Advance Decision-making

Don’t lust for her beauty. Don’t let her coy glances seduce you.

Proverbs 6:25

FREDERICK BUECHNER DESCRIBES lust as “the ape that gibbers in our loins. Tame him as we will by day—he rages all the wilder in our dreams by night. Just when we think we’re safe from him, he raises up his ugly head and smirks.” Lust has been called the athlete’s foot of the mind—an insatiable itch. Bill Hybels writes,

Lust is taking a complete, complex human being, made in the image of God, and reducing him or her to just a body dedicated to the gratification of the luster’s sexual desires. A person caught up in lust doesn’t care about the other person’s thoughts, feelings, spiritual condition, worries, anxieties, or aspirations. Lust is fundamentally self-seeking and completely devoid of love.

In Proverbs 6:25, King Solomon advises, “Don’t lust.” But how? Winning the war with lust involves making a commitment when we are strong as to what we will do before we become weak and vulnerable to the powerful forces of sexual temptation.

Seventeenth-century theologian François Fénelon writes, “We are not masters of our own feeling, but we are by God’s Grace masters of our consent.” In other words, we can control what we allow ourselves to be exposed to. We can choose to plan ahead. We can choose a path of wisdom that leads us away from temptation. When it comes to lust, the best time to make that choice is far ahead of time—not in the moment of temptation.

BOTTOM LINE

Decide in advance to live according to God’s standards.

Moment of Strength: James 1:5