in a few weeks they relapse and disappear.
Now let me be clear that I'm not saying that you're guilty of any of these things. You haven't shown yourself clearly enough for me to tell one way or the other. In the absence of contrary evidence, I assume that you are speaking from experience, and that you have been sober and stable and serene for a long time, and that you are able to share openly with others, and that there is depth in your life. I just don't feel you have yet effectively shown us those things.
As a matter of effective communication, I think addicts often relate a lot better to people who do share their own stories from a position of humility and brokenness and who say in simple and concrete terms what they themselves felt like and how their own lives changed, rather than people who don't reveal themselves and who talk abstractly and seemingly from above about what those still in bondage need to do.
Again, I'm not trying to be hard on you. Thank you for building your web site and for coming here to share. I just wonder if your message might not better reach listening ears if we could see the person behind it and relate to his experience as matching ours.
Do well, and thanks again for your work.
Tim M.
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shedlight
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 03:51 pm |
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I understand what you are saying Tim but let's remember not to deviate from the testimony, experience, and teachings of the only "person" that truly matters.
That person is Jesus... and he already showed us everything we need to know.
The Bible already delivered to us the once and only true formula to conquer our sexual addictions. It is all written there...we just need to find it and understand it.
If God gave it to us all step by step in one book then we would not have to read anything else of the Bible once we were done with that part.
He wants us to study Him by reading and understanding the Bible. The Bible is the complete life manual covering everything we need to know about our stay in earth and our coming into eternal life.
This is the purpose of http://www.JesusOvercame.com . To combine biblical teachings with actual experiences so that we can understand not just pornography but the works of the devil and in that way be prepared to combat this Giant. It is however up to us to seek His wisdom directly and submerge ourselves into prayer and fasting.
The Word of God is truth and all its teachings will apply now and forever. Remember:
God is no respecter of persons, what he will do for me, he will also do for you.
There is power in the Blood of Jesus and in the Word of the Lord.
So I guess what I am saying to you is.....
Get to know God in a more intimate way because there lays the answer you are looking for.
I also struggled for a long time and nothing seemed to work. It wasn't until I stopped trying my own ways and submitted to God and not only knew His Word but understood His Word, that I was set free.
It was the understanding of the Power of the Blood of Jesus that got rid of the compulsive desire. It was the hatred of the sin together will all the other teachings that kept me from going back.
God is going to require a daily commitment from you to stay free once you are released from the bondage. The moment we stray away that will be the moment the "dog returns to its vomit".
Tim, I will keep you in prayer. I know you will overcome this Giant and many others.
God Bless
Last edited on Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 04:14 pm by shedlight
____________________
There is hope and yes...the compulsive urge will stop. Go to http://www.JesusOvercame.com
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TimM
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 07:13 pm |
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Thanks for the reply. Obviously my thoughts are just personal opinions, and you have to be the final judge of how to present your own message.
Tim M.
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Seeking God
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 07:22 pm |
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Dear Shedlight,
First, I want to welcome you. Thank you for sharing with us, thank you for your heart to love us and your courage to share Jesus with us. Have my heartiest welcome!
Shedlight, we want to know you, can you share us how God works in your life? we need those stories, we need inspirations. I want to remind to you, that some of us have deep "theological" knowledge, but were blind on how God's Word can change us.
And yes... I am one of them
I am a person with some "theological" knowledge, but I didn't know God. I know that Jesus loves me, but I didn't feel that, I know that God can set me free and I need to seek Him, but I've tried only to fail and wonder where did I do wrong.
While I was leading some people in my group, I was habitually gratifying myself.
But, thank God.
He have set me free.
Free,free,free. Only by his grace.
You made us perceive that God have set you free also, would you mind share that beautiful story? we always like to hear a 'personal' good news you know...
