How Do I Battle Subtle Temptation to Lust

John Piper, from Ask Pastor John podcast

Audio Transcript

How do I battle lust in temptations subtler than porn? It’s a question I see often from men in talking about swimsuit issues and lingerie catalogs. This particular question comes to us from an anonymous man. “Hello, Pastor John! Three years ago, I turned away from porn for the final time, a perennial struggle for my life for the better part of a decade, between ages 16 to 26. I’m now married and have not looked at porn for three years. I can only say it’s a victory from the Lord to find deliverance in Christ from the bondage.

“In recent months, however, I am lured to images of women in female marketing campaigns. My wife gets a number of catalogs from companies that make female workout clothes and lingerie. We are putting a stop to those mailings, as much as possible, but a lot of them simply show up. It feels like the same allure as porn, the same challenge — maybe less immediately dangerous, but very similar. I don’t want to undersell this struggle. What advice do you have for those of us who have experienced victory over porn, but are now tempted by subtler and less scandalous objects of lust like this?”

Well, may God get the glory now and from everyone who listens to this that there are stories of triumph like this — there are. They are there by the thousands, and we shouldn’t be totally discouraged when we hear all the bad news about how prevalent pornography is among people, and believers in particular. But this is glorious. Thank you for sharing it. I love the renewed sense of vigilance over the soul. It is such a good sign of spiritual reality when little things matter as well as big things in the pursuit of holiness. All impurity matters to God: seemingly harmless magazines as well as adultery and rape. God lays claim on every impulse in the human heart.

Eyes Like a Magnet

The male eye is like a magnet in its attraction to excessive female skin, or tantalizing gaps in clothing, or featured bodily shapes through tight clothing. God cares about these magnet impulses of the male eye, and what we do with them. I am glad that our friends, and this man in particular, care as well. Every Christian should care about what appear to be such little things compared to the horrific things that we might be considering. So, I’d like to point to five passages of Scripture. Each of them addresses, I think, an aspect of the battle for purity, even in regard to a wife’s women’s magazines. I know exactly what he’s talking about. I could name them. I dumped three of them in the garbage yesterday.

“God lays claim on every impulse in the human heart.”TweetShare on Facebook

My wife’s in Florida right now, welcoming a grandbaby, and the magazines keep coming. They all tend to come at once. Do you ever notice? They must all use the same mailing company. I get three women’s fashion magazines, clothing magazines, and there they go in the garbage. Or do I open them? Do I look for the bathing suits? Do I look for whatever? What do you do? So, I would sum up these five principles or guidelines — or you decide what they should be called — like this:

1. Faithfulness in Little

2. Urgency in Warfare

3. Fighting Like a Dead Man

4. Making Specific Covenants

5. Praying for Sovereign Sway

Let me say a word, and give you a verse for each of those, and tell you what I mean, and see whether this might just provide another piece of kindling on the fire of vigilance that is being expressed.

1. Faithful in Little

Luke 16:10: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.” Now, that applies in context to money, but it is the same with regard to all temptations, I believe. God cares about small things, and when we are faithful in the small, who knows what God might be willing to entrust to us, and what great things he might be willing to do through us, if we are faithful in the smallest things.

2. Urgency in Warfare

Jesus said,

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. (Matthew 5:27–29)

Well, suggesting that we tear out our eye, because the issue is heaven and hell, is a call to urgency — about as strong a call to urgency as I can imagine. My oh my. Misplaced sexual desires — not just acts, but desires — is, it turns out, not such a small thing after all. So, urgency is essential.

3. Fighting Like a Dead Man

Now, this is the heart of the uniquely Christian way of pursuing purity and fighting sin. Lots of people think it doesn’t really matter how you kill sin. Just do it. Just do it. No, there’s a Christian way to do it, and you might be turning it into a false way if you don’t do it the Christian way. Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Why? “For you have died . . .” Wow. So, every Christian has to come to terms with this. Have I? What is that in my experience? “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). That’s about the most amazing thing that can be said about a human being. You’re dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Wow, that’s worth a few hours of meditation.

