Overcome Porn: The 40 Day Challenge Sample

Day 23: Grace doesn't just forgive you. It changes you.

The struggle with pornography can feel like an ever-present struggle. It is easy to feel as if failure is inevitable.

While sin is certainly present, so is the grace of God, and His grace can and does train us to live differently. God’s grace doesn’t just save us from the guilt of sin. It saves us from the grip of sin (Titus 2:11-14).

The word “grace” means “undeserved favor.” In order to experience grace in a fuller capacity, we need to understand how undeserving we are. We deserve to be treated as rebels, and yet the good news is “Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).

The “undeserved favor” we experience with God now is a foretaste of our destiny. This is how grace trains us: by setting our sights forward on the people God is making us to be and the world He is remaking. God’s grace helps us to long for the endless immensity of the world to come.

So how do we allow grace to train us?

1. Relish in our present favor with God.

We should not fight sin as if we are spiritual orphans trying to get God’s attention, but as adopted sons and daughters who know we are loved already. We are justified in His eyes because of what Christ has done for us, and we experience this reality by faith (Romans 3:24; Titus 3:7).

2. Relish in our future favor with God.

Hope is not merely an emotion that washes over us, but something with which we actively engage. We put on hope like a battle helmet (1 Thessalonians 5:8). We cling to it like an anchor (Hebrews 6:18-19). We choose to be joyful in our hope (Romans 12:12).

3. Prayerfully apply our hope to our struggles.

In the New Testament, hope is presented as something that inspires obedience, inspires us to bring about change in the world, inspires us to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Reflection

What is the one thing you can begin doing this week to submit to the training of God’s grace?