Focus Four great things to focus on every day. We should focus on praying more to prepare for temptation. Second: Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. We should focus more on righteousness. This verse is a powerhouse against loneliness. If we do what God says in this verse, He will make our lives better. Third: We should focus more on being in God's will. Consider praying: “Father, show me what You want me to do.” Often. Fourth: We should focus more on increasing in overcoming lust skills. Have a time and a place to work on that every day. Consider spending a larger amount of time on that every day. Why? Because the rewards will be huge. When we increase our focus in these four areas: “All these things shall be added unto you.” Many focus on adding pleasure, money, stuff, success and a million other things that don't fulfill us or bring us joy. Instead, focus on what God wants, and “All these things shall be added unto you.”
Try praying: “Lord, take away this lust and fill me with Your joy.” If people want what I have (joy which comes from God) then they might read what I write. This then also increases my joy. Today I am also recommending that you focus on praying about humility: “Father, help me to turn from sin, and help me to be humble.” This prayer comes from Matthew five: Blessed are the poor in spirit. We start to become blessed when we focus on the fact that God is right about the way we should live. That our lives will be better when we live the way God says we should live. I know nothing about how to live. Being poor in spirit (in part) means that I constantly check with the scriptures on how to live. It means that I pray over key verses so that the Holy Spirit increases in me and shows me how to live. Consider praying: “Father, Your ways are always best.” Being poor in spirit considers others to be higher. Philippians 2:3 “In lowliness of mind let each esteem the other better than himself.” try praying: “Lord, help me to run from lust, and help me to esteem others better than myself.” I write often about how being filled with love fights addiction. Putting others higher is love. Second, the Bible says blessed are those who mourn. We don't know the history of Joseph who ran from sin. Earlier in life he certainly lusted a bit, but he also most certainly mourned over his sin. Because he mourned his sin he grew to understand the destruction of it. After he mourned his lust the Holy Spirit started to change him. Consider praying: “Father, help me to fight lust, I am sorry for my sin.” Later in life, David learned to mourn over his lust. If he had learned that lesson a lot sooner, he would have avoided a lot of trouble. This week: mourn over every lustful thought, fantasy, or split-second slip up. Recognize the sin, and repent with sadness. If we have deep grief over our sin, that leads to blessing. Finally, have very specific goals with your hourly prayers. Yes... to get the lust out! But just as importantly, to get the Word, and Jesus in. When you are praying correctly, digging into the Word correctly, and fighting sin correctly, your joy should increase. Study Christian joy. Insist on increasing in Godly joy.
To quit we need to develop the habit of resisting immediately, then working to think about something else. Today, consider printing out some of the promises of God and read a couple every time you are tempted. Psalm 37:4 ESV Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Isaiah 40:31 ESV But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. James 1:5 ESV If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” Consider praying: “Father, give me wisdom on how to quit.” Psalm 84:11 ESV For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. 1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” Always think about ways of escape from temptation. 2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. Jeremiah 29:11 ESV For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Consider praying: “Father, take away this spirit of lust and show me Your plans.” Make it a goal to spend more time filling your mind up with good than you spend fighting bad. That is how we quit for good.
Viacharacter.org noted: “Prudence means being careful about your choices, stopping and thinking before acting. It is a strength of restraint. When you are prudent, you are not taking unnecessary risks, and not saying or doing things that you might later regret. If you are high in prudence, you are able to consider the long-term consequences of your actions.” #1 Being careful. What do you keep feeding into your phone. A-I will spit back out what you keep clicking on. I am a YouTube watcher. I try to never click on things like bikini girls or, sexy movie stars because if I do, YouTube will keep recommending them to me. #2 Stopping and thinking before acting. Wrong acting gives darkness for the week and maybe the month. Wrong acting gives unknown destruction, but there will be some. Wrong acting steals your chance at joy, purpose, peace and many other things. Consider having a few “Stop and think,” notes in places where you often are. #3 Strength of restraint. Try saying 100 times daily for the next two days: “I can stop. I will stop.” Simply repeating it increases our restraint and determination. #4 Long-term consequences. Doing things God's way causes great long-term consequences. Doing things that give in to lust involves short-term fun and disastrous long-term consequences. Consider which one leads to a great life. Prudence takes us out of depression and starts us towards joy. When we start to find joy, loneliness starts to fade in a natural way. Finally, consider making habits that involve prudence. It is a wise decision.