“There is a place for very specific covenants with our eyes, and hands, and feet.”TweetShare on Facebook

“When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). And here comes the imperative following from the indicative that you have died: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (Colossians 3:5). The first four things he mentions are what? “Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire . . .” — and then he adds, “and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5–6).

So, here’s the uniquely Christian paradox. You have died, so put to death. You have died, so put to death. “You have died” means that, by faith alone, you really have, through identification with Jesus, died and risen and passed from death to life. Your life is hidden with Christ in God: sins forgiven, eternity secured. Now, fight. Kill sin. The first four sins Paul mentions relate to sexual desire. Go figure. There’s nothing new under the sun. If you say, “I don’t need to fight, because I’ve died, and I’ve been raised, and I’m secure in heaven. Nothing can happen to me,” you simply show that you’re not dead. You’re not, and therefore you’re not secure. The fighting like a dead man — your fighting like a dead man — is the proof you are a dead man. If you don’t fight, you’re not dead.

4. Making Specific Covenants

This is absolutely essential I think. Here’s what I mean. Job 31:1 says, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” A covenant with the eyes. I think there’s a difference between saying, on the one hand — and I’m basing this on significant personal experience, as well as biblical observation. There’s a big difference between saying, on the one hand, “I’ll do my best, by the power of the Spirit, to walk in holiness and purity for the rest of my life — ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years,” and saying, on the other hand, “In the next four weeks, I will not crack open a single women’s magazine that comes in the mail, not one page. Period. No exceptions.”

If you leave your hormones wiggle room, which is what lifelong, general commitments do, without very specific commitments or covenants with your eyes, your hormones will almost inevitably convince your mind that this little exception is okay. “They’re just bathing suits.” There is a place, in other words, for very specific covenants with our eyes, and hands, and feet. I’ll be honest. When Noël left, and she’ll be gone probably for a couple of weeks, I made one of those covenants, with regard to a bunch of specific things. I think that’s crucial. Not that it’s okay to sin when she’s here, but there’s something unique, there’s a unique challenge, when you’re alone.

5. Pleading for Sovereign Sway

Psalm 119:37 is a pleading prayer: “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.” So, the psalmist knows that his eyes are like magnets drawn to “worthless things.” Depersonalized female skin is a worthless thing. Now, women as persons are of infinite worth in relation to God, but lust depersonalizes skin, and turns it into a worthless thing. It’s demeaning to women. It’s deadly for men. So, the psalmist pleads for sovereign sway. “Turn my heart, turn my will, turn my eyes. Get sovereign sway over my desires.”

So, those are my five suggestions in the ongoing fight for purity, even when the great battles have been won against pornography.

1. Faithfulness in Little

2. Urgency in Warfare

3. Fighting Like a Dead Man

4. Making Specific Covenants

5. Praying for Sovereign Sway

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-do-i-battle-subtle-temptations-to-lust

Beware of Emotional Affairs

Article by Ellen Mary Dykas, Harvest USA

Josh had been at a new church for four months when Sara—his pastor’s wife—invited him to join their community group, which was a weekly gathering of both singles and married couples. Sara and her husband, Craig, wanted a group where married couples mentored singles.

Josh and Sara hit it off, and they discovered lots of common interests. Their conversation easily flowed during the fellowship time before the Bible study. Sara was surprised how much she missed Josh when he couldn’t attend. Josh realized that talking to Sara became the main reason he enjoyed the group. Not a big deal, it’s just talking.

Then the conversation time moved into texting. Not a big deal, everyone texts. But when the two of them began texting about community group issues, their sharing became more personal. Josh’s work stress and loneliness as a single man, and Sara’s challenges in being a pastor’s wife, gave them ways to grow more emotionally intimate with each other.

Then it happened. Their texting became a nightly ritual as Craig was often asleep by 9 p.m. and Sara, a night owl, would reach out to Josh to check in and see how he was in regards to his prayer requests. Their texting often lasted an hour or more. The warning line had long since been crossed.

