Mighty Change of Heart
The scripture that says "no more disposition to do evil" (Mosiah 5:2) may seem intimidating. It can be disheartening, because we doubt that such a thing is possible. But it is possible, even essential. We can experience a mighty change of heart "because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent."
What does it take to experience this mighty change? It is not something we do to ourselves. It is not something we "work on," or "practice." It is comparable to waking up one morning feeling apathy for chocolate cake, and intensely craving broccoli. You could not practice enough to trick yourself into such a state. It would require a fundamental change of nature, and that is something only God can accomplish.
God does not interfere with our agency, our free will. He will not reach into a heart and change it until it belongs to Him. Words such as "I'll do anything," and "It doesn't matter what I want anymore," are the sounds produced by a heart that belongs to God.
The Spirit and the Atonement
How do we know when the Atonement is active in us, refining our hearts and minds? The answer is so simple, it startled me the first time I heard it: The Atonement is active in our hearts and minds when we feel the Spirit. The degree to which we have the Holy Ghost is the degree to which our hearts are being changed by the Atonement, because the Holy Ghost is the agency through which the power of the Atonement is delivered (see Mosiah 5:2). How can we have the Holy Ghost to a greater degree? Faith in Christ, humility, and doing all we can to invite and keep the Spirit with us (see 3Ne. 9:20). The Lord is the One who changes our hearts; we do the things that He requires before He makes those changes.
5 Points
Below are five things necessary in not only receiving, but maintaining, a change of heart. They are principles distilled from scripture and teachings of modern prophets. This is not a checklist, but a list of things that must be firmly in place ALL THE TIME in order to keep that change. It is also not a list of ways to stay so busy that there is no time for sin.
1. Faith in Christ. This gets a lot of airtime, but it is necessary just the same. If you find yourself free from the shackles of pornography addiction, and you let yourself think that maybe it was your own strength or psychosomatic whatever that allowed you to break free, you will find the original weight of temptation crushing back onto your feeble shoulders. Nurture faith in Christ by studying the scriptures, and through prayer. The word "Savior" is dilapidated in our minds; it has lost its meaning for us. "Rescuer" is one synonym. Rescue from what? From everything, including physical and spiritual death, and addictions. Jesus proclaimed He was the Messiah: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound..." (Isaiah 61:1). Providing freedom from temptation is His job.
2. Humility. This is perhaps the most neglected virtue. It is not "the American way." Yet it is essential to receiving a change of heart. When does a heart belong to the Lord? When it is "as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [it], even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19). "I'll do anything, Lord," sincerely written in the heart, is essential. Recognize your nothingness, your dependence on the Lord, not just with escaping pornography addiction, but in all things. Be willing to do whatever He asks, go wherever He needs you, sacrifice anything at His request. This includes more than giving up sins; it also includes sacrificing opportunities such as scholarships and relationships, if the Lord should prompt you to do so through the Spirit. Defer to the truth in all things, no matter how uncomfortable. Don't just pray; cry (scream) to the Lord that He will deliver you from sin. Your change of heart will be proportional to your submission to God's will.
3. Follow the Spirit. The Holy Ghost will prompt you to do things, go places, sacrifice things you enjoy (sinful or neutral), and guide you in what to say or write. Give heed to those promptings, follow them with exactness, and the change of heart will stay with you. Balk, and the dam in your heart that separates you from your old sinful desires will begin to crack. Rebel, and the dam will break. "Not my will, but thy will be done," is the only right way to approach the promptings of the Spirit. If you are set free from pornography, it is to be the Lord's servant. You are waiting for the call, so to speak, and when it comes you drop everything and obey.
4. Stop Offending the Spirit. You may be tempted to think that just because some entertainment has only violence in it, and no pornography, that it is "safe" for you to indulge in. ANYTHING offensive to the Spirit (even wasting time or oversleeping) puts you at risk for relapse into old desires and behaviors. Why? Because it is the Spirit that brings the power of the Atonement, which activates and maintains that change of heart. When the Spirit leaves, your armor departs with Him. Throw away movies, books, magazines, music, video games, relationships, substances, behaviors, words, and anythings else, whether pornographic or not, which you know to be offensive to the Spirit. This world is vast, and there are many activities, people, places, and things to excite and fascinate you. Do not be so narrow as to think that never playing a video game again will stifle your ability to have fun. Reality will become much more captivating than virtual reality and fiction after the mighty change of heart has taken place. Being useful, deploying your strengths, and being creative in reality are more satisfying than the nonsense and distraction of fiction and games, anyway. The Lord does not set us free from socially embarrassing sins to engage in socially acceptable vices. He wants total repentance from all sin. Why should He help us get rid of the one we cannot lift alone, when we also want to keep our little pet sins? Repent of everything bad, not just one or two things. (You may say, "Pornography offends the Spirit; how can I have the Spirit to get rid of the very thing that keeps Him out of my life?" Think of your mind and heart as a garden full of rocks you are trying to remove. Pornography is a giant boulder you need divine help with; violent movies and video games that offend the Spirit are sacrifices you can and should extract more easily, of your own free will.)
5. Invite the Spirit. Study the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, for at least an hour a day. Attend the Temple every week, or if you are not worthy to yet, do indexing or genealogy research. Attend church meetings, mentally as well as physically. Share the gospel when prompted by the Spirit. Help others, serve them, show them love. Participate in priesthood ordinances, when possible. Learn your duty, and fulfill your church callings. Pray earnestly and often. Fast in secret, when no one knows about it. Be grateful. Think, feel, say, and do all the other things mentioned above; it all invites the Spirit. Think of repentance of sin as clearing rocks off a runway, and doing good as lighting that runway. Then the plane can land; the influence of the Spirit can enter into your heart.