To learn the habit of turning from lust it is important to know what you are up against. Consider trying this test. Every time you have a lustful thought, track it on your phone or on a piece of paper. To bring an immediate fight, consider praying with every bad thought: “I am sorry Lord, help me think new thoughts.” Pray it sincerely, with respect every time. What if your lust test numbers out at 847 or 1568? If you have any lustful thoughts you need new things to think about. If you have a ton, you should consider being completely obsessed with new thoughts. I have read 20-30 new things to think about at NoFap recently, especially in the Christian section. Consider copying and pasting (new thoughts) ideas onto one page so that you can study them at any time. Second, the Holy Spirit is watching everything we do to try to quit. Sometimes when we do a lot of “things” to quit, He helps us even more. Plus the Holy Spirit helps us fight loneliness when we do things His way. He wants to be there with us. Replace lustful thoughts with Godly thoughts. Pull out your sheet every time you have a lustful thought, and think the good thought. It will take time and work. But, it won’t take long before you start to think of some good thoughts naturally. Over time you will “Raise the level” of how you think. Then it will give you a glimpse of what it is like to really live “In the light.”
There are a bunch of prayers in the Christian group section. Here are a few that are good to fight loneliness. “Father, take away my spirit of discouragement, and fill me with Your strength.” “Father, help me to be content. You are a great and mighty God.” “Father, help me to love and help people more than I love pleasure.” “Father, help me to run from sinful pleasures. Teach me how to make You my pleasure.” "Father, show me how wrong thoughts poison my life." God wants us running from sin so that we can have a close personal relationship with Him. Praying these prayers as we turn from sin increases our closeness with God.
Today I will add Christian books about quitting plus one regular book about quitting. All are available for free if you have Amazon Prime. The Heart of Addiction: A Biblical Perspective. 4.5 stars WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT ADDICTION: Quitting Drugs, Drinking, Gambling, Porn and Smoking GOD’S WAY. 4 stars How Peter Quit porn. 5 stars How to Defeat the Giants in Your Life: Find Freedom from Pornography, Masturbation, and Sex-Related Addictions. 4.5 stars A Brand New You: The Ultimate Guide for Quitting Porn and Self-Transformation. 4.5 stars. This one is new to me, and I am not sure if there is much about Christianity in it, but it has a lot of great reviews. Invest in quitting porn. I estimate that the average porn user costs themselves $30,000 to $300,000 from job losses, career changes, and a total lack of direction because of the darkness of the addiction. Some users keep their finances good, but they have even worse costs in other ways. I will also add a book below that is not about quitting porn because I think that finding your purpose is one of the top five keys to quitting. The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?
This site has a list clean shows on Netflix like: NCIS series (violence) Heartland Sweet Magnolias Anne of Green Gables Gilmore Girls Fuller House Star Trek: The Next Generation Sister, Sister Crash Landing On You Madam Secretary The West Wing Nailed It! Pawn Stars Free Reign As well as shows on Amazon like: Making It Psych Green Acres Cedar Cove Andy Griffith Monk Heartland River Monsters Star Trek: The Next Generation Myth Busters The Astronauts Wives Club MacGyver White Collar Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman Little Men The Young Riders Murder, She Wrote 7th Heaven Last Man Standing Mercy Street The Middle Dr. Thorne Home Improvement Leverage Planet Earth Signed, Sealed, Delivered Chopped The Wonder Years Malcolm In The Middle JAG Jamestown Chesapeake Shores Touched By An Angel Duck Dynasty North and South Risky TV leads to porn, cleaner options give us a chance to fight. My thanks to Momremade for all her hard work. Lastly, consider always praying to turn from lust every time you turn on the TV, every time you start a show, and every time a scene changes, giving you a clue that risky things are about to happen. Loneliness decreases with good TV habits because the Holy Spirit stays close by. Always keep your mind clean so that you have a better chance to be ready when God has something important for you to do.
