Bunker Busters. That is the nickname of the bombs dropped by the United States upon Iran’s underground nuclear facilities this past June. This massive ordinance weighs 30,000 pounds and can penetrate through 200 feet of earth and reinforced concrete! A number of these powerful weapons were used to neutralize Iran’s military advancements against Israel and its threat of unleashing nuclear weapons. In the face of a powerful enemy, a greater force was needed to bring about their defeat.

Satan is a powerful adversary. Sin and temptation are his weapons of warfare as he seeks to take down believers and lead them to rebel against the Lord. One of his greatest tools for destruction is sexual sin. Too many Christians are damaged by this wickedness as they wrongfully choose to obey Satan rather than obey the Lord.

For those who are caught up in sexual sin or find themselves constantly berated by its temptation, God has provided his own spiritual “bunker buster” that can help eliminate that sin from your life and fight every temptation you face. That powerful weapon is thankfulness. Yes, simple gratitude is one of the strong weapons God has given to find victory over sexual sin and live a life of purity and joy. Let me explain how.

In Ephesians 4:22-24, Paul explains the simple process of biblical change: put off sin, be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on righteousness and holiness. The following verses provide examples of what that looks like in the areas of lying, stealing, and sinful anger. Then in chapter 5, Paul continues to give more examples of this put-off/put-on process. This time, the sin to be put off is sexual immorality (5:3, 5). But right in the middle of this rebuke, he says, “but instead let there be thanksgiving” (v. 4). This means the righteous action that needs to be put on is thanksgiving.

The phrase “sexual immorality” is a catch-all phrase that covers any kind of sexual activity that is outside the clear boundaries set by God in his Word. The Bible makes it very clear that sex is to take place only between one man and one woman in marriage. Anything outside of that is sinful. What this means is that there are many areas where we can apply Ephesians 5, but for the purposes of this article, we will focus on the sin of pornography.

Pornography can be described as any sexually explicit videos, photographs, writings, or the like, produced for the purpose of sexual arousal. This is a broad spectrum that includes hardcore websites, sexually explicit movies, sexualized social media posts, swimsuit calendars, romance novels, and the list could go on. In short, the ways to be guilty of the sin of pornography are legion.

But how does thanksgiving fight the sin of pornography? Well, when we look back at Ephesians 5, included in the warnings against sexual immorality is a warning against covetousness, which Paul says is idolatry (v. 5). To covet is to have a great desire for something that does not belong to you, which is closely associated with the word greed, an intense desire for more. Here, Paul makes the connection between sexual sin and greed because sexual sin involves taking what God has not given, and the lust for sex is never satisfied.

Pornography is covetousness because it is a desire for something that does not belong to you. It is also idolatrous because it is an expression of wanting and loving something more than God. Not only that, but those who engage in pornography often increase the amount consumed and dive deeper into the depths of perversion. The pornographer is a leech, always wanting more.

To practice the sin of pornography is to declare that God is not God, that he is not good, and that his ways are not best. One of the main reasons why Paul wants you to focus on being thankful is that covetousness and idolatry focuses on all that you do not have and all that God has not given. Thankfulness turns your attention back toward God and all he has given and the blessings he has bestowed. And the more you think about the goodness of God, the less time and thought you will give to what is not yours.

What does being thankful practically look like? Well, a good place to start is to pray, asking God to make you a more grateful person, which is a prayer that he would love to answer. You can also start saying “thank you” more often to the people around you as you notice good things about them or see them do acts of kindness and service toward you. One practical exercise you can do on a daily basis is to start a thankfulness journal. Whether this is electronic or in a paper notebook, you can start today to list out at least five things every evening about the good things God has done for you that day.

Here are some helpful categories to think about as you grow in gratitude. First and foremost, you can be thankful for your salvation. The gospel of Jesus Christ means that Jesus died and rose again to rescue you from the sin of pornography and grant you eternal life in heaven for all eternity! You can be thankful for your family. You can be thankful for your job and how the Lord provides all your needs. You can be thankful for your church and the wonderful community of believers that God has placed you in. You can be thankful for food, clothes, and a nice house to live in. Paul tells us that we are to be thankful always and for everything (Ephesians 5:20), which means that we can give thanks at all times, because we are always surrounded by God’s gifts.

God wants you to be a thankful person, most importantly because he is a good God who has given you good things, and we are to praise him for his goodness. But he also wants you to be thankful because he wants you to stay away from sin and live a life of purity, and thankfulness is the “bunker buster” when it comes to impurity. I pray that you will start today to use the powerful weapon of thankfulness in your fight against sin!