Cory Asbury, a worship artist with Bethel Artist Collective recently testified about his past struggle with pornography addiction and how he was helped by God to beat it.
The “Reckless Love” singer shared that he first saw porn at the age of 12. “Pornography was one of the ugly parts of my life for many years, even into my 20s after I had become a full-time worship leader,” Asbury wrote.
“Because I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone knowing that I, a minister of worship in the house of God, dealt with such a dark and evil thing, I couldn’t confess it to anyone, which kept me in a perpetual cycle of guilt and shame.”
Asbury said he felt “completely and utterly stuck.” He married his wife, Anna, when he was 21, but the cycle didn’t stop.
“On top of hurting God’s heart with my sin, I now mourned breaking my wife’s heart as well — a double-whammy of heartache,” he wrote. “This burden was too much to bear.”
Posted by Cory Asbury on Tuesday, December 25, 2018
He felt condemned and became convinced he would never be able to earn God’s favor. But when he began studying King David’s life, he realized hating himself wasn’t going to help him.
King David was known as a “man after God’s own heart,” but he too had a struggle with lust- the same sin that motivated Asbury’s porn addiction. In 2 Samuel, David sleeps with Bathsheba, a married woman, and then tries to get her husband killed. But when he was convinced about his sin and repented, he wrote Psalm 51.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions,” David wrote in verse 1.
“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise,” read verses 16-17.
Like David, Asbury too turned to God with a repentant heart and asked for forgiveness. “David didn’t let his failure define him; He allowed his Father to do that,” the singer wrote. “And as we know, the words bestowed upon David were enviable: a man with a heart like God’s.
“David severed the head of the giant of shame in one decisive blow by boldly running to the throne of grace even though he knew he deserved the gallows of death.”
Today Cory Asbury encourages everyone with a habitual sin, such as porn addiction, to simply turn to God. “Right now, right where you are, start talking to God about this,” he wrote. “Open your Bible and pray Psalm 51 to God as if you wrote it.
He says, “Pray from your heart and watch to see how God meets you right where you are.”