Why did God show us how satan talked to Adam and Eve? One of the reasons was to show us that satan temps us just like he tempted them. I was a newby loan officer. People would call our office and I would tell them our mortgage rate. But then they would thank me and not set up an appointment. But then one day another loan officer told me: After you tell them our rate, give them 5 benefits to doing the loan today. On my very next call that was what I did. I got the appointment. To succeed I needed to know exactly what to say. When we are tempted we need to know exactly what to say. Satan tells us what to think about, what to look at and what to do. And if our answer is a weak... no, or, I can't. We are going to lose. But when we are prepared we can win. Every one of us has 3-5 specific reasons why we want to quit and why we should quit. Even more importantly we all have 5 benefits to quitting. Things like: Better relationships, being a better parent, improved finances when I get my self-control back, being able to do my job better, and most importantly having a great relationship with Jesus Christ again. Here is what we didn't learn from Genesis, but we did learn it from Joseph. We learned how to do it right. A beautiful woman tried to seduce him. I guarantee you that he had 5 reasons why he wouldn't give in. And he was the wisest man in Egypt. He could likely list 10 benefits to himself if he did not give in. Being completely prepared, he immediately fled the scene. We can be completely prepared as well. We can write out 5 reasons on a note card of why we want to quit. We can write out 5 benefits to quitting. We can write out our goals for quitting. Then when satan comes around and tempts us we read him a couple of lines from our card. When he doesn't give up – we start reading again. Satan is brilliant and he is very mathematical. He is always calculating his odds of getting you. When you fight back a little bit he drops you to his b list. Fight harder – c list, harder d list. When we fight back every time he drops us to the U list – the unlikely list. And people on the unlikely list get tempted way less. So my goal is to show him every single time what list he should have me on. Today I have sharply less loneliness than I did before I quit. Putting in the work is a life-changer.
Satan convinced Eve that he had something for her that she just “Could not live without.” He was lying. Today and this week he will lie to you using the same trick. Other articles talk about the destruction that listening to him cost her. Today I will write from a different angle. When we give in and believe him we have opened up pandora’s box. After we give in we will be slaves to searching endlessly for something… joy, thrills, goodness, purpose, and satisfaction. But as Mick Jagger wrote: “I can’t get no satisfaction.” He tried, and he tried, and he tried, and he tried. He still has not gotten any. Walking through lust's door leads to emptiness and frustration. We need to be ready to tell satan something when he presents something to us that we think we can’t live without! Every day we should have some goals such as: Increasing in love, joy, peace, longsuffering (toughness), goodness, meekness, or temperance. That is why I always write “two-way” prayers. “Father, take away this spirit of lust, and show me how to have joy.” With this prayer, I am fighting the lust and I am trying to learn about real joy. I am trying to yank out the lust and replace it with something better. I have developed the habit of working on thinking about the above-underlined things. These things make me more friendly to people. A bit more popular. They take my mind away from other things that used to obsess me. They start me down a road that is leading to satisfaction. When I dig into these things, loneliness starts to disappear, and I start to have a bit of control.
When people go to 'AA they get up and introduce themselves saying: My name is Tim and I am an alcoholic. The Bible says for us to be lovers of God, not lovers of pleasure. I will use AA's technique. My name is Tim, and I am a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God. Aerosmith wrote a song called "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." Won't I be giving up something if I increase my love of God and decrease my pleasure? Not likely. The only thing that we do here on earth that is real is to love God and love others. When we start to do something that is real our joy starts to increase. Consider praying a prayer I found in the Christian group section: "Father, take away my love of pleasure, and show me Your will." When we cut out some pleasure to focus on a Christian trait like meekness, we are focusing on being lovers of God. Meekness involves humility, but more importantly with this habit, it is enduring injury with patience and without resentment. One of satan's best tricks is to blast you (injury) to tempt you severely. Developing the habit of fighting injury with patience and without resentment is loving God. Why. Because, we have all fallen in the past when bad things happened. Second, focusing on increasing a Christian trait is loving God because we will be thinking about new things not bad things. Third, the type of pleasures I like may tend to lead to temptation. If I cut some of them out to focus on loving God, maybe I would have less temptation. Fourth, do pleasures help with loneliness? Yep. But… bad pleasures are a very short-term solution with added destruction. Instead, focus on positive traits and healthy pleasures which lead to long-term success. I have added the verse about being lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God to the verses that I meditate on often.
