I would like you to send me prayers for sinners. I am currently using the internet to look at pornography, but, I would like to stop! Thank you. anonymous

Hello, thanks for writing.

Something tells me that you have not read much of what I've written on the web site because otherwise you would not be making such a request of me, because I would no more send you some kind of prayers ... and definitely not for sinners, as the whole religious focus on sinner's prayers are quite bogus. And in saying this, please don't think I'm upset about anything you've written. I just wanted to be up front with you, okay? :)

First of all, you might want to consider doing something else other than turning your computer on if that's mostly what you're doing with it. The simple fact is that this whole Internet thing has turned lots of people into mindless, mental blobs wandering about seeking some kind of fulfillment, or to entertain themselves in their boredom. It's only a matter of time before our zombie-fried brains figure out how to connect to the readily-available porn that's out there. Just a thought.

More importantly, though, is what you apparently think of yourself. In desiring a prayer for sinners, one that could keep you from venturing into the realm of pornography, you seem to despise yourself. Now, I haven't the faintest idea of your background or religious affiliation (and it doesn't make any difference), but I can tell you right now that you are fighting a losing battle. How so? Simple, because you see yourself as a sinner who might be able to un-sinner himself in the area of porn by ritualistic means using somebody else's quoted words.

The truth is that quoted words are the reason you remain in this vicious cycle! For you have been beating yourself up with the same old words over and over again as you condemn yourself more harshly than anyone ever could. And it's not just that you use those words to despise yourself because of what you choose to do, you actually reinforce your habits by the constant insistence that you are doomed to continue them. Now, THAT is the real bondage that afflicts you, while pornography is merely one of the many faces the bondage takes.

Forget your desperate attempts to find the right prayer that will make you stop the very thing you keep telling yourself you cannot stop, for everything you strive for only reinforces that hopeless condition! Don't you realize that such sinner's prayers continually insist that sinner-hood will plague you till the day you die? Instead, hear the good news!

Jesus did not die to keep sinners in their sinful state so that they could whittle away at the remaining sin! No, he died to kill the sinner. And that he did, for he truly was the Lamb of God that came to take away the sin of the world. If you believe this, then why do you hang on to the insistence that you are a sinner in need of a prayer? Do you not see the self-defeat in the very concept we are so desperately trying to embed into the completeness of what Jesus has done? If you are in Christ then you are not what you used to be, but you are a new creation in him!

I have written numerous other responses to questions on pornography that you might find helpful.

I look forward to your response!
Jim Minker :)