“I love Jesus, but I also love porn.”
It’s hard to imagine that sentence being spoken aloud. But vast numbers of Christians live out this experience every day—feeling like they love what Jesus tells them they should hate. There are many reasons to remove porn from your life. But for the Christian, one reason outweighs every other: love for Jesus requires a hatred of porn.
So, what can you do if you’re a Christian who feels like you love porn and Jesus? Galatians 2 challenges you to take on a Christ-centered mindset.
1. Let Jesus Set Your Priorities
I will let you in on a secret: Quitting porn is actually easier if you’re not a Christian. You read that right. It’s true for a simple reason: If you’re not a Christian, you can be exactly the same person you are right now, minus the porn. Or you can substitute any other sin you choose for porn, but you don’t have to sacrifice a fundamental part of yourself. And maybe that’s all you want.
But Galatians 2 reveals a more important objective: standing righteous before God. The Christian knows that porn is sin, but it’s one of many sins. And the aim of the Christian life isn’t to just remove one sin, it’s to be justified:
“[W]e know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we ourselves have believed in Christ Jesus. This was so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no human being will be justified” (Galatians 2:16).
And Galatians 2 also reveals an all-important reality about that objective: The only way to be right with God is through faith in Jesus. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. You put faith in Jesus, and that’s going to transform your entire life to look like Jesus. And faith in Jesus means that Jesus sets all your priorities. What’s even better, he accomplishes your top priority for you by putting you in a right relationship with God! This may not make it any easier to put porn away, but it gives you the best possible reason to make this a priority.
2. Turn to Jesus With Your Internal Dissonance
There’s a problem for Christians who love porn: It doesn’t fit with the reality of someone who’s been made like Jesus. There’s deep dissonance in the Christian’s love of porn. With this in mind, Paul asks a provocative question in verse 17.
“But if we ourselves are also found to be ‘sinners’ while seeking to be justified by Christ, is Christ then a promoter of sin?” (Galatians 2:17)
If we’re saved through faith, does Jesus turn a blind eye when we keep sinning? We could paraphrase it this way, “If I’m a Christian and keep looking at porn, does this mean that Jesus is enabling my porn habit?”
“Absolutely not! If I rebuild those things that I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker” (Galatians 2:18).
Just the opposite, the Christian’s ongoing struggle with porn demonstrates just how much they need Jesus. For the Christian, each relapse to porn means running to the foot of the cross to re-experience the mercy and grace of salvation.
While non-Christians may recognize the negative effects of porn in their lives and want to quit, the Christian instinctively feels that something about porn goes against the grain of their being. Porn is incongruent with their identity in Christ. In fact, it pushes them to Christ asking for mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
3. Remember You Are Dead to Porn
When we focus on what it means to be like Jesus, this underlines our need for Jesus. We can’t do it on our own. But Paul goes beyond this with an interesting statement: “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:19-20).
So, this speaks to at least two realities for the Christian. The first is—and this is explained in more detail in Romans 6—that Christians die to sin. That means that sin no longer has condemning power over the Christian. In a real, objective sense, Christians are free from sin—it can’t send them to hell anymore. Even sins they still struggle with, like porn.
It also means the part of the believer that loves sin has officially died. And so the Christian wants to stop sinning—they will hate porn, even if part of them still desires it. (Interestingly, neuroscientists and psychologists now recognize the brain reacts differently to things you “like” or “love” compared to things you merely “want”—your desires and urges.) If you’re a Christian, that part of you that is drawn to porn has been declared dead. It may keep staggering towards porn like a zombie, but it’s dead nonetheless.
So then, being connected to Jesus through faith means death to porn—death to porn’s condemnation of us, and death to our love for porn.
4. Look to Jesus for Power to Overcome Porn
Verse 20 continues, “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Have you heard of the “performance treadmill”? It’s the idea that you can run as hard as you can and do as much good as you can, but never really get anywhere. The treadmill always requires more. Porn addiction can create a kind of treadmill also—you fight and fight against temptation, but it’s always there, and eventually, you always give in.
But being “crucified with Christ” means more than Jesus giving us the strength to keep running on a treadmill. It means he pulls the power chord on the treadmill altogether. It’s not up to you to perform. Jesus has already finished the work on the cross. You already have his love. You already have his righteousness. You don’t have to feel guilty and you don’t have to be ashamed.
Yes, we still have to run from temptation, but it’s no longer an endless cycle of temptation—we finally have the opportunity for genuine growth.
OK, I’ve Done That, Now What?
So, can a Christian love porn? Yes and no. The Christ-centered approach doesn’t mean you’ll automatically stop struggling with porn. But it means your life is reoriented to follow Jesus. And this lays the proper groundwork and sets the mindset that you’ll need to get rid of porn for good.
From here, it’s the simple—but difficult—work of following the time-tested steps to break free. We recommend starting with Dr. Doug Weiss’s post, How to Quit Porn: 6 Essential Steps.
I think it’s helpful to see porn differently than how we usually perceive it. Yes, it is sin, that’s true. But sin is really the symptom of a damaged relationship with Jesus. It’s simply acting out of that broken place. Too often we treat the symptoms but not the root issue. Pornography use is a false substitute for real intimacy. I’m not talking about a sexual act. I’m talking about genuine closeness with another person where we get to be vulnerable and authentic and allow the other person to be the same. With porn use, there is no relationship with the person on the screen. There is nothing required of the porn user except to “use” the person on the screen. Both the user and the used are dehumanized, less than human, less than their created value. A person may say they love Jesus, but if that person uses porn or “loves” porn, I would definitely question their understanding of what love is and the depth of the revelation they carry concerning God’s love. True love is self-giving and other-centered, and porn use is neither of those. I’m not heaping condemnation on a person struggling with pornography or saying they aren’t sincere in their understanding of being devoted to Jesus. But if they are saying, “I love Jesus and I love porn,” I would have lots of questions about what both of those mean.
This is one of the best articles I have read on this topic. I also think you can substitute “porn” to any other sin you’re struggling with and this article will hit the nail on the head. Thank you for a great read and exhortation to live for Christ.
Thanks Brian! I appreciate your comment.