Posts Tagged ‘sin’

The Sin of Lust: MK Perspective

Friday, November 18th, 2016

the-sin-of-lust

Lust is always described in Scripture as sin, yet we accept it in our churches as normal. We don’t even bother to fight against the lusts of the flesh any more (1 John 2:16), and we have believed the lie that we are slaves to our lusts. Eerily, Scripture says that only unbelievers are slaves to their lusts.

“All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” Ephesians 2:3 NIV

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” Colossians 3:5 NIV

So what exactly is lust? Lust is a selfish greed, an excessive wanting of something to gratify oneself. Bible Study Tools describes it as “a strong craving or desire, often of a sexual nature. Though used relatively infrequently (twenty-nine times) in Scripture, a common theme can be seen running through its occurrences. The word is never used in a positive context; rather, it is always seen in a negative light, relating primarily either to a strong desire for sexual immorality or idolatrous worship.”

Scripture says that sexual sin is worse than any other sin because it’s desecrating the temple of the Holy Spirit. “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 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 honor God with your bodies.” 1 Corinthians 6:18-20

You become what you look at. This nation provides so much wickedness. We have been inoculated with worse and worse immorality through television: things that were once considered crimes are embraced by Christians. Our hearts are filthy. This is why we are bored. The world has provided an addictive continuous stream of wickedness to look at, and we have gradually become more and more wicked.

Pornography trains men to harm women. It has led to thousands of rapes and brutalities. It has fueled more and more perversions and greed that lead to excruciating sexual pain. If God calls something an abomination when committed against a man, it is also an abomination when committed against women and children. May we not be a nation of Christian Pharisees that excuse brutalities because of loopholes that the atrocities are not forbidden word-for-word in Scripture, and so they are not sin. This is a demonic doctrine, and it flies in the face of God’s purity and holiness.

The Pharisees in the days of Jesus would rape young boys and claim that it wasn’t sin because the Bible doesn’t say word-for-word that you can’t commit an excruciating, de-humanizing act against children. They said that the Bible forbade only sodomy against another man. So if a boy was younger than 20 years old, he could be brutalized. The Pharisees also brutalized their own precious wives in the same way. I heard a sermon where all these facts were backed up with documentation, and the following day, the video had been taken down. The prince of the power of the air who rules this world took it off the internet.

I know of seven Christian women who have been damaged by their Christian husbands through sodomy. 100% of them said it was physically excruciating, it felt like a serrated knife, and their anus hurt for days, even when lubrication had been applied beforehand. If done over a period of time, the women had permanent damage to their rectum, with poo leaking out and having to wipe 20 times after going to the bathroom. Furthermore, the women felt like pieces of garbage, completely desecrated human beings.

In the same way that all humans know there is a God (Romans 1:21), all humans know there are sexual actions that ought not to be done, that degrade the bodies of others, and that grieve the heart of God. (“God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.” Romans 1:28) Everyone, the first time they thought of sodomy, knew that it was wrong. They felt weird inside, and their conscience was pricked. But they suppressed the truth in unrighteousness because their deeds were evil (Romans 1:18). We have been handed over to our lusts by God: “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.” (Romans 1:24 ESV) We have reached Romans 1 as a nation, and Christian men are as just as evil as the world.

Twice in Scripture we see the sexually depraved imploding of a nation: in Sodom and Gomorrah and in the tribe of Benjamin at the end of the book of Judges. Because no one wants to be on the receiving end of sodomy, the sodomites (ALL the men of the nation) actively raped all newcomers. For the Benjamites, the sodomites sexually damaged a woman until she was dead. God rightly strikes sodomites dead with fire and brimstone. ALL sodomites are violent because the action of sodomy is a violent act, even if men are taking turns enduring it so that they can have a turn (gay marriage).

If God says that men taking turns damaging each other’s anuses is an abomination, how much more does God abhor Christian men who damage their own wives who they vowed before God to protect? They have broken a vow to God and they have destroyed their wives. May God bring His full judgment down on their heads.

God, wake up our nation to sexual purity, to a marriage bed that is delightful to BOTH the wife and husband, and where both are loved and not physically damaged. Guard the eyes of the people of our nation against the pornographic sites that train us to do evil and abandon You. Cleanse our hearts and our hands, and cause us to seek holiness instead of our own gratification. In the name of Jesus, who shed His blood and endured all hell to set us free from sin, Amen!

This is the third in a series of “Indictments Against the Sins of America.”

  1. The Sin of Entitlement
  2. The Sin of Boredom
  3. The Sin of Lust (this post)

Here are more posts I’ve written about the sins of our nation. Some of the posts are ways that I have personally battled and overcome these sins:

  1. The Sin of Gluttony
  2. The Sin of Ingratitude
  3. The Sin of Anger
  4. The Sin of Coveteousness
  5. The Sin of Pride

To keep up with my MK posts, like my MK page and subscribe to my blog.

Freedom FROM Sin, Not Freedom TO Sin

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2015

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Christ never said that we can do whatever we want. Never. He always asked us to live a life of self-denial, a life that is selfless and where every action is born out of love for God and others. We are commanded to be yoked to Christ and only move when He moves. (Matthew 11:29) We are commanded to be slaves of Christ. (I Corinthians 7:22)

Do we have the freedom to do whatever we want and follow the lusts of our flesh to full measure? Do we have the freedom to be hedonistic in our self-indulgent desires? Is God glorified when we revel in our freedom from being yoked to Christ? Do we even WANT to be yoked to Christ?

People who do not want to be yoked to Christ quote Galatians 5:1, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1 NASB) Paul was talking about a yoke of slavery to rule-keeping of the Jewish ceremonial law. This has nothing to do with, “I can do whatever I want and indulge my flesh to the maximum.” This causes us to place our fleshly desires above our desire to please God. When this happens, we sin against the people around us and don’t even notice. We hurt the people we love most.

