Lust and the City: a post for believers
 |
| Image from www.heartcompassion.org |
Why are
scores of born-again teens and twenty-something year olds struggling with
sexual sin? Does it strike you as something queer that the Body of Christ has a
huge majority of its young population stuck in this quagmire? You may say
they’re young and hot-blooded just like everyone else. That’s true. However
there’s something deeper. There’s a spiritual problem concerning it. If you’ve
been once caught in the web of lust and overcame it, you know that there are
certain symptoms that make sense only after you get your victory. Here are some
and many struggling can identify.
Prayerlessness
Irritability
to the Word of God
Desire to
just give in and give up
Overwhelming desire to watch movies and
media
Avoidance
of the Church and fellowship groups
The last
two blogs on Pen Strokes elicited a lot of emotion from young believers. My
email was flooded with responses of thank-you and please-pray-for-me from
strangers, acquaintances and friends in the body of Christ. I was grateful that
the spirit of God was working. However, a third kind of response came through;
one that I didn’t anticipate. It was the cry for help. Several men wrote to me
saying that the fight was hard! One had just run away from a woman who had
tried seducing him. Several ladies wrote to speak with my wife of mistakes they
had made that they felt had no redemptive chance. It’s difficult to share
principles with someone who hasn’t received the gospel. So, our first question
was thus: Have you given your life to Christ? The answer from all of them was a
definite sure “yes.”
There had
to be more. I took time to pray and an important Biblical fact came to heart.
It’s this:
The
Christian relationship between a man and a woman is by far the most vivid sign
of the relationship and love Jesus has with humanity.
Don't
forget that. We'll come to it
In
Francine River’s classic novel, Atonement Child, the spiritual
condition of sexual sin is portrayed very well. Dynah Carey is a believer. She
has been faithful to wait until marriage. One night after work she is attacked
and raped by a stranger. She is scarred when her fiancé breaks their engagement
to save his reputation and blames her for not fighting the rapist. She finds
out she is pregnant from the assault and is afraid to tell her parents. She is
expelled from the Christian College she attends because the deans don’t want
the moral record of their alma mater ruined by a pregnant unmarried
girl. She is confused when her best friend tells her to abort the
child and she is angry when Joe, a believer, tells her that abortion is sinful.
She blames God at some point and is at a crossroads as to where her life should
lead. She later discovers that her rape and pregnancy isn’t an ordinary crime.
There’s a spiritual history behind it. Make a point to own a copy. I can be a
good reviewer, can’t I? Dynah’s demise wasn’t as a result of a discipline
problem. It was a spiritual condition.
I don’t
believe this spirit stuff
The spirit world is real. It's been there even before you and I existed. There are
many believers who refuse to accept that there are spiritual forces at work in
the world we live in and that they have supernatural abilities to brew evil. On
the other hand, there are the extreme believers who blame the devil for every
mishap. If their coffee poured, they’d scream “Shindwe pepo nyeusi!” (Kiswahili
for ‘Be defeated black demon!’) There are Christian folk who underestimate the
power of the occult and there are equally those who overestimate them. The
first is naïve, the second is paranoid. There is a biblical stand on
evil forces.
The Bible
is very clear in Ephesians 6:12 about the active role of demonic powers.
12 For
our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against
the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the
spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
People
living in the city and urban areas can get so self-absorbed in their education
and social class that it blinds the power of God. They can attribute
psychological and scientific reasons for certain social, political and economic
problems. They may not state it but inwardly they feel that the college degree
they attained from four years of learning is wiser that the very creator of the
galaxies and the universe. I say to you if you belong there; don’t be naïve.
The devil is equally pleased with believers in both extremes concerning
spiritual warfare. If you just shrug it off and claim that it doesn’t exist, he
can work with his evil forces peaceably on account of your ignorance and pride.
If you are overtly conscious that there’s a demon in your refrigerator causing
the food not to thaw, he can also work very peaceably by instilling fear in you
every time your day is ruined. There is a biblical approach to spiritual
warfare and we will enlighten you.
If there
is a God, be sure that there is a devil (and a powerful one too). The Bible
doesn't call them pests. It calls them principalities. The devil and the Lord
have two separate agendas. The former seeks to make a flawed human worse and
suffer wrath. The latter seeks to make a flawed human saved from wrath. The
devil isn’t trying to make good people bad for one reason; there is no such
thing as a good person. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The word devil means liar. In Spanish it’s “Diablo” and it means the same. The
root word for devil or Diablo is diablos, which means the same
thing. Diablo/ Devil/ Liar. In Revelation 12:9, the definition of the devil is
more accurate: one who leads the whole world astray. So he not
only lies, he also leads astray. Satan uses the flaws in you to lead you astray
through lies. One of those flaws is your lust.
