I am constantly tempted sexually. I pray to the Lord in Jesus name that He take this temptation away from me at least a time... but it never leaves.
Any advice?
I remember as a young man having some serious struggles in this area. Darn hormones! Fortunately, back then, the 'net was not yet a thing and the incredible ease of access to inappropriate content today did not exist. It's much easier to deal with the effects of rising testosterone when you can't find a sea of inappropriate content with just a couple clicks of a mouse.
Anyway, if God answered your prayer and removed all trace of sexual interest from you, what would you be? You'd be free of your struggle with your natural, God-given sexual impulse, yes; but what do we call men who have no sexual interest? Think of the guys who were put in charge of the king's harem. The guys who had their... you-know-what removed. Right: Eunuch. What you're asking God to do is to make you a eunuch. Do you really want Him to answer that prayer?
As well, your prayer - whether you intended it to or not - is asking God to over-ride you in a way a computer programmer might over-ride a computer system. You're basically asking God to treat you like a robot and forcibly "re-write" your sexual "programming." God's primary interest in dealing with you, though, is that you would love Him (
Matthew 22:36-38) - because you understand how much He loves you (
1 John 4:19). You can't love God when He's made a robot out of you. Your freedom to choose is crucial to your loving God.
For these reasons (and others), God's not going to answer the prayer you've prayed. His way to freedom from sin, sexual or otherwise, is very different from what you've proposed that He do.
Have you ever wondered what's at the bottom of all your sin, what the ultimate source of your sin is? The Bible tells us that our sin comes out of Self - the "old man" the apostle Paul called it (
Romans 6:6) - who is self-serving, focused on the here-and-now, moved easily and powerfully by physical impulses (fleshly-minded), and as a result cannot be brought under obedience to God. (See:
Romans 8:5-8; Philippians 3:18-19; Galatians 5:19-21, etc.) This was the person you were before you were saved, ruled by the power of the World, the Flesh, and the devil (
Ephesians 2:1-3).
One of the things the apostle Paul pointed out in his letter to the Roman church was that the "old man" is incorrigibly selfish and sinful; it can't be improved, it's so bad. God had to do something else with Self, with our "old man," than merely improve him. God's remedy, Paul wrote, was to put him to death. This is the only answer to the problem of sinful Self: death. (See
Romans 6:1-11)
God put our "old man" to death by crucifying him with Christ on the cross of Calvary (
Galatians 2:20). How, exactly, I don't know; it's a supernatural, spiritual thing God did that I am simply to accept as true, not understand in exact, mechanical detail. Like my salvation. I must believe what the Gospel tells me about my eternal future with God as one of His children. I don't get a sneak-peek into heaven; I have nothing but God's word that tells me the death of Christ perfectly atoned for all my sin. I just have to believe - like I have to believe that I am also "dead unto sin but alive unto God through Christ Jesus." (
Romans 6:11)
Paul the apostle wrote that the believer must begin to "reckon," or count on, by faith, that they are free from the power of Self and sin. Not until they do, can they come free of sin as God intends that they should. Paul wasn't kidding when he said that we Christians must "walk by faith, not by sight." (
2 Corinthians 5:7) In this business of reckoning ourselves dead to sin, this is exactly what we must do. We won't feel dead to sin; we probably won't be acting like we are; but God says we are, nonetheless. And so, a choice faces every believer at this point: Who or what are you going to believe? Is God right? Or are our feelings and experience more accurate, more true, than what God says? Until the believer trusts in what God says over and above what he might think, or feel, or experience, he won't ever experience the truth of what God has said about him as a "new creature in Christ."
This is what happened to the OT Isrealites. They arrived at the border to the Promised Land and chickened out. God had told them the land was theirs. He had walked them all the way to the land of Canaan, protecting them, leading them supernaturally, providing for their physical needs with manna every day and yet, the Israelites chose instead to trust in what they saw and felt about the inhabitants of the Promised Land. "They've got big cities, and giants, and huge populations!" they said, "We can't take this land." So, they denied what God had said, basically calling God a liar, and retreated from the land "overflowing with milk and honey" God had told them was theirs. (
Numbers 13, 14)
Christians often do the very same thing with the spiritual "Promised Land" that is theirs in Jesus. All sorts of things are ours as "new creatures in Christ." One of them is that we have been freed from the power source of our sin: the "old man." But if we don't believe God when He tells us we're free, we do exactly what the Israelites did. And we'll wander in a spiritual wilderness as a result, a wilderness of gray, flat spirituality, regular defeat morally, and no joy in walking with God.
One other thing: Paul in
Romans 6 explains about the believer's death to the "old man" and their freedom from sin, but he also spends about half the chapter reminding the Christian that they are also to live as the servants of God that they are as born-again believers. No amount of exercising faith in the truth of one's death to Self will be of any use in overcoming sin when one is not living in moment-by-moment surrender to God (
Romans 6:13; Romans 12:1; James 4:7-10; 1 Peter 5:6). The two things - faith in God's promises and submission to Him - go hand-in-hand. A believer "activates" the Holy Spirit in his life as he yields fully to the Spirit's will and way. And it is only as the Spirit transforms him, conforming him to the the divine truth in which he is exercising his faith, that he truly comes free of the person and life he lived before he was saved.
This is God's way to victory over all sin. It's not a quick fix. It requires your entire life to be God's, day-by-day, to do with as He pleases. But in this life there is not only freedom from sin but the incredible joy and peace of fellowship with God.