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Steve: Hey guys, Stephen Kuhn with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got Forest Benedict on the line. Forest is a sexual addiction treatment provider, MFT intern, and the program manager of LifeSTAR. Forest, thanks for joining us today. What’s the one piece of advice that you would give to someone struggling with porn addiction?

Forest: Yeah, the one piece of advice may sound like something that’s a little bit different, but really is that to have the kind of self-control that’s required in recovery, that basic self-care is really a necessity. When I think of recovery, I think of it as a lifestyle change, wherein we’re moving from a lifestyle of self neglect and self-destructive behavior to a lifestyle of self-care. One thing I think is really helpful for people in understanding why self-care is so important is really looking at how pornography addiction impacts the brain. And the way that it impacts the brain is it really causes harm to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain and we need that thing working well to have self-control, to be connected with our goals and values, and to have empathy for other people and emotional balance. That kind of harm that the pornography does to that part of the brain gives us less self-control. Having self-care in place that strengthens that part of the brain is actually really an essential part of recovery.

And so some of the basic self-care that I recommend for those seeking recovery, again it’s going to sound very basic, but all of these that I’m going to mention actually strengthen that part of the brain that gives us self-control. The first one is sleep, and just not being sleep deprived and getting adequate amount of sleep, I know people, it’s kind of well-known in the recovery field that if you’re tired then it’s a pretty common trigger, but I think a lot of it has to do with how sleep affects the brain, and so sleep is super important, getting adequate sleep, taking naps if you need to. Exercise is super important to strengthen that part of the brain. We teach a mindful breathing exercise, it’s really just focused on the breath and I’m happy to share that with you if I can, but it’s something that actually strengthens that self-control part of the brain. And even healthy diet is actually related to recovery too. I’ve written about this, how sugar can be really triggering for people trying to recover from sexual addiction. And also I think there’s a potential for becoming addicted to sugar. It’s like when we take away the porn, we still crave that dopamine and sugar is that easy outlet for dopamine, easy way to access dopamine. Limiting sugar and eating real food that’s healthy really does play a part in strengthening the part of the brain that helps us have self-control.

And then the other piece of that self-care puzzle would be abstaining from pornography, which might sound like a no-brainer. No pun intended. But then another part of it too is video games. I think that would be kind of surprising to people, but the research I’ve done is that video games kind of do similar things to the brain that pornography does. Some people are trying to heal their brain from the harm that’s been done with pornography, abstaining from pornography and video game and doing all these self-care strategies again be really helpful. To practice on a regular basis, it’s like strengthening a new muscle, you have to get into a routine and practice it and so another thing I tell people is this can get really messed up when we have things like vacation, when we go out-of-town, and we say to ourselves “I’m on vacation. I don’t have to sleep. I don’t have to eat good. I can do whatever I want.” That can really be kind of time in the brain for relapse, really. There’s no vacation from recovery. That’s why I recommend people maintain these types of things even when they’re on vacation, taking care of themselves.

And so maybe the last piece I’ll throw in there is that I find that people dealing with pornography addiction have a huge level of shame, and a lot of criticism. And so when you throw out a bunch of things like these are healthy routines to bring into your recovery journey, they could become very self-critical and kind of jump on themselves if they make a mistake or if they slip or relapse, be very self-critical. I’ve studied this idea of self-compassion because it’s another thing that I don’t think is very well…I haven’t heard a lot about it, especially in the church in particular, this idea of self compassion, self forgiveness, because what we find is that people actually are more likely to change if they are actually a little kinder to themselves. It’s the self-criticism that makes people more likely to relapse. And so that’s why I say as you think about these self-care strategies, if you can be a little gracious with yourself and patient with yourself that it’s going to take some time to learn a whole new way of relating to yourself more in this caring way.

Anyways, that’s kind of it in a nutshell. I’ve written a lot of stuff on this, self compassion. I wrote an article, people might be interested in, called The Science of Self Control, why Christians are called to self-care, so kind of tying that back-end. That’s basically it, that whole idea of self-care and how that leads to healing the addicted [06:51].

Steve: Great! Thanks for sharing that. You mentioned some of those articles. Why don’t you tell people where they could find out more about you online and where they can find some of your writing?

Forest: Okay. Yeah I do. I write in a couple different places. If you go to LifeSTARcentralvalley.WordPress.com, that’s where I write a lot of articles related to sexual addiction, recovery, provide lots of great tools for people, dealing with shame, self-compassion, all kinds of things. I try to bring in science and really relate it to what people are doing. And then if you go forestbenedict.com, that’s just forest with one R like Forest Gump, I have my personal blog and that one is actually very Christian-oriented, and it’s a lot about finding a deeper connection with God and so I will bring some stuff related to recovery in there but it’s really about feeling the relationship with God.

