Garbage In, Garbage Out Today's Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: Garbage In, Garbage Out --------------------------------------- Date: 8/24/2000 Keywords: "evil" "heart" "unclean" Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passage: Mark 7:20-23* 20. He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21. For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22. greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'" Questions 1. When you run aground on your pornography habit, do you get mad at the purveyors of smut and take it out on them?   2. Is it the pornographic material itself that is the evil?   Practical help When struggling with porn, don't make the mistake of finger-pointing and flying into a rage against the circumstances that brought you there. Sure, there's plenty of opportunity to trip up. There are some awful, awful people who make it their lifework to create havoc in people's lives (and get rich in the process). But your porn habit isn't their problem; it's yours. Nobody's making you do it. It's not what's coming in, it's what's going out that is the problem. That principle applies not just to porn, but to every sin and evil that exists in someone's heart. When Jesus said these things, he was speaking to people who had tried to eradicate sin from their lives by following certain procedures and practices determined by the religious elite to be 'clean.' Just as they weren't successful, you won't be successful at beating porn by just avoiding it. You need to look at your own heart and confess the motives that drive you to it. Let the tears flow, and call on God's grace for your victory. eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 2000 by eXXit *Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version, © copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.