A topic got brought up at one of my meetings recently about sermons in church that talk about how evil and how bad Lust is, and that you’re going to go to hell if you keep lusting.
Now I do not disagree with that, clearly having my life dominated by lust.
But I wanted to say that while we spend so much time hearing that its evil and its bad, the world is preaching its good, it’s okay to do that.
So you have two conflicting places where you feel hopeless, yes I know Lust is bad, but why does it feel good? Why do I get a high off of it? Why do I know I shouldn’t do it but I just can’t figure out how to stop. And I think that’s the problem, when someone knows that they are doing something wrong, the last thing we need to do is berate them. Like I feel bad enough about making a mistake, but how do I claw out of this. What did Christ say to the woman caught in adultery?, he didn’t say you evil sinner you’re going to hell for what you did, no he said he who is without sin cast the first stone, and when there was nobody to throw the stone he said, daughter, where are your accusers? Neither do they condemn thee, no do I, GO AND SIN NO MORE. And that message is a message of hope.
I know you messed up and it’s not going to be the last time you do but ask for his help and go and sin no more. Especially when it comes to lust, there needs to be something better out there about helping men overcome their problems. Part of the problem is because they don’t know they have one, and then the other issue is that in the church they don’t give you ways to fight and combat this problem. What tools can I use to overcome this challenge, what do you tell the Christian who has had faith in god his entire life but still masturbates well just surrender it, yeah his surrender is not working.
You have to work with God to turn your life around. God isn’t going to magically touch you (he can but how do you learn) and say ok you’re healed of lust buddy! You have to use tools to turn your life around and when you start taking those steps, god will take care of the rest. But if I keep showing up at bars and places where my lust can feast there’s not much god can do for me. If I continue to listen to racy music, and watch movies and television where sex is prevalent and promoted, how is god going to help me stay away from that. Don’t play with fire, follow his path, and he will guide you.
I got very sidetracked here but the point is the same, we need to start showing people the tools that they can use to change their life around, and if they really want to change, they will, and if they want to keep lusting then they will. But at least offer a message of hope, there is light on the other side of the tunnel. And here are some tools to turn your life around if you’re actually serious about doing it. The people who do, you can tell right away how much of a difference God has made in their lives. What people don’t realize is it’s not just recovery from lust….it starts there and graduates to LIFE RECOVERY. Your life will change the minute you stop lusting. That’s when you get to figure out there’s a lot more stuff that lust was covering up that you get to work on.
Put the stone down, learn to forgive, don’t hold onto the 1 bad thing that they did. We keep holding onto those stones. Now I have a choice to make, surrender and trust in God’s strength to get me through or rely on my own and be resentful, angry, tired, and cranky. On my own there was no way I could forgive or put my rock down when someone sinned against me. It’s a learning process but I am slowly making progress on doing things Christ’s way and not my way.
It’s hard to consistently feel connected to him. It’s hard to not sit back and watch other people and see them do amazing things. My entire programming has been to look for the “easy” way to cover up my pain. I don’t have to do that anymore, neither do you. This road of recovery is hard. It’s not an easy path. Correcting the way you have been doing life for 20-60 years is not an overnight fix, and it’s not a linear climb. I saw something that showed the path to success is something like a line that sometimes goes in continuous circles.
Who am I to judge another? Who am I to say who gets in and who doesn’t? I don’t even have a clue of what it’s going to look like, none of us (human race) does. So how then can I tell another living person this is where you are going? Maybe the path they are heading down isn’t a good one. But what if god intends to call them back at the last minute? I guess that’s why I have so much empathy for second chances. For giving people the opportunity to change. Because at any point in time god can call on anyone after anything that they have done and say its time to get with the program. There is hope in grace. There is hope in repentance.
God Bless.
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