For every desire, there is a solution; an outlet, a “scratch” that satisfies the itch. A hungry person can eat, a thirsty person can drink, a bored person can work or play, a lonely person can befriend someone, and so on. Human beings can reasonably address their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Animals, on the other hand, are different creatures that are simple-minded and act on impulse. When animals have a craving, they do whatever is necessary to satisfy it, without any reason to deny themselves. Unlike animals, humans are made in the image of God, and we have the ability to reason. Jesus modeled a life of sacrifice and self-denial, and He charges Christians to live in the same manner, and “not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God,” 1 Thessalonians 4:5.
When it comes to sexual desires, it takes the help of the Holy Spirit to address these impulses in a healthy and appropriate way. Christian’s today are fortunate to live in a time in human history where every individual Christian is indwelt with the Holy Spirit. This means that the Holy Spirit, who is God, is living and active in every believer; a Helper, Counselor, Guide, and Comforter. The Spirit empowers every believer to victory over sin as long as the believer chooses to submit to the Spirit’s leading in their life. Long ago, God promised that He would send His Spirit in order to help us obey His commands. Ezekiel 36:27 says, “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” This promise was fulfilled about two-thousand years ago, and we can read about it in Acts 2, on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down and indwelt the believers. He’s been indwelling believers ever since. What an advantage the Christian has today, Hallelujah (Hebrew for, Praise the Lord)!
The Spirit dispenses His divine grace to help us overcome sexual temptation, and it takes His grace to have victory over sexual sin. I say again, it takes His grace! 2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.” Take heart, because this grace is readily available for all who will entrust themselves to Jesus! This is the type of grace that allows for faithfulness to your spouse, abstinence when dating, turning away from pornography, and the ability to resist the temptation to masturbate when you’re alone. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”
As a Christian allows the Holy Spirit to govern his life, the Spirit works in and through that individual. The Bible describes the Spirits work in us as the “fruit of the Spirit,” meaning the evidence of the Spirit being in control. One of these evidences is called self-control and it’s mentioned among a list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Self-control is different than self-discipline. For a detailed explanation about these differences, see my essays titled, “The Sin of Self-Discipline” and “Fruit of the Spirit.” In short, self-discipline is denying ourselves something that we crave. We might be able to do this from time to time, but inevitably we lapse and fall to temptation because we’re operating under our own strength. But, when we operate under the Spirit’s power, the self-control that He provides empowers us to live with restraint and balance. The Spirit even changes our cravings, bringing them into their right proportion. More will be said on this point in a bit.
Sexual Immorality
The Bible speaks of sexual immorality, which is a term that encompasses sins that are sexual in nature. To better understand sexual sin, it’s important to first know what a sexual act is, because too often society minimizes sexual activity, in order to justify doing certain things. A sexual act is anything that creates a sexual response. This could be kissing, thoughts, touching, looking, etc. In summary, if the thing you’re doing or thinking about, creates a sexual response in your body, then for you, that thing is a sexual act. That same thing, though, may or may not be a sexual act for someone else. For example, there are people who are sexually stimulated by looking at people’s feet. A person with this type of “foot fetish” might try to justify their behavior by saying, “It’s not a sin to look at people’s feet!” However, if looking at people’s feet evokes a sexual response in that person, then he is in sin if he’s choosing to look at people’s feet for the purpose of sexual arousal. Ultimately, people have varying tastes and preferences that trigger sexual arousal. These all have to be brought under subjection to the Lord. Sexual immorality are sexual thoughts and actions which are outside of their acceptable context. God has said that marriage is the acceptable context for which sexual thoughts and behaviors are designed, and outside of marriage, engaging in sexual thoughts and behaviors is forbidden.
In the very beginning, the Lord made a wife for Adam. Genesis 2:24-25 says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” They were able to be naked with one another, because they were married. Exposing your nakedness to someone other than your spouse is sinful. Additionally, the phrase “one flesh” is a Biblical term describing sex. The Apostle Paul also uses it to describe the sin of a man having sex with a prostitute, calling their behavior as becoming “one flesh” in 1 Corinthians 6:16. So, the Bible makes clear that sexual activity is to be limited to the context of marriage. However, some sexual activity is forbidden in any context; polygamy, homosexuality, pedophilia, bestiality.
