Sharing the struggle

Can you overcome lust by yourself?  For that matter, can you overcome any sin by yourself?  If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're a Christian, so you know that answer to that is no, you need God's Spirit to overcome any sin.  But can you overcome lust just by praying about it or reading your Bible more?  I would argue that while it's not impossible, in almost all cases, you need other people's help.  James says:

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."--James 5:16 (ESV)

"Confess your sins to one another."  This is something that is so hard to do for many reasons.  Sometimes, we're ashamed of our sin and we're afraid others will look down on us if we share.  Sometimes, we think we're the only one (in spite of the fact that 1 Corinthians 10:13 clearly tells us we are not.) Sometimes, we just don't want other people's help, as if we get extra brownie points for defeating a sin on our own.  But the fact is, if you want to be sharpened, you have to call other people in to the battle:

"Iron sharpens iron,
    and one man sharpens another."--Proverbs 27:17 (ESV)

Do you want to be sharpened?  Then go find someone else who can sharpen you, and watch as God uses you to sharpen them too.

So let's say that in your heart, you agree with the above.  Now, you're thinking, you need to find someone or a group of men to talk to.  (Assuming you're a guy, I strongly recommend that the people you talk about this first and foremost are men.)  How do you make this happen?

Well, first, you need to make sure you're involved in a fellowship of believers (Hebrews 10:25). If you're not going to church, the first step is to find a church.  Or if you're in college, find a Christian fellowship on that college (and note you should also go to church.)  And then start befriending the men.  Most likely, you'll end up in a small group where you have more frequent contact with the same group of men.  If the small group already has an accountability structure, great!  Take advantage of it and confess your sin there.

But what if not, or what if sharing something as deep as lust would be frowned upon in that setting? Then you may need to take more initiative.  Find a man or two in the group that you really get along with and have lunch with them.  Ask them if they're interested in an accountability relationship.  And then share your honest struggle with lust.  The more specific the things you share, the better.  You may be surprised to find they struggle with the same things but never told anyone for the same reasons you have a hard time sharing. Either way, I'm here to tell you that "the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."  The greatest victories in my life in this area came when I was involved in a small group at a church where the leader first shared his struggles, and then wouldn't stop pushing us until we shared ours.

Yes, the process above can take a while and a lot of courage.  Let's say it takes a year to get involved at a church, find a small group, and find some brothers that you can even think of sharing with. It can seem daunting to have to put that much work in up front, but let me ask you this: would you rather be exactly where you are right now in a year?  Or would you rather be working toward having other people praying for you and you praying for them, not only working to defeat this sin, but also having deep fellowship in Christ over a common bond?  And don't you dare think that you should wait for someone else to take the initiative first. There's nothing in the Bible that says only people who have been appointed into leadership positions should take initiative.

Share your struggle.  Do not let Satan fool you into believing you can't.  Many brothers in Christ deeply struggle with lust and many never share it, and there is so much victory that can be had if we overcome the temptation to fight on our own. And as you're confessing your sins to one another that you may be healed, may you be reminded of Paul's words:

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death."--Romans 8:1-2 (ESV)

Amen to that.

Avoid the bait

I've been in groups of guys who start talking about how to overcome lust.  The conversation often quickly turns to how to change the heart.  This is a good thing!  It is our hearts that ultimately must change for anyone to defeat any sin.  But in many cases, before the heart can change, you must first take yourself away from the bait.  Consider this quote from the Puritan Thomas Brooks:

"The best course to prevent falling into the pit is to keep at the greatest distance from it; he who will be so bold as to attempt to dance upon the brink of the pit, may find by woeful experience that it is a righteous thing with God that he should fall into the pit."--Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices

If you don't agree, think about this: what is the first thing you would tell an alcoholic who's trying to recover?  Your would probably tell them to avoid the bar!  And it's the same thing for lust.  Here are some Bible verses that communicate this idea (all from the ESV translation):

"Can a man carry fire next to his chest
    and his clothes not be burned?
Or can one walk on hot coals
    and his feet not be scorched?
So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife;
    none who touches her will go unpunished."--Proverbs 6:27-29

"So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart."--2 Timothy 2:22

"Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body."--1 Corinthians 6:18

You may be thinking that this doesn't apply to you because you haven't literally committed adultery or had sex outside of marriage.  But remember Jesus' words about lust:

"“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 lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell."--Matthew 5:27-30

Now time for some practical advice.  How do you flee from temptation?  The pastor at the church I went to when I was in grad school once gave the advice that if you struggled with porn, you should get rid of your computer.  And if you needed your computer for your job, you should get another job. Drastic?  Yes. But some members of our church did start looking at other jobs as a result of that advice.  Here's what I tried to do:

* During the spring and summer, the quad at our university was filled with college age women trying to get as much of a tan as possible.  There was no way I could walk through there and not be tempted, so I walked around the quad instead of through it.  Sometimes, this meant an extra 10 minutes of walking, so I left 10 minutes earlier in those cases.

