Porn Proof: A Guide to Living Clean

John Bevere

Audio by Paper2Audio.

A Guide to

Living Clean If you struggle with porn, you're not alone. Porn is a global epidemic, and many who sincerely love God find themselves stuck in this battle. The statistics are staggering. More than 50% of Christian men and 33% of Christian women admit to struggling with porn at least once a month.

If you are reading this, you're likely aware of how harmful porn can be. Porn diminishes the beauty that God intended for sexuality, degrades humanity, and brings all kinds of hurt and brokenness into our lives and those closest to us.

The first thing to know is that God loves you. Settle that right now in your heart. There's nothing you could ever do to make Him love you less.

He is for you and offers an abundance of mercy and grace. If you fall, He won't kick you while you're down. He loves you as much in your darkest moments as He does in your best. His love for you is truly inexhaustible.

Because God loves you, however, He will not tolerate sin in your life. He has so much more for you than to remain in bondage to things that destroy you. In His love, He invites you to leave broken ways of living behind and calls you higher into a life of freedom and wholeness—all the while providing the strength you need to get there. He's made you a child, given you His nature, and placed His Spirit in you!

But while you're still learning to live out your new identity in Christ and renew your mind, it's very common to still struggle with the temptation to look at porn and fall into destructive habits. Even though your spirit longs to live pure, you'll likely face many intense battles along the way.

Your spirit may be born again, but you still have to contend with the flesh—the unredeemed ways of thinking and behaving that have yet to be transformed in your life. Paul, knowing how strong sexual temptation can be, gave us this instruction:

“Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18 N.L.T)

There are times we are told to take a stand and resist the enemy, but when it comes to sexual sin, we are commanded to get far away from it—and quickly.

Furthermore, Solomon warns us:

“Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way.” (Proverbs 4:14 to 15 N.I.V)

If you are to walk in victory, you have to start taking these warnings seriously and stop having a casual attitude toward sin and temptation. It's time to stop flirting with the lines and, instead, set your mind on avoiding the very path that leads to evil—not just evil itself.

This Porn Proof Manual was put together to help you cut porn and any compromises that lead you toward it out of your life. While this guide will be helpful on its own, it is meant to be a supplement to the Porn Free course, which covers many other important keys to getting and staying free. Nevertheless, the practical steps in this manual will be critical in your journey toward freedom. So if you want to be free, commit right now to doing anything you need to do.

It's time to put a stake in the ground and declare, “No more!” as you apply the steps that follow.

Let's dive in.

Get Rid Of All Porn

This should go without saying, but any porn you have has to go immediately. If you want to get out of a hole, the first step is to put down the shovel. The journey toward freedom begins with a clean slate. If you have anything that is porn-related—whether that's pornographic images, videos, or anything else of the sort on your computer, phone, or tablet—permanently delete them!

Don't just leave them in the trash or your phone's deleted files only to recover them later. Empty the trash or recycle bin so they are gone for good.

Finally, if you have any physical porn, racy magazines, or even movies in your collection that have been stumbling blocks in any way, get rid of those too. It's not worth keeping any open doors of temptation in your life—even if you don't think it will cause you to stumble. And no, don't give into the struggle one last time before you destroy it. It's time to stop that "this is the last time" kind of thinking. Make the last time the last time.

Get Brutally Honest With Yourself

If you've struggled with porn, odds are you've often been dishonest with others in order to save face. Perhaps these lies were an intentional attempt to cover up your secret, or maybe you've simply withheld the truth from those in your life who deserve to know. But there's another person you've probably lied to more than anyone else—yourself.

Paul warned, “Don't think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us” (Romans 12:3 N.L.T, emphasis added). Sadly, one of the main reasons many remain stuck and continue falling into temptation is because they simply fail to be honest with themselves.

Without an honest assessment of ourselves, we'll fail to address our areas of vulnerability toward temptation. Having good intentions cannot negate the necessity of healthy introspection.