If you fall, consider sacrificing a few minutes to write down in a notebook exactly what led up to it. Second, tell someone here what happened and ask for tips about what to do next time in a situation like that. Third, spend some time in prayer to get input on how to react next time. Fourth, do research on what made you fall. If loneliness overwhelmed you, determine to look up verses about loneliness next time. Fifth, think and pray about which Godly trait you need to be stronger in the next time you are in a similar situation. Pray often about acquiring that trait. Sixth, we always have a choice of running from lust and studying things at this site. When we choose the wrong thing… destruction happens. Write down in your notebook how you feel about the darkness and destruction and future destruction that is still coming. I found this prayer in the Christian group section: “Father help me to not overestimate the (very short-term) pleasure of lust, and help me to not underestimate the problems it always causes.” Consider printing out this list and putting it in your notebook. Seventh, write down the answer to every question about what happened. Eighth, spend three or four days adding to your notes as you continue to pray, think, and plan. Finally, when a similar situation happens again… get out your notebook and read your prophecy about your future. Then write down your new ending.
When nothing helps us change we have frustration. Jesus said that we should deny ourselves.” When we feel hopeless, it is unlikely that we are currently focusing on denying ourselves. We all have overindulgences that lead us back to bad things. Consider praying: “Father, show me what things I should deny myself from.” Second, Jesus is here for people who have hopelessness. But usually, He is here to give us a huge boost when we learn Christian traits. New habits bring hope. They help us deny ourselves. They help us learn how to get our eyes off of our problems for long enough so that we can start to see how great it would be when we learn how to follow Him. Third, bring out the sledgehammer. If you keep struggling, you have activities that are leading you back down that slippery slope. Smash on those activities with prayer, planning, and an increased focus on the Bible. When you find a Nofap article that helps you smash your exact problem, print it out. Use it to smash that problem. Smash on it every day. When you decide today that you will do from now on what God wants you to do. You will have discovered the key to hope. That key is following God and living His way. Psalm 34:17-20 ESV When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Memorize this verse to inspire yourself to live the way God wants you to live. Jeremiah 29:11 ESV For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Refuse to give up. Keep your faith. The Bible always is eventually 100% true for those who keep fighting. Today, consider saying every hour: “I will keep fighting.” Isaiah 40:31 ESV But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. A block of prayer gives strength. Believing this verse fights loneliness and leads to connectedness. These verses force us to turn our eyes to God. Dig into what He offers and renew your hope.
Psychology recommends charting what you do every hour of your week. This article is loosely based on information from this link at Psychologytools. Simply use something like a Google calendar and write in what activity you do during every free hour. Then, at the end of the week review how each activity made you feel and what caused increased temptation. Then, slowly start to replace activities that bring you down, tempt you, or are passive and replace them with better activities. Unless you are 18 don't change from sitting in front of the TV 7 days a week with 7 days of going out. You will be exhausted. But slowly, start making positive changes. Start adding physical activities, and hobbies. Start adding spiritual activities like prayer. Here is what to do if you are determined to learn how to pray, but the truth is – you have no idea how to do it. Read a chapter in the Bible. Pray about it or anything on your heart. Read one article from Nofap, pray about it for 5 minutes. Read another article from Nofap, pray 5 minutes, read 1 or 2 of the verses for quitting, pray 5 minutes about them, rinse, and repeat. Feel free to plan a bunch of changes, but especially with physical ones – start slowly and work your way up. Charting forces you to learn exactly what you are doing that is causing issues. This method will show you which days are causing a spike in temptation. What activities during which hours are causing a spike in temptation? Show you what activities make you feel bad, which then lowers your determination. Once you have your information you can print out articles about which activities would be great replacements for the negative ones. Then pray about what you should stop doing and what you should start doing. Bad activities cause traps. We will fall into them. Good activities lead to strength and the power to win.
