Still struggling with lust and sexual sin

[GTAsoldier]

Peace, everybody.

I would appreciate prayers at this time. I'm still struggling with sexual sin and lust. I've often relapsed out of anger, boredom, and because I wanted to. But it's leading me nowhere and I'm trying not to give in to the temptation so easily. Sometimes I often go for a week or two abstaining from these sins only to fall again. It's getting me weary. Thank God I don't make any promises on stuff like this because nobody is perfect.

I know nobody is perfect and everyone slips up often. I've come to accept that fact. Please pray on my behalf as I try to make things right.

God help me,

GTA

[WeldeMikael]

Lord have mercy.

[HabteSelassie]

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Repentance is a process, which is why God gives us the gift of Eternal Life, that me may find enough time eventually to come into pure repentance.  If God were to just force our consciousness away from Sin, we would be robots, and God can't have a love affair or relationship with robots.  God allows us free-will to be ourselves, and our free-will includes our passions and lusts.  God acknowledges our inherent weaknesses, which is why He has compassion, and sends us Grace.  If God were so insistent on punishing sin, we would drop dead at any instance with the retribution and divine punishment of Zeus' lightning bolts striking us down!  That being said, we have to be careful how hard we are on ourselves as we live through this process.  For example, focus on the positive, on the growth, and the change, on the day by day getting closer to God.  If you focus on the Sin, the Devil wins, because Sin divides us and temporarily distances our awareness of God.  When we are focussing on our sins and their weight, we are not seeing the goodness of God in our lives, in the hopelessness of grief we feel forlorn and abandoned even.  This becomes a self-reinforcing cycle of more and more sin.  Just like King David went from lust, to adultery, to murder!  To avoid Sin, we have to hope on God, and be careful how harshly we condemn ourselves.  Repentance involves self-judgement, true, but not necessarily self-condemnation, because in reality, the human reflex reaction to pressure is to rebel.  If we pressure ourselves to highly, we will only rebel against ourselves in the long run.

I highly recommend this book by His Holiness Pope Sheounda III of Alexandria (peace be upon him) titled "The Life of Repentance and Purity" where HH discusses in detail the process of repentance across the long arc of our lives, and also describes how we must cooperate in synergy with God by GRACE to be healed from sin over time.  It means being honest with ourselves, accepting our limitations, and glorifying our accomplishments with God each new day. 

Always remember that if we find ourselves in Sin, we can stop, and Sin is not so overpowering that is negates the good in our lives.  Further, human beings are inherent control freaks, sometimes our desire NOT to Sin is as much a matter of sinful pride as it is sincere repentance, so we have to also give God the opportunity to change our lives by His efforts, and not our own force of will. 

Even if you do not proceed towards the salvation of your soul, God who loves, proceeds with His grace to save you; He is the one who begins. God only asks you to respond to His voice within you. He wants you to work with Him when He starts to work in you. He wishes that when you hear His voice you do not harden your heart. Hence the visit of grace will lead you to repentance, as it led many. The visits of grace give every sinner a burst of hope. He is assured that God loves him, and that He will care for him, and He will search for him just like the Good Shepherd searched for His lost sheep. If, as a result, there are no feelings in the heart of this sinner, to lead him to repentance, then God will plant in his heart these feelings by the work of His grace. He will prepare all of the means which make his heart move towards repentance.

Life of Repentance and Purity

stay blessed,
habte selassie

[GTAsoldier]

Thank you Habte & Welde.

[Maximum Bob]

Lord have mercy on GTA.

[Gebre Menfes Kidus]

"Lord have mercy."



Selam

[GabrieltheCelt]

Lord, have mercy!

[Ikonos]

Try Vitex agnus-castus.
In ancient times it was believed to be an anaphrodisiac. At the end of the thirteenth century John Trevisa reports of it "the herbe agnus-castus is always grene, and the flowre therof is namly callyd Agnus Castus, for wyth smel and vse it maketh men chaste as a lombe".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitex_agnus-castus

A creative hobby may help to sublimate the creative aspect e.g. basketweaving, Icon making.

Exercises such as prostrations may help.

Daily Prayer of the heart is an absolute essential requirement to tame this demon.

Remenber Samson lost his strength after Dahlila cut off his hair. (Excess testosterone is converted to DHT).

[Asteriktos]

Lord have mercy!

[marigold]

Lord, have mercy on GTAsoldier.

[Hiwot]

Lord have mercy!