Last edited on Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 07:27 pm by Seeking God
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bigj714
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 09:17 pm |
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thats how i am much of the time....seems like ive been trying to use bible knowledge and theology to try to revive my heart, although it seems useless. like my heart is just cold and dead. feels like ive been saddled with a perverted nature and im helpless to change. maybe that sounds like a copout . maybe it is.however, as of yet the truth hasnt set me free.
Last edited on Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 09:18 pm by bigj714
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guitarist63
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 09:47 pm |
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Shedlight, although Christians differ as to whether the Word of God is literally the Word of God or "God inspired", I am clear in my mind. It is God's gift of knowledge to me - knowledge of how to love both God and mankind. I call it God's Word and I believe it is my only guidebook to know God.
Last edited on Sat Mar 22nd, 2008 11:49 am by guitarist63
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TimM
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 10:20 pm |
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bigj714,
I wish I had a recipe for getting out of the state you describe yourself as being in, a state where I spent many years. As my active addiction went on, I felt more and more isolated from God, more and more judged by God, and finally more and more angry at God. All I knew about God was that He wanted me to do things I couldn't do, try as I might. I remember driving to church once with my family and saying that I didn't know how to deal with the fact that the only religion that made sense to me intellectually was one I wasn't able to practice.
Part of what began to move me out of that place was actually an acceptance of what you say - that I was helpless to change. I needed to be sufficiently beaten down that I could admit that my way - my understanding of the Christian way - hadn't worked, and that it wasn't going to work. I needed help, and I needed something new.
For me, that something new came in two stages. First, I admitted that I needed help from other people in the form of fellow addicts in 12-step fellowships and in the form of professional psychological counselors. I needed to find people whose way had worked, and I needed to turn myself over to them and to learn a new way to live and to be.
Having done that, I found that what they were telling me was no only that I needed a new relationship of openness and trust of other people, but also that I needed a new relationship of openness and trust with God.
I hadn't really expected that. I thought I understood theology already. I didn't expect a secular psychologist to direct me to God. I asked in an initial session if he was open to my understanding that part of my problem was a separation from God, and I was pretty amazed when his response was that he was only willing to work with me if I was willing to address my problems on a spiritual level.
I also hadn't expected the 12-step program to work the way it does. I had thought it was a lifelong program of struggling by willpower a day at a time, and I was amazed by what I found when I actually started reading the Big Book and understanding the steps. The program talked about people needing to turn their lives over to God, about finding daily communion and guidance from Him, and about healing the separation and fear and guilt that separates us from others; and it said that if I would do those things, then I was guaranteed sobriety and joy. I had had no idea that was how it worked. It seemed like the greatest hope a human being could have offered me.
And so I set about really trusting other people, really daring to face myself, really daring to walk toward my fears, really daring to become open and honest and transparent. I also set about really trusting God and really surrendering to Him in a new and simple and radical way, something I could not have done without the example of the sober addicts around me.
From that moment, my life began to change. I've still had bad moments. In the first 9 months of recovery, I still slipped three times. There have been and still are struggles with stress, with the desire to isolate, with resurgences of an old and dysfunctional life I lived for decades. But there is still a new joy and a new peace and a new faith and a new communion with God and with the people around me; and there have been the beginnings of a new sexual sobriety, with which I've been blessed for the last 23 months. I'm very much a beginner, but on so many levels I am following a new and joyful path to a new and joyful life.
Now, I had a lot going for me at the point I started into recovery. The 12-step program fit my own understanding perfectly. I was blessed by good counselors, good sponsors, a good priest and parish, and remarkably loving relatives. A lot of factors had come together in my life to produce a situation where I was really desperate to build a new life, and really ready to do whatever it took to change. Not everyone has all those blessings.
For me, though, facing my hopelessness and my isolation and my despair and the huge distance between me and other people and between me and God - facing all those things with ruthless honesty was the beginning of hope and the beginning of a new life. Reaching a place of despair where suicide and hell seemed like real possibilities opened the door to freedom, because if you really have nothing to lose, then there is no reason not to try any step that has any hope of leading to freedom.
