Overcoming Porn, Part 1 – Healing the Root of Rejection

The Peter Skov story – conquering porn by dealing with the roots and doing deliverance.

I am free from watching porn on and off for 18 years – as a born-again on-fire tongue talking Christian leader.

Therefore, this is written to help you get free from porn – and any other kind of self-satisfaction coming from a root of rejection due to idolatry (worshipping a not-fully-true “god” (even a Christian “god”) who is not defined correctly), leading to retaliation, “justified” self-pity & rebellion, and then to self-satisfaction – at least that’s my story as detailed below.

Maybe it can help you. I know it has already helped many.

Other types of self-satisfaction that you might be struggling with – other than porn: Over-eating. Over-buying. Over-focus on what others think (fear of people’s opinions over only God’s opinion). Any substance or drug use. Time waste. Self-harm. Money chasing. Fame chasing. Status chasing.

World stats: Around 90% of all men and 60% of all women watch porn & masturbate. Among Christians the number is only a little bit lower. Sources: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov / researchgate.net

My Story

When I became a Christian as a 19-year-old in 1994, I did not watch porn for 10 years! I started doing it as a non-Christian having been introduced to it through porn movies during a ½ year in Spain in 1988, so when I was 14. 1988 was of the most terrible years of my life. So, that freedom from that horrible, twisted sin lasted 10 years and I thought it would just have remained that way.

But then, since 2004 – for 18 years – since closing down JesusKirken, a church my wife and I planted in 1998 – I, on and off, watched porn (plus wasted thousands of precious hours on stupid computer games and other time wasters) – and I have done it (and partly loved the pleasure of it – sin is pleasurable for a season only – Hebrews 11:25) – yet, I absolutely hated and detested the sin, and myself sometimes, being filled with shame, rebellion, disobedience, despair & the utter pure time waste of it.

I hated the raw filth, impurity, unholiness, the evil and darkness of it. It has greatly limited and subtracted from me in life and ministry, and it helped to impair my relationship with God. Sin influenced me and I therefore decided to hold myself back from stepping into full blown ministry in certain ways.

Because I had this sin on repeat, I on purpose self-stopped myself, self-limited myself from doing and being all I dreamt to do and be as a person and in God!! I consciously and unconsciously self-sabotaged.

I would not fully do what I knew God was calling me to and dream it until I was at least able to say no to that ugly terrible recurring sin. I did not want to bring this impure thing with me into higher levels of leadership and influence.

Should other Christians do the same if they are struggling with repeated sin?

I know that what you and I should do right now – is seek the right help from people who are truly free and who can give that freedom away – not from the blind leading the blind, the bound leading the bound.

I and so many others can help.Even though around 90% of all men, and even around 50% of all Christian leaders do this – it is still not right under any circumstances!

And there HAS to be real victory in holiness in Christ Jesus – who is also KING over ALL bondage to sin – also yours.

I almost gave up trying… I did not know what to do. I was at my wits end.

I felt like I had tried everything: repentance, confession, fasting, psychology, accountability, limitation of access, prayer, Bible quoting etc. etc. – even confessing the sin to my wife at a time when I thought I had won over it – only to fall again some months after again.

Because it hurts a wife so much to hear of this – it is a trauma and like breaking the marriage – I would not recommend telling her what you are dealing with – until you are sure you have the victory over it.

So, radically pursue freedom – for there is truly true freedom from this bondage.

The Bible Says

John 8:36

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Meaning – truly free. Really free. Not just kind ‘a free. Not just mostly free. But truly free. Paul in Galatians 5:1 echoes this: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Jesus says the same thing yet again in this way in John 8:31-32: 31 “If you abide in my Word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

These Scriptures Have Now Become the Factual Experienced Truth in My Life – They Used to Not Be

Romans 6:11-23

Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations.

Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?

Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Galatians 2:20-21

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

My Response and Interpretation

Knowing that, believing that – how could I still be so bound? For 18 years I did not understand it! I tried all kinds of things that I was taught – but it didn’t work.

Now I found out why!! I found the keys to freedom in both deep level repentance – going from just looking at the fruit, the result of the problem – watching porn and wasting time and other types of rebellion and compromise.

I found the roots – both in my mind, past, emotions, heart, and theology – the lies going on there – which I was blind to for 18 years – and I have learned to deal with those roots as evil demonic spirits that entered through those open gates and doorways of sin into to my life.