Steve: Great! I’ll be sure to add those in the show notes, so anybody watching this just look below this video and you should find all those links. Forest, thanks again for your time, I really appreciate it, and good luck with all that you do.

Forest: Thank you very much.

Steve: See you.

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Transcript

Steve: Hey guys! Steve with Belt of Truth. I’ve got James Tarring Cordrey on the line. James is the author and founder of Intentional Warriors. James, I’d like to ask you, what’s the one piece of advice you’d give to someone struggling with porn addiction?

James: The thing that I say as a foundational thing for all the guys I worked with is you have to heal your heart. You have to pursue being whole at the level of the heart because that’s where desire is and that’s where things get out of whack in terms of what we chase after. I think about in the Psalms when it says “I run in the path of Your commands because you’ve set my heart free” that everything about what we’re trying to get out of in terms of porn and what we’re trying to get into in terms of a vibrant life and good life all starts at the heart. I always talk to guys about getting into those very core level things and that’s one of the things that will help them long-term, instead of just a program or a certain structure of “I have to do this particular set of things” almost like in an OCD kind of way, like I can’t ever watch TV or I can’t ever go to the movies. If we heal the heart, then it opens up the possibilities for greater freedom and not being as easily snagged in the things that used to really trip us up. So I focus on bringing healing to the heart level of our lives.

Steve: I think that’s great advice. Thanks for sharing that, James. Tell people where they can find out more about you and your ministry online.

James: My website is intentionalwarriors.com. You can see my blog post there. You can get the book through there, and pretty much learn everything you need to know as a one-stop shop for what I do.

Steve: Great. Thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it. Good luck with your ministry. Thanks for what you’re doing.

James: Thanks, my pleasure.

Steve: Alright, see you.

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Transcript

Steve: Guys, Steve Kuhn here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got Adam Palmer on the line. Adam is a pastor and co-author of the book GO SMALL with Craig Gross. Adam, thanks for your time. I’ve got a question for you I’ve been asking a bunch of folks out there, and that’s what’s one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

Adam: One piece of advice to give to somebody struggling with porn addiction, really it’s a 2-part answer because I’m going to cheat, and the answer would be in order to deal with that, you have to give up, but don’t give up. Let me break that down for just a second. What you have to give up is you have to give up this sort of sense that this thing is something that you need in your life, that you can’t get by without it, these voices in your head that tell you “it’s inevitable. You’re going to go looking for it, you might as well give in today.” You have to give that up. You have to give up those feelings because they’re not honest. They’re not true. They’re not real. They feel real in the moment, but in actuality they’re not. So you have to give that stuff up. But then you also don’t give up. What you don’t give up is you don’t give up the daily, day in, day out, checking in, making sure you’re keeping yourself accountable, making sure that you’re taking all the steps that you need every day to continue to walk in health, because really what you’re doing is you’re not trying to get rid of something. Really, what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to make healthier choices for yourself, for your faith, for your family. I like to think of it sort of in terms of eating. I’m in this process right now of really trying to change my overall relationship with food. I used to have a very unhealthy relationship with food, where if I had a craving for something, I would go get it and eat it because I wanted to. Generally, I crave stuff that wasn’t good for me – sweets, high fat content, that type of stuff. But what I realized is that I needed to change the way that I thought about it, and I need it to make healthier choices, not because I want to lose weight. That’s a great side benefit, but because I want to have a healthy life. I want to live long enough to see my children grow up and get married and have grand kids. I want to meet my great grand kids. And I know that if I kept making the choices that I was making, that wasn’t going to happen. And so I had to give up those choices. I had to give up listening to those cravings and give up those immediate sort of things felt like gratification but that in actuality were very unhealthy for me. And I have to think long-term now. While I gave up that stuff, what I’m doing is I’m changing my framework and I’m changing my mindset, and I’m saying “now I’m on this track for longevity, I’m on this track for overall long-term health, and so I need to stay on that and not give up.” And it’s the same way when you’re dealing with an addiction to porn. You have to change what’s going on in your mind and you have to start reframing everything and start thinking “what does a healthy sexuality look like to me and what can I do to maintain that?” And then you stay on that track and then you don’t give that up.

Steve: Oh I get it, so give up but don’t give up.