Look at
how the Bible shows that the devil can use flaw of a new believer.
1 Timothy
3:6 “An elder must not be a new believer, because he might become proud, and
the devil would cause him to fall.” (NLT)
Look at
how it also teaches how the devil can take advantage of your anger.
Ephesians
4:26-27 “And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go
down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.” (NLT)
If I
could rewrite Ephesians 4:26-27 concerning lust, I would say this
And “don’t
sin by letting lust control you.” Don’t get into a relationship, have Internet
access, maintain a sinful relationship or watch television soaps and series
while you are still lustful, for lust gives a foothold to the devil.
The
spiritual battle of lust is real
Many
believers scoff at this and only come to the realization of the truth after
they’ve gone miles deep into regret. If you want to know that lust and carnal
desires to gratify sexual needs are rooted in spiritual struggles, follow me
through this.
The Bible
says in 1st Corinthians 6:19 “ Do
you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you,
whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a
price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.”
In this
portion of scripture, Paul had been talking about sexual immorality in the
Corinthian church. He finished it with three statements: 1) they were to honour
God with their bodies sexually, 2) they were not their own and 3) they were to
be cognizant of the fact that their bodies were temples of the Holy Spirit.
Temples
all around the world have a common characteristic; they are meant to be clean
and pure. The Holy Spirit reacts to a sexually unclean temple. You know it.
You’ve probably felt his reaction when you were ogling sexual content you
shouldn’t have been ogling. Or you felt his reaction when you watched that TV
series that left you more lustful than hopeful. That reaction is in every
believer. It’s called conviction. How does that prove that the sexual battle is
spiritual? Like this. The Holy Spirit is a spirit. Your flesh is a body. Your
body interacts with physical stimuli and it elicits physical responses. If an
assailant scratched you with a sharp blade, you’d yelp in pain. The Holy Spirit
reacts after interacting with spiritual stimuli similarly. When your spirit is
scratched, the Holy Spirit in you will yelp. The Holy Spirit will not convict
you to go for lunch break. That’s why you have a stomach. When the stomach is
“scratched” by hunger pangs, it yelps through hunger growls. The Holy Spirit
will convict matters concerning the eternal state of a man i.e. the soul and
the spirit. When the eternal state of a man is “scratched” the Holy Spirit will
“yelp” through a conviction. In fact, if an assailant approached you holding a
blade in their hand, you’d step away from them before they even attempt to
scratch you. If you get close enough, they might do more than scratching. They
may kill you! Only a fool would hang around and find out if the assailant would
murder him/her. Don’t be a fool! Sexual sin is the assailant and you’re still
hanging around asking, “how far is too far?” You will die before you know the
answer to that question. Thanks be to God because assailants creep on us but
God’s Holy Spirit warns us. When assailants armed with blades that injure the
spirit approach you, the Holy Spirit convicts you to get away. If you don’t get
away, the consequences will be dreadful. So why would the Holy
Spirit react through a conviction when you’re about to steal kisses in the
dark? Could it be that stealing kisses with your sweetheart in secret
places and dark movie theatres is an assailant to your spirit? Could it be that
watching Gossip Girl is more than just watching TV? We run
from the assailant because the Bible tells us to flee from sexual sin. Anyone
who doesn’t run only exposes himself or herself to real danger by self-harm.
Read:
1
Corinthians 6:18 “Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects
the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own
body.” (NLT)
Don’t dare
think for a minute that your body is your flesh. Believe me, your body is just
a host of the real you. Your hair, your eyes, your teeth are not you; they are
a house for you. So who are you? You are a spirit. God made you that way. You
are a spirit, you live in a body and you have a soul. If you live to please the
body through sexual sin at the expense of the spirit, it will impoverish your
soul. Your soul is you mind, your will and your emotions. However, if you
please the spirit at the expense of the body, you will always have a rich soul.
The effects of sexual sin are spiritual. There are spiritual scales that are
tipped beloved.
