Have you ever stepped into the mesmerizing funhouse of mirrors?
Where each mirror casts a different, distorted depiction of your appearance? In one mirror, you find yourself stretched tall, and impossibly thin, while in another, you become squished and widened beyond recognition.
The funhouse mirror warps our perception of our physical appearance. It doesn’t actually alter our true form, but it distorts reality.
Like a funhouse mirror, shame operates in a similar way for the follower of Christ. It distorts our true identity in Christ. Shame is one of the roots essential to address and find true freedom in Christ on how to quit porn.
How to Quit Porn by Finding Freedom in Christ
Shame is different from guilt. Guilt says, “I’ve done bad,” but shame says, “I am bad.” Shame strikes at the very core of our being, igniting self-loathing and fostering a profound sense of worthlessness. It prompts negative messages such as “I am not enough,” ” I am permanently flawed,” “I am a failure,” or even “I am worthless.”
Brené Brown defines shame as “an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.”
This idea most closely resembles the biblical concept of self-condemnation which should have no part in a believer’s life. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
Shame is devastating because it attacks and causes us to doubt our true identity in Christ and distorts how we view ourselves.
A Shame Identity: The Five Effects
Shame’s impact on our identity is profound and must be acknowledged on how to quit porn in order to comprehend how it fosters lies and perpetuates porn use. There are five different ways that shame does this that must be recognized.
The first is that shame fosters deceit.
There is shame with any addiction, especially for the Christian who struggles with a porn or sex addiction.; Therefore, they deny, minimize, and rationalize their struggle.
They might say, “I’m not that bad,” or “Everyone struggles with this,” or “I’m not addicted—I just mess up once in a while.”
These rationalizations might help the believer live with the hypocrisy of regular porn use, but this self-deception keeps them stuck and fuels the shame cycle.
The second effect of shame takes shape when individuals struggling with pornography continually experience a sense of failure, repeatedly letting themselves down by breaking their commitment to abstain from such behavior.
They have promised God, themselves, and maybe others that they would never look at porn again, yet they do! This constant failure brings deep-seated shame, and they begin to feel that their identity is that of a failure.
Third, a unique shame exists for a Christian who struggles with porn addiction because it violates biblical standards and moral principles.
This type of shame is especially pronounced when an individual finds themselves aroused by explicit material that starkly contradicts their deeply held values or sexual preferences. As a result, their shame mounts, intensifying the grip of self-loathing.
Fourth, for many, a shame identity was born early in their life because of trauma. Shame messages have taken root through trauma, abuse, or dysfunction, and their identity is connected to a past trauma. Therefore, shame is deep-seated into their perceived identity.
Finally, the devil, which means “false accuser,” relentlessly hurls condemnation and shame upon the porn user. His accusations are intended to make Christians lose hope, convincing them they are worthless and beyond redemption.
He wants the people of God to give up hope of ever getting free. He puts thoughts in their mind like, “You are worthless,” “God is done with you,” “You are never getting free from this,” “There is something wrong with you,” and “No one struggles as you do.”
If Satan can’t keep believers from trusting Christ for salvation, he wants to undercut the work of the gospel in their lives by feeding them lies, and pornography is the perfect way to do this. Porn keeps the user in the shame cycle and isolated from other Christians, doubting their true identity in Christ.
Overcoming Porn Addiction Through an Identity in Christ
The Bible refers to those who receive Christ and the forgiveness and righteousness He offers as being “in Christ.” God made him who had no sin to be sin] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). Being in Christ means that what is true of Christ and His standing before God is true of all who follow Him.
What are those truths? Here are a few:
I am holy and blameless before God (Ephesians 1:4).
I am a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I am a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).
I am beloved of God (Colossians 3:12).
I have obtained an inheritance (Ephesians 1:11).
I have bold access to God (Ephesians 3:12).
I have everlasting life (John 5:24).
I have no condemnation before God (Romans 8:1).
I have victory over sin (Romans 6:10-13).
Receiving Christ means receiving a new identity and a new source of worthiness. It means becoming a new person. Old things like where we look for our identity and worthiness pass away. New things now define us, like where our righteousness, significance, and worth come from…Christ.
How To Quit Porn: Significance in Christ
The world tells us we must achieve our worthiness, significance, and identity. The Bible makes it clear that Christians receive our worthiness, significance, and identity from Christ. So instead of basing our identity, significance, and worth on our performance, we base it on His performance. Instead of basing our identity, significance, and worth on other people’s opinions, we base it on God’s opinion.
It takes time to move from living out of the old identity based on performance and the opinion of others to living out our new identity in Christ. Knowing and believing these truths intellectually is one thing, but it is another to experience this new identity daily. And as long as the Christ-follower struggles with porn, they’ll move away from Christ as the source of their identity and toward a performance-based shame identity. And this is a fact the enemy of our souls knows full well.
Condemnation, shame, self-hatred, and accusations are rendered obsolete by the transforming power of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. God wants a relationship with us, and He demonstrated this truth by giving His Son to pay for our sins. It is through Jesus and His redemptive work that our worth is defined, not by the regrettable sins we have committed.
Quitting Porn by Living Your Identity in Christ
Learning to live out of our identity in Christ is multi-layered. It involves other commands like: renewing our minds, replacing lies with truth, pursuing holiness, authentic accountability, and processing our emotions.
When the six roots are addressed and combated with these practices that become a lifestyle, we can more consistently and fully live out of our identity in Christ.
There is freedom from the vicious shame cycle found only through living out your true identity found in Christ.
Taking the 30-Day Challenge: A Journey to Quit Porn
You don’t just quit a porn habit but must outgrow it at a heart level, and you can’t do it alone.
It feels daunting, but our 30-Day Challenge is a great place to start as we lock our phones, lean on our community, and begin to walk toward holiness.
Pursuing holiness is a journey, not a one-time event. But it is worth it. Separating from the sexualized society and taking steps towards holiness is taking steps towards a life of freedom, joy, peace, and greater intimacy with God.