I fully believe and believed that God is holy and calls us to live holy as He is holy and pure (1 Peter 1:15-16). I believed this when I was still in those years of partial bondage where I was also, at the same time, really trying to serve God fully.

But I found the root. I found the solution for me. I found out it has to be healthy, relational (Friend of friends), truth, love and grace based. I do believe in using ALL tools He has given us to live holy.

I have found some further even deeper tools to be holy and live free from bondage that I did not know about previously.

I am now free to the glory of God. This is the story of how I finally got free – to help you and all others to be free as well. And get ready. This goes deep – straight to the roots for then the fruit loses its “magic (willful and demonic)” strength.

The Final Extra “Tools”, Understandings and Practices That Did It for Me in the End Were the Following

1

Where to Start? My Life Situation Before and Leading Up to My Freedom

I was frustrated with my life. Very frustrated! I wrote the following things down in the beginning of 2020.

This truly is the sad and ugly situation leading up to my freedom – and then something happened – and COVID came… (sorry everyone – God had to bring on COVID to wake me up… ;-))

List of Sad Things, Failures, in My Life

1

Porn

I was struggling with real bondage to sin in my life – porn and time-waste on silly computer games. I hated it and did not want it – yet I did it! So defeating!

2

The church, Hillsong Church Copenhagen, that I had fought so hard and served so hard in to get going, was losing people all over the place, not growing anymore – but losing people – both new believers and old and mature ones. Many, especially new believers, did not just find another church elsewhere.

Scandals were happening globally with some of those in leadership. So, good people were leaving. Strong People. People who had gone to the Hillsong Bible College and who were trained in the culture of Hillsong church. But also – even worse – many new believers left as well.

All the work over 7-8 years to a large extent went down the drain it seemed – leading up to 2020. I felt like I said no to miracles in 2004 when switching views on church content and structure (which I knew was not part of the Hillsong execution DNA) – for now – non-growth.

I said no to the miracles to see a truly strong church grow… See my position and change paper written at that time. Now it became clear, I had “given up” the miracles and the strong supernatural as part of modern church expression – for “nothing”…

I also do want to clearly recognize that the clear message of forgiveness and grace – not by works, but by faith in Jesus alone, and the worship, and the preaching and fellowship there, and the measure of fruit I did bear there, helped me to not fall away from faith.

3

I had made some decisions in 2006 & 2007 before the financial crisis of 2008 that led me and the family into having a LOT of completely uncovered debt after 2008 – around 200.000 EUR. Investments in land in Romania that went wrong – so not consumer debt. That debt was still there and was not going down fast – even 14 years later… A very uphill continual financial battle.

4

We had moved from the West Coast of Jutland in Denmark to Copenhagen – it’s a 5-hour drive. And we had still not been able to sell our house there. And it was not fun to deal with renters living so far away. And it was not doing anything positive in our lives – just negative in regard to income and finances. Renting it out brought negative income and time-waste…

5

I was not living in the call of God that I thought was on me and I was less and less recognized in the church as one who could lead and do things.

6

I did not have the best relationship with my daughter. She was angry at me for “no reason” in the specific situations and I was very sad about that.

7

I had proclaimed I felt around 2013 – in 2017 we were supposed to move to Israel to help Hillsong Israel start up. And I had really tried to make that happen – but it just didn’t work out.

8

I was hoping to have a good friendship with the pastor of Hillsong Denmark, Thomas Hansen, also to grow myself. But that just didn’t happen as I was hoping. To me it seemed I wasn’t cool, skilled, popular, and talented enough and also, I experienced many occasions of non-response from him when I asked to meet up, talk, hang out. It disappointed and wounded me deeply.

I Also Had Wonderful Things in My Life That Many Do Not

• Wonderful wife – 10 million+ times better than me
• Wonderful kids – by grace – who truly love me, Jesus, church, and life
• Good guys in life
• Finances doing a bit better day by day for the last 12 years
• Small hope for church to really grow again, somehow
• Pretty good health
• Pretty good jobs / career (even though I knew it was not the call of God)

I was deeply deeply frustrated with this sin and all these things that were failing in my life.

The Tide Begins to Turn

As this frustration was real in me – and was so for many years, I went to an event in my church where we talked about different personality types and weaknesses and leanings and how to become truly healthy as a person – and look more like Jesus.