When the
human body is injured severally, the nerves in that part of the body die. No
matter how much you injure it from then on, the person won’t feel a thing. It’s
the same with our spirit. You keep exposing it with Lust and the
City and you will feel no more conviction and believe me that is bad
for you. The next step for a body that doesn’t feel is amputation. Amputation
will cost you heartache. Your dating relationship may need amputating that girl
that leads you astray. It means amputating that man that claims to love you but
is still sleeping with the ex. It could also mean amputating your Internet time
and TV time. It could mean amputating your selves as boyfriend and girlfriend
because despite being faithful to one another, you’re unfaithful to your
heavenly King each time you have sex and nobody knows. That’s why he (the Holy
Spirit) will fight to keep the temple clean. And if he fights a mere kiss
through a conviction, be assured that the “mere kiss” will cause amputation
eventually if His voice is not heeded. The spiritual battle is real.
What if I
don’t amputate, you ask? What happens when a believer is warned severally,
doesn’t listen, becomes indifferent to the Word of God and continues in their
rut of sexual sin? I’ll tell you what happens. If a dead arm is not amputated,
it rots. And when flesh rots, it spreads to other areas. Even fresh flesh
becomes cancerous and begins to die when amputation is not done. Very soon, you
will have a rotten corpse because you didn’t amputate the sexual sin. It will
affect other areas in your life. It will affect your family relationships. It
will affect your studies and it will affect your relationship with
God. When your entire life rots, you are reduced to a corpse and
corpses attract scavengers. A rotten spirit will attract demons. If you are not
a believer, you can be easily possessed. If you’re a believer, it’s worse. You
become oppressed heavily.
Years from
now, this truth will be theoretical if the devil can help it. This is the
truth:
The
Christian relationship between a man and a woman is by far the most vivid sign
of the relationship and love Jesus has with humanity.
That truth
alone can cause the devil to fight the establishment of a Christian family.
He’s into the foundation wrecking business, so that means
your dating and singlehood need to be protected. We’ll learn how to protect
that very soon. John 10:10 says that the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy
but Christ came to give life and life in abundance. Are you casual as a
believer concerning your dating relationship? Do you think because you are
single, you don’t need to filter what you watch on TV because it doesn’t affect
anyone? You reap what you sow beloved. That’s a spiritual truth that is not
about to change. Casual dating may breed a casual marriage and a casual
marriage cannot show the extraordinary power of Christ. Mediocre singlehood
will breed a mediocre relationship and…you get the trend. You cannot afford to
let your guard down concerning sexual sin. Our testimony is killed each time we
give in to our lust. We may not see how our testimony is killed now but our sin
always finds us out. Sin is like a boomerang. It has to come back, so stop
throwing.
Our
opportunity to show the world the love Christ has for them is nullified with
our pursuit of carnal pleasures. Every single and dating believer must fight
the war with lust to protect the power of their future marriages whether they
marry the person or not. If by some stroke of ill-luck you didn’t marry your
current sweetheart, would their future spouse ever say to you years from now,
“I’m glad you dated him/her?” or “I wish you two hadn’t met?” And as you read
on past chapter 5 of Ephesians, you will discover that the relationship parents
have with their children is very important to show the power of Christ. Yet
this too is ruined in the dating period of believers’ lives. How? Look at the
number of fatherless children, abortions and orphans born to believers in the
church. Most grow up not knowing God’s design for a family. How did they get
there? The single and the dating years. Yes, marriages too cause havoc from men
and women who fail to keep their vows, but we’re not putting out fires here.
We’re stopping them from starting in the first place. The dating and single
years are the foundations of a Christian marriage. Is your dating pleasing to
God? Is your singlehood pleasing to God?
People are
depending on your fight against lust
Do you
know that an unbeliever can come to Christ because of the loving relationship
you have with your spouse and kids? It starts in your singlehood and dating
life if you want that analogy of Christ and the Church exemplified. The Holy
Spirit convicts and draws men to Christ through men and women who do his will
and the family institution is one place to exercise that. Do you realize that
if you are not vigilant in warding off lust right now in your singlehood or
dating life, it may cost someone a chance of heaven? Granted, your sin may not
have dire consequences as others’ but your relationships will lack the power
Christ desires for unbelievers to see all because of a careless moment of
carnality in the past. Do not take the fight against lust casually? The devil
and the world are taking it very seriously if you haven’t noticed. You have the
spirit of God in you, look around the city. You know what I’m saying is true.
You have the power to save a generation if you fight. The battle is real.
PS: We found out how to subscribe to the blog using your email address. Search for "Subscribe by email" at the bottom of the last comment on the blog post and click on it. Follow the simple steps and you should receive emails every time a new blog is posted
Grace and Peace
Ernest
Kindly take time to fill the short survey below for a book we are working on