Adam: Exactly.

Steve: I think that’s great advice. Thanks, Adam. Tell people where they can find out more about you online.

Adam: Online, my author website is AdamPalmerAuthor.com. Generally, I spend most of my time though on Twitter, which is where you can find me there as @ThatAdamPalmer. But I did give up Twitter for Lent. So if you want to come find me there, I’m not going to be talking to you until after Easter.

Steve: By the time this video is up, it will be well past Lent. I’m sure. Thanks again for your time and I’ll let you get back to your kids.

Adam: Thanks.

Steve: See you, Adam.

Adam: Take care.

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Transcript

Steve: Hey guys! Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got Jayson Graves on the line. Jayson is a Christian psychotherapist, pastoral coach, and founder of Healing for the Soul. He’s also the author of the new theology school course Biblical Sexuality in the 21^st Century. Jayson, thanks for joining us.

Jayson: Hey Stephen, thanks for having me.

Steve: Yeah. So what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

Jayson: The one piece of advice I would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction is actually a 3-in-1, so I’m kind of cheating a little bit. But if we had a theme verse for healing for the soul, counseling and coaching, it would be 1 Thessalonians 5:23, which says “be sanctified body, mind, and spirit.” Really, when it comes to growing through the things that are the roots of sexual integrity issues like pornography or even things like compulsive masturbation or acting outside of marriage sexually, all of those that just aren’t really consistent with God’s model of sexuality, there’s really three ways, if you will, we need to go about that in the sanctification process or the process of getting cleaned up and growing as believers, and it’s body, mind, and spirit. So body, alright we have a physical body. That means there’s physical implications for the recovery or the sanctification process. There’s physiological implications for that. So physically, we need to do things to keep our body in shape. One of the real simple ones is obviously exercise. Exercise doesn’t just keep us in good physical shape, but we emotionally feel good about the way we look. Plus, it gives us a physiological benefit in our brain, the brain is part of our body, obviously, because it gives us endorphins. We get feel-good neurochemicals where we need them and in ways we need them, which diminish the perceived need to get those same endorphins through acting out kinds of behaviors. So physical and physiological implications. Sometimes it’s things like we need supplements. Nobody has the perfect brain, and that the five main mood centers of our brain, if we have under-functioning issues or over-functioning issues, we need help to get stabilized so that we can function optimally. Beyond the body, there’s also the mind, or technically in the scripture it’s really the soul. So the mind or the soul is really more than just our thoughts. It’s our emotions, our feelings, what makes us unique in our temperament. So it has implications for not just emotionally but also relationally by extension. So in the sanctification process, we also have to do things that help us look at our emotional functioning. Sometimes, we do that through mental approaches or intellectual approaches like reading. A really great book is from a great mentor of mine named Gordon Dalbey. He wrote Healing the Masculine Soul. I highly recommend it. Another one is This Is Your Brain on Joy by another awesome man of God and mentor, Dr. Earl Henslin. Those are important, but also just checking in on a regular basis with our recovery partners on how we’re actually feeling, what feelings are going on in our hearts so we can keep those in the light, be real, be connected relationally because feelings and emotions are the stuff of connection in relationships that help us to go deeper and have viable, lasting, real, authentic connection with other believers. That’s when we can be known, when we can feel supported, when we can have space to just be messy and be real about both good or favorable feelings and not so good feelings. And then of course there’s the spiritual. The trick about spiritual part of sanctification is that it’s not just vertical spirituality, the things that are kind of the transcendent part of our faith or spiritual experience like the stuff that we call our relationship with God or the stuff that we experience between him and us on an individual basis like of our devotional nature, so reading the scripture, meditating, prayer. Those are all very important. We need to be just as engaged in the horizontal things of our spirit, the communal as opposed to the devotional. We tend to way over-emphasize the devotional. We tend to way over-emphasize the vertical. And sometimes that actually leads to something that’s a bit counterintuitive but it’s true – it’s isolation. So we need to emphasize and invest in the communal and the body of Christ connection of spirituality, just as much as the vertical or the devotional, and that means centering around Jesus together, taking time to actually be in his presence together, listen to his voice together quietly, use what he says in each other’s lives, to build each other up according to the way that he’s not only spoken to us but the way that he’s gifted us, whether that’s sharing the scripture that he gives us in that quiet moment, or a song. It might be a prayer. It could be a word that he’s gifted you with. It could be a dance. Who knows? Whatever. The Lord wants us to be each other’s mutual edifiers. And if we are plugged in at that level, oh my gosh, I mean think about how transforming that would be in our own lives but also to the body of Christ. So again, really the one piece of advice in all of that is be sanctified – body, mind, and spirit.

