The Shepherd Nook - A powerful testimony

"Ephesians 5v11: And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them."
I will not be writing about the text above but I would like you to keep this verse in mind while you read this testimony. Let me inform that everything that is written in this paper is written with a sincere and true heart. I am not giving you 90% and withholding 10%. I praise God for giving me the courage to publicly share this testimony and pray that many hearts will be touch by it.

Now some of the topics that I am going to cover in this testimony may sound familiar to some of my brothers and sisters because I have spoken about them before. Nonetheless, there are some things in this testimony that I have not shared before. This short testimony is my attempt to share with you a particular sin that the Lord has delivered me from. Before you engage into this reading, I would like you to put aside any positive things that you ever thought I represented. Take your time if you have to.

I look at my past to see the reality behind Luke 8v17. God will reveal and bring our secrets into the light. Nothing is hidden that He will not expose or reveal. I was very effective at “playing church” and keeping my actions hidden from men. But that was until the Lord said “Be Still!”.

As I sit back today and review my experiences, I now understand that a false belief in God was not really my issue. I wanted to grow and delight Him in my walk. There was only one issue: I was breeding sin. I was feeding and babying sin like a mother caters to a new born. The idea to engage in masturbation is not preposterous. The idea is harness through the things we primarily watch, listen to, and the people we spend our precious times with. I still remember the countless days I spent watching enticing music videos on BET, MTV, and The Box. As those videos started to progress levels of obscenity, I progressed alongside with them. I soon found myself gradually desiring movies with high ratings (TVMA) to be exact. The images and messages that I received from such movies shaped my behaviors and thoughts. They left an empty void in my life that I felt the most compassionate urge to fill. My reflection of marital sex became distorted as my constant desire to experience the pleasures I saw in movies grew. My fruitless attempts soon caused me to jump into the pool of pornography. My nights and days were full of what I use to classify as “pornography breaks.” Video, books, online pictures were as important to my body as food and water. They became mere necessities that I started to feel unfulfilled without. I eventually plunge into masturbation; one the greatest abominable sin in a Christian’s life. I began watching pornography and engaging in masturbation between the ages of 14-15 and spent almost 4 years battling this addiction.

I am sharing all this to show and depict the sequential order sin manifests itself in. Sin is addictive. I remember times when I felt totally depraved if I didn’t engage in masturbation. It really did not matter where I was or who I was with. I was willing to compromise about just anything to please the yearning. Eventually, I became an addict whose life depended on fulfilling the demands of his flesh. I hope that you are starting to see the truth behind sin and how it enslaves its victims. Sometimes we read it and the Bible and ignore it. I hope my testimony makes it clear. Ultimately, I knew and understood that I was sinning before God. My soul was in continuous distress when I tried to pray to God. I felt no connection with Him whatsoever.

There are times when we surely wish to walk away from the sins in our lives. We earnestly pray for deliverance and we began to progress. Nonetheless, we tend to hold the remnant in our lives. In my case, it was mainly parties and usage of the internet. As I started to gain some control over the sexual sins in my life, I was still frequenting sinful activities that lead and tempted me back into sexual immorality. In 1Corinthians 6v18, Apostle Paul advise us to FLEE from sexual immorality. Joshua Harris who wrote “Kissing Dating Goodbye” puts it like this. “God is not impressed with your ability to resist temptation (sexual immorality). Rather, He is more impressed with the obedience we show towards God when we obey His Word and flee from it.”

The internet made pornography excessively accessible to me since I had internet at home. At that moment, it had started to become a useless battle. I began giving up the values of God and finding reasons to justify my actions. I even went further in associating myself with group of individuals that supported my selfish reasoning. But no matter how much I attempted to justify it, no sound argument came of it to approve or dismiss my guilt and sorrow. Deep inside, I was constantly reminded that I was abusing the temple of the Lord. (1Corinthians 6:19-20)

As I started listening to friends and attending parties, my passion to progress spiritually diminished. There was a new passion building inside of me. I use to try to convince myself that it was okay to party every once in while. Soon, I began to crave the pleasure of partying. This is one of the characteristics of sin. It gives you temporary pleasures so you will always return for more while deliberately disobeying God. I cannot say that I was a party fanatic but I was attracted to the pleasures it brought into my realm. I felt as if it was a less severe than pornography and masturbation. Eventually, this led me right back into “knocking on pornography’s door”. I began lusting after and having constant sexual desires for the females I intimately danced with at the parties. When it became unbearable, I inevitably went back into the “house of masturbation”. I remember sleeping with a small bucket filled with water next to my bed at night to avoid constantly going to the bathroom to masturbate at night. I wanted to be free and no matter how hard I tried, I kept fallen short. It was then that I saw the truth behind 1Corinthians 6v18.

I soon got to a point where I became desperate for restoration. I wanted to be free from guilt and distress. I began to faithfully seek God’s unmerited favor. He answered me by putting some strong brothers and sisters in my path who challenged my Christian walk. I will not name any names but many of my brothers and sisters would be surprise to know the impact they’ve had on my spiritual life. I praise God for putting you all in my path when I most needed it. This showed me that God heard my cry and was willing and seeking to restore my relationship with Him. Despite of all my offenses, God still took up restoration upon Himself. He made His grace and mercy available to me and asked me to come to Him. (Matt. 11v28)

Today I feel ashamed of my behavior. Ashamed not because of men but principally of the way I treated God. A faithful one like Himself did not deserve such act of unfaithfulness after what He took on the cross. My heart fills with remorse when I look at how I belittle God. Today I say Glory to God for turning me into a proper vessel for His work. I thank Him for taking me from the wrath of sexual immorality and exposing me to His light.

The issue of pornography is huge in the Christian community yet many refuse to speak about it. Kirk Franklin is a perfect example of how this sin is crippling believers. It is crippling believers primarily by encouraging them to remain secretive and inflating them with guilt. And I do not believe that this issue is only an issue of young Christian men but many Christians. It may be more apparent in our young men but I pray that we don’t exclude or neglect our sisters or married couples. I am more than thankful today for how Christ changed me. My prayer is that HE frees and empowers more brothers and sisters in the faith to battle and conquer this epidemic. Today if you are battling sexual immorality, I pray and encourage you to seek God’s assistance through his Words, prayer, and fellowship. Sin hates to be exposed in the light of Christ because it is aware of its power. The light of Christ breaks shackles and chains that the devil wants us to become accustom to. by Sondy

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