This post was originally published on a dear friend's blog called Unscripted in February 2020. Unscripted is an online ministry whose purpose is to empower and teach women to be who God created them to be and step out into their calling and purpose. Check out their many resources here: https://unscripted.co.ke/.
We all struggle with lust. I used to think I was the only girl who fantasized a bit too much when I watched a romantic comedy. But the more I share my experiences the more “me too-s” I get. Yet if lust feels so natural, why call it a struggle? Why call evil what the body desires?
It sounds far-fetched but at the root of these questions is a lack of proper knowledge of God’s heart. When we know God’s heart we see his beauty and glory in our sexual design. We see how lust is a cheap counterfeit for God’s design. More importantly, we meet the source of satisfaction who doesn’t just quench our deepest desires but drowns them in an ocean. For lust cannot quench what our soul longs for. Just Jesus told the Samaritan woman with 5 husbands, so he tells us today:
John 4:13-14
“Whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life.”
When we talk about purity, we often forget that we are not fighting for the ‘crown’ of virginity on our wedding day. We are fighting to draw closer to our maker’s heart. We fight for the joy of sacrificial obedience that helps us walk in freedom. Freedom is possible no matter how long you have fought a seemingly losing battle with sin. Like all other sins, lust will not naturally go away. We need to make intentional decisions to leave it. Those decisions will not make sense and cannot be consistently made without knowing God’s heart. Only when we are blinded by the light of Christ’s glory and grace can our struggle with sexual sin end.
From my personal experience battling pornography, the struggle with sexual sin, can’t be won without knowing God’s heart. Only when we realize that true satisfaction comes when we are home in our father’s heart are we able to stand up against our desires. If we do not know God is good we will not trust him. If we do not know he is love we won’t have a relationship with him. If we do not see his glory we cannot forfeit our desires. Thus the fight against lust will seem like a drudging, unnecessary even torturesome climb. But if we know God’s heart our trust in him will get our feet onto the path of purity even when we don’t fully understand it. Our heart relationship with him will give us immeasurable joy as we pursue purity. His strength and grace will sustain us on the path.
When we take our relationship with God out of the conversation we end up with extremes. Purity either becomes a list of rules to keep checking off or something you could care less about. When you have faith in the true gospel, God's spirit comes into you, renewing you in every way. When God’s spirit becomes the change in us, every struggle from pornography addiction to lustful thoughts can be won.
Galatians 5:16
Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Most times we will not feel like living out purity. It is a choice we make, one that we need to keep making. The feeling to want to walk in purity comes when we know God and continuously choose to make choices we don’t feel like making. It is the Holy Spirit given to all believers that is our strength as we walk a life of radical purity. The part we need to play to leave lust is to create an enabling environment for God to work in us. God will not force us to act but if we let him, he will guide our actions. Here are a few practical ways to create an enabling environment:
1. Introspection
Most times lust is a manifestation of a deeper issue. Introspection helps you find the root. When you become aware of the root cause you will know what you are fighting against. Questions like ‘Why did I begin doing this?’ ‘Why do I keep doing this?’ ‘Why does a part of me like this?’ will help determine it. The root cause could be discontentment, a search for self-worth, or a distraction from a deeper concern like childhood trauma. Deal with the root cause first.
James 1:13
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
2. Guard your heart.
What we feed our mind does affect us even if we think it doesn’t. We need to get rid of temptations long before they manifest. Jesus uses a particularly gory example to address this:
Matthew 5:29
“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”
Here comes the challenging part. Having to cut off something we like. Having to lose our entertainment with make-out scenes. Having to distance ourselves from our friends who tell too many innuendos. Having to set strict relationship boundaries. Having to fulfill the relationship boundaries we set.
Without knowing that God is better than anything you could lose, this will become the biggest stumbling block in your pursuit of purity. Trust that God is good. He will fill the hands that you have emptied for him.
3. Accountability
We need each other. We need help to keep making tough choices. More importantly, we need someone to pick us back up when we fall.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
4. Renew your mind
It is hard being in a relationship with someone you never meet. You want to sit with the one you love for hours just talking with them. Out of those hours of conversation, our love for them grows.
God is waiting for you every day in his word. He wants to hear you in prayer. You will experience indescribable wholeness as you fall more in love with him who made you. He wants to show you more of who he is. Soon you will see that light that blinds you to the desires of this world.
Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
As we continue to know and be changed by God, he creates in us a pure heart that changes our whole lives.
2 Corinthians 3:16-18 (AMP)
but whenever a person turns [in repentance and faith] to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom]. And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.