As you know (from Part I), I can struggle to feel responsible for “fixing myself” as it relates to my sin. I spent most of Part II trying to convince you and me that God has a much better path to righteousness that involves a lot less exasperation and a lot more dependence. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for the wicked thinking that they could somehow cleanse themselves of sin apart from God’s constant intervention and regenerating work. And I think that any model of accountability founded on the power of white-knuckle abstinence from sin makes the Pharisees’ same fundamental error.
I’d be willing to bet that even the worst of pornography addicts could choose to keep away from their obsession for a month if motivated by a billion dollar prize. But is he/she any less addicted after the month is over?
Of course not.
Something more intoxicating has temporarily taken the place of the addiction, but when the month ends and the prize is won, the addict binges on what was fasted from. Thus, we lead our brothers and sisters down a dangerous path by only giving them lifeless rules and rituals to abstain from sin without working with them to consistently renew their minds with truth (Romans 12:2) and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the only way to conquer the power of the sinful nature (Galatians 5:16).
It’s the worst of sins to lead our brothers and sisters into the idolatry of the will that says all we need to do to get past our addictions is “Stop It!” Jesus seemed to respond pretty strongly to the Pharisees when he saw this attitude of theirs, anyway. We need a strong man to guard the house of our hearts, or else we’re defenseless. White-knuckle abstinence is a cheap illusion of safety from spiritual illness; we can look clean, but if we have not replaced our desires for idols with an equally fervent desire for God, the roar within our souls that longs for satiation remains (Colossians 2:20-23). Experts on the psychology of addiction agree that a person can stay away from something for years and still be addicted to it.
That’s what happened to me. In high school, I became excellent at staying away from internet pornography and masturbation (over a year at a time, people!), but my freshman year of college, whenever I found myself in the dorm room of a girl who wanted physical intimacy with me, I was utterly hopeless. I couldn’t control myself, and I had no idea why. All along I thought I had conquered this sin called Lust by keeping my thoughts and computer screen clean by my consistent self-sufficient effort, but in the right situation, my “clean house” was shown for what it was: an empty building with no one to guard it from spiritual attack. I kept the Spirit from dwelling in that part of my heart by my Pharisaical dependence on fleshly obedience, and so it was only a matter of time before I was overcome.
This led to a massive internal confusion in my life. On the one hand, I was so good at “staying pure” throughout the day; I was the master of my thought life, or so it felt. But I couldn’t tell you why a real flesh-and-blood person in front of me, offering me physical affirmation, made me feel much more like a victim of flesh and circumstances than master of my domain. Was I addicted, or wasn’t I? Did I need this or not? I determined that there was just no way to have victory over these fleshly impulses; no matter how hard I tried, I was never “better”, even after years of effort. And here’s the kicker:
I was half right.
Years of effort weren’t going to fix me, but ultimate victory was mine.
I just needed to understand how.
What the summer of 2006 actually did for me was to help me identify lies in my life that Satan was using (“the armor in which the strong man trusted”) to tell me that I needed a female’s physical attention to prove myself attractive, desirable, and masculine. I needed to know that God calls me his masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10), and that no worldly attention can convince me of what is only true in Christ (which I had been learning the hard way for a year, but was slow to acknowledge it). I needed to see that events in my past that Satan leveraged to plant and reinforce his constant lie of “You aren’t desirable” were not determinants of my identity. The Word of God determines my identity. And then I needed to genuinely trust what He says, and walk according to it. And what do you know, He actually proved it to me.
So how, then, can we hold our brothers and sisters accountable in a way that doesn’t encourage dependence on the flesh, but on the Spirit of God? How do we help others identify crippling lies of Satan that were planted long ago and reinforced over years, to the point where they were wooed so subtly into slavery that they can no longer recognize their chains? That, my friends, will just have to wait until the next post…
But for now, you can listen to Dallas Willard talk about these same ideas much more intelligently:
Related posts:
The last two posts were really clear and excellent, Mike. Your interpretation of the strong man is intriguing and insightful. I look forward to taking a closer look at those passages. I also look forward to your practical/systemic application of the truths you communicated in the last two posts.
Hi Mikey,
I felt that this whole series was excellently done. Your interpretation of scripture was enlightening. I had not previously thought of the metaphor in that way. Also, I enjoyed the focus on practical applications in this post.