One night Josh felt compelled to be honest and blurted out in a text: I think I’m in love with you. He waited nervously for her reply, and it came within seconds: Me too . . . my heart’s grown cold towards Craig. No one’s ever understood my heart the way you do. I need you. Her text gave Josh a rush of intoxication and yet, seeing her words jolted him: Sara was married, and her husband was his pastor!

Josh panicked. Now the reality of their too-close friendship hit him like a punch to the gut. What was so enjoyable and enriching was now an entangled mess. How would their friendship go forward? What if this got out? Would he have to leave the church? Would Sara’s marriage survive?

Discerning When Lines Are Crossed

Though Josh and Sara never touched one another, they had cultivated an unholy and messy relationship: an emotional affair. An emotional affair happens when a married person shares ongoing emotional intimacy with someone who is not his or her spouse, in a way that damages the marriage relationship. Singles can be guilty of emotional affairs, too, when they form inappropriately intimate relationships with a married person.

Many men and women miss the alarms going off when a relationship begins to cross obvious lines. They assume that because there’s no physical or sexual involvement, the relationship is okay.

But one day an awareness kicks in, and they realize it’s moving in the wrong direction.

If close friendships are an important God-given gift to us, how do we discern if boundaries are being crossed into a danger zone?

Questions to Ask

Here are some questions to help discern if your relationship has morphed into an emotional affair:

• Is there any secrecy or deception involved in your interactions?

• How much contact are you in (face to face, over devices, social media, and so on), and how does it compare to how much time you connect with your spouse?

• If you are single, how does your contact with this married person compare to other close friendships?

• Do you have romantic feeling toward her/him? Sexual chemistry? Mental preoccupation? If yes to any of these, are you seeking to feed or flee from these tempting dynamics?

• What is the content of your communication? How would your spouse (or mentor, pastor, close friend) react if she/he saw your texts or emails, or overheard your private conversations?

• Does this relationship inspire you to obey Christ or to turn away from him? Does this relationship propel you toward your spouse, or away? Does this relationship motivate you to invest more passionately in loving other people, or to isolate yourself and focus on this one person?

Brother or sister, if these questions (and your answers) make you uncomfortable about this relationship: PAUSE! HALT! STOP! You—and your friend—are in danger.

God wants us to have rich and meaningful relationships whether we are single or married. God delights in Christ-centered friendships that stay within the boundaries of his Word, boundaries that are healthy for both friends.

But God never intends for any of his good gifts to become a heart-hijacking reality that steals joy and betrays a spouse’s trust. He is committed to removing relational attachments which lead to sin and distraction. Emotional affairs are a cheap substitute for what God graciously gives: unfailing love and true intimacy of the deepest kind, which is ours in Christ.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/beware-emotional-affairs/

Women, Wage War on a Lustful Heart

Article by Brittany Allen

I sat quietly as prayer requests were shared. Typical answers were offered: busyness, health, etc. Until I heard my own struggle spoken through the words of another woman, and I realized I wasn’t alone. We were both battling a lustful heart.

I thought my promiscuous past was the cause of my strife back then. But over time, women have confided in me regarding their own struggle, most of them being women who grew up attending church.

We’ve been taught to believe lust is a man’s issue, but truly, it’s a human issue.

Lust can make you feel hopeless. Like a worn down beast of burden, we carry the weight of it upon our backs, tarrying further into darkness. Who will save us from this body of death?

Lustful Heart Defined

Lust takes many forms, and its definition goes beyond sexual fantasy. For clarity’s sake, I’m defining it how Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology does: “a strong craving or desire, often of a sexual nature.”

Lust starts in the heart, springs forth to our thoughts, and most often results in an action. In Matthew 5:28, Jesus tells us “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Men are prone to visually undressing a woman in their mind, though certainly women fall prey to this too. But for most women, lust is less about desiring a man sexually and more about wanting to be desired sexually and emotionally.

