Lust | Day 8
Numbers 15:39; Galatians 5:16; 1 Peter 1:14; 1 John 2:16; 1 Corinthians 10:13; James 1:12-16
Please comment below with your conversation with God and/or insights from today’s Scriptures.
You can answer the following:
What are the Scriptures telling you about lust?
What areas of life do you find lust working hard against you? How do you fight the urges and ungodly desires?
Have you experienced a time when lust took over? How did it happen and what was the outcome?
What is your prayer to God regarding lust?
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Shiny, Pretty Little Things | Lemuel Ayudtud
The Scriptures give us ways to protect ourselves from lust:
Keep God’s commandments, and do not go after idols.
Walk in the Spirit. Live your life with God in your heart and mind.
Be obedient to the leading of God and not go back towards the things you once desired. Having repented of ungodly behavior or thoughts, resist the urging to go back even if it’s just for a moment—specially when done in secret.
Consider the world as wholly against God. That it’s agenda is different than the agenda of God. It’s lights and noise can be a lure to draw us away from our potentials and purpose in God.
Understand and know that God has a way out for you, even if you’re already in the thick of it.
There’s a crown of life given to those who endure temptation. It’s a promise to those who love Him.
Sin is the outcome of lust and the outcome of sin is separation from God.
We find that in the aftermath of lust you can find yourself separated from what you’ve worked for (money, career), what you’ve cultivated over the years (prestige, reputation), what you’ve sought for (relationships, connections), even what you’ve dreamed (goals, future). Like that fish whose eyes are caught by the glistening, flashy little lure, lust can turn a swim into moments of floundering in sin’s bucket gasping for what we just lost because we bit the hook.
The result of lust is wrapped in sin and the fallout of it is separation.
Lust often promises a whole lot of feelings, emotions and release, but more often than not they are fleeting, self deprecating and the result(s) can be devastating. What is done in lust for 15 minutes can make us suffer the consequences for 15 years or more.
I’ve just read how fish get caught in a lure. The lure is cast multiple times, if needed, to bait the fish. The lure being a dangling, moving, vibrating, shiny little thing, the fish can’t help but to be drawn to it. Unfortunate for the fish, part of the lure is a hook. “Some lures are placed to attract fish so a spear can be impaled into the fish or so the fish can be captured by hand,” so says Wiki.
Simple little fish minding its business, moving along in the water when a shiny, little object makes it dinner for someone that night all because it didn’t see that the pretty thing was bait to get it cooked!
Scriptures warn us about lust. It tells us that the end of lust is death. Consider Adam and Eve lusting for the restricted fruit. Consider Cain lusting for what his brother Seth received from God; instead of tweaking his offering and attitude, he goes and kills his brother. Consider Esau lusting for a bowl of soup, giving up his place in his family because he couldn’t wait—hunger being too much a feeling to push against. Consider David, the pupil or apple of God’s eye, who could not resist his urge for sex with a woman he saw bathing, takes her and later has her husband killed in battle. Of course there is Samson the quintessential example of lust—who had supernatural strength and divine gifts—yet was entranced so easily by a lure that hooked him dead at the end, losing his strength and position before then on the lap of the enemy’s bait.
We can read on and on about one Biblical character after another and see them struggle with lust with devastating results. Lust is real and it’s result can catch anyone. But if we seek God first and allow Him to guide and keep us, we will see that that pretty little thing can be a really big problem. God delights in us and the blessings He has promised to those who love Him is far greater than any emotion or feeling however strong. Unlike lust that is momentary, God’s results are lasting. In fact the promise of everlasting life is there for anyone who put’s their trust in Him.
Lord, lead me in the shadow of Your grace. I know I’m battling for your will in my life daily, so teach me how to yield to Your prompting and your guidance. Father, help my eyes to see Your goodness over the shiny lures of sin. Help me to follow the leading of Your Spirit. May I be overwhelmed with the comfort of Your promise for a better tomorrow for me and those I love. Give me the strength to endure and the courage to say yes to You and no to lust. In Your Name Jesus, I pray, amen.
