Fighting Lust with Lust
A couple of weeks ago Erik Raymond over at Irish Calvinist posted a series on understanding and fighting lust. Here are some highlights.
From Part 1-
The word translated lust in the New Testament is epithumia. The word simply means ‘desire’. This desire can be good or bad; whether it is good or bad depends upon how it aligns
with God’s revealed will.
Simply put sinful lust is to desire something that we believe to be ‘good’ outside of what God has called good. It is to put our own will and pleasure above God’s.
This is seen quite clearly through the example of sexual lust. God has said that sex is to occur within the framework of marriage (between a male and a female). Therefore, any lustful craving to experience the intimate pleasures reserved for the marriage apart from this sacred institution is to pursue enjoyment apart from God’s clearly revealed will. When a man sits and quietly fixes his eyes and heart upon a woman (whether it be on a computer, television, photo, in person or in his imagination) and then begins to desire her sexually, this is sinful lust. The man has lustfully craved sexual satisfaction apart from divine sanction.
From Part 2-
So why do we lust?
Everyone yells in unison “Sin!” or “Pride!” or “Greed!” or some other answer that we know to be true but to often do not understand how it works.
My contention here is that if you do not know why and how your heart works you will not effectively wage war against its fleshly passions.
Why do we sit and meditate about how successful we will be? Or how people will like us? Why do we strain our necks to covet and long for what we do not have? Why do women envy other women’s beauty, style, wardrobe, sense of humor, mothering skills, or professional skills? Why does a man find himself sinfully staring at a woman who is not his wife? Why do we find ourselves daydreaming and fantasizing about how we would orchestrate our lives if we were sovereign?
There is an appraisal that takes place. Each one of us, whether a Christian or not, are governed by our hearts .
Our hearts then confront us with stuff and the natural fallen tendency is to appraise stuff through the lenses of self-exaltation rather than divine exaltation. We naturally fasten our lust upon that which exalts self through the demotion and insult of God.
When we are confronted by our hearts we are forced to make a choice between that which God calls beautiful and what the sinful heart calls beautiful.
For an example, and I am going to pick on men, specifically in the area of sexual lust (fill in the blank: from pornographic images to that which men execute upon modestly clothed women).
Here is the scenario, men, you are looking at your computer and you desire to look at porn. So you open up a web browser and go to a filthy site in attempt to satisfy your lust. You have just declared that these images are chiefly beautiful and worthy of your desire. You have elevated your selfish lust to a position of supremacy above what God has called beautiful. You have exchanged the beauty of God for the beauty of a fleeting image.
From Part 3-
So how do we fight these desires? We do it with desires. Your chief defense against sinful lust is an all out offensive of sanctified lust, if you will. It is to set our hearts upon the supremacy, sufficiency and beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ; and it is in this posture of continual satisfied delight in Jesus that the lusts of our flesh and this world evaporate into vapors like the steam on our morning coffee.
Friends can we not find ourselves in agreement with God as to his beauty? We must come to the word of God to have our minds shaped and conformed by God. He says he is infinitely beautiful and worthy to be the unceasing object of our satisfaction and delight. Do you agree?
If you do then your cravings and lust for things of this world and of your flesh will be starved out by your relentless enjoyment and pursuit of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
You can throw your computer out the window, but that won’t kill your lust. You can never go to the mall (the vanity fair :/), but that won’t kill your lust. You can cut out your eyes, but that won’t kill your lust. You can move to a cave in Montana, but that won’t kill your lust. You can employ legalism, but that won’t kill your lust. All of these things fall short because they are external amputations when we need a heart transformation.
To see Jesus as supreme and sufficient is to see everything else as lacking. To see stuff as worthy of your lust (coveting, craving, etc..) is to see Jesus as lacking. To seek goodness outside of what God has called good is to appraise Jesus and find him lacking. We need to think like this. Our lust for selfish pleasure does have consequences. Whether we are talking sexual lust, material lust, professional lust, or whatever, we are talking about the removal of attributes of God and the imputation of the attributes of supremacy and sufficiency to stuff, and this is the height of idolatry (Col. 3.5).
This is why it is so critical to be in the word of God daily. To find ourselves in subjection to the divine word, that we might have our minds transformed and renewed according to the will of God, that we would think his thoughts after him, appraising that which is excellent and rejecting that which is sinful (Rom. 12.1-2; Eph. 5.1-2).