Regardless of the shape our lustful thoughts take, they always tempt, and often persuade us to sin outwardly. To battle our lustful heart, we must be equipped to fight, using our minds and our bodies.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. (1 Peter 1:13-15)

We must prepare our minds for action and be obedient to Jesus, striving to be conformed into his image instead of our fleshly passions.

Fight by Renewing Your Mind

If we aren’t striving to renew our mind, we mimic a deer in open season. Eyes wide and body void of response to danger, we stand in the pathway of sexual temptation—and it hits us like an arrow between the eyes. We cannot escape Satan’s “flaming darts” if our minds are too dull to discern the threat (Ephesians 6:16).

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

We must put off thoughts of our old self and think on things of our new life in Christ. Meditate on the gospel—remember who you were before Jesus called you to himself and praise him for making you a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). When temptation enters your mind, choose to think on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, excellent, and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8).

We renew our minds by immersing them in God’s Word, seeking him fervently, and praying he would purify our hearts (James 4:8).

Fight by Fleeing

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 Corinthians 6:18)

To flee is to bolt—to run away from danger. Sexual sin is dangerous. Here are some practical ways to “flee”:

• Go for a walk/run.

• Go for a drive and call someone.

• Run an errand.

• Go to a coffee shop to study.

• Listen to the Bible while doing house or yard work.

• Go to the gym.

Furthermore, we must recognize where we’re tempted most often by our lustful heart, and set boundaries to protect ourselves.

Maybe temptation floods in at night when all is quiet and coffee shops are closed. We might be tempted to yield in order to get some rest. But it’s better to lack sleep than to transgress against God. Instead, we can redirect our mind by accomplishing a task or reading Scripture.

Fight With God’s Word

Though it’s the last thing we want to do when feeling sinful, our greatest need when faced with temptation is God’s Word. Force yourself to focus on a passage of Scripture, and pray for help to abstain from sin. Allowing ourselves to wallow in shame over temptation we face is exactly where Satan wants us. If he can keep us there, we’re more likely to give in.

Keep your Bible on your lap, mind fixed on God, and he will give you grace to fight. He’s not aloof in our struggles. He is near.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

Draw near to him. He promises mercy in time of need.

Fight With Accountability

There’s lack of transparency regarding lust among women, causing many to feel alone in their struggle. Reaching for help feels paralyzing, and we may fear the response of others.

Truly, we cannot fight this on our own. To overcome lust, we need to share with a godly mentor. This provides accountability and shines a light on sin’s darkness, making it less attractive.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:16)

Whether we’re the struggling sister or the one who’s struggle has eased, we must grow in our openness regarding sexual sin. If we don’t, our sister remains isolated and in bondage to lust. But if we speak forth, “Me too. Here’s how I fought it. Let’s fight this together,” we lift our sister up, bearing her burden with her.

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness…Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:1a, 2)

Fight From Freedom

Many believe their lustful heart is unbeatable. Its draw is strong and its lies, sweet to the ears, but any pleasure found in it quickly turns sour.

Sin has the capacity to ruin us, but the born-again believer has a choice. We don’t have to sin. Remember, we are free:

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin….Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:6, 12-14)

While those who remain dead in their sin are still enslaved to it, sin has no dominion over the Christian. We aren’t fighting for freedom; we are those who fight fromfreedom—the freedom Jesus Christ bought for us.

Lust isn’t invincible, nor is it outside of God’s power—and his power lives in you if you are his. So choose to wage war on your lustful heart today. This battle is difficult, but with each step toward victory, temptation will have less and less strength.

Brittany Allen

Brittany Allen is a follower of Christ, wife to James, and Momma to two in Heaven. She exists to bring God glory and prays her writing is an avenue for that. She longs to help other women see Jesus as their ultimate Treasure. Find her writing on her blog at brittleeallen.com and follow her on Instagramand Twitter.

posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2018/10/women-wage-war-lustful-heart/