I suppose a sixth point could be receiving ordinances, but I will assume the reader is already a baptized, confirmed Latter-day Saint, and possibly even Temple-endowed. Another point might be loving God with all our hearts. Rebirth comes by the Spirit through ordinances. Ordinances are events; keeping the Holy Ghost with us is a life's work.
Not the Same
A mighty change of heart is not the good feelings you have when you hear an excellent talk, or the determination you muster to "never do it again." These things are good, but they are not spiritual rebirth. Actual rebirth is seamless, very easy to miss unless you are looking for it. Remember, the Lamanites were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and "they knew it not" (3Ne. 9:20). Your own rebirth becomes most obvious when you are exposed to former temptations, and your main response is apathy. No temptation can withstand the peace the Lord is able to confer, if we give our whole hearts to Him.
Part of the Plan
It is important to remember that sexuality is not all bad. It is a main component of God's plan for us. In the landscape of the mind and heart, there are good facets to sexuality (the ability to fall in love; romance in the context of monogamy and family; improved physical and mental health; fidelity and trust; meeting the needs of another; giving and receiving affection; wanting children; rejoicing publicly, like at a wedding; wanting to have a companion through all seasons of life; tenderness and gentleness). To say that sex is totally bad is to condemn and dismiss all the good things that are connected with it. It is natural to have bad elements in our minds and hearts connected with sex as well (pornography, unrealistic expectations, selfishness, exploitation, addictions, aberrations like masochism, sadism, and other violence, avoiding family responsibility, secretiveness, hiding feelings, clandestine behaviors, shame, viewing others as disposable objects, desensitization through excess, etc.) The potential for both good and bad exists side by side in our hearts, but a mighty change of heart is like sunlight that kills one plant, while encouraging the other to grow. The monks got it wrong. The Spirit does not lead to prudish asceticism or greasy, holier-than-thou hypocrisy. All the good connected with sex increases in the mind and heart of a person who experiences spiritual rebirth, while all the bad in the mind and heart decreases, shrivels, and wilts. The Spirit engenders life and health and vigor, and all those things are associated with an intensification of sexuality in humans, not a decrease. The purpose of sexuality in God's plan is not just to procreate, but to help us be able to select and love companions. It is a strength, when it is tempered by the Spirit.
Beginnings
Where should you start? Are you in the bottom of the hole, looking up, wishing for a way out? Jesus is the one who can help you out, but it requires at least what is listed above (especially humility and submissiveness to His will), and possibly more. Our prayers are often too tepid and insipid. Screaming (the scriptures say "cry") for the Lord to deliver you is the first place to start. Get rid of the darkness in your life, and invite the good. Incorporate all the five points listed above as well. A messed up life is like a rubik's cube—no matter how scrambled it is, the Lord can put it right again.
Arm of the Flesh
There are decoys, artificial solutions that present themselves. Peter jumped out of the boat to walk on the water; we often want to strap on our water skis first. We want to rely on what we understand, on our own wisdom, strength, willpower, etc. Even if we could manage unrighteous desires through sheer willpower, they are still a contaminant in the heart that disqualifies us from entering heaven. "And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God" (Mosiah 27:25-26).
Winning the state championship in basketball or getting attention from that special someone may temporarily fill the emptiness in your heart, and you will be tempted to say, "I must be cured." But as soon as life happens, and the goodness of one day gives way to hardship or tragedy the next, you will be exposed to those same temptations again.
Let the Spirit in, don't keep it out, be as humble as you can be, and the Lord will change your heart. He will strengthen you to resist temptations, and when you go long enough without giving in He will cleanse your heart to the point where you are not tempted anymore. This is my faith, and my encouragement to those who want to be free.
Grace Between Bondage and Freedom
There will probably be an intermediate time between total freedom and bondage, where you are not completely free, but you are strengthened to effectively resist temptations (see Mosiah 24 for an excellent analogy of being freed from addiction). This strengthening influence is called grace. Jesus gives us strength beyond our own natural capacity to accomplish what He has asked us to do (1Ne. 3:7). Grace gives you the ability to conform your behavior, even though the temptation is still alive in your heart. If you go long enough successfully resisting temptation through this sustaining grace, you will be freed from addiction, and it will be as if you had never looked at pornography in the first place. You will be standing at the edge of the pit instead of inside it. You will be able to jump into the pit if you want, but why would you? If you neglect any of the points listed above, that peace that diffuses temptation will begin to dissipate, and you will find yourself face to face with the same temptations again (see D&C 20:30-34). The mighty CAN fall—David's real Goliath was lust; neglecting the very things that allow us to experience the change will cause it to leave us.
The main determining factor of how long this period lasts, of relying on grace to face temptation and waiting to have bad desires removed, is humility. The sooner we see ourselves, our lives, our time, our abilities, all we have or hope to have, as the Lord's personal property, the sooner we will go from being tempted to "having no more disposition to do evil." And the possibility of backsliding also increases as we become proud. Pride keeps us back; humility moves us forward.
Here and Now
It is something of a backwards compliment to be put on earth at this time—the Lord's way of letting you know that you are somehow capable of dealing with the very temptations available on the earth today. Don't look for worldly solutions—rely on the Lord, and He will get you out of the mess you are in, if you have faith in Him, remain humble and submissive before and after He gets you out, and if you do everything in your power to always invite the Spirit and keep its influence.