Here my tendency – according to the questionnaires – would be to live more to perform and be seen than to form deep real relationships. My simple thought from that was 2 things:

1. If this is true – what is the healthiest thing I can do? Spend more time alone with just God and truly hang out with Him as a friend hangs out with a friend. 2. I then also decide to start listening again to 5-fold ministry gifts of Christian prophets – people whose primary ministry is to make us hungry to hear from God ourselves.

As I do that, I also start listening to people talking about deliverance ministry. And I listen to the likes of Donna Rigney – who has been to both Heaven and Hell multiple times – and has seen Jesus. And I listen to Rodney Hogue who, as a born-again Christian, experienced personal deliverance. Hear some of the things they say here:

Donna Rigney – strong humble prophetic lady

• messianicvision.swncdn.com
• YouTube
• YouTube
• YouTube
• Book and 4 teaching CDs: Word doc

Rodney Hogue about deliverance – I prayed along with him on the various prayers he prays

• YouTube
• YouTube
• Book & 3 CDs: Word doc

I also begin to listen to Kevin Zadai about intimacy with God, limitations, freedom, and many other things

YouTube

And here is a list of others that I listen to and get deeply inspired and challenged by:

Word doc

I also start re-reading the book, The Final Quest, by Rick Joyner, again (find it on Amazon and Audible). Which I see as one of the best books after the Bible – in print today.

I share all of this to help you get on the same road to freedom and bearing much healthy eternal supernatural fruit of your faith – as I have, and I still do.

All of this then begins piquing my curiosity to find those who really bear much healthy supernatural Biblical fruit. Also, I begin to question the true health of “Hillsong Church Culture” which I have followed closely since 2004 – where I also started watching porn.

And the prophets stir me for hungering for God even more – as they should – and I expected that and willingly submitted myself to that – and listening to these great people gets me curious about deliverance, as I can see that that might be something I need too, personally, as well as I need to understand how it even works well.

To the great surprise of my wife – out of radical frustration soon after the COVID lockdowns start in 2020 – I suddenly started going to bed early – like at around 21:00 – and getting up at 5:00 to go into a room, close the door, and be with the Father.

I started to obey this one – even though my emotions were against me – Matthew 6:6 – But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And following the habits of Jesus (Luke 5:16): Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. And Mark 1:35: Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

What happened next is – that the Father began to reward me…

And today – 3 ½ years later (summer of 2023) – almost the entire list above has shifted to beautiful stories. There are a few things still to be worked out – but they are in progress. As of 2023-11 the only ones that are not resolved are points 1 & 8.

I am SO very grateful to Daddyo for all those blessings instead of curses. And the solution to point 1 & 8 are close to either be solved by Hillsong deciding to upgrade or by us finding another way forward in terms of local church fellowship involvement than being a part of Hillsong Copenhagen.

Read more below to see what came out of that seeking of true heart to heart quality hang time with my Daddyo.

Lies and Sin – Demon Attack 1

The Root of Rejection Exposed

What finally got me the victory I have been longing for was: Tearing apart my negative feelings against God by taking action in getting back to true intimacy with Daddyo (spending real, quality, one on one – all guards down, friendship with Him – in my understanding – actually being there in the room with me) – then there hearing these words when I wanted to truly have heart to heart fellowship: “But, Peter, you have decided to not give me that intimacy.”

If That Is True. Why Do I Believe It?

• The closing of the church which is the dying of your dream and call
• The sickness of the wife – being pregnant with David
• The 40-day fast that completely collapsed

So, I discovered I had bought, believed, and emotionally aligned myself with a lie – that God was not fully there for me. REJECTION!

And rejection leads to hurt. Hurt leads to lack of trust. He started, so lack of trust is justified. So, I can hit back and punish back and treat Him like He treated me. And lack of trust means I cannot trust God completely and I therefore I can find part of my satisfaction outside God. For He is not fully satisfied with me. For I see it in my life – that all things are not perfect – so He does not love me perfectly.

So, I now had to repent – and I had to let go of the hurt, disappointment, bitterness, rejection I felt with God due to me having to shut down the church my wife and I planted in 1998 (there was basically no one left who wanted to be there).

This wrong foundation stone, this lie of the enemy – which sounds exactly like: Genesis 3:5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” What satan was actually saying: “God isn’t wholeheartedly for you.” He is only partly for you.

He is keeping something good from you. That is exactly how I felt in my heart of hearts – deep in my emotions. But I hid that fact away under shame, guilt, sorrow, confusion, despair, in pride (nothing to see here – I am ok – PS: “But GOD is NOT – and He started”).

