Last updated on November 2, 2020
Question:
Hi,
I’m fifteen, I’m a girl, and I am addicted to porn and masturbation. I only masturbate when I watch porn. I was exposed to porn when I was 9, but it didn’t become very serious until I was 11 or 12 I think. Ever since then, I masturbate and watch porn continuously. Sometimes I am able to force myself to stop watching it for a while, but then I have a relapse. I have prayed about it severely and asked for forgiveness. but I feel like God is tired of forgiving me and all my prayers to stop don’t seem to work.
Please I need help.
Answer:
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (I Corinthians 10:13).
You speak as if you are unable to stop, but that is not true. You have always had a full choice in your actions, but you have decided that physical pleasure is more important to you than following the teachings of God. Pornography is wrong because it stirs up lust for sin (Mark 7:21-23; I Thessalonians 4:3-5).
Asking for forgiveness when you don’t change your behavior is futility. “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter” (II Corinthians 7:10-11). People who repent might slip, but they rise up more determined than ever to change. Be a person determined to change for the better.