Before a person becomes a Christian, he is a slave to sin; entrapped by sin and knows no other way to deal with sin than to indulge in it. But, after a person entrusts himself to Jesus for the forgiveness of his sin, and receives the power of the Holy Spirit, he can enjoy freedom from sin. The Apostle Paul talks to Christians and reminds them that the old lusts that they used to live by are now dead to them; having been set free from immorality. Colossians 3:5-6, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.” Christians used to walk according to the ways of the flesh, but now can have victory over these things through the power of the Spirit!
Lusting & Masturbation
Jesus says in Matthew 5:27-28, “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 lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” To lust is to have a passionate longing or desire for someone in an inappropriate context. The appropriate context is marriage. Outside of marriage, we’re to abstain from indulging in these thoughts. When Jesus speaks these words, He’s talking to a Jewish audience that believed that their righteousness was measured by their outward behaviors. In the example given here, adultery was the sin in view. Adultery is sexual behavior between two people when at least one of them is married to someone else. Jesus affirms that adultery is sin, but goes on to add that inward lustful thoughts make you equally unrighteous in God’s eyes. Jesus is essentially saying, “Don’t assume you’re in good standing with God just because you don’t physically have sex with her. Don’t believe the lie that you can look but not touch. You’re sinning in your heart, just like the person who sins with his actions.” When tempted to lust, I have to squelch that impulse.
The Lord says in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” For the person who is looking to justify isolated sexual immorality, like pornography, lusting or masturbation, and argues, “I’m not victimizing anyone. I’m not even fantasizing about anyone in particular, my thoughts are just made-up scenarios. What’s the harm?” We can sin against our own body. We can sin in our hearts when nobody else knows that we’re sinning. Sin is disobedience to the Lord, and sin breaks fellowship and communion with the Lord; not because He moves away from us, but we’re choosing to move apart from Him in order to pursue our old fleshly appetites. Proverbs 26:11, “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.” We have to accept that God’s standards are best for us, and if he says to not engage in lusting fantasy, and to not treat out body in a sexually immoral way, then we can trust His divine wisdom and let His Spirit guide us from these sorts of sinful behaviors.
Delighting in the Lord
Psalm 37:4-5 says, “Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He will do it.” These verses are a key to sanctifying yourself. Sanctification is the process of becoming more like Jesus. For the Christian, this process continues throughout one’s life, meaning, nobody can say they’ve arrived and have no more maturing to do. With regards to victory over sexual sin, these verses provide insight on how we can move away from sin and become more like Christ. Let’s say that you are measuring your delight on a scale of 1-10, where 10 is the greatest delight and 1 is very little. Where would you rank your delight in sexual pleasure, and where would you rank your delight in Jesus? Let’s say that a Christian says that, on average, his satisfaction in Jesus tends to hover around a 4. Meaning, on occasion he experiences an affectionate passion for Him, but overall, Jesus is not the focus of his life. That same person might say that their satisfaction in sexual pleasure is a 7, and throughout the day, they seek sexual delight by way of lustful thoughts, pornography, masturbation, etc. Basically, they go to sexual fantasy for instant gratification continuously throughout the day. There’s a significant problem here!
