So I'm just gonna preface this episode and say that I did not wanna come on here talking about this, but God has been putting this on my heart for the past few months to speak out about the struggles that I've faced. I know that other people are dealing with these same struggles or have dealt with these struggles and I know that I just have to walk in obedience. I have to just do what God's called me to do. He's been putting it on my heart to be honest, open up, and make this episode, and I know he's gonna put the right people in front of this episode and some chains will be broken, some strongholds will be broken in the name of Jesus Christ. I just have to be a vessel for his work So in today's episode, we will go into lust, pornography, and struggles that I've faced. In past episodes, I've talked about different addictions and struggles that I've faced, but I have never opened up about the things that I'm going to be talking about today.
First I want to say a quick prayer: "Abba Father, please guide me and protect me. Help me to know exactly what to say to make an impact in other people's lives and help the people who are reading this be able to discern the truth, to know the truth, discern it, and live by it. I pray that chains are broken in the name of Jesus Christ today. I pray that chains are broken with people who have these strongholds of lust, chains of watching pornography, and the different struggles and sins that they're facing. Lord, I pray that chains will be broken in the name of Jesus. Break them, break the strongholds, break the stronghold of fear, the spirit of fear that I am feeling right now Lord, break it and deliver me from it. I pray that you just give us strength Lord. You provide so much, you give us so much strength. You help us with every aspect of our lives and I am beyond grateful for you Lord. I know that I just have to walk in obedience. Thank you Lord for all that you do. Thank you for giving me peace and comfort in this moment. Thank you for guiding and protecting me. I know that whoever's listening to this, whatever they're supposed to get from it, they will get from it and I'm just so grateful for you, Lord. I love You with every ounce of my being. In Jesus' name, Amen."
So I was first introduced to pornography when I was 13 years old. One of my friends had watched it with her friends and she was like "Oh my gosh, I watched something. It's really weird, but let's watch it." So I ended up watching it with her and we literally both got sick to our stomach, like I felt like I was gonna throw up, I was sick to my stomach. After that I was just like, "Oh my gosh, that's weird. I'm not watching anything like that anymore." That instance planted a seed and that seed grew and blossomed into years and years of me struggling with porn addiction. I started getting very curious, having boyfriends and having older friends that did things that I didn't do and were telling me about different things. I didn't actually want to experience those in full so I went to videos. I started looking up stuff on the internet and I didn't realize the hold that me just being curious and looking up these things was going to put a hold on me for so many years of struggles and secret struggles that I dealt with for years that I didn't even tell anyone.
Just over the past couple of years I started opening up to a few of my family members that had no idea, but I struggled for many years with porn addiction. Mine specifically actually wasn't even just watching men and women. Mine specifically was women on women. Iin that time period I started being sexually attracted to other women and I identified as bisexual and I had relationships with girls. So in the mix of me having a porn addiction that I didn't realize was an addiction at the time, and also being bisexual, I was also partying and using drugs and alcohol to self-medicate with my anxiety, depression, and all these different things that I was dealing with as a teenager and even early into my twenties.
At first for years of doing it, I didn't necessarily think there was anything wrong with it. I just thought it was kind of weird that I was a female doing this because you hear of guys watching porn and like I had boyfriends that would watch it, but me being a female, I'm like, "Yeah, this is kind of weird. I don't know why I like this, but I'm just going to keep it to myself. I'm not doing any harm to anyone. Like this is just gonna be something that I keep in private." That is how the enemy gets you. Things that you do in private that if you just have an inkling that it is not right and you just keep doing it in private, that is the way the devil can keep you trapped. If you feel ashamed and you don't want to tell anyone or you're like, "I don't really think this is that bad, but I do kind of feel weird about it. So like I don't want anyone to know, but I'm just going to keep doing it in private." That's how he will get ahold of you and he will keep his claim on you. You have to speak it out, That's why I'm coming on here on this episode. I have been delivered from porn addiction for years now and I'm on here to let you guys know that you can be delivered too. God will give you the wisdom to not go back.
When I started feeling the first tug in my heart to speak out about this was after I had watched an episode from Madison Prewett Troutt on "Stay True" podcast. She had opened up about her porn addiction as well. I watched Maddie on The Bachelor. I had been following her for a couple of years now and so to me, she was just this great Christian woman who couldn't really understand or relate to my struggles because I have had so many worldly struggles and so many times that I have just gone way down in the deep end. I just didn't think she could relate to me because I just thought she was this good Christian girl who grew up as a Christian and never really had struggles that I had. So when she did open up about that it helped me to realize that we are all human, we all make mistakes, and we all have struggles that no one even knows about. A lot of the times our struggles are not very different from each other and we can't judge a book by its cover. Whenever we are upfront and honest and tell people about the struggles that we've had that can help them be able to open up about their struggles and also it can help them start to break free from their struggles in the name of Jesus whenever they give it all to Him.
