We catch up with Aaron from the Almost and talk with him about porn, sex, temptations on the road. Aaron has been in Underoath, The frontman for The Almost and has a worship album out now as well. You can check out his site at http://aarongillespie.com

 

 

Given the nature of this site and just given my heart, I believe that one of the first steps and one of the key steps to healing is honesty. When it comes to porn, sex, all of the above, people don’t really want to be honest about that. For me, I got shown my first porn magazine at six in my cousin’s tree house. It’s funny because, I’m 28 today and to be honest I haven’t really had a porn struggle since high school but I still remember being six years old and seeing that, I still remember seeing those images. Its weird right? For me, more of my struggle is just mental, once you allow a little bit of something to happen, a little bit of a website to slip, or a night out with a girlfriend gone too far, it just gets stuck in your brain. We don’t really realize how the God of this world has designed that stuff to work. If you read the Bible constantly constantly constantly, it talks about sexual sin and how it’s the worst sin and how it can end up eating you. I’ve definitely seen that in my own life. I’m 28, I’m about to be a father, I’m happily married, I’ve got people all around me keeping me accountable but I still remember things is saw 18 years ago.  

Accountability

 I think one of the keys to staying accountable is honesty. I think people are afraid to be honest.Once you get married, that’s a totally different subject, but right after we got married, Jamie and I, it was a big deal to be totally honest with each other about everything and at times it was squirmy and uncomfortable because it felt like God really brought to the surface all this stuff from our past and it was like “Oh I don’t really want to talk about that” but I did and that brings healing, honesty brings healing. God calls us to purity and I think part of purity is being transparent. I’d say that’s the key to accountability, having the guts to be transparent with whoever it is. For me, I have a Bible study that I’m in with a few other dudes. We email a chapter back and forth every day. There’s a sense of accountability there, not just in the actual study of the Bible but also in life. 

Praying

We pray with people every night. That’s what we do. We’re out here ultimately for that. I think especially in music today we get so caught up with like “Oh I have to make it look good on stage or this or that” but that just isn’t what it’s designed to be like. I think if you’re anointed by God to do something then you’re anointed to do it for Him, not for your own personal gain. So we’ve really worked hard and been very intentional about making the floor open for people and hopefully, prayerfully, they’re beginning to see it that way. 

Effects

I think pornography affects people in different ways but it ultimately ends in a destructive way. That goes without saying. Something that I think about every time I think about pornography is the person modeling or acting, having sex on film for money, that person, like my heart really goes out to that person. That doesn’t get talked about a lot. It’s always like “I have a pornography addiction and I need help with it” which is viable, it’s an awful addiction, its cracking, horrible, breaking and it’s adulterous ultimately. But the women and folks involved in that is what really gets me. I think about it all the time. We were talking about it in the van the other day. There’s a ministry in Vegas, its all women from this massive church, who go into these strip clubs and just love on these women, they take them out to a pedicure or coffee, just treat them like normal people. It’s been effective, women are now turning around from the porn industry and becoming regular citizens of our country. I think about that more, the women who are just trying to make their ends meet. That’s definitely not an excuse, I’m not saying “You’re poor so you should go strip and do smutty things on film” but I think that as men of God we’re called to be prophet, priest and king of our home and we need to protect our children and loved ones, we need to lend a hand in whatever way we can. I don’t know anyone who has ever omitted to me that they were really wrapped up in pornography. You just really have to be on the surface about it. I’m so careful about it. If I see anything, even in just a dumb movie, if I see nudity, I’ll pick up the phone and text someone and say “Hey I saw this today”. That may seem really trite and stupid and extreme but I believe that Jesus calls us to be the church without spot or wrinkle and that takes some work. 

Advice

Today, if you have a porn problem, if you have a pre-marital sex problem, that’s what I dealt with, my advice is that the first thing you should do is tell somebody, which is the last thing that you want to do, it’s the last thing that your flesh dude, your body dude wants to do. You want to do your dirt behind closed doors and cover it up like a dog. That’s just how we roll as humans but God calls us to purity, to life, to truth and you’ll really see at first that it’s scary but you’ll see that you’ll really come out into the light. Darkness can’t hide from light. You light a match or lighter in a dark room and it lights up the whole room. If you want that for your life you have to start with that spark and I don’t think a lot of people…no one wants to do that, to say they struggle with this or that. But I believe that every man, every woman, God has a plan for them and a future. In order to grab onto that future and a part of that future and have that future that God talks about in Jeremiah 29:11, you have to say yes to it. Saying yes begins with being honest so “Yes I want to change my future, I have an issue so I want to go forth”. I think it starts with going forth and vocally saying your issue.