If you have a past of falling into porn, you simply cannot trust yourself in this area. Read that again. You cannot trust yourself in this area. To get free, you need to get completely honest about any open doors to temptation—your triggers, temptations, and vulnerabilities—so you can protect yourself from any possible road that leads to temptation.

Will you still have to deal with temptation at times? Yes. But if you are honest with yourself, you can develop a strategy to minimize the temptation in your life.

To assist you in this process, make a list of every way you've ever accessed porn in the past. Include any triggers that get you started down the wrong path. These may include social media, certain apps, T.V shows, or anything else that can easily be accessed from your electronic devices.

Triggers may even include subtle things that initially appear innocent on the surface, but that can lead you down a dark road. Only you know what these are for you—so take an internal inventory and get honest about them.

At this point, just do the work of identifying your triggers and writing them down. In the next step, you'll get an actionable game plan for closing the door on temptation so you can set yourself up for success. Some of the steps that follow may not be easy for you, but the ones you find the hardest will likely prove to be the most important. What is freedom worth to you? If there are things you aren't willing to give up to get it, you need to reevaluate your priorities.

Get Control of All Your Devices

Consider this hypothetical scenario. Let's imagine you've been free from porn addiction for many years. Then one day, a friend who is struggling with porn comes to you for your help. After hearing them out, you're convinced they genuinely want to quit. They are tired of hurting God and others and are weighed down by the heavy blanket of shame. You can tell they're ready to take the necessary steps to be free, but you also sense hesitation—they're afraid that, despite their intentions, they will give in to the struggle again.

Now, let's say this friend asks you to help them develop a game plan for the future so that even if they have a moment of weakness and are tempted, they will be protected from compromising and looking at porn. As someone who has struggled with porn, you know just how strong the pull can be in those moments, so you know your friend will likely need multiple layers of protection to get through them without stumbling.

With all that being said, what safeguards would you put in place to protect your friend in a potential moment of weakness?

It's time to protect yourself at least as much as you would this friend.

In the past, you've probably worked hard to access and find porn. Now it's time to work even harder at avoiding it. You need to structure your life in such a way that even if you have a moment of weakness, it doesn't become a moment of compromise. To avoid falling back into destructive patterns of behavior, you have to cut off all access to porn, get honest about your triggers, and get the struggle out of the darkness and into the light.

To that end, let's take a look at the variety of methods available to protect yourself against the temptation to look at porn and bring your struggle into the light so you can heal. You'll learn how to block pornographic content and cut off temptation on your computer, phone, tablet, and other devices.

Note—many of these steps will require the help of an ally—a trusted friend who will support you in your recovery journey. Choose an ally who is strong in their walk with God and not struggling in this area themselves. A mature friend, mentor, or even your spouse can all serve as excellent choices for an ally.

Don't glance over this next section—and be careful to do more than just read it. Agreeing with these principles won't help you get free. Putting them into practice will. For most, this may be the most important aspect in their journey toward getting free—so don't take these lightly!

1. Install a web filter and accountability software on your computer and phone.

The best tool to monitor your internet use on your computer is a software program called {Covenant Eyes} . Once installed, it will track the websites you browse and report any suspicious or inappropriate activity to an ally (or allies) of your choosing, who will then have the necessary conversations with you to call you to a higher standard. It also has a web filtering option which blocks most inappropriate content.

Finally, they have a new screen monitoring feature, which takes frequent screenshots of your computer (and/or phone), analyzes them using artificial intelligence, and sends any suspicious images in a highly blurred format to your ally for them to review. This keeps you accountable at all times. If you have an iPhone, please refer to this link for step-by-step installation instructions. If you have an Android, please refer to this link.

Another great accountability tool to monitor your computer browsing is a service called {X.3 Watch} . The features aren't as robust as those offered by Covenant Eyes for monitoring phone use, but the service is comparable for desktop accountability. If you choose this route, make sure to get the upgraded pro version. The extra features, such as web filtering, are more than worth it.

Another great program, specifically for monitoring phone use, is the Boomerang parental control app. This app has tons of similar features to Covenant Eyes. It blocks inappropriate content, reports search and browsing history, and allows you to give someone you've selected as an ally control over which apps are allowed on your phone through their built-in approval process.