Now let's get into some scripture:
"For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world." -1 John 2:16
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." -Matthew 5:28
"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." -Hebrews 13:4
"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." -Galatians 5:16
So we have to make sure that we're living by the Spirit. Even though I grew up as a Christian, I thought that I loved Jesus, and I thought that I had a relationship with him and I knew God, I was not living by the Spirit. I wasn't keeping in step with the Spirit and I wasn't asking the Holy Spirit to move me to do the will of God the Father. That is so important for us to do every single day. Our true home is in heaven with Jesus and God the Father. While we're on this earth, the devil is prowling around. 1 Peter 5:8 says, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." I was not being self-controlled at all during these years of being a teenager and early into my twenties. I was fully giving into this world and my desires and in very toxic relationships. I was letting my emotions get the best of me. I was so deep into sin and so much into the pit of darkness that I did not realize what I was doing. It got to the point where when I did start to realize that I was getting out of hand, I felt such a hold and I didn't know what to do.
The only thing that I could do is cry out to Jesus Christ. I got on my knees and I cried out to Jesus and I asked him to take it all away from me. I had to surrender all to him. I didn't know what else to do. It took a lot for me to get to that point. I remember when I started feeling very shameful and I did try to stop watching porn. I got to the point where I was like, "I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop." Then something would happen, my emotions got the best of me, and before I knew it I was watching it again. Then I would feel so bad afterwards. I would throw my phone on the bed. I just felt so ashamed and full of guilt and I felt like I could not talk to God at the time. I felt like I couldn't ask him for help because I knew that I was doing something that I shouldn't do and I was scared to face him. I was full of guilt and shame. That is also tactics of the enemy. The devil will put guilt and shame in your mind to get you to think that God doesn't love you anymore, because how could He love someone that does something so terrible? Or how could he love someone that continues to sin and do things that they know they shouldn't do? So then you start to pity yourself. You start to be so full of guilt and shame that you don't even want to face God. Why would he help you if you're not calling out to him and you're coming to him with all of your heart and you're asking him for help? He's not going to help if you don't ask him for it.
So when I finally did feel like enough was enough and I just cried out to Him and I asked him, "Lord, please take this from me." He delivered me from it, and He will deliver you from this. If you are struggling with lust, pornography, if you're struggling with being attracted to the same sex, if you're struggling with having sex before marriage, if you're struggling with these sinful worldly desires, He will deliver you. Since I have been more into studying, listening to podcasts, and sermons about this, I realized there are specific prayers that you can say. You can ask God to develop and deliver you from it. You can ask him to break the strongholds of lust, the strongholds of pornography, break the strongholds of guilt and shame, and whatever chains that you have, ask him to break those. He will deliver you from it but you have to take that first step of saying, "Lord, I surrender everything to you. Please take this away. Reveal the strongholds in my life." Maybe you don't even realize what all is holding you back. Maybe you don't realize the chains that are in your life right now. Ask him to reveal them. Call out those chains and ask him to deliver you from them.
Then once you're delivered, that's not it. It's not as simple as, "Okay, I'm delivered. I'm never ever going back to this again." You have to then ask for wisdom. Continue to ask for wisdom to not go back to that. I have heard several different scriptures and sermons of people talking about not going back to Egypt. Egypt is the place where the Hebrews were enslaved. Moses had brought the Israelites out of Egypt and then they went into the Promised Land. But they were in the desert for 40 years and then Moses parted the Red Sea and all of these things are in the Book of Exodus, If you haven't read that story, then I definitely recommend you read it. Hearing about not going back to Egypt and asking for wisdom to make sure you don't go back to Egypt helped me so much because I knew that I was delivered, but I wasn't asking God for wisdom to not go back. So I still struggled with the thoughts of doing certain things, and there were still some strongholds that started creeping back in because I wasn't asking for wisdom to not go back and for him to open up my eyes to see the tactics of the enemy. The enemy uses certain things to try and get me trapped and to get me back into where I was before and my eyes are opened to that now. When we're asking for wisdom every day, we also need to ask the Holy Spirit to move us to do the will of God the Father. When we're walking in step with the Spirit and we are letting the Holy Spirit guide us, that is going to make us a lot less likely to give into temptation, to give into the world and worldly desires, and our eyes are going to start to be opened up to the truth. We still start to see things in a completely different light and we will be able to discern if it's from God or if it's from the enemy, if it's something worldly or if it's something Godly.
Here are some other scriptures:
"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." -Colossians 3:5
"Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." -2 Timothy 2:22
I just want to say something really quick. It's not too late. It is not too late to give it all to God and to surrender to Him right now. You may have been struggling with this for years. You may have been secretly struggling with this thing and you feel like "I'm too far gone. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. There's no sense in me even trying to give it all because I've tried time and time again and it just isn't working." I'm telling you it is not too late. I felt like that. I tried for years. I tried and I succeeded a little bit for a couple of months. I'd stop and then I would fall right back into it. Whenever a breakup would happen or something tragic in my life would happen, I'd go right back to it and I would be like, "Ugh, I just, I can't get rid of this." I'm telling you it's not too late. You have to surrender all to God. He will break those chains. He will deliver you. Then you have to make sure you're asking for wisdom and keeping in step with the Spirit. Make sure that you're using the Bible as a weapon against the enemy because the enemy is always around. He's prowling like a roaring lion and we have to make sure we're geared up. We have to make sure that we are praying and keeping in constant communication with God. We have to ask the Holy Spirit to move us to do the will of God the Father and that we keep our eyes open and that we are able to discern what is good and what is evil, what is godly and what is not.