* I didn't go anywhere near the bars on Friday or Saturday nights. Yes,bar evangelism is a great thing for Christians to do, but not for those who struggle with alcoholism or lust.

* I gave up my Ethernet card. I still had a modem, but the university limited dial in access to 5 hours a week for those who lived on campus. I needed those 5 hours to get work done, drastically reducing the temptation to go wandering around the Internet.

* Committed to the idea that I wouldn't kiss until at least engagement, if not marriage.  Not because I think it's somehow more holy or lets me fit into a specific group of people, but rather because lust can be a struggle in relationship even more so than with random strangers.

You may consider some of these drastic, and I'm certainly not saying you should do all of these, but look at what Jesus tells us to do at the end of the Matthew passage above.  I don't think Jesus meant that there should be a whole bunch of blind people walking around, but the point is that drastic measures are sometimes required to defeat sin, and very much so in the case of lust.

So now it's your turn.  What is one thing you can do to avoid flirting with lust?  Is there a woman at work whose office you glance into to see if she's wearing something short?  Find another route when you need to walk somewhere.  Do bikinis give you pause?  Then don't go to the beach. Do you struggle with porn?  Besides sharing that struggle with someone else (more on that next week), put on some kind of filtering software and have someone else set the password.  If that doesn't work, see if there's a way you can get rid of your computer.  Jesus calls us to make drastic change to defeat our sin.

Yes, ultimately your heart needs to change.  But your heart likely won't change unless you first stop flirting on the edge of the temptation.

Next week: sharing the struggle with others.

Whose fault is it that you lust?

You're walking down a beach in the middle of the summer and see a woman scantily clad.  Your mind starts to wander and you think lustful thoughts.  Whose fault is it?  It's her fault, right? After all, you think, she probably dressed that way just to get your attention.  You're a guy and you were designed to be stimulated visually.  So maybe it's God's fault, too.

WRONG.

Or maybe you're walking down a busy city street and a woman catches your eye.  You can't help but want to run up to her, ask for her phone number, start picturing what a night together would look like...and start thinking, "If only my parents had taught me how to act around women."  It's their fault you struggle with lust, right?

WRONG.

The only person or being that causes you struggle with any sin, including lust, is you:

"Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."--James 1:13-15 (ESV)

"And he [Jesus] said to them, 'Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?'(Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, 'What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.'" -- Mark 7:18-23 (ESV)

"The heart is deceitful above all things,
    and desperately sick;
    who can understand it?"--Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)

Your struggle with lust, along with all your sin, comes from your wicked heart.  As the above passages show, you cannot blame anyone else for it, and if you want to start changing your heart, one thing you must realize is others do not control whether you lust or not.

So is there hope?  Of course there is!  But you must recognize that you cannot change your heart.  It is truly deceitful above all things.  Instead, your heart only changes by God's work through His Son:

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind."--James 1:5-6 (ESV)

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."--Galatians 2:20 (ESV)

"You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness."--Romans 8:9-10 (ESV)

The next blog post will be the first where I give practical advice. But first, you must realize that you cannot either blame anyone else nor change yourself--you must recognize that it is only through Christ's awesome work that you can change.  And change you He will!

What is this blog about?

Greetings!  Welcome to my blog, Fighting the Lust.  What is this about?  It starts with these words of Jesus:

"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 lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell."--Matthew 5:27-30 (ESV)

Jesus sure doesn't mince words here, does He?  And nor do I plan to.  Note the URL of this blog: "Fight Lust."  The use of the active voice is intentional, as lust is something we must fight, not something we can just hope we'll overcome one day. So this blog will be a mix of Bible verses, ideas, and practical tips to help my brothers in Christ in this battle. I'm a guy and as such my advice will be from a guys' perspective.  That said, I have spoken to sisters in Christ who struggle with lust and maybe you'll find this useful too.  I welcome your feedback!

This blog is not a quick fix.  You will not find one weird trick that will stop you from lusting.  If you've been struggling with lust for years like me, then you know that one-liners and "just do this" type statements don't cut it.  It's a fight against society, Satan, and our flesh, but with God on our side, we can defeat it!

I plan to post every Friday, as when I was single, Friday nights could be my hardest night. This was, among other reasons, because the stress of the week would get to me and I'd think about the fact that I was "alone."  If the same is true of you, I hope you'll find some energy for the fight in reading these posts.

I welcome comments and suggestions. I pray that what I say is accurate and helpful, and the Lord uses it for His glory!

--Brian Bagenstose