Thursday, January 8, 2009

Bustin' the lusting

I'm sick, cooped up at home and have time on my hands. This morning I've been going about my Bible study, drinking lots of water and having breakfast. In the back of my mind, I'm fixated on dishonorable things. I have an agenda of lusting, I hear plotting in my mind even as I read from the Word. By God's grace, lusting hasn't been a sin that is out of habit or addiction for me. And Lord willing it will remain that way. I have an accountability partner that helps me with that.

I don't face this problem often because of my desire for God's fulfillment of my relationship with my girlfriend. The fact that women have played a major role in raising me (more then men) has yielded a unique respect of women. Being committed to a girl that loves the Lord helps me place God first in my life. So when lusting comes up I feel like it is a poison in our relationship, a betrayal of God's plan and a disrespect for all the women in my life. My girlfriend and I have amended our boundaries. As our lives become more and more shared, obeying God's call to sexual morality and self-control becomes harder. -Especially if the boundaries aren't well kept.

God set us apart from the animals; He did it in the context of sex as well. In a society that doesn't see God's will. We are constantly exposed to the animal/instinctive part of sex. This means the appeal to the eye, the thirst of approval/peer pressure and the feel of the act. I feel misguided and shallow when I hear the gears of lust trying to run in my mind.

Christ's solution is to turn lusting over to Him; to do it over and over -always and let His Holy Spirit change our minds. God knows our every thought, how pleasing would it be to the Lord for us to turn to Him before the onslaught of sexual thought. To be in prayer as the lust tries to manifest, admitting His knowledge of our thoughts. Praising Him for His omnipresence. I know so many brothers that have a harder time with this temptation then I do. Rely on God with this, if you rely on sex nothing will change for the better.

I pray often to be a less sexual guy, on some level I feel like my manliness is being compromised by doing so. When really it is making me more into a child of God. It is the deception of Satan that has pickled my mind to allowing sex to be that of an animal. God made sex. -He didn't make lusting. Its is the lusting that takes God's creation: sex and turns it into sinfulness/fantasy.

Pre-emptive praying has been so helpful in this category. To admit in the morning that this could be a problem in the evening will help. To be aware of God's wrath regarding my behavior is important to remain in fear of Him. Yeah Christ died for all my sins; God doesn't hate sin any less because of His Son's act. Instead it is us who should be changed on a love level for what Jesus did and infuse that type of love and forgiveness into the way we see sex. Expel the lusting and you will find Jesus doing the same motion within your heart. Reliance on God.

If I join to a wife, I want God's definition of sex to seal our relationship meaning: two become one.