#WalkItOff-ItsInYourHead
As physical as sexual purity may seem, it’s battle is won (and lost) in the mind.
Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life. | ||
Proverbs 4:23 [NCV version] |
If there is someone who’s messing up their life, you can bet that their problems didn’t start with an action, but with a thought. How often have we lingered too long over a thought, and it soon converts into action? The way you think determines how you feel. What we think & feel, dictates our actions. This is probably why so many "New Years resolutions" fail… we attempt to address the action, and not the cