A Problem with Chocolate

When professing Christians have a problem with pornography, the answer is often put forward that they need to have an “accountability” partner. I’m not saying that is wrong, but I will say that it doesn’t deal with their problem.

If a man is playing the hypocrite and feels okay about looking at pornography (committing adultery in his heart--see Matthew 5:27-28), he probably feels okay about lying also. If he can regularly commit adultery, then he will have no problem lying to his accountability partner. So there goes the foundation for accountability.

The root cause of his problem is his love for sin, and the only way to deal with that root is to take the axe of the fear of the Lord to it. When someone genuinely becomes a Christian, God becomes his accountability partner.

Would you look at porn during a worship service? Probably not. Why not? Because you believe that you are in the house of the Lord. But God is just as much in your house as He is in a building we erroneously call a "church." He is omnipresent. Then add to that knowledge the following warning, and it will help you deal with your problem: "And if your right eye offends you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell" (Matthew 5:29). When we fear God, we know that the "eye of the Lord is in every place, beholding the evil and the good."

Do you love chocolate? Could you give it up? You say that there's no way you could do that. How about if I said, "I am a doctor, and I know without a doubt that you have a condition that will kill you if you eat chocolate"? That knowledge changes the dynamic. If you trust me and therefore believe me, your good sense would keep you from indulging. With that thought in mind, meditate on these verses:

"But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren" (James 1:14-16).