If we're just in the dark, we're never going to be able to get rid of our strongholds, because the devil has a hold of us. When we shed light, and Jesus Christ is light, whenever Jesus Christ is in our lives, we are constantly being reminded of that light, we're walking into the light, and we're being in step with the Spirits, then everything changes. It's not too late for you. Jesus Christ loves you so much and He wants that close intimate relationship with you. He wants you to give Him your all. He wants to forgive you. He wants to save you and He wants to give you eternal life. If you've been saved, you have eternal life, and you're just stuck in these strongholds, He wants to deliver you from those. But He is a gentleman and He wants you to come to him and ask Him to deliver you. He wants you to come to Him with all of your heart and rest in his peace, His love, His mercy, and His grace. His grace is sufficient for us, for his power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, we can boast all the more gladly about our weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on us. I paraphrased that, but that's from 2 Corinthians 12: 8-9
Here are two last scriptures:
"Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable." -Leviticus 18:22
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error." -Romans 1: 26-27
So I'm just going to put that right there. I know this is so controversial. A lot of people will tell you there's nothing wrong with it and Jesus still loves them anyway. Yes, Jesus does still love them anyway. I'm not saying that he doesn't. All I know is the truth from God's words. I also know the convictions that I started to feel by the Holy Spirit when I started keeping in step with the Spirit and asking the Holy Spirit to guide me and show me the truth. I know the strong convictions that I had, that it was not okay for me to be attracted to other women. It was not okay for me to date other women and to have those types of relations with other women. So I'm just going to leave it at that. When we are asking the Holy Spirit to move us to do the will of God the Father, the Holy Spirit will open up your eyes to see the things that are not all right and the Holy Spirit will convict you of those things. Whenever you feel that conviction, you have to make sure you're taking that step of obedience to get rid of whatever the thing is that is making you feel convicted. Get that out of your life. Ask God to break you from the stronghold of that and ask God for wisdom to make sure that you don't go back to it.
The Lord is so incredible you guys. I went from being so full of anxiety at the beginning of this episode and holding back tears and not wanting to do it, to feeling on fire for God and Jesus Christ because I know strongholds are going to be broken. I know that He's going to deliver some people that read this. He will deliver you from the strongholds in your life and He wants you to just come back to Him. He wants to wrap His arms around you. He wants to show you the truth. He wants to have that close relationship with you. It's not too late. It's never too late until your last breath. So it is important to make sure whenever you start to know the truth, you have to walk in obedience. Right now at this moment, it's not too late for you. God wants to deliver you. He wants to forgive you for your secret sins. He wants you to come to Him with all of your heart and He wants to have that relationship with you.
So I hope this episode helped you guys. If you have suggestions of other episodes that you want me to make, make sure and comment those below. Or you can email me at faithfuelsmyfire@gmail.com. I have some other episode ideas in mind, but I knew I had to come on here today and record this one. I actually recorded next week's episode yesterday, and I wasn't going to record any more this week, but I was like, the Lord has been putting this on my heart for so many months to do this. He put it in my heart actually whenever I first started doing the episodes, the 90 days of my journal. I knew that I didn't want to put an episode in between those 90 days because I was posting every single day. So I knew right afterward I needed to do it, I've been holding it off for a couple of weeks, and I've just been feeling it so strong in my Spirit.
I also wanted to just say that if you have been feeling something strong in your Spirit, you feel like God has been calling you, He's been putting something on your heart to do something, then you have to make sure you're being obedient with that and not trying to think, "Okay, Lord, what else do you want me to do?" That's what I was thinking. I'm like, okay, but what other episodes? Like I know you want me to do that episode. I'll do it eventually, but what other episodes? I just kept feeling in my heart like, "You haven't done the one thing that I want you to do. Why do you keep trying to get ideas for other episodes?" And it's so true. If God can't trust us with the one thing that He's called us to do, the one thing that He's been putting on our hearts, then why would we expect him to trust us with more? Why would we expect Him to give us more things whenever we haven't even been obedient with the one thing He's called us to do in the first place?
I love you guys so much.
Never forget to choose faith over fear.
-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)
If you do want to contribute in any way, if you want to donate $5, $10, $500, whatever you can do to help me go on this mission trip, there are specific things that you will want to do whenever you click on that link to make sure that they know that you're supporting me as the missionary. So I'm going to tell you exactly what to do. If you want to click on that link and donate whatever you can. So you're going to go on the website: https://globalventures.tv/give and then you want to make sure you click on where it says "support a missionary." Once you do that, you'll put in however much you want to donate. Then in the "memo" portion of it, make sure that you type in my name so they know that it is for me, my name is Lorena Espy. Whatever you can do would be so greatly appreciated. I will be praying for you guys. I love you guys so much and if you can just send love and prayers and that's all you can do, that's amazing.
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Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights
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