Prolific Christian Worship Leader Cory Asbury Reveals How God Helped Him Beat Porn Addiction
Worship artist Cory Asbury recently opened up about his past struggle with pornography addiction and how God helped him beat it.
In an Op-Ed published Thursday on Relevant, the “Reckless Love” singer shared that he first saw pornography when he was only 12 years old.
“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.”
He said he felt “completely and utterly stuck.”
Asbury married his wife, Anna, when he was 21, but the cycle didn’t stop as he had hoped.
“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.”
The worship leader said he began condemning himself and eventually became convinced that he would never be able to earn God’s favor.
Once he started studying King David’s life, however, he realized that his self-hatred wouldn’t help him as he thought.
King David is known as a “man after God’s own heart,” but he also struggled with the same sin that motivated Asbury’s pornography addiction: lust.
In 2 Samuel, David sleeps with Bathsheba, who was married, and then attempts to cover up his sin.
Once David became aware of his sin, however, 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.
Asbury realized instead of punishing himself for his sin, David simply 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.”
The singer then encouraged anyone who is struggling with a habitual sin, such as pornography 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.
“Pray from your heart and watch to see how God meets you right where you are.”
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