“I have the right to do anything,” you say–but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”–but not everything is constructive. I Corinthians 10:23 NIV

Paul is contradicting the people who say, “All things are lawful.” He is saying, “No.” Paul is saying that people who say all things are lawful are WRONG. Not every action is beneficial or loving. If every action is not loving, it is sin. ANY action that is self-serving is sin. Jesus never did any actions that were self-serving. He only did what He saw the Father doing.

God the Father is holy, and He has commanded us to be holy. (I Peter 1:16) Is our every action holy? Is our every thought holy? Are we using the word “freedom” to hide sin? Are we indulging in the flesh at the expense of others?

Let’s avoid the demonic doctrine that if something is not stated word-for-word in Scripture, that it is allowable and therefore not sin. Only demons believe this doctrine, and it has now infiltrated the church. The entire Scriptures cry out against every form of sin, selfishness, and depravity. Our seared consciences don’t notice that we are walking in wickedness when we say we are walking in the freedom to do whatever we want, as long as it’s not word-for-word forbidden. This is the oldest trick of the enemy to cause Christians to commit horrendous sins against others. And we never even bother to ask God if He is glorified by our every action.

“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” II Timothy 3:1-5 NASB

Anchor Thoughts to Scripture: Gain Victory

Monday, April 16th, 2012

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I’m not allowed to think whatever I want. My thoughts are where sin begins. So control over my lips begins when I anchor my thoughts to Scripture. This means that I will take my thoughts captive and run them through Philippians 4:8.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philillians 4:8 ESV)

Anchor Thoughts to Scripture: Gain Victory

All of life must be anchoring my thoughts to Scripture, but especially when I know my thoughts are sin:

  • a complaining spirit
  • selfishness
  • wanting others to do my will (manipulation)
  • negative thoughts about someone (always becomes slander)
  • thinking of ways people have wronged me (holding a grudge)
  • not resting (striving)
  • hopelessness and despair (usually demonic or hormonal)
  • feeling like I’ll never gain victory over specific sin
  • stressing out over circumstances beyond my control
  • wanting to take matters into my own hands (not trusting God)

In each circumstance, Scripture alone can expose and disarm sin. Become aware that my mind has a doorway, and not to dwell on anything that will feed my sin. Stop, throw out the thought, and quote a Scripture that directly addresses it.

Forgetting What’s in the Mirror

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

in-the-mirrorPride blinds us and keeps us from following God. We live in a state of self-deception, thinking that just because we see something in Scripture and agree with it, we’re following it. Especially for people who have followed God a long time, we rest on our past laurels, how God transformed us in the past, not realizing that if God is not transforming us NOW, that we are not really as mature as we think we are. Often new converts are following God more closely than we are, but we show contempt for them because we’ve been past that stage for so long. God wants to soften our hearts so that we will be in a continuous state of yielding to Him. True humility is beautiful.

We don’t want to confess sin to each other for fear of what other people will think of us, even though Scripture commands us to do so. I read a sweet article about a woman being convicted about lying. The automatic reaction of my heart was that I was beyond that, because I don’t struggle with that particular sin. This is the reaction of a prideful person. This is ugly, and God is not pleased. So what if we don’t struggle with that particular sin? We struggle with others, if we are honest with ourselves.

In fact, as believers, when we look like we are sinning and far from God because of a struggle with sin, that’s often when we are drawing closer to God than ever, going through a gargantuan growth spurt in our walk with God. And yet we label these people as immature because they are being honest about their sin.

Let’s take, for example, the time I raged at God over potty training. How ridiculous, says the person who has never gone through that trial. They look down on me, thinking me stupid and trivial. Yet if I told them my rape testimony and how I never raged at God about that, they would clap their hand over their mouth, shocked at God’s glory shining out of my life miraculously through such an event.

So why don’t we have the guts to say what is really going on in our lives, even though it makes us look stupid and immature? Why did I never link to my “Anger and Potty Training” article that I wrote two years ago? Why was I embarrassed by it? That trial transformed me, so that I was able to perform a disgusting task with joy. And God gets all the glory because my behavior looks so yucky. For crying out loud, what gives me the gall to rage at God? Honestly, the anger was already there, and the moment I was honest with God was the moment He changed me. I didn’t want to admit that I was so furious about it. The trial of potty training was put there by God to sanctify me. God was concerned about my reaction to the trial, NOT to the potty training itself.

Because of my obedience to God in posting an extremely embarrassing article (and having to crucify my pride to do it), I’ve gotten e-mails from sweet mothers of small children, thanking me profusely for posting it. Why? Because they felt alone. They knew that their anger over potty training was wrong, but they didn’t know what to do about it. Express your frustration to God. God is NOT surprised. Job ranted at God, and God never rebuked him for it. (I am not saying that it’s godly to rage at God; I’m saying that when you are dealing honestly with God full blast, God will transform you through your pain.) Many people who have lost children have initially shaken their fists at God with rage (because God is in control of the universe and could have prevented it), but then they continue to throw themselves in God’s direction, and God transforms them and draws them closer to Himself. If you look at a snapshot of the person raging, you might look down on them as being spiritually immature when the absolute opposite is happening – a gigantic spiritual growth spurt. Allow people to look ugly for a minute. Grant them that grace. God Himself knows their hearts and grants them this grace, so why shouldn’t we?

We’re commanded to boast about our weaknesses. Why? Because God gets glory. Spiritual growth looks ugly BEFORE the transition to a greater state of holiness.

Wisdom is married to humility. I want to hang around people who are humble and wise. God, grant me the humility to love people for real, and to be honest about my own sin. May I never put my own image before God’s glory.