So, the enemy used my negative circumstances to effectively lure me into thinking and accepting and believing: God is not totally good. He is kind-of good – but not 100%. Maybe toward others – but not you.

In those 18 years I would have told you: “I am fine. I know God loves me – 100%. Jesus died for me. I just have a problem with porn, I cannot beat.”

But in reality, I was bitter at and disappointed with God in my emotional decisions – especially against God the Father. I felt He was sleeping.

Battling the Wrong God – Demon Attack 2

The Terrible Mistake and Sin of Idolatry (Worshipping a Different “God” Than the Real One)

The very first of the 10 Commandments – I managed to break it – and I didn’t know it. I ended up worshipping a god – who is not fully good. That god is not God. It is not the true God. It is a demon – and as I obeyed that demon – I got demons.

The First Commandment (Exodus 20:3)

You shall have no other gods before me.

God Is Proven Good When Things Go Well – Or Is He?

This sin of self-pity (feeling sorry for oneself) seems to be so commonly accepted among Christians today that nobody confronted me about it for 18 years… The Holy Spirit then did. How do I hear that this sin is alive and well? People will say: I know God loves me, for I see His blessings…

There is truth there – but what if everything – or any small thing – collapses? Does that then show God partially loves me? To many – it does. To me – oh I would never admit it – but deep in my emotions this was true – not in my brain – my theology.

But when things got very very tough – this proved the half-heartedness of God to me. Since really bad things happened in my life – even to my call in God – I concluded what you now know.

The Sin of Idolatry (Worshipping a False God)

Today I call this the sin of idolatry. I was worshipping circumstances. Not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible says that this world is sinful and broken around us. Each person is broken – ourselves included. And there are demons who fight hard to steal, kill, and destroy.

I now worship the true God of the Bible. The One who never ever left me. The One who never gave up on me. The God of the Bible is pure love forever. The one who sacrificed His own Son for me – whose blood speaks louder than any other blood.

Whose unjust treatment is truly unjust and worse than anything I will ever go through. That truth is what I used to break the idolatry of a semi-good god – a false god. Will you do the same?

Your faith and life will be based on truth – not circumstances – and it will make you stronger than ever before.

Consequences of Lies and Sin – Demon Attack 3

Self Pity – Feeling Sorry for Myself

So, that I accepted the lie of partial rejection as a truth led to sin number 2. The consequence of believing God started by partly rejecting me was the sin of self-pity. Why? God started! He rejected me. I now counter reject Him. And since I cannot change Him – and He does not treat me fairly, I have the right to self-pity. I should feel sorry for myself – for I have been unfairly treated by God.

For me I would not be there all the time and 100% rebel against God. For since I believed God really loved me as well – and only partly rejected me – I treated God, like He treated me. Served Him and loved Him – but only partly.

A part of me I held back – and what was that? Deep intimate heart level friendship with the Friend of Friends – God the Trinity – who IS Friendship personified as the Tri-unity.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – forever 100% loving each other – and who made us to enjoy that very same friendship with Him, others, and ourselves.

The Fruit of the Bad Roots – Demon Attack 4

Self Satisfaction

This was what I saw as my biggest problem. But actually, it wasn’t! It was the roots and the demons that had come in through those open doors. Porn was just the fruit of a root.

And when I had dealt with the root lies and replaced them with truth of all of the New Covenant, Jesus on the cross and all that means of the truth of the wholehearted love and relationship of Daddyo with me, by an act of my adult will – and spent time in the secret place and dealt with self-pity and idolatry and repented from that by going into the true heart to heart secret place.

And I had commanded all those satanic evil little demons to go. I no longer went into self-satisfaction. There were no drivers, no little turbo chargers, no extra chain layers of lies and demons behind it. There was no strength in it.

Am I still tempted? Yes – we are all tempted to sin. Did I fall? No. Now it was so easy to say no. The “no” remained – and the difficult battle that was there before was just not there anymore. The battle I would often lose before – was not there. I said no – and that was it.

Now – that is true freedom! Now I can say and agree with the Scriptures introducing this Bible Study: “To freedom – Christ has set me free.” “You shall know the truth – and the truth shall set you free.” “He whom the Son sets free – is free indeed.”

The Medicine of Healing and Freedom

Holy Spirit Comeback

The Cure for Self-pity for It Cures Idolatry

Taking Complete Ownership of My Reaction and Action

And Taking the Right Action Based on the Right Truth

When I realized it was my problem. And God actually, I believe, spoke in my thoughts, and said: “Peter, grow up from a little hurt child, to a grown, adult, responsible, able mature man. Someone who owns their freedom and decisions.