As always, I don't know how to translate that story to work for anyone else; but perhaps there is something there that might suggest a bit of hope or a bit of direction to someone else stuck in the same hell I know so well.
Keep coming back.
Tim M.
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guitarist63
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Posted: Sat Nov 3rd, 2007 11:46 pm |
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BigJ714, have you asked Jesus directly to change your heart from the cold one you say you have?
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bigj714
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Posted: Sun Nov 4th, 2007 12:11 am |
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yea ive asked every prayer that is supposed to deliver me. maybe my heart isnt as cold as i claim, i really dont know anymore. all i know is that ive been obsessed with women, sex, pornography since i was 12. i try to hate it all but it just doesnt seem to happen. maybe all my adversity is a gift from God, who knows. im starting to wonder if i was just born with a heart of a fool , destined for destruction. things that happened to me as a youngster i know have a large part of what as caused my tendencies. although i cant blame these things completely, i have had more than enough oppurtunites to obey, but ive always chose immorality. i dont think i have the capacity to love or be loved. as much as i want to have a heart for the things of God, i dont think my heart is capable of accepting or trusting or loving. i look at myself and all i see is hatred, lust, bitterness and despair. the fruit of the spirit, not even close.
Last edited on Sun Nov 4th, 2007 12:24 am by bigj714
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guitarist63
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Posted: Sun Nov 4th, 2007 12:18 am |
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BigJ714, your feelings are not always going to be a clear guide as to whether your heart is cold or warm. If you've asked that prayer, with sincerity, it's my belief that Jesus would have responded to you.
I don't often sense that Jesus is with me (I don't "feel" it) but He says in Matthew's Gospel, "lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age." We are easily deceived by our feelings. They are not reliable.
Last edited on Sun Nov 4th, 2007 12:19 am by guitarist63
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bigj714
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Posted: Sun Nov 4th, 2007 12:46 am |
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im just right back to where i was when i walked away from God at 16......a frustrating and futile battle for chastity, bible verses that condemn me more than anything, and a so called christian family that has amounted to ingenuine friends and just a lonely existence overall. the similarities in my life today and how i "feel" compared to then are really scary.
Last edited on Sun Nov 4th, 2007 01:01 am by bigj714
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TimM
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Posted: Sun Nov 4th, 2007 01:17 am |
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Did anything happen with the Celebrate Recovery group you located, or are there other sources for support and human contact locally? For me, moving away from complete social isolation has been a hugely important part of my recovery. If right now, help from God seems impossible, can you reach out for help from other people?
Tim M.
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bigj714
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Posted: Sun Nov 4th, 2007 01:19 am |
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people just arent there for me. why im still here at all just remains a mystery to me.
Last edited on Sun Nov 4th, 2007 01:20 am by bigj714
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TimM
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Posted: Sun Nov 4th, 2007 01:35 am |
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So are you saying you went to the meeting and they weren't there for you, or that you allowed the belief that they wouldn't be there to keep you from trying? It's easy - and I do it a lot - to over-generalize and to assume the worst before it happens. What would happen if you actually went to that meeting or to others? It could, of course, be just as bad as you say; but so what if it is? And perhaps you might find more support and understanding there than you think.
My sense is certainly that people on this board care about you and are trying to do what they can from a distance and over a screen. Couldn't the same thing maybe happen in real life?
FYI, I'm going to bed after this post, so I'll catch you later. That's one of the disadvantages of support here compared with real people in your real life in your real time zone.
Tim M.
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bigj714
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Posted: Sun Nov 4th, 2007 02:03 am |
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sorry i didnt mean "here" on this website.......i meant here in life.....i appreciate all the help here.
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bigj714
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Posted: Sun Nov 4th, 2007 02:05 am |
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i didnt end up going to the meeting. i heard this long winded deal about how the steps meeting are unbiblical, really bashed the whole thing calling it ungodly counsel and how everything we need is in the bible. i dunno what to think. i know i need some accountabiility and support and im sure not finding that at church.
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