Learning God's Precepts

 

 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42

One thing that I have noticed whenever people have these conversations about what women can and cannot do in the body of Christ the verse that keeps coming to mind is the one above. While there are many things that women can do in the body that would satisfy almost everyone I keep coming back to this scene – on one hand we have Martha, doing many things and specifically doing the things that women were supposed/ allowed to do, and on the other hand we have Mary doing only one thing, and this one thing is the thing that women were not “supposed” to do. A thing that was frowned on for women to do.

And while there’s generally nothing wrong with the things Martha was doing – it’s stuff that needs to be done, and blessed is she that does it, Jesus said that only one thing was important and that Mary had chosen it, and also that it wouldn’t be taken away from her.

What is this one thing that Mary chose? To seat at the feet of Jesus and be discipled by Him. And one thing to note about being discipled is that you are discipled to disciple others. You are taught to teach. This is the important thing, the better thing! And while cooking cleaning, and doing all the other peripheral things are good, if you have the opportunity to be discipled so that you can disciple others, God expects you to take it.

People would rather have you leave this one thing and do the many other seemingly good things. They may even be upset at you and try to use a higher authority to get you to step away from the better thing you’ve chosen – stand firm. As long as you’re at the feet of Jesus, He will not let anyone take it way from you.

 

And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” – Mathew 1:21

I have read a lot of stories and watched a lot of videos where people have talked about their struggles with porn and how they got delivered and what I have seen (and loved) is how different all of their stories have been, and in spite of how different their stories have been one thing has rung true – God is able to save and deliver and redeem.

My story isn’t long or dramatic or drawn out, one late morning/early afternoon, a couple of weeks after I had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I was laying on my bed when I felt/heard the Holy Spirit ask me to give up Pornography/Masturbation. I wish I could tell you that I immediately said yes Lord, I hand it over to You but sadly I did not.

Instead, I began to do what I did best, I started negotiating – is it really that bad? What if I give up one type but not the other? What if I gave up Porn but held on to masturbation? I began to research and present articles that argued that masturbation wasn’t really a sin. In all of this I felt like God was standing there watching me and saying nothing as I essentially went through the five stages of grief.

Now, my actions surprised even me because I had tried in the past to give it up, but the struggle was intense, and I always failed – the longest I had lasted was a month, I think. So, I was quite surprised to see how much I was fighting to hold on to something I had believed that I truly wanted to give up.

The Word/presence of God serves as a mirror, exposing us to ourselves, showing us who we truly are, and that day I learned that even though I had always thought that I wanted to give up porn, I didn’t really. I only wanted to give up parts of it, and I wanted to stop it in its tracks cos I didn’t want it to take me down certain lanes that I could already see in my future.

“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” ― R Zaccharias

We were there for a couple of hours and after all my back and forth I finally broke down and told God yes. I agreed with Him. Immediately after I agreed with Him, I heard God tell me that I had been delivered and I knew deep down in my heart that I was delivered. It was so simple, it’s actually hard to believe. A struggle of over 7 years delivered in an instant. It felt unreal.

Over the next 2 weeks, every time I felt an urge I somehow found the strength to say no – not later, but No – and it was difficult but I did it. One day I woke up, about one month after that encounter and I realized that I was free. I hadn’t felt any real urge I about 2 weeks and the thought of it left a weird taste in my mouth. I was free indeed.

Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. – John 8:36

I do remember what started me along the journey though. I’m an avid reader, and I got into romance novels, I loved the smut, so I started looking for more novels with more smut. And so it grew. It took about 10 years to move from romance novels to porn and this fact always throws me because it shows me how dedicated Satan is to destruction.

But God is good, and He is the Almighty. He has shown Himself to be the almighty in my life. And if you let Him, He will show Himself to be the almighty in your life too.