Psalm 37:4-5 teaches us that our desires can change, and how they change. When a person chooses to delight in the Lord, it basically means that they are making choices to find their satisfaction in Jesus. This might be things like choosing to pray when you normally wouldn’t, or choosing obedience in a situation where you’d normally sin, or taking Bible reading more seriously than you ever have. Maybe it’s praising the Lord, or listing ten things you’re thankful for. In general, it’s choosing to pursue Jesus. When a person chooses to delight themselves in the Lord, then their degree of satisfaction in Jesus starts to slowly creep upward. Maybe you go from a 4 to a 5, and eventually a 5 to a 6, and so on. The more you aim to find your delight in the Lord, then, “He will give you the desires of your heart.” This doesn’t mean that God gives you the object of your desires (like a motorcycle, or a girlfriend), but rather, He gives you the desire itself. In short, He literally changes your current desires and gives you new desires, passions, and interests. Eventually, your satisfaction in Jesus exceeds the satisfaction that you find in sin. You become less interested in pursuing the fleeting pleasure that sexual sin provides, because you enjoy the superior satisfaction that can only be found in Jesus. Delighting in the Lord isn’t fleeting, it’s sustaining!
Verse five adds, “Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He will do it.” So, when I delight in Him, my desires change. As my desires change, my obedience to those desires increases, and I pray in accordance with those desires. Now that I’m acting and praying in accordance with God’s will, those desires come to pass. Life becomes significantly more satisfying when what you desire becomes reality! God delights in providing us with the things that satisfy His will. This is really when life begins!
Six Steps in Pressing Onward
God’s standard for moral conduct is right, fitting, and best for everyone. When we abuse and pervert God’s standards to pursue our own lusts, we miss out on the life God has for us. But, God is always ready to receive us back. We can repent (meaning, to turn in our thinking) from our sexual impurity, and be used for God’s glory! He’s ready for you now. Don’t believe the lie that says, “I’ve got to have complete mastery over lust in order to be a witness for Jesus.” That’s not true. When we fall and give in to lust, we must own it, confess it to the Lord as sin, repent, and press onward under the power of God’s grace. Everyone has fallen, and fallen again. God uses those that will turn back to Him and commit themselves to pursuing Jesus anew! So, step one is to repent.
A second step is to take your sin as seriously as God does. When addressing sexual sin, Jesus says in Matthew 5:29, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Now, Jesus isn’t meaning to literally tear out your eye when you lust, because tearing out your right eye doesn’t even solve the problem, as you can lust just as easily with the remaining left eye. Jesus speaks in hyperbole (exaggerated statement) in order to show the seriousness of sin. What He means is, take drastic steps to keep yourself pure! Don’t listen when Satan’s teaches you to downplay your sexual immorality.
A third step toward experiencing renewed faithfulness to the Lord, is to start with the little things. We see in Luke 16:10, “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” Little things might mean something as simple as getting up and walking away when a sexual television show is on, or if you’re watching alone, simply changing the channel. Small steps develop bolder and more righteous character.
A fourth step toward freedom from sin is to purge your life. Purge the things that cause you to revisit sexual temptations. Perhaps it’s the media you view, or the relationships that you have. Make conscious choices to remove the snares that keep you from living with excellence. Hebrews 12:1, “…let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” If it’s a sin, of course, get rid of it, as it will keep you from living or “running the race” with victory. But, besides the obvious sin, purge the “encumbrances”; those things which aren’t necessarily sin, but yet still keep you from growing in your faith. Maybe it’s Facebook, or your fantasy football league. The point is, get rid of things that distract you from faithful living.
A fifth step toward purity is to guard your eyes. Job says in Job 31:1, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” Job was a righteous man who wanted to honor the Lord with his heart, and honor his wife with his marriage. To check out other younger ladies was in violation of those things. He chose to “bounce his eyes”, as one minister puts it. Whenever an attractive other woman was in view, I imagine that Job bounced his eyes onto something else, so as to not give his eyes an opportunity to linger and lust. It’s not a sin to see a beautiful woman, but it is a sin to linger over her body with our eyes. Matthew 6:22, “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.” What you look at matters!
Last, but not least, pray for God’s help in this matter! The Psalmist prays in 119:37, “Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways.” The writer knows that his flesh is inclined to desire things that have no value to him. So, he pleads to the Lord to help redirect his eyes. In general, where we know we struggle, we ought to pray, “Lord, redirect my heart, mind, eyes, ears, in this area, so that I can focus on You!” Admitting our weakness is key.