2. Delete any apps on your phone that have been stumbling blocks or are sources of temptation.

Be honest with yourself and include any seemingly innocent apps like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and any others that have been gateways to compromise. Bottom line: If it's caused you to stumble and has been an open door to temptation, don't tell yourself that you'll just use it more responsibly. Remove it. Take it off your phone and leave it off until you are walking in freedom and it's no longer a source of temptation for you.

3. Make installing apps a passcode-protected action and have an accountability partner set the password so you can't bypass it.

If you struggle with porn on your phone, eliminating the ability to install apps on your own can keep you from creating an open door to temptation where you could stumble in a moment of weakness. Once you restrict this properly, if you want to install an app on your phone, you'll need to first meet up with your ally who holds the password and get their approval. Your ally should then review the app in question and have an open and honest conversation about it with you before installing it.

If you have an iPhone, go to Settings and open Screen Time. Then select Use Screen Time Passcode and have a trusted ally set the code so you don't have it. Then, under Screen Time, select Content & Privacy Restrictions, and then navigate to iTunes & App Store Purchases. Once inside, change the Installing Apps setting from the default "allow" to "don't allow" and you'll be all set. Again, after setting this up, any changes to apps must be reviewed and approved on a case-by-case basis with your ally.

If you opt to use the {Boomerang app} , as previously mentioned, it makes this process a bit easier. With this service, your ally can approve the installation of an app remotely from their phone, rather than being present to enter their passcode and temporarily lift the restrictions. Please note, if you have an Android device, you'll need to use a third-party application like Covenant Eyes or Boomerang to block installing apps and restrict this action with a passcode held by your ally.

4. Utilize the D.N.S Cloak App (iOS) or the D.N.S Changer App (Android).

This may seem technical, but with the help of modern apps designed specifically for this purpose, it's a pretty simple process—and highly effective. Essentially, this will add another layer of protection, automatically blocking a vast majority of inappropriate sites.

You'll want to use the app called D.N.S Cloak for iOS and the app called D.N.S Changer for Android, which take the technical legwork out of it. Once you get this set up properly (please refer to this link for a detailed explanation and step-by-step instructions), you can determine a sensitivity level, and it will block all content at or above that level. (As an added bonus, the above link includes instructions to help you configure the D.N.S settings for your home Wi-Fi router, which will block inappropriate content from being accessed on your entire home network!)

5. Create a blacklist of sites that are never allowed on your phone.

No filter is perfect, and only you know your specific triggers—so it's important to create a list of sites that are never allowed on your phone based on your own history. If any site, no matter how benign it seems, has been a source of temptation in the past, block it until you know you are in a good place.

As a general rule, while getting free, it's best to avoid unregulated or very poorly regulated mixed content sites. Chris McKenna from Covenant Eyes recommends blocking the following at a minimum: Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, A.O.L, Dogpile, Excite, and Reddit. Pinterest, Blogspot, and Imgur should also be blocked.

Although there are legitimate uses of each of these sites, it's not difficult to find highly inappropriate and even explicit content on them. If you know of any other “backdoor” sites that have caused you to stumble, be sure to add them to the blocked list.

To block sites on an iPhone, you'll first want to have a trusted ally set the Screen Time passcode. Then, navigate to the Screen Time option under Settings, and click Content & Privacy Restrictions. At this point, your ally will need to type in their passcode to allow access. From there, click Content Settings and then Web Content. Under Web Content, select Always Block and then enter U.R.L's for the sites you wish to blacklist. This will block them at all times on your iPhone, whether accessed through a browser or the backend of another app.

On Android, you'll have to use a third-party app like Covenant Eyes or Boomerang to set up your blacklisted sites. This step is very helpful for eliminating triggers that lead you into further compromise, so for your own sake, take it seriously.

6. If you are still finding ways to struggle after implementing the above steps, take the internet off your phone or get a flip phone.

