Thoughts on lust.

I think this is the hardest thing for me to speak out about. I mean, I have a really strong conviction against it, I have really strong feelings about those around me engaging in it, but I also realize the widely accepted ideas it holds in a worldly pretense. I know that when I speak out against lust, I could get some flak for it. I could get some real heat from people about it. And I could be called a hypocrite for it.

I don’t even really know how to articulate exactly what I want to say, but I know it is mostly a warning for women. That’s not to say that men don’t need to hear it, too. But I think they hear it a lot more than women.

Okay, I’ll start where my feelings about this spurred. We were sitting together at a BBQ, and one of the guys asked a girl “hey, are you going to see Magic Mike?” to which she responded (extremely appropriately) “Uh, I think that would be really disrespectful to [her fiancé]”. In my mind, I see that as the most appropriate form of answer to this question. It is incredibly disrespectful to him, and to our God. Now, I have been on pinterest, facebook, various social networking sites where ladies are all up in craziness about Magic Mike, the movie about male strippers.

And just to be truthful, I haven’t seen the movie, I don’t plan to, but I know the hype and the reasons that women want to/are encouraged to see it.

Lust.

The problem with this is that some of the ladies I have seen making remarks and plans to see the movie, for the lustful reasons, are professed followers of Christ. And I see something very wrong with that. I think back to the ideas we have about self image, the problems we have with society objectifying women, and pain it has caused many of these women because they aren’t perfect (as no one in the world is). And I wonder to myself why these women would so readily objectify men in the same way.

And I think back to the ideals we have discussed about purity, and purity of heart that Christ calls us to. I read things in our word that shows our King’s disdain for lust, for sexual impurity, and I wonder how these women have decided to look the other way when they are called away from this sin.

I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl. (Job 31:1) 

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Col. 3:5) 

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. (2 Tim. 2:22) 

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; (1Thes. 4:3-5) 

And I could say that I don’t get it. I could act as though I have never been there, as though in high school I never made those excuses that everyone was doing it, and looking wasn’t so bad, and those weird –isms saying that it’s okay to “look at the menu”. Wrong. So wrong. First, from our own Christ’s mouth:

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matt. 5:28) 

Don’t be deceived that because it says woman that women are excluded from this call away from lust. We are equally made with our brothers in Christ, and the sin is equal to us as well.

Having been married now, I understand and know that these are all lies, and that the things we put into our minds and hearts we will reap the pain for later. The things we see, the lusts we indulge in, will forever mold the relationship we have with our husbands (if marriage is something God gives us), with our brothers in Christ, and with our God. In 1 Corinthians it talks about how sexual immorality is committed inside of the body, and is different from other sin.

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Cor. 6:18)

This is so true. Unfortunately I didn’t get the pain, the self-consciousness, the hurt that can come from these small actions in future relationships... until it was already there. I pray you'll understand it before it effects those things.