Video coming soon. The video teaching for Day 26 is still in production, expected by August 15. Read the full lesson below, it will be added here as soon as it is ready.
In 1945, a novelist named Bruce Marshall wrote a book called The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith. In it, a young woman tells a priest that religion is just a substitute for sex. The priest answers that he'd rather believe it's the other way around: that sex is a substitute for religion, and that a man looking for it in the wrong places is, without realizing it, actually looking for God.
I think every man who's looked for porn didn't realize he was actually looking for God.
Let that sit with you. Whether you've ever come near anything like a brothel or not, that line is aimed straight at you. What if the pull you feel isn't ultimately about a body on a screen? What if it's a hunger for something real (respect, comfort, escape, significance) reaching for God, and settling for a counterfeit instead?
The real question of Level 4
Not "how do I stop," but "what am I actually looking for when I go looking for this." It's not just an orgasm. It never was just that. Today we start the tool that helps us find out what it really is.
"...and give no opportunity to the devil."
A foothold isn't an attack from outside the walls. It's ground the enemy already holds inside them. He's not knocking at your door. He's already got a room in your house. Until you find that room and take it back, he's going to keep using it against you.
Here's the good news: footholds can be found. And once found, they can be dismantled.
This work isn't meant to be done alone.
Join men walking the same six levels, in the same season, inside the community built for exactly this.
Introducing WLVS
This is a framework built by Marcus Warner of Deeper Walk International, and we'll spend the next four days walking through it, one letter at a time.
- W is for Wounds. Something happened. A painful furrow got cut across your heart and left raw and bleeding. Wounds are the entry points: the places the enemy first got access to your life.
- L is for Lies. Wounds don't stay wounds. They turn into beliefs. Into that painful furrow, the enemy starts sowing seeds of lies. Given enough time, those whispers stop sounding like lies and start sounding like facts about who you are.
- V is for Vows. When you're wounded and believe the lie, you make yourself a promise: an inner commitment. It usually sounds like "I will never let that happen again," or "I will show them I am worth it." It feels like self-protection, because that's exactly what it's trying to do.
- S is for Strongholds. When wounds, lies, and vows go unaddressed long enough, sin doesn't just visit anymore. It builds. It digs in. That's a stronghold: a fortified position. And that's exactly why white-knuckling it has never worked for you. You haven't just been fighting a temptation. You've been fighting something dug into the ground of your own heart.
This is the deepest work in the whole program
It's also the most important. I've watched men who tried everything (every app, every accountability check-in, every fresh promise on New Year's Day) finally find real and lasting freedom only when they were willing to do this work.
We're done just managing the symptoms. We're going to find the foothold.
If you want to go deeper, look into Marcus Warner's books "A Deeper Walk" and "Understanding the Wounded Heart."
Don't rush this. Don't skip it. And don't try to do it alone in a corner where nobody can see it. Bring someone into this with you.
Before tomorrow, sit with this question: When did you start having trouble with porn? What need did it meet in you that had nothing to do with sexual release?
Download the Spiritual Warfare Processing Guide (WLVS and Prayer Guide)This is Day 26 of Victory Over Pornography. Tomorrow: W, Wounds. Continue to Day 27 →