Saturday, March 26, 2011

It's Not Neat to Cheat...

You might've seen this title and thought I was going to go off on a tangent about cheating at school. While that topic is equally worthy in importance, I'm actually focusing on a kind of cheating you might not ever have realized you were doing: Cheating on your future spouse. I know, I know. Again, my posts can seem really extreme. Need I say, again, that these posts really aren't to harp on you or make you think you're sinning or something? It's brain food. So, as I've said before, just bear with me.

I've always been one to struggle with lust. I think alot of people are. That might sound odd to some people, but have any of you people seen a shirtless male? They make me stumble so fast and it's so difficult to keep a pure mind when you have that all up in front of you. The Bible says that when you look upon a woman lustfully, you're already committing adultery with them in your heart. (Ok, that sounded super wrong. I don't have that problem. The context was Jesus was talking to a MAN....so obviously idea can be applied to women about men.) And the 10 commandments say not to commit adultery. My point was this: Looking at someone you're not married to in a lustful way, isn't right. That's such a big struggle for me, and it's something of which God's convicting me on like a daily basis.

I think here's a good place to put that I think there's a GIGANTOR difference between "lust" and "desire". Lust is wrong, it's looking at someone in a completely objectifying way. Desire (in the context of physical stuff, as in NOT desire for money, or whatever) is what married people have for each other, and is not wrong at all (in my humble opinion). Here's something to chew on: Think about your future spouse. Ok, ok, you love them and all that. Does it make you happy to think about someone else checking YOUR man/woman out and obviously not thinking about Daniel and the Lions' den? Exactly. So keep your eyes on the prize (aka Jesus) and do your best to think about people in a pure light. Heads up, you'll fail. But try anyway.

Matthew 5:28
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."