Steve: Right on. That’s a lot of great info crammed into one thing.

Jayson: Also, it’s not drinking from a fire hose but there you go.

Steve: That’s also why we transcribe this, so people can kind of go through point by point and all that. That’s a ton of great info. Thanks for sharing that with us, Jayson.

Jayson: My pleasure.

Steve: Tell people where they can find out about you and your ministry online.

Jayson: Sure. Healing For The Soul counseling and coaching is at healingforthesoul.org and we have both counseling and coaching, just like this over Skype all over the world or by telephone, and we even do professionally-facilitated recovery groups on a private teleconference system as well. So there you go, healingforthesoul.org.

Steve: Right on. Thanks again for your time and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank Jayson.

Jayson: Yeah, thanks. God bless.

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Transcript

Steve: Hey guys! Steve with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m on the line with Luke Gilkerson. Luke’s the education resource manager for Covenant Eyes, and author of multiple eBooks, including Coming Clean, Your Brain on Porn, and When Your Child Is Looking At Porn. So Luke, what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to someone struggling with porn addiction?

Luke: Well the one piece of advice I would give for someone who is really struggling with porn addiction would come out of a single verse in the Bible, 2 Timothy 2:22, which states “so flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” I think this verse is probably the most succinct strategy that is stated in the scriptures about dealing with pornography, dealing with lust. And it kind of gives a three-pronged strategy. And that three-prong strategy can be simply stated as run from, run to, and run with. I’ll unpack all three of those. What I mean from run from is it says flee, free from the catalysts of the problem. So that might be ditching the sources of your porn habit, changing the environment to eliminate both the external and the internal triggers for porn. Training your mind and eyes to have an escape plan when temptations come along, so whether that’s visually fleeing, mentally fleeing, physically fleeing. We need to get in the habit of anytime danger comes and anytime we find ourselves in like situation where there’s going to be insurmountable temptations that we need to look for the escape route that God has planned for us and that we had marked out and planned long before the temptation ever came along. So we need to get in the habit of fleeing. The second thing is we need to run to. He says there “pursue something.” You’re not just running away from something, you’re pursuing something. You’re not just emptying your heart of desire and emptying your heart of passion and emptying your heart of any sort of pleasure in your life. You’re actually pursuing something. You’re pursuing holy and wholesome habits that replace the addiction, so that’s engaging in new passions that trump the allure of sin. We should be engaging our souls and minds and body in prayer, in gratitude, in selfless service, all the things that pertain to what he says there – faith, love, peace and righteousness. We need to be pursuing those things. So we need to be giving ourselves the wholesome habits. Some of those habits can be even secular, in terms of whether it’s just exercise or reading or whatever, but those habits can also be thoroughly engrained in the work of the kingdom, so that’s going out and helping, serving, praying for others, meeting the needs of others, getting away from that habit of objectification that turn people into objects for your pleasure and move towards a kind of lifestyle that is serving others and helping others and giving real service to their lives or giving real value to their lives. That will be the second thing. The third thing is he says run with, where he says along with those people, along with those who calls the Lord from a pure heart, this is where we have to have companions who are relying on God for freedom. These could be Christian accountability partners who can not only call us out on our sin but can call us up to the people God is making us to be, to the people God has already made us to be in Christ. This means Christian discipleship, walking with those who are older in the faith, who can mentor us and guide us. It also means running with even perhaps someone who’s specialized in some of this stuff. If you find that the nagging habit of porn just doesn’t seem to want to break, walking with those, running with those who are either counselors or people who are wise in this area, who can help to unpack the things in your heart that you are either unwilling to see or unable to see that are driving the addiction of pornography, all three things I think are essential. We need to have all three things in place. Running from, the kind of that fleeing mentality is a sort of a first line of defense, a nuts and bolts strategy that says we need to have an escape route in place. We need to create an environment where we’re not surrounded in the objects of our temptation all the time. We need to treat them seriously. We need to treat temptation seriously. That’s that fleeing mentality. The second is that pursuit. If we don’t have the pursuit along with the fleeing, if we don’t pursuit something wholesome and holy to replace the pornography, then we’re just going to either go back to the porn or we’ll go back to some other socially acceptable sin. And then we have to have the running with. We have to be going with others who can help us. One of the greatest means of grace we’ve ever been given by God is the gift of the church, the gift of Christian friendships, the gift of accountability, the gift of discipleship, other Christians who can walk alongside of us and help us in the battle against temptations that we face, and it is a means of grace in order to do that. All three are really important and they’re all contained in one verse in the bible. I would recommend any person to memorize this verse, and then unpack all three of those strategies, one by one, and decide how they’re going to attack each of those things as they’re pursuing purity in their life.