Use your free will to focus on the truth.” The context to that loving pruning shaking rebuke was that I was behaving like a little child in the schoolyard: “But He started” – in this case it was me against God. It did not go well for me…

So, I could feel how strong my emotions were and my tendency to go into self-pity due to rejection due to something not quite going as I had hoped and as it should.

“The Medicine Is the Cross!!!”

This is not me being strong – this is me crumbling – and humbling myself – and going against my strong feelings of rejection and self-pity – going into the love of the Father – for the blood of Jesus and the cross of Jesus speaks louder than my crushed circumstance.

The blood, the suffering, the death, the separation and rejection of Jesus by the Father and the Spirit proves that God eternally loves me. My circumstances whether good or bad – are not my God. Jesus on the cross is.

This took away “my right” to self-pity – for it killed the lie that God was not fully wholeheartedly for me.

Please meditate on the absolute foundations of Christianity below before the loving Lord God, Jesus Christ, our Father, and the Holy Spirit

How does the blood and the cross, the unjust and very real suffering of Jesus remove our “right” to rebel, be disobedient, have justified self-pity and perform self-satisfaction?

The obedience of love of Jesus freely in spite of Him – He could chose otherwise – cancels our disobedience.

Jesus did what He did on the cross voluntarily (Matthew 26:39, Luke 22:42). Nobody took His life – He gave it (John 10:18). When He was “arrested” – He mentioned His own true name – I AM – when He did it was so powerful all around Him – fell to the ground (John 18:6). He could have asked His Father for 12 legions of angels and burnt everything down (72 thousand) (Matthew 26:53). This would also have been justice from God!

He did not choose to be disobedient to His love for us. Mercy triumphed over judgment, grace over condemnation. He was obedient to His true love for us and His love for His Father and the Holy Spirit. He proved and proves His wholehearted eternal love for us through the cross.

Not just mental – He actually suffered.

He took on Him the punishment of us all – and we did nothing to deserve it – on the contrary. We have done all the sins.

He was obedient despite our hate for Him – despite the fact that we killed Him. Our sin killed Him. Both our individual sin and the general sin of man-kind.

Now our excuse for disobedience and rebellion is removed. Rejection is a lie from the pit of Hell.

The only technique God has is free will truth in love. He uses gentleness, kindness, and humility. The devil uses manipulation, hate, fear, violence, and lies.

Practically – how does this work?

When something bad happens with regard to: money, friends, church, family, own sin, accusations, sickness, wars, etc. and when good and when nothing happens – then what I have trained myself to do is to decide to focus – not on the bad but on the undeserved complete love of God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit for me – always – proven through the cross, the blood, the real pain and suffering, the rejection of His followers, all people, the Father of Jesus on the cross – because He had my sin and the sin of humanity on Him.

This is the foundation of the New Covenant in His blood. He did it all by Himself. Establishing it secure forever. I cannot – no one can – ruin it. He did it perfectly for you and me – and everyone else.

Any Relapses?

Did I fall after realizing all this and doing all this? Yes – once. I had a deep “trigger” that caused me to fall. When I had COVID the second time after also getting the vaccine.

Then I fell – once – and I shook it off and trusted in the grace of God and I analyzed why and discovered that a trigger for self-pity and rejection based on bad circumstances would be when I got sick.

Then I would self-implode, be annoyed I was not happy and had energy, feel like God was far away and not for me, and I would go into self-pity and then self-satisfaction.

I have now learned to relax and accept that I am sick – when I am and realize I should expect less of myself when I am sick – for God does the same.

And when I am sick – I need to re-go into the love of the Father – I need to re-realize the pure grace of God. I need to know I am loved and we are the best of friends due to His love proven on the cross.

I have since been both sick and alone in a hotel traveling and a great friend whom I led to Jesus from the streets called me and said he no longer trusted me and did not want anything to do with me – and did not fall at all.

Those three by themselves would have been more than enough to cause me to fall previously.

I have now learned to not think more highly of myself than I should (Romans 12:3) and to prophesy according to my faith (Romans 12:6) – where both those Scriptures talk about – being real about where I am right now – and receiving the grace of God for that season – and not for where I am not or where I used to be.

So, I stayed in the perfect roaring river of the relationship with the Father – and won.