[Menbere Mariam]

You may want to listen to this teaching http://orthodoxsermons.org/sermons/boundaries-part-5 by Fr. Anthony Messeh.

May the Lord grant you the strength necessary to defeat this weakness.

[vamrat]

God be with you GTA.  This is a hard one to fight.

Thanks for the post Habte.  I'll probably be referring back to that from time to time.

[LewisBosch]

I'm normally a lurker, and out of frustration, I searched for "lust" and finding this thread, I want to thank and commend HabteSelassie for his post.

[Nathanael]

Sometimes I often go for a week or two abstaining from these sins only to fall again

I tell you from experience:

-If these sins are connected with pornography, then reduce radically your time, which you spend on Internet in general!!!!! (that was the main cause in my case) To spend too much time is just laziness, in this way you loose your whole mindfulness and you cannot even fight against these thoughts. In general I hate to spend too much time on Internet, you loose so many gifts by doing this. I could do so many good works instead of that.
-If you fall in such sins, don't be surprised. What else can you expect from yourself?
-And CONFESS these sins regularly and immediately after you committed them, to your priest, spiritual father (that helped me very much!!). He'll understand your struggle.
-have a talk with your spiritual father, priest. So that he may find out what is the cause of these temptations. (Maybe you're too proud, maybe your're too lazy, maybe you eat too much,..etc.) So that he can give you advises what to do against it.

[Karaleighmum]

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Repentance is a process, which is why God gives us the gift of Eternal Life, that me may find enough time eventually to come into pure repentance.  If God were to just force our consciousness away from Sin, we would be robots, and God can't have a love affair or relationship with robots.  God allows us free-will to be ourselves, and our free-will includes our passions and lusts.  God acknowledges our inherent weaknesses, which is why He has compassion, and sends us Grace.  If God were so insistent on punishing sin, we would drop dead at any instance with the retribution and divine punishment of Zeus' lightning bolts striking us down!  That being said, we have to be careful how hard we are on ourselves as we live through this process.  For example, focus on the positive, on the growth, and the change, on the day by day getting closer to God.  If you focus on the Sin, the Devil wins, because Sin divides us and temporarily distances our awareness of God.  When we are focussing on our sins and their weight, we are not seeing the goodness of God in our lives, in the hopelessness of grief we feel forlorn and abandoned even.  This becomes a self-reinforcing cycle of more and more sin.  Just like King David went from lust, to adultery, to murder!  To avoid Sin, we have to hope on God, and be careful how harshly we condemn ourselves.  Repentance involves self-judgement, true, but not necessarily self-condemnation, because in reality, the human reflex reaction to pressure is to rebel.  If we pressure ourselves to highly, we will only rebel against ourselves in the long run.

I highly recommend this book by His Holiness Pope Sheounda III of Alexandria (peace be upon him) titled "The Life of Repentance and Purity" where HH discusses in detail the process of repentance across the long arc of our lives, and also describes how we must cooperate in synergy with God by GRACE to be healed from sin over time.  It means being honest with ourselves, accepting our limitations, and glorifying our accomplishments with God each new day. 

Always remember that if we find ourselves in Sin, we can stop, and Sin is not so overpowering that is negates the good in our lives.  Further, human beings are inherent control freaks, sometimes our desire NOT to Sin is as much a matter of sinful pride as it is sincere repentance, so we have to also give God the opportunity to change our lives by His efforts, and not our own force of will. 

Even if you do not proceed towards the salvation of your soul, God who loves, proceeds with His grace to save you; He is the one who begins. God only asks you to respond to His voice within you. He wants you to work with Him when He starts to work in you. He wishes that when you hear His voice you do not harden your heart. Hence the visit of grace will lead you to repentance, as it led many. The visits of grace give every sinner a burst of hope. He is assured that God loves him, and that He will care for him, and He will search for him just like the Good Shepherd searched for His lost sheep. If, as a result, there are no feelings in the heart of this sinner, to lead him to repentance, then God will plant in his heart these feelings by the work of His grace. He will prepare all of the means which make his heart move towards repentance.

Life of Repentance and Purity

stay blessed,
habte selassie

I benefitted greatly. I share the same problem and am so grateful people are not judgmental all the time. God bless

[Karaleighmum]

You may want to listen to this teaching http://orthodoxsermons.org/sermons/boundaries-part-5 by Fr. Anthony Messeh.

May the Lord grant you the strength necessary to defeat this weakness.

I love Fr. Anthony Messah and his sermons. what a blessing, will be listening to this series

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