Yesterday I attended my daughter's high school volleyball tournament. At this event maybe half of the men there certainly were staring incessantly at certain high school hotties. Some of those men were just consistently looking, not straying into full sinful thoughts. So the question is, why do they keep falling later? Second, we are watching TV and some hottie is wearing shorts. Some men's eyes stray about 99 times to those legs while attempting to watch the show. I could write about this same exact behavior at the beach and at 100 different places. I will list four reasons why staring is a problem. #1 it is the opposite of praying without ceasing. #2 it is the exact opposite of worshipping God. #3 it is the exact opposite of praising God. BJU noted: “We are commanded to praise the Lord thirteen times in these six verses. Praising God is not an option; it is an obligation. It is both our delight and our duty. The greatest truth about God is that He is worthy of our praise, and the deepest truth about ourselves is that we have been created to praise Him.” Praising the Lord is a great tool to use for fighting lustful thoughts. #4 If one keeps staring at hottie's body parts they will flunk the upcoming test. The upcoming test is... that hottie you see that may cause you to fall into lust. Or, that hottie on TV that is about to show way too much. If you kept staring all week at just about everything... how in the world do you think you can now turn it off or fast forward? In that case, one has already fallen before they fell. Instead of staring incessantly, we can choose to be working on increasing how much we pray without ceasing, praising, and worshiping. Before you are in your next tempting session, prepare. Take one of these three things, do a Google search, and make a printout of what you are going to do instead of staring. For example: Increasing in love is a great Christian thing to do. To prepare to break the habit of staring one might print out: 1 Corinthians 16:14 ESV Let all that you do be done in love. 1 John 4:8 ESV Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 Peter 4:8 ESV Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Now, when you find yourself tempted to stare yet again, read a verse. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Next, consider doing a Google search and making printouts of the traits from paragraph three. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Job 31:1 ESV “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” Job never says “gaze with lust” he just says he made a covenant not to stare. If we make a “Covenant with our eyes,” and keep it, we will rarely “Fall before we fall.”
If one is a determined and recovering alcoholic, that person doesn't spend their time standing in a bar smelling alcohol, listening to the tinkle of ice in a glass of whiskey and watching others drink. As a first step, these people have admitted to themselves that they have an addiction to alcohol. Without such a frank and humble admission about our weaknesses, surely we will continue to expose ourselves to dangerous situations. In some ways, sinful lust is even more insidious than a drug addiction. In most quarters, society doesn't condone drug addiction but there is an overwhelming majority of people who don't look at sinful lust as the incredibly undermining sin which it is. This makes it too easy to kid ourselves that addiction to sinful lust is a minor issue or even acceptable and normal behavior. Our Precious Lord sacrificed Himself on the cross in atonement because no human is capable of shouldering the incredible burden of all of humanity's sins. It is not shameful to admit we aren't strong enough to fight sinful lust on our own. Indeed, it is vital to admit that only Christ can. All He asks of us is that we choose to follow Him instead of continually choosing to expose ourselves to temptations. So many of us have made sinful lust an idol that we love to worship but a house divided against itself cannot stand. If our hearts are divided between lust and Christ we will struggle to maintain freedom. If we were given the choice to stare an alluring image or to see the face of Christ, which would we choose?
I don't have an overriding goal of always living in the glory of God. That is probably one of the reasons I had to make “habits” of a dozen techniques for quitting before I could quit. When David was young he lived in the glory of God, always praising, always praying, always in the Word. His life was great, and he was mightily blessed. Then he got busy doing other things, and he fell hard. Then he repented and focused on living in the glory of God again. Finally, he got in a good place again. He wrote: Psalm 72:19 ESV Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen! I read several books by Tommy Tenny who wrote The God Chasers. They were very helpful in leading me to focus on the glory of God. I really need to reread them. Often your local library has them. 1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Exodus 33:18 ESV Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” David focused on living in the glory of God for thousands of days straight when he was young. His spectacular, blessed life is fully chronicled in scripture. He only got into lust when he “stopped doing what he was supposed to be doing.” Today, plan how you will go to war with lust. Then consider getting busy doing good, and focusing on living in the glory of God. It is a two-part plan that will give you good results.