Be specific with what you read. For example, you know that anger leads you to frustration which leads to P. So now you know to go to war with anger. Put anger in the NoFap search. First, try clicking titles only, then fill in the “Posted by member (if you like someone's writing). Click search. Sometimes you will get a lot of titles. If not, unclick “search titles only.” You will likely find many articles that talk about anger. You have my permission to copy and paste any of my articles (for nonprofit use) so that you can study them. Second, decide how often you want to read each article about anger. Third, delete sentences that are repetitive or not relevant to you. Once you have the article trimmed down to where everything in it is important for you, it starts to help you make progress way faster. Now you can read it every day because it is fairly short and very relevant. When you read it every day it starts to stick with you. Now it becomes natural for many of those things to be a part of your prayer life. Please understand… it is more important to study scripture and key scripture verses. But sometimes this method works quite well and sometimes the articles have a bunch of relevant scriptures in them. Fourth, put on your detective cap and “know” what causes a fall. Then dig deep into old articles on that topic. New articles are great, but if it is about envy and you never have a problem with envy, then new is lesser than old. Finally, if you can’t find articles on a topic you struggle with please contact me. It is good to remind me that we need more articles on ______ and that I don’t need to tell anyone to turn from lust anymore this week. Oooops… a bad example, please turn from lust.
We need good things to think about. Here is a list of Biblical gifts that we can consider today. Love: Thinking about (then practicing) treating others with love helps us quit Shepherding: looking out for the spiritual welfare of others Service/Helps: helping those in need of practical assistance (Romans 12:7 NIV) Mercy: The person with this gift shows acts of compassion Giving: People with this gift will give freely and with joy to further His kingdom Hospitality: Making people feel welcome, appreciated, and wanted (1 Peter 4:9 Knowledge: teaching and discipleship. The ability to learn, know and explain God’s Word Discernment: being able to recognize the truth about a situation Point #1 we should be thinking and praying about these types of things instead of worldly pleasures. #2 This is not a complete list, consider doing a Google search on Spiritual gifts to get a bunch more ideas. #3 When you find something that you think you can do, start to pray about it several times per day. #4 There are spiritual gifts “tests” online. These tests are no substitutes for prayer, but they might give you some ideas. Finally, God created someone very special when he created you. Your job is to find out more about that.
This is just my opinion, but I believe that God is very focused on prayers that are totally unselfish, that match up perfectly with the Bible. James 1:14-15 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Try this test. Say 100 times today: “My # 1 desire is to be free today.” When you are doing this exercise you will be surprised at how determined to quit you will be if severe temptation starts when you hit the 73rd time of saying it. Just repeating our goal over and over again starts to change us. Pray, “Father, take away my spirit of lust, and make my desire freedom.” How many times should we pray that daily? Pray, “Father, take away this sinful desire, and show me Your glory.” Read “The God Chasers.” Tommy Tenney fought to find the glory of God. And everyone can do the same exact thing. Pray, “Father, “Help me to study Your Word when I am tempted.” It is a powerful thing to study Bible verses about lust. Pray, “Father, take away my spirit of lust, and make my desire purity.” Prayer combined with doing things God's way starts us down the road towards boldness and success. Once we start really racing down that road, loneliness will start flying away.
Lifehopeandtruth.com wrote that we should “Put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true Godliness.” Right living is not just professing belief in Jesus or being a member in a church—it is an entire transformation of our mind and conduct (Romans 12:2). It is striving to follow and imitate Jesus Christ’s example in every aspect of life.” Today, pick two ways that you can transform your life. Pray and think about these things often today. If you need ideas, pray and think about Godliness, contentment or, increasing in love. Transformation should be a daily event since it beats back temptation. Consider trying to work on something every day. Pray about new things first then pray about how to change to overcome loneliness. God is likely to start to answer the prayers of a person who is starting to be transformed.
Stress can lead us to success or loneliness. Consider praying: “Lord, I will dig into Your Word when I have stress.” Consider praying this often if stress is often a trigger for you. James 1:2-4 ESV Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” I have been focusing on the above verse and it is helping with my boldness and joy. Matthew 11:28-30 ESV Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” With stress, read and pray over this often. Matthew 6:34 ESV “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Consider praying: “Lord, help me to not be overwhelmed. I give control of my emotions to You. I will spend time with You and with Your Word.” Philippians 4:6 ESV Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Pray about your stress. Spend 90% of your prayers on asking for Jesus to help you through your stress. Spend 10% asking for Him to take it away. John 14:27 ESV Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” When stress is crushing you, read and pray over this every hour. James 1:12 ESV Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.” When stress causes us to give up... we know all about the bad results. When we dig into these verses we will start down a road toward blessing and success.
