There is a way, today, to rise from pornography's deep pit

PORNOGRAPHY is not new. Cave-dwelling sketches, sex manuals from the Far East and explicit mosaics from the walls of Pompeii are all reminders that man's mind has been inherently X-rated a long time.

The Bible is full of sex-gone-wrong stories and how it impacts individuals and families. Read it sometime. You'll be surprised at what you find there. If the truth be told, most of us, especially men, have pornographic hearts.

Today the shame factor involved in using porn has been removed, often through a slow "wearing away" of our conscience. Have you noticed how, in the media, sex sells? From beer to soap, from cars to underwear ads, the visual media capitalizes on the idea that we're incomplete till we have that special product; then, they define it and hook us by using sexual images.

Porn has gone mainstream. We can't escape it. Increasingly, porn has become the norm in our culture and in our lives.

Deeply steeped in porn, years ago, I remember the reality of having to actually face a sales clerk in a dark, seedy adult bookstore to buy my porn. I remember how my heart would race as I approached the counter, trying to make that transaction as quickly as possible and get out of there.

That face-to-face barrier is now gone, replaced by the widespread availability and anonymity the Internet and through-the-mail DVDs now offer. Many people hooked on porn use it daily, just like a drug - trying to stabilize or ward off unwanted or scary emotions and feelings.

The daily internal challenge can be overwhelming. Do I go into that online adult bookstore today via the computer sitting on my desk, or do I access X-rated images on my cell phone, or not?

For many, the decision must be made several times a day. Unless something disrupts, it becomes one huge hopeless pit.

For me, the beginning of the end of my use of porn happened as I began to read the New Testament. I saw Jesus' encounters with the sexual discards of his day and got a new hope. These people were particular objects of his time, attention and affection. How could that be?

In Luke, chapter 7, I read about a woman, an uninvited dinner guest, who threw herself at Jesus' feet, wiping them with her hair and pouring perfume on them. In that instance Jesus sternly rebuked his dinner host whose thoughts Jesus read.

"If this man really were a prophet," the host thought, "he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is - that she is a sinner."

Turning the tables on this kind of self-righteousness, Jesus put the man in his place. Wow!

In much the same way, I began to believe that God cared about me, even in the midst of my pit. More importantly, he cared about the dark parts of my heart that moved me to porn in the first place - the parts I had been running from for years. Imagine that. Jesus could handle me and my mess of a heart.

About this time I also began reading the Christian author Corrie ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor. In her book The Hiding Place, she makes a statement that "there is no pit so deep, that Jesus isn't deeper still." Yes, Jesus saves us from the penalty of our bad records and past actions, but he also rescues us from the dark places our hearts are tempted to go. He makes the norm the uncommon by showing us that he has a better plan for our lives than do we; then giving us the desire, will and power to be different people. *

(Editor's note: Harvest USA is a ministry "proclaiming Christ as Lord to a sexually broken world." For more information about its support groups and church education/equipping services, call 215-482- 0111, or visit its Web site at www.harvest usa.org.)