Steve: Great! So run from, run to, and run with. I like it. That’s one of the most succinct summing up of recovery that I’ve heard. I like that advice. Thanks Luke. Tell me people where they can find out more about your ministry and what you’re doing.

Luke: Covenant Eyes is a software company. It’s been around for about 15 years now. Our goal is to change people’s lives through internet accountability, to give them a sense of freedom from the nagging temptations and habits that they can run into online, and to do so through redemptive relationships, to do so through accountability relationships. We do that by providing an internet report for those who need, well we’ll monitor all the activity that’s on your computer or your Smartphone or your tablet. Any devices that you use. We monitor where you’re going online. We compile all that information into an easy to read report that’s emailed to accountability partners that you choose, people you trust to help you. For a lot of people, the report is a great catalyst for conversation, which means if for some reason they just keep going back to porn again and again, the report is a great place to start in a conversation with the counselor, a pastor, accountability partner, to help to get to the bottom of what’s going on. And for a lot of people, the report or just the knowledge the report’s going to be sent is enough to keep temptation at bay. They think twice about where they’re going online, and they can kick the habit even without having to go to somewhere objectionable online and their friends finding out about it, that kind of thing. They just think twice before they go anywhere. And that is enough to keep porn and the temptation of looking at porn at bay. They can learn all about our services and what we do, as well as the dozen or so free eBooks that we have available. All is available at covenanteyes.com.

Steve: Great. And I’ll just add, if you want some practical tools to really help you with the running from and the running with, Covenant Eyes is a great resource for that. It helps with both of those. So Luke, thanks again for your time. I really appreciate your ministry. Keep up the great work.

Luke: Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Steve: See ya.

David’s Books:

Love Hunger: A Harrowing Journey from Sexual Addiction to True Fulfillment

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Transcript

Steve: Hey guys! Stephen here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m on the call with Dr. David Kyle Foster. He’s the director of Mastering Life Ministries and the host of Pure Passion TV. David, thanks for joining us. What’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

