Jesus told us to not look at another person with lustful intent (Matthew 5:28). Paul told us to flee from sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:18). In other words, we are told to not subject ourselves to lust, pornography and sexual immorality—online and offline.
In my humble opinion, much of the current body of guidance literature on maintaining Christian sexual ethics has been a hodgepodge of partial perspectives, albeit grounded in sound Biblical doctrine. By God’s grace, this may be attributed to the lack of personal challenge of our Christian leaders in their pursuit of purity.
I have thus prepared this briefing note, with the aim to provide a comprehensive framework of practical tactics for the pursuit of purity—for the fight against lust, pornography, and sexual immorality.
This briefing note organizes the tactics into five themes:
- Practice self-care for personal wellness
- Reduce self-exposure
- Restrict device activities
- Install protective software solutions
- Solicit community support and accountability
The sequence of themes and tactics do not reflect relative importance. In fact, long-term success in the pursuit of purity often requires the full implementation of all tactics as listed in this briefing note.
For clarity, incident and relapse are euphemistic code words for the committed thought, word and deed of lust, pornography and sexual immorality.
1. Practice self-care for personal wellness
In preparation, you should identify and avoid offending habits and external triggers. Physical disciplines, such as practicing regular exercise, maintaining sleep hygiene, and avoiding junk foods, can improve mental health. You can engage a psychotherapist to address the entanglement of emotional and mental health challenges. Most importantly, you should engage in prayer because Christ will provide the way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13).
As you are tempted, you should immediately disengage from the offending thoughts. Engage in a healthy physical distraction (e.g. exercise). Recount the costs of relapse—both to yourself and Christ on the cross (1 Corinthians 15:3).
After you stumble, you should record and reflect upon the incident, so you can consider further adjustments to your daily activities. Fortify can be a helpful tool. You may also consider to adjust your attitudes toward your personal life and work.
Remember God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8), and pray in repentance. The pursuit of purity may be a seemingly infinite journey without end—but it is a process of iterative improvement. We may fail a thousand times and more, but God’s mercy and grace will remain. We must never relent, and try again.
2. Reduce self-exposure
Paul told us to avoid the causes for our stumbling (Romans 14:21).
As such, you should evaluate your entertainment and social media consumption from which most offending triggers are sourced. You should reduce, or even eliminate, consumption of entertainment and social media, such as from streaming services (e.g. Netflix and Prime Video), video platforms (e.g. YouTube), social networking platforms (e.g. Instagram and Facebook), and dating platforms.
Other preparations can include: muting device notifications to reduce prompts for device usage; and restricting the location of entertainment and social media consumption and device usage to less private spaces (e.g. outside of the bedroom).
As you are tempted, immediately disengage looking at, or listening to, the offending content. Engage in a healthy physical distraction (e.g. exercise).
After you stumble, you can consider more adjustments to entertainment and social media consumption, and device usage, as appropriate. You can also ask a friend, your church, a roommate, a family member, or an accountability partner to temporarily change the password to your subscription(s), and to safeguard relevant device(s) from yourself, for a period of time.
3. Restrict device activities
Indeed, this category of tactics can appear to be highly restrictive, but Jesus told us to discard the eye that causes us to sin (Matthew 5:29). In this case, we are concerned with our digital eyes—our computers, tablets and phones.
In preparation, you should restrict access to, or even delete, potentially offending applications from your devices, such as for streaming services (e.g. Netflix and Prime Video), online videos (e.g. YouTube), social media (e.g. Instagram and Facebook), and dating platforms.
Other preparations can include: blocking potentially offending website sources (e.g. Reddit and Tumblr); restricting the duration and schedule of device usage; and setting up parental controls to secure the restricting settings.
As you are tempted, avoid tampering device settings.
After your stumble, you can consider more adjustments to device settings, as appropriate.
4. Install protective software solutions
There are two leading, albeit not perfect, protective software solutions for computers, tablets and phones: Covenant Eyes and Accountable2U.
Both solutions can auto-generate periodic reports on device activities and incidents, for yourself and accountability partners. However, both solutions have significant drawbacks:
- Covenant Eyes can block offending content, and offers screen accountability to report screenshots to accountability partners. Although screen accountability is more effective than URL-based monitoring, many users have expressed privacy and security concerns. In addition, Covenant Eyes allows the administrator to disable the “uninstall” function, and offers a “panic” button. Real-time notifications to accountability partners are not available.
- Accountable2U offers URL-based monitoring, albeit less effective than screen accountability. Real-time notifications by text message and/or email can be sent to accountability partners, when offending content is viewed. However, Accountable2U lacks a number of critical features: blocking offending content, allowing the administrator to disable the “uninstall” function, and offering a “panic” button.
Regrettably, a one-stop protective software solution is not yet known to be available in the market. For maximum assurance, you may need to bootstrap a solution: installing two or more software solutions (i.e. Covenant Eyes or Accountable2U, plus another software), and adding more restrictions to your device settings.
5. Solicit community support and accountability
Paul tells us to encourage one another (Hebrews 10:24). As such, you should join an existing, or start a new, accountability group. Accountability is a critical success factor in the pursuit of purity.
Accountability partners can monitor your progress, steward your device settings, and provide counsel for more tactics for your personal situation.
Finally, regular engagement with friends, church, roommate(s), family and accountability partners can improve your emotional and mental health, and serve as a healthy distraction from temptation.
