I’m addicted to prostitutes

Question:

I am addicted to prostitutes. I want to get out. I have tried but I still sin. I want to give my life to Christ.

Answer:

People claim to have an addiction to give the impression that they have little choice. No one starts life as an addict, whether we are talking about drugs or sexual behavior. People choose to experiment with sin. Perhaps, at first, they know what they are doing is wrong but they continue until it becomes a regular habit. They become tolerant of the problems that accompany the sin and in some fashion become dependent on how the sin makes them feel. That feeling becomes more important to them than living righteously.

No one makes you see prostitutes. You have to choose to seek them out, pay them money, and then engage in sex. Thus, you have to realize that the only reason you are doing it is because of your own desires. "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust" (James 1:14). Therefore, until you value living for Christ above your own desires and wants, you will constantly find yourself compromising with sin, which is really no compromise because sin always wins when you allow it.

Repentance is when you change your mind and your behavior in regard to sin. Being sorry that you have sinned is not repentance. Sorrow over what you have done may drive you to do something about the situation, but the sorrow alone is not a true change. You have to see that having sex with someone you are not married to is wrong, regardless of the circumstances or your personal feelings about the matter.  You have to change -- inside and out. "For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter" (II Corinthians 7:11).

Getting rid of sin out of your life is not enough by itself. The reasons you sinned in the past are still there and eventually, the sin will come back stronger than before (Matthew 12:3-45). Sinful behavior has to be replaced with righteousness. "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Galatians 2:20).

A person dies with Christ through baptism. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:1-4).

When you are ready to trust Christ with your life, let me know and we'll find a preacher near you to teach you the words of life. "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17).