Every Young Man's Battle: Stategies for Victory in the Real World of Sexual Temptation: The Every Man Series (15 page)

While I (Fred) still call masturbation a “sin”
because of the lust and fantasy involved, I agree that deep, false shame has no
place in the equation. God isn’t a Father who shames His children.
We’ll get to that in a moment.

Many leaders are concerned with
this shame issue and how it adds fuel to the fire. In regard to masturbation,
you might have been taught to “keep it to a minimum.” The
motivation is right. So many young men feel powerless to stop and feel debased
when it does happen, and nobody wants to pile more shame upon them. Maybe
Patrick Middleton, a friend and a brilliant Christian counselor, summed it up
best when he said, “I’m very anti-masturbation and see it as a
violation of God’s design for sexual intimacy. But I’m also very
anti-shame and see how this very topic really shames young men
harmfully.”

Steve
and I join lockstep with Patrick on that score. We must reduce the level of
false
shame in this discussion, while simultaneously making sure the
pendulum doesn’t swing too far in the other direction. We must never,
ever see masturbation as just “guys being guys.”

Take a
look at what masturbation caused in my life. I experienced a deep separation
and distance from God and, in the end, discovered that I couldn’t make a
complete connection with my wife. Call masturbation whatever you will, but it
was wrong. I couldn’t get free, and I felt plenty of the guilt of
deception.

The results in Steve’s life were no better. What if
teaching the “guys will be guys” message causes young men to
breathe such a sigh of relief that they freely get into masturbation without
concern—only to get totally stuck in sinful cycles of pornography and
fantasy from which they can’t escape? What if they wreck their
relationship with God because the caution flags hang too limply? If so, we need
to get the flags flying again.

If there’s a
“clear-minded” and “clean” form of masturbation
(we’ll get to this later), the keep-it-to-a-minimum advice would be
decent counsel. But clearly, “knock it off” is the only advice for
nearly all men because of the pornography and lustful sin involved. Sin binds,
and such bondage is devastating. It’s like our society’s decisions
about crack cocaine or methamphetamines. We can change our views and legalize
them, thereby removing the shame. But they’ll still ensnare us in
addictive, binding cycles that isolate us in despair.

So in the last
analysis, splitting hairs over what we call masturbation is silly. There are
only two questions that matter. If you’re in bondage to masturbation,
should you try to break free? The answer is yes. Is it possible to break free?
We believe it is.

If you’re living with a deep sense of shame
over masturbation, you need to stop masturbating, but you also need to stop the
shame. A good first step is to change your harsh view of God—more
precisely, God’s view of
you.
Only then can you deal with
masturbation as the binding, grinding problem it is, without worrying about any
silly false shame that we needn’t carry as beloved children of God. We
want young men to focus on steps they can take to overcome this habit. Where
there’s hope, there’s a future.

I have always loved the story of the prodigal son. What
intrigues me most is the father’s view of his son, because it mirrors
God’s view of us. God’s eyes are always fixed on the crest of the
hill, longing to see us coming from over the horizon and walking closer to
Him.

When he [the son] came to his senses, he said, “How
many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving
to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I
have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called
your son; make me like one of your hired men.” So, he got up and went to
his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father
saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his
arms around him and kissed him.

The son said to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer
worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants,
“Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger
and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have
a feast and celebrate.” (Luke 15:17-23)

God isn’t the
least bit concerned about whether you’re worthy to return to Him,
although it’s natural for us to think that way. The prodigal son worried
about this too. He was certain that his sinful lifestyle made him unworthy to
be called his father’s son.

But the father in the story quickly
brushed that aside. “What’s all this talk about worthiness?
You’re back! That’s all that matters!” He slipped a ring on
his son’s hand and presented him with a clean robe and new shoes. Their
relationship was restored instantly.

No paybacks. No shame. No looking
back.

When we
masturbate, some of us come to our Father and say, “I’ve
masturbated again, and I’m not worthy to be called Your son.” He
brushes that aside, saying, “No one but Jesus is
worthy
to be
called my Son, but I love you and forgive you.” He demonstrates that love
by presenting us with a ring, robe, and shoes. Then He says, “In case you
forgot, Jesus picked these up at Calvary for you. That makes you worthy enough
for Me. Now let’s celebrate and enjoy each other!”

When we
sin, God doesn’t shout, “Hell and damnation on you!” Since
we’re saved, He knows full well that there’s now no more
condemnation for us because of Christ. Remember, He personally had the apostles
write that into the Bible! Jesus paid it all. Our Father isn’t interested
in making us pay further by adding shame after another orgasmic failure in
cyberspace.

God, your Father, is
for
you. He has plans to
prosper you, and plans to give you a hope and a future, as promised in Jeremiah
29. Granted, God doesn’t unconditionally approve of your
behavior,
but He
does
unconditionally love you. When you
masturbate, He wants you to know you missed the mark of His high calling. He
wants you to know that this behavior separates you from Him, and that’s
why you’re finding it hard to get close to Him.

Take a long,
careful look at how masturbation affects your relationship with God. This is
what God is most concerned with. You’re already His son. What He wants
now is for you to move back closer to Him. And since we’re focusing in
this section on how we can fully and authentically love God with all our
strength (our bodies), this is our primary interest, as well.

