Video coming soon. The video teaching for Day 20 is still in production. Read the full lesson below, it will be added here as soon as it is ready.
Here's the fourth benefit of confession: it makes the lies of sin obvious.
Here's a phrase worth remembering: secrets make sin stronger.
"Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them… for anything that becomes visible is light."
That's not just a poetic line about honesty. It's a description of how this specific sin actually behaves. Pornography, lust, the whole cycle of it, needs the dark. It needs secrecy the way fire needs oxygen. The moment it's dragged out into the light, it starts looking dumb and weak and bad.
Everything that lives in darkness only gets strong because it's hidden
Mold. Cockroaches. Fungus. Open the wall, turn on the light, let fresh air in, and they can't survive. Sin works exactly the same way. Every day you keep it secret, you're feeding it the environment it needs to thrive. Every time you confess it to a trusted brother, you're pulling the wall off and letting the light in.
A moment I learned this firsthand
During one of the worst years of my own battle with porn, I found out I was going to have the house to myself for three days. My wife and kids were going to be gone. I'd be completely alone.
Almost instantly, the thought showed up: You're going to be alone. You know what that means. My brain had learned to associate being alone with an opportunity to sin: it was the first place my mind went. I carried that thought around for a few minutes while I worked, and I could actually feel it growing. It was gaining strength.
Then it hit me: this thing is growing because it's still in the dark.
You don't have to fight this in secret.
Confession isn't a formality, it's how temptation loses its power. Join a community built for exactly this kind of honesty.
So I pulled out my phone and texted my accountability group: "Guys, I'm going to be alone for the next three days. I need you to check on me every day. Let's get together afterward, and I want you to ask me direct questions about how I did."
I hit send. And the atmosphere in the room changed almost immediately. The weight I'd been carrying lifted. I felt so unexpectedly free that I actually laughed out loud.
That moment taught me something I'll never forget: sin isn't nearly as powerful as secrecy makes it seem. The moment you drag it into the light with another brother in Christ, something changes. The temptation doesn't always disappear completely, but it loses one of its greatest weapons. It no longer gets to whisper in private. It has to stand out in the open, and its lies start looking obvious.
Find your brother. Tell him the truth. Then watch what God does with a temptation that no longer has the darkness to hide in.
This is Day 20 of Victory Over Pornography. Tomorrow: someone specific in your life who needs to know this fight is happening: your pastor. Continue to Day 21 →