The bottom line is this: Make up your mind that you will do whatever is necessary to get free. If you find that you're still struggling and looking for loopholes to get to porn after completing all the steps already outlined, it's time to take some more extreme measures.

When you make up your mind that it's just not worth struggling even one more time, you will do the work to cut it out of your life—whatever that entails! That may mean getting a flip phone for a season or blocking all internet access on your smartphone.

To do this on an iPhone, first access the Screen Time controls under Settings, and then click Use Screen Time Passcode (have your ally set the code so you don't know it—this is key). Then, under the Screen Time section, navigate to Content & Privacy Restrictions. Once you click that, click Content Restrictions, where you'll find the Web Content section. Set this to the Allowed Websites Only option. By default, this section only allows a few children's educational sites, but you could even remove those if you wanted to. Any site not on the "allowed" list will be blocked, whether you are trying to access it from a browser or through the backend of another app. As an added note, while you are under Content Restrictions, you can also adjust the ratings settings for apps, T.V shows, movies, and more—so take a look at those as well and make sure the settings are appropriate.

If you have an Android phone, there isn't a built-in way to turn off your internet, but you should be able to have a trusted ally utilize the app control features in either the Covenant Eyes app or the Boomerang app to shut your browser off entirely. Leave all internet turned off on your phone until you are walking in a significant degree of freedom—something both you and a trusted ally should determine together through open and honest conversation.

That's it for the steps to porn proof your life. As a final note, if you have any other devices—perhaps a Kindle, Apple T.V, iPod Touch, or anything else that has caused you to stumble—either find a way to get control over your use of it using the principles above, or get rid of it. Again, it's not worth having any gateways to temptation and compromise. You just can't renew your mind if you keep stumbling back into old, broken habits.

Sin, secrets, and shame grow in the dark. If you keep hiding, you will not find the help and healing you so deeply long for. But if you implement the above steps to cut off temptation and bring your struggles out of the darkness and into the light, you will begin walking out of bondage and into a glorious freedom.

Beyond that, as your mind is renewed and you learn to live from your new nature, an amazing thing will happen—you will desire porn less and less. As you learn to love what God loves and hate what He hates, porn will not only lose its luster, it will begin to be repulsive to you—even to the point where you no longer desire it! But until you are firmly in that place, and even once you are walking in freedom, it's wise to have the proper safeguards in place so you can close the door to temptation.

Hopefully this guide has been helpful to you! As you clean your slate, get totally honest with yourself, and take the necessary steps to close the doors to temptation, you'll be well on your way to living a porn-proof life.

When you are living your life in the light, you'll have nothing to hide. Imagine your life with no secrets or areas of darkness and shame. Imagine never feeling like you have to cover up your tracks or lie to hide your behavior again.

Imagine not even wanting to look at porn anymore, but instead, living out your deep desire to please God and walk in His ways! Isn't that what you truly want more than anything else? That's the life your loving Heavenly Father wants for you, His child.

In Closing: A Message From John Bevere

I'm so proud of you for being courageous to face your struggle and pursue freedom! I too was once bound to pornography. I thought getting married to my wife Lisa, who I considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world, would fix the problem—but it didn't. The struggle actually got worse, and I felt powerless over it as it continued to wreak havoc in my life and in my marriage.

It wasn't until I discovered key principles from God's Word I'd previously been missing that everything changed. I've been completely free now for over 30 years. Not only have I not looked at porn—I have no desire for it anymore. God truly transformed me from the inside out!

The same is possible for you!

This is a battle you simply have to win. The stakes are simply too high to keep living in compromise. Thankfully, God doesn't leave us to fight in our own strength but equips us with everything we need to overcome the schemes of the enemy.

If you want to learn how to beat porn from every angle—spirit, soul, and body—please, for your own sake, go through the {Porn Free course} . It will go so much deeper than this short resource to expose the roots of your struggle, explain why you feel so stuck, and, more importantly, lovingly take you by the hand and walk you step-by-step on a journey toward freedom.

Click here to learn more about the Porn Free course.