If
you’ve ever masturbated, you know that your heart is often gripped with
heavy grief and sorrow afterward. At that moment, it is very clear that you
don’t deserve all the grace Christ has given you, and you can barely lift
your head to look into your Father’s eyes. The distance is very
real.

But our mistakes and this distance are never the centerpiece of
God’s focus on us. If you would manage to look again into His eyes and
run to the foot of the cross, you’ll find that Christ’s
outstretched arms and His desire to forgive are always the glorious centerpiece
to every Christian’s story. Every one of us can tell our own story of His
amazing grace, stories that He Himself has authored and will perfect and
complete, regardless of our sin. This is God’s focus. It must also be
ours.

Does that mean we shouldn’t fear God? Does that mean we
should be slack on sin? Heavens no! Look at the destructive stories we’ve
shared with you. The prodigal son ended up in a pigsty, eating pig’s
food, and was appalled at the destruction in his own life.

Jesus knows very
well the struggle you’re in. He lived here as a single man Himself,
remember? The Bible says He was tempted in all points as we are. The Holy
Spirit knows you through and through. He lives in you, and He was sent to guide
you and comfort you.

God is with you, and He knows the struggle is
great. He fights with you, side by side. This view of God keeps shame away, but
it leaves us room to keep a proper caution toward masturbation.

Think
hard about this. Obviously, rejecting pornography and fantasy is a baseline
requirement. That must be done, because it’s sin. Any sinful form of
masturbation must stop as well. If there’s a form of masturbation that
isn’t sinful, keeping it to a minimum is better than driving it to the
maximum. Who can argue that?

But we want more for you, and God
definitely wants more for you. We believe as you read on that you’ll
understand the depths of the problem and decide you won’t want to
masturbate at all. There are those who say it’s not possible because of
the obstacles, but we feel it’s very possible. We hope that thousands of
readers of this book will decide to stop pouring gasoline on a hot fire of
passion, desire, and lust. We’re about to show you how, and we believe
that those who take this path will never, ever regret it. We don’t expect
anyone, after having applied the forthcoming advice, to later declare,
“Gee, I just wish I had masturbated more.”

While there may
be some corners of masturbation that aren’t sin, most of what surrounds
masturbation
is
sin and binds us to the point of strangling us
spiritually and emotionally. We must face that truth like men, rejecting shame
and choosing manhood.

Now is as good a time as any to address it as
best we can. Is there a corner of masturbation that isn’t a sin? Can a
man masturbate with a totally clean mind? David, seventeen years old,
says,

Let me say this: it is possible to masturbate with a clean
mind and eyes, because I’ve done it. I have to tell you, however, that it
really takes a long time without visual stimulation or fantasizing—even
if I’m trying to get it over with quick. It’s sometimes so
demoralizing that I’ll just stop. That isn’t good because then my
motor is riding the red line, and then the mind gets really difficult to
control, and I drop back into sin.

Even when I can do it with a
clean mind, there’s something else that makes me doubtful about the
practice. For the past few months I’ve been into doing what I call
“practicing the presence of God,” living in continuous prayer and
trying to go through my day talking to God and praising Him. When I masturbate,
even with a clean mind, that connection with God clearly gets messed up.
It’s still there, and I can still talk to God, but I have this weird
sense that even if it’s not a sin, then it really isn’t pure,
either.

Intimacy with God is our whole reason for fighting the
battle, isn’t it? If it messes up the intimacy, why do it? Besides, even
if “clear-minded” masturbation isn’t a sin technically, we
still sense a bondage in the whole matter, and God hates bondage in His people.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:12 that we must “not be mastered by
anything.” On those grounds, all forms of masturbation seem suspect.

I (Steve) once
heard these questions posed on my
New Life
radio broadcast: “Is
masturbation moving me closer to where I want to go in my life? In my life with
others? In my life with God?”

We can answer that it almost never
does.

Young men today are spending much of their spiritual energy
fighting off sexual fevers. What if you kept yourself free from this draining
fever in the first place, which would free you to expend your spiritual energy
on God’s kingdom?

It can be done. The world hasn’t yet seen
what God can do with an army of young men free of sexual fevers. You can remain
pure so that you might qualify for such an army. The four requirements
necessary to stop masturbating are as follows:

1. Making a strong
decision to no longer “stop short” of God’s standards.

2. Joining an accountability group that allows for the honest expression
of feelings.

3. Continuing an active, ongoing relationship with God
that involves worship and prayer.

4. Becoming aware of how various
media—magazines, cable TV, videos, Internet, and catalogs—affect
your sex drive.

Fulfilling these four requirements will allow you to
love your God with all your strength and sexuality. We discussed the first
point earlier, so we’ll deal with the next three in greater detail
ahead.

We said that the first step in
becoming free from sexual impurity is making a firm decision. Next, you need to
stay close to God and form relationships with like-minded friends who can
support you in your battle. Why is that?

We mentioned earlier that
loneliness, insecurity, and broken family relationships are often the
steppingstones to masturbation. We replace that lost intimacy with the false
intimacy of masturbation. A close relationship with God and our friends will
make the false intimacy of masturbation unnecessary. So the first question we
must deal with is this:
What intimacy in your relationships are you
replacing with masturbation?