David: Well the thing that set me free powerfully was learning how to be intimate with God. When I first got saved, I had been a sex addict for over 20 years; out of control, just totally out of control. When I got saved, I knew that there was no way that I was going to fix this. I was doing things I didn’t even want to be doing at that point. And I remember going to a pastor and saying “I just got saved but I’ve been sleeping with 2 and 3 people a night for over 10 years and you’re going to tell me to stop and I’m here to tell you I can’t just stop. I don’t know. It’s overtaken me.” And he said “well it’s kind of good that you realized that you can’t do it. Let’s let Jesus do it for you.” I just gotten save. Nobody told me what God couldn’t do yet, and so I just believed. “Okay, if God wants this to happen, that’d be great.” So I went with it and I pray to God to set me free from the power that I was under. Let’s put it that way. I was out of control. And in fact, when I committed to not going back to those behaviors – the pornography, the sexual immorality, acting out on multiple levels – and I believe that God would come in and enable me, empower me not to do it. It happened. It happened. The temptations weren’t taken away, at all; worst that it happened. But the power to coerce me to act against my will was removed by God himself and I knew right then and there that God had to be my partner in this because he had the power that I did not have. I was filled with what the Bible calls idolatry. I was just fixing on these images as some sort of hope for being completed or covering up the pain of my life, and I knew that God had to teach me a new way to deal with the issues behind my idolatry. And so I knelt before my bed every night and I pray to the Lord and I said “Lord, I can’t drive down Hollywood Boulevard without stopping at the porn store.” That was my first prayer. And he said to me “don’t drive down Hollywood Boulevard.” And I thought “of course, why didn’t I think of that?” So it’s really rudimentary at first, the guidance that the Lord gave me about fleeing immorality when I hadn’t yet learned how to resist it with his power. And so it’s rudimentary at the beginning, telling me how to guard my life. And then he set me off to seminary so that I could renew my mind with the word of God. That was so, so important because beyond that one moment of faith, I had no faith really. I was actually angry at God, and a lot of addicts are angry at God. They’ve had a tragic life or they’ve had some traumas or something in their life, and they don’t think God really likes them, and so they don’t like God. That’s often behind the rebellion that’s going on, this anger at God, this disappointment with God, this sense that God doesn’t really like me or love me or that I’m sort of a defect or I cross some line of sin and he will never come get me from these things that I’ve been doing – all of which are lies, I soon discovered. So the healing process for me was very much a matter of getting into an intimate relationship with the father and letting him open up the doors that I had shut in my own belief system, discovering God as he really is, as opposed to who I thought he was. Let me give you an example of that. I was committing a sin one night, masturbation, and the Lord spoke to me right in the middle and it kind of shocked me because I thought went out the room when you did stuff like that, but he spoke to me and said “David, if you’ll turn to me right now, I’ll love you and embrace you and forgive you. And I thought “no, that can’t be God” and I continued on. The second I was finished, the Lord spoke to me again with the same open, loving, grace-filled words. “David, if you turn to me right now, I will love you and I will forgive you and I will embrace you” and I thought “wow Lord, I just told you to get lost. I just chose my pitiful little pleasure over the God of the universe, and you’re standing there with the same love as before, as though I hadn’t done that?” And I said to myself “God, if that’s what you’re really like, I want to follow you.” And in that moment of grace, this application of grace, I went from following God because I was supposed to, to following him because I wanted to, because he was so much more beautiful than the pitiful pleasures I had been choosing, and I saw God from a whole different perspective as someone who is for me in every angle. And so I would pursue him every night. I would sing love songs to him. I would lay out my question of the night for him. Most of the time, I got no answers. I got to be honest. But when I did get answers, it was when I was ready to do what the answer required, such as not driving down Hollywood Boulevard or whatever the answer might be at any given moment. And then the power of God poured out on my behalf. I was singing love songs to the Lord, one night, old Villard worship music, and I was having a wonderful time, and the Lord interrupted me and he said “David, do you believe 2 Corinthians 3:18?” which essentially says “as we gaze upon the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into his image.” I said “yes Lord. I believe the Bible’s the inherent infallible authoritative word of God.” Feeling very proud of myself, and he said “no, you don’t.” And I thought “okay, I must not because he knows everything.” So how don’t I? And he said “why don’t you worship me again, and this time assume that it’s literally happening. Assume that as you’re gazing upon my glory in the spirit, I am literally transforming you into my image. I said “okay, I’ll do that.” And so I began assuming it was actually true, as I worshipped him.” And then he began to show me that the things I was worshipping him for were the very things that he was transforming into me. When I was worshiping for purity, I was receiving purity. When I was worshipping him for wisdom, I was receiving wisdom. This revolutionized my thinking because I thought I believed, when in fact in many cases I hadn’t. And so I as I delved more deeply into an intimacy with the father, he began showing me things like this that were major keys in unlocking power for me to keep me from falling. It says in Jude 24, “he will keep us from falling.” So as long as we keep this dependence on God, letting him provide the power and then we cooperate with his direction, and just concentrate on falling in love with him, concentrate on developing an intimate relationship with him, and then he’ll lead you the rest of the way. That’s the most important thing I’ve ever learned.

Steve: Yeah. I think that’s great. That’s spot on. Thanks for sharing that. Tell people where they can find out more about your ministry and what you’re doing online.

David: Sure. The ministry is at purepassion.us and we have a TV show, it’s been on the air for 8 years, and so we have over 200 episodes all on our website that you can watch for me, and we have them divided up by topics, so if you want to go to male sex addiction or you can go to female sex addiction, pornography, or whatever the topic you’re interested in, and you can watch testimonies of dozens and dozens of people who have been set free from an addiction to pornography, and experts such as Dr. Stephen Arterburn and Jonathan Dorothy and others, who we have interviewed for the show. That’s the great resource that we have. I’ve also written two books, the first one Sexual Healing. It’s been out a long time now but it’s like the book of my life and it covers all the major areas of sexual brokenness, and it shows how they are similar in how they’re caused, and therefore how they’re similar in how God sets us free from them. And then this last year I published my autobiography, and it tells a story of me becoming a major sex addict and being out in Hollywood as [09:39] and a lot of very interesting things happen to me, and then I get saved. And the second half of the book talks about all the most important things God has ever shown me in my life. It’s called Love Hunger and it’s online anywhere books are sold as well.

Steve: Great. We’ll be sure to link to those in the show notes. Thanks again for your time. I really appreciate all you’re doing and good luck with your ministry. Thanks again, David.

David: Thank you, very much.,

Steve: See ya.