When we look at porn, she's always so beautiful.

Right?

We're captivated, and enraptured by the form of her naked body.

It makes us want so bad what we're seeing with our natural eyes.

We think that this is what we need to feel happy and fulflled.

But if we could see her in another way, with our spritual eyes, she might look more like the image posted to represent this episode of the podcast.

She's a metaphorical corpse.

She's rotten, and decaying.

As it says in Galatians 6:8, when we sow to please our flesh it leads to "corruption", which happens when a dead body begins to decay.

In this episode Tony shares an amazing list that a man he knows created.

It's a list of 43 hidden prices the man was paying in exhchange for his indulgence in pornography.

When we're acting out with porn in sexual compulsion, our natural eyes see something we think is beautiful, but behind the scenes in the spiritual realm there is decay, destruction, and corruption.

Do not be decieved!

⁷ Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸ Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. ⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  Galatians 6:7-9

Since he's moving soon (because of his wife's divorce) Tony has been getting rid of all kinds of stuff in the effort to downsize for the move.

Therefore when his sister and nephew invited him to go to the local flea market he was determined to try to not buy any more "stuff".

However, when he left the flea market 3 hours later he was the proud owner of 3 items he had puchased.

Tony bought each one of these 3 items because each one is a metaphor of a significant spritual reality that he wants to be reminded of on a regular basis.

(1) A yoke.

(2) A bit.

(3) A compass.

In this episode Tony shares what each of these items mean to him, and why he will be placing them in his new home when he moves in the near future

Matthew 11:28-30

Psalm 32:9

Daniel 4:34

John 15:1-2;5

If you're going to be the man of God, and the man of purity that God is calling you to be you have to get in the battle and stay in the battle.

You're going to have to fight temptations to make quality decisions.

You're going to have to exercise your "NO" muscle.

I wish I could tell you that when you have a success, and you properly navigate your way through and around a temptation, that this success will carry you for the next 90 days, and you won't even be tempted again for at least the next 90 days.

But it doesn't work that way, because chances are pretty good you're goint to be tempted again, and then again, and then again, and so forth and so on.

So, one success is awesome.

One success is wonderful.

Congratulations on your one success.

But one success is not enough.

You need to have that one success, and then the next success, and then the next success, and so forth and so on.

Or, said another way, we need the "accumulation of successes", and the more successes we accumulate, the more momentum we get in God, and the successes then become easier and easier to achieve.

In this episode Tony discusses the intricacies and nuances of "the accumulation of successes".

In this episode Tony talks about how the battle for purity becomes easier over time.

We become stronger.

We learn to exercise our "no muscle".

We accumulate more and more successes.

We learn that we can resist temptation.

Temptation is not bigger than you.

You're bigger than temptation, and God always makes a way to escape.

You can grow in godliness.

You can grow in righteousness.

You're not doomed to forever hang on by the skin of your teeth and white knuckles.

In the old days it seemed like temptation was this powerful beast that would come in and cease you.

It was bigger than you and it was hard to resist.

But now that you're growing in God and getting some tools and stategies the beast is becoming a fly, and you can shoo away a fly when it trys to bother you.

God's grace and healing are powerful.

You are a man of God, and you're designed for high levels of success in God's Kingdom.

The beast is becoming a fly!

Salmon are amazing.

Every year they turn around to swim upstream agaisnt very powerful currents that are resisting them.

They return to the place they were born so they can spawn, a new generation of salmon are born.

Their survial is based upon their ability to swim against the vicious currents.

In much the same way, our metaphorical survival to be the men of God that we're called to be will be predicated upon our ability to swim against the persistant, and powerful, and vicious currents of temptation that are resisting against us.

In this episode Tony identities the confluecne of 3 different powerful forces that work together to create the complulsion in us that makes us want to act out in sin. 

(1) The power of habit, or the old "groove" of sin we've allowed to be established in us.

(2) Brain science, or the way we've trained our brains to crave the feel good chemicals that compel us to act out.

(3) The law of sin, or the natural proclivity we have as fallen and sinful people to delight in doing the very things we know we shouldn't do.

Any one of these forces would be difficult to resist in and of itself, and when you put all three of them togther they can become a very vicious current that makes it hard for us to swim upstream.

In this episode you'll understand how the "confluence of compulsion" works against our sexual purity, and what we can do in return to swim agains these currents to have success and victory in God!