I know you originally reached out to me because you want to find freedom from your sexual brokenness. Perhaps some of the emails of encouragement have been helpful but you have not found the freedom you expected. Did you really think reading encouraging emails can set you free from something that has been an addictive behavior that you have been using for years if not decades?
God has not given me a magic wand so that I can wave it over you and make this powerful issue go away. Listen, everyone has some kind of issue in their life with which they must do battle. Everyone has things that encumber them that need to be laid aside. Everyone has become entangled in the sin that so easily entangles.
Yesterday, we looked at laying aside every encumbrance. Ejecting or deleting from our lives whatever is weighing us down. Encumbrances are the bad habits in our lives like not managing our diet, being a couch potato, overspending and increasing our debt, poor personal hygiene, isolating ourselves from others and from God. Encumbrances are bad habits you need to drop.
Entanglements are different. Hebrews 12:1 says;
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us …”
Running a race encumbered would be like having ankle weights on. They are used in training but never worn in a race.
The sin which so easily entangles us is different. Notice encumbrances are many because the author says laying aside “every encumbrance.” However, when talking about sin that entangles us, he says “the” sin.
Every Christian has a sin in which they become entangled. And if we were playing Family Feud and the question was,
“What is the sin that so easily entangles Christian men?”
The number one answer is sexual sin. I have read statistics that say 50-60% of all Christian men are addicted to porn. Christianity Today in an article in 2016 said;
“57% percent of pastors, 64% of youth pastors in U.S.
struggle with porn addiction…”
Here is my own statistic because it is one that I am positive about;
100% of All Christian Men Experience Sexual Temptation
Some learn to deal with it and so for them it is not an ongoing battle. However, the vast majority of Christian men are facing this battle every day. So, please realize that you are not alone and that 180 Ministries is here to help you.
Notice the word that is used to describe what has happened. We have not only become entangled, but we have become easily entangled. It is one word in Greek but actually three words combined to make the word entangled. It literally means the sin that easily and cleverly surrounds you and could be translated
“the sin standing around us.”
To my mind, it brings the image of a fish caught in a net. The gaps in the net are big enough for their head to go into but not their entire body and when they attempt to back out they are caught by their gills and have become entangled.
Interesting to me that most people today find their porn on the World Wide Web. And like a fly caught in the spider’s web, it struggles to get free but becomes dinner for the spider.
Encumbrances are things we need to let go of like getting rid of those things that have slowing us down. Entanglements are more difficult. We have become caught up in something from which we cannot unentangle ourselves. We need others to come alongside us and help us become set free from that which has so easily entangled us.
Remember …
Recovery from Sexual Sin Only Happens in a Community
and
A Lone Sheep is a Dead Sheep
If you email me, I would love to talk with you about what we have developed that is helping hundreds of Christians every day.