Tag: freedom

“4 Ways To Prevent Porn in Your Home”

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Here’s an article I wrote that’s been published on X3Church.

It’s called “4 Ways To Prevent Porn In Your Home.“

These are the first steps we can take in our homes to recover from porn addiction. Here’s an excerpt:


The very act of taking a first step to prevent porn can lead to momentum, which can lead to total, lasting freedom. Those first steps matter.

If you can do what you ought for a while, it can become what you want for life. Once you’re in the stream of recovery, it builds on itself until you’ve hit a sweet spot of small victories that link to big ones.

It’s the initial smaller victories that require an uncomfortable re-structuring of your habits and your home.


Read the full post here. My book on quitting porn is here.

— J.S.


Now Part of the X3Church Team!

JS Park XChurch


I’m super excited to be a part of the blogging contributor team for XXXChurch!

For all my posts, check here.

If you don’t know, XXXChurch is led by Craig Gross, who has led the frontlines on awareness for porn addiction and founded X3Watch, the leading accountability software.  He also nationally debates former porn-actor Ron Jeremy about the dangers of porn.

Craig and I made contact after I shared my book on quitting porn, which he found highly practical and different than the current resources on the market.  I was a bit star-struck since I consider Craig’s books to be one of the primary helps in quitting my own porn addiction (I’ve been sober for over three years!). I’m looking forward to teaming up with him!

My first blog post for XXXChurch is here!

— J.S.


Breaking The Grip of the Lesser.


Here’s what I’ve learned about choosing the things of God and partaking in His mission.

I’ve noticed that after I disciple a young kid and see his eyes light up from the truth of the Bible, I can’t go back to how I was. It’s too good to give up. After I serve food at the homeless ministry, after I volunteer at a retreat, after I go on a mission trip, after I serve at an orphanage or a prison or the projects — the attraction of sin loses its grip on me.

Because the things of God are so much brighter and bigger and deeper than the things of this world. This is what Thomas Chalmers called the Expulsive Power of a New Affection.

Ever notice that after the gym, you’re too tired to fight anyone? Ever notice that after a healthy meal, you’re much less willing to eat a bag of Cheetos? And whether you “feel like” going to the gym or eating healthy, you choose it anyway: because not only is the alternative bad for you, but it makes the alternative less attractive.

Sometimes people wait to “feel right with God” to go serve Him. You don’t have to wait. You don’t have to be qualified or clean or deserving to serve. Your choices change your heart just as much as your heart changes your choices. What you do comes out of who you are, but who you are also comes out of what you do.

— J.S. from The Christianese Dating Culture


When You Mess It Up Again.


God totally has grace for you when you mess it up. He loves you no matter what. He wants you to cast off guilt and shame, because it doesn’t work and it’s not who you are and it’s what Jesus came to die for.

On the other hand: God does want you to recover. He wants you not only to experience the cover of grace, but also His grace-empowered Spirit for a fruitful, passionate, purposeful, mission-driven life.

I believe God will restore you every time you fail for the rest of your life, so when you relapse and go down a porn-binge, God is still going to love you afterward, every time. But my question is: Do you really want to keep living this way?

I’m not asking this to guilt-trip you. I’m only saying that once the old self is dead, it’s not worth it to go back there anymore. I don’t think Lazarus missed his tomb and climbed into his coffin sometimes. I don’t think the healed blind man Bartimaeus wore a blindfold to reminisce on his days tripping over things.

You’ll be forgiven by God every single time, but God wants you to experience the fully forgiven life too.

So if you break a “clean streak,” please don’t wallow in self-pity. When you mess it up, it’s okay. But what’s even better is getting to the place where going back is no longer an option, and you’re so in love with God that turning around is unthinkable. I believe we can get there. I believe our God is that powerful. I believe we are not merely works in progress, but we are empowered by It Is Finished.


J.S. from What The Church Won’t Talk About


Begging For Retroactive Grace: When You Realize You Were The Stumbling Block

I haven’t lived a very good life.

I know that in the eyes of Christ, because I believe who he is and what he has done, that I’m forgiven for it. But that doesn’t change the horrible ideas I’ve embedded in innocent minds, the trail of destruction I left behind, the blasphemous garbage from this mouth that has thrown people off a brighter path.

I have God’s grace, but I beg Him for grace upon others I screwed up.

Continue reading “Begging For Retroactive Grace: When You Realize You Were The Stumbling Block” →

Quote: Deliverance


In this performancism, we eventually figure out that being the star of our own show actually makes life a tragedy. When life is all about us — what we can do, how we perform — our world becomes small and smothering; we shrink. To have everything riding on ourselves leads to despair, not deliverance.

— Tullian Tchividjian

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Quote: Moralism


Moralism beats this drum: If I improve, then I’ll be accepted — by God, by others, even by myself. But the gospel says something radically different. The gospel announces that everyone ‘in Christ’ is already accepted by God because of Jesus’s work for them. Therefore, no improvement, good behavior, or performance is necessary in order to experience the deep acceptance we long for and in fact strive for on a daily basis.

— Tullian Tchividjian

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Quote: Longings


Because of Christ’s finished work,Christians already possess the approval, the love, the security, the freedom, the meaning, the purpose, the protection, the new beginning, the cleansing, the forgiveness, the righteousness, and the rescue we intensely long for and, in fact, look for in a thousand things smaller than Jesus every day — things transient, things incapable of delivering the goods.The gospel is the only thing big enough to satisfy our deepest, eternal longings — both now and forever.

— Tullian Tchividjian

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Quote: Accountability



The reason I hate the kind of group described above [for accountability] is that their focus is primarily (almost exclusively, in my experience) on our sin, and not on our Savior. Because of this, these groups breed self-righteousness, guilt, and the almost irresistible temptation to pretend — to be less than honest. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in accountability groups where there has been little to no attention given to the gospel whatsoever. There’s no reminder of what Christ has done for our sin — cleansing us from its guilt and power — and the resources that are already ours by virtue of our union with him. These groups produce a “do more, try harder” moralism that robs us of the joy and freedom Jesus paid dearly to secure for us. They start with the narcissistic presupposition that Christianity is all about cleaning up and getting better — it’s all about personal improvement. But that’s not Christianity!

— Tullian Tchividjian


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