Joseph’s Christian Testimony – Saved From Addiction

I just found your website and want to share with you my personal testimony so that it may help others. I became a born again Christian about four months ago. Jesus has saved me, given me eternal life, and is living inside me as the Holy Spirit. Praise the Lord. My name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and heaven is my home. I have been saved from addiction. Glory be to God.

I am 27 years old now. But back when I was 16 in high school, I was introduced to drugs, weed, cigarettes, alcohol, and really whatever could get me high. But the worst of all these addictions was my addiction to porn and masturbation. The devil had planted a seed in me and it had to be watered.

I became addicted to not only drugs but I became heavily addicted to porn. I would watch porn every day for hours without eating or talking to anyone. I would just sit there glued to the computer and masturbate daily multiple times a day. The devil had me blinded thinking that this was okay, that it was just hormones. He fooled me into thinking that it wasn’t a sin. I thought, it’s just natural and I’ll eventually stop someday. But in reality this sin separated me from God.

For ten years I was like this, all throughout high school and college, even after graduating from college and working. For more than ten years, I would wake up every morning and the first thing I would do is get high, watch porn and masturbate. I had several girlfriends, thinking this would help stop my addiction, but it didn’t. Really it just fueled it more.

I was so ashamed and embarrassed that this addiction had such a strong hold on me. I tried many times over several years to quit but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t bring myself to stop. I would get these lustful urges from seeing stuff on TV and just immediately go watch porn and masturbate. I could not control myself. I was depressed and lonely with no real friends. The friends I did have would get high with me every day and go to bars, strip clubs and night clubs. I was living in sin. I needed to be saved from my addiction.

My parents are orthodox Christians and they had no idea about my addiction, but they would take me with them to church sometimes. I used to think that going to church, taking communion and confessing to a priest was all I had to do, but I was wrong. I knew of Jesus, but I did not know Jesus personally.

I felt so ashamed; I knew I was a sinner. I knew God hated sin. I wanted to be right with God but didn’t know where to start or how. I thought that I had to quit my addiction first then I could get right with God, not knowing that I couldn’t stop on my own. I needed God to help me stop, but I was foolish and I never asked or prayed to God for help. I just thought I could stop on my own.

Over the next four years I failed miserably trying to stop watching porn and masturbating and still I did not call out to God. I thought that God didn’t want anything to do with me. I thought that I had to stop doing this first then go to God. How wrong I was.

I was so ashamed and embarrassed I couldn’t talk to anyone about my problem. I felt left out everywhere I went. I couldn’t even look people in the eye while talking to them because I felt so ashamed. I felt they knew what I was doing.

One day I was on YouTube and heard a DMX gospel song called Lord Give Me a Sign and other gospel songs by DMX. Those songs really touched me. I felt the closeness he had with God. Words like, “Thank you Father for making me righteous and accepted through the blood of Jesus, and “Thank you Father; you sacrificed your Son to give me chance.” Those words really touched me.

When I got home I went to my room. While on my bed I said to myself, How can I be close to God? And right at that moment something inside me, not so much a voice but a thought (yet it was clear and audible) that felt like it was coming from my soul said, “Relationship with God.”

I know for sure this was God answering my question; this was God speaking to me, telling me to have a personal relationship with Him. So right there in my bed I repeated those words, “relationship with God,” over and over. I thought about them and kept thinking about what they meant then slowly I fell asleep.

Now, every morning for the past 10 years the first thing I would do before I even got out of bed was get high, smoke, watch porn and masturbate. But this particular morning I had absolutely no desire to get high, no desire to smoke, no desire to drink, no desire to watch porn, no lust and no desire to masturbate. It was gone; it was all gone!

My 10 year addiction that had been with me since high school was all of a sudden just gone! I didn’t even want to smoke cigarettes and I smoked a pack every day! Jesus took it all away and saved me.

It was all gone and these were things I had been desperately addicted to for 10 whole years. I had been unable to quit no matter how many times I tried. Jesus truly saved me.

That morning I did have one new urge, one new desire that God gave me–reading The Word of God. I hungered to read the Bible. I had never had such an urge to read God’s Word; it was amazing. I reached for my Bible and started reading the New Testament and read it all day.

I’ve been reading God’s Word ever since.

It’s been almost four months now and I’m happy to say Jesus is not only my savior but my best friend. I have never looked back nor have I ever watched porn or masturbated or gotten high or done any of the stuff I used to do; I simply don’t have the desires anymore.

Jesus has shown me that He is the only way. Jesus has given me new desires to read His word and to pray to Him and to really have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I have so much more to say but what I want to say is this: I know that there is nothing I did to save myself. The only thing I did was call out to God and ask Him how I could be close to Him and He told me. God answered me.

I realize now that if we just yield and surrender all to Jesus, He will save us. I was saved by Gods grace alone and not by any of my own works. I am a dirty, filthy, rotten sinner deserving to be condemned to Hell but God not only forgave me but forgot all my sins and saved me because Jesus died for me. Wow!

Think about that. God himself died for you! God would rather die than for you to go to Hell! Let me say that again. God would rather die than for you to go to Hell. And so He did. Jesus paid it all on the cross. It’s amazing.

Salvation is so easy; it’s so simple. Just believe on Jesus Christ and you will be saved. I didn’t make it easy, God did. I realize now that you can’t depend on a church or a priest or a religion to save you. Instead, depend only on Jesus Christ and you will inherit eternal life.

I will leave you with the immortal words of Paul the apostle which I hope we can all say in the end.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

2 Timothy 4:7

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