Overcoming Addiction
by Greg Coates

God created sex for our pleasure, but He put boundaries on how we should enjoy it. A river can be a wonderful thing — it gives life to all that is around it. But if it overflows its banks it can be destructive. In the same way, pornography is destructive. It is simply a distortion of God's gift of sex.

Pornography destroys marriages by killing the delicate beauty of monogamy. It destroys a person's ability to see others as Christ would see them and instead makes people objects. The man viewing pornography couldn't care less about the names of the girls he sees. Nor do the girls know him. It is completely impersonal and unrelational — the opposite of love.

Pornography leaves its victims empty, lonely and unsatisfied. Their lust is never quenched. As one songwriter put it, "Like a man lost at sea, I'm thirsty to drink the water, but the more I drink the more my soul runs dry." The appeal of pornography is that it seems like it will satisfy the sexual hunger inside of a man. And for a fleeting moment it may. But at what price? Just at Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup, many men sell their reputations, marriages, integrity — and most importantly, their relationship with Jesus Christ — all for a brief moment of pleasure.

How does a person overcome such an addiction?