“Hey! Valentine’s Day is coming—wanna hook up? I am fun and ready for sex.”
I was in the middle of a writing session when my phone buzzed with this message.
What in the world?! Where did this come from, I wondered.
I’ve received junk email messages like this, but never directly to my phone. I knew it wasn’t anyone real. It was likely an automated message from a website for hooking people up, but it still kind of messed with me in the moment.
As I was pondering it, I decided to check my email. Then I checked my junk box. And while I knew I actually didn’t want to get into anything, there was something inside of me that kind of enjoyed flirting with it.
What shook me out of my stupor, however, was the thought of what my friends receiving my Covenant Eyes report for the week and seeing I had been looking at hookup sites online.
In a world of smart phones and social media, it’s never been easier to access pornography and other inappropriate stuff online.
It’s never been easier to do it alone.
According to Barna research, 80% of Christian men in America ages eighteen to thirty confess to viewing pornography on a monthly basis. Thirty-seven percent said they view it several times a week.
If you struggle with lust, you don’t need the added temptation of being able to look at things online that only add to your struggle.
Covenant Eyes is an online accountability and filtering software you can install on your computer to help you stay away from things like porn. Once installed, it tracks every website you visit and sends a weekly report to those you choose to partner with you.
Covenant Eyes won’t solve your problem lust. It won’t even necessarily keep you away from porn.
However, when you have Covenant Eyes installed on your computer (or smart phone), it makes it more difficult for you to access porn in moments of weakness, and provides automated transparency with other brothers (or sisters).
If you try uninstalling the software, your partners are notified and can check in with you to see how you’re doing. If you don’t want the hassle of the filter (blocking safe sites you use frequently), you can do as I do and use it only with accountability.
The thing to remember is the power of setting something up like Covenant Eyes has little to do with the effectiveness of the software (although you want to make sure it works!) and more to do with the fact that you are taking seriously your own personal victory. You’re active and aggressive, not passive. You taking the initiative to give account for your online activity is critical to moral victory.
If you are one of the 80% viewing porn monthly, and if you’re tired of it and want to be able to look people in the eyes without having anything to hide, download and install Covenant Eyes accountability software today.
Let me show you how.
Setup Step 1
Go to Covenant Eyes home page and create an account in the top right corner.
Setup Step 2
Select your package, whether for yourself or for your family.
Setup Step 3
Fill out your personal info, and choose whether you want only accountability, or accountability with filtering.
Setup Step 4
Invite your partners by entering their email addresses and clicking the green “add person” button. Be sure to have asked them whether they wanted to be your partner before signing them up.
Also, choose people you know will check in with you every now and then or people you see regularly. Remember, though, that it will be more powerful if you take the initiative in checking in with them first.
You will then be able to add other people to your account (e.g. other people using CE software on other devices.)
Setup Step 5
Fill-out the information for the person in charge of this account. It’s probably you. But if you’re setting this up for your family, you’ll want to specify you instead of one of your children, for example.
Setup Step 6
Choose your security question and answer, and select “Blog” for “where did you hear about us?”
Setup Step 7
Review your information and pay. You can pay with a debit/credit card, or through PayPal. If you purchase a year subscription at a time, you save $12.
PLUS, (I almost forgot) if you try it for a month and aren’t that satisfied, you can uninstall the software and get fully refunded as long as you do so within the first 30 days of your account opening.
Now that you have your account setup, it’s time to download and install the actual software.
Installation Step 1
Login to your account and select “Downloads” on the left-hand menu.
Installation Step 2
Choose the device you will be downloading onto and press the blue “Download Now” button. If there aren’t many device options at first, click “Show all downloads.”
Installation Step 3
Once CE has downloaded, open the file in downloads, and click on “Install Covenant Eyes.”
CONGRATULATIONS, you have just installed Covenant Eyes accountability software on your device. It will now track all your activity online and send regular automated reports to your partners each week.
Covenant Eyes will send a welcome email to all your partners. However, you will want to make sure they confirm their email so they for sure get the reports.
You’re all set! You have taken a gigantic step toward victory by taking initiative for giving account. It doesn’t end here, obviously. But having these reports go automatically to your friends serves as a reminder to you about taking seriously where you go online.
One final note about the price.
I don’t know if $12 feels like a lot of money to you for accountability software. At first, it felt like way too much to spend on a monthly subscription. I had gotten CE through my job with Choice Books several years ago, but when I quit Choice Books in 2014, I no longer had CE software, either.
I didn’t think anything of it, at first, because I was living in victory. I hadn’t struggled with pornography in years, and wasn’t even facing much temptation to lust.
But then one time I found myself struggling intensely. I was traveling alone, and felt overwhelmed with temptation. I went places online I should not have. Nothing pornographic, but places nobody who wants to walk free from lust should ever visit.
After that experience, I realized the value and power of having regular accountability reports being sent to friends who cared about my journey. Twelve dollars isn’t much when you compare it to a potential life of secret failures. The hole I feel in my stomach from having spent much of my teen years in bondage to porn makes $12 more than worth it for me every month.
Let me also say, in full transparency, that if you sign up for Covenant Eyes through any of the links on this blog, I will get a small commission of the sale as a Covenant Eyes affiliate.
Covenant Eyes has worked for me and I believe it will work for you. Not because it’s a magical software, but because you signing up and deciding today that you’re not going to go this journey alone—you’re going to invite close friends to journey with you—causes you to live your online life with an awareness to what you’re looking at that you never had before.
Install Covenant Eyes Accountability Software Today!
Being intentional and being aware are foundational steps in becoming morally strong.
If you have any questions about Covenant Eyes, if there is anything about the setup process that seems unclear to you, feel free to ask me. I’d love to help!
Or you can contact Covenant Eyes directly through their support team.
Do you have accountability software on your computer or smartphones? If so, what do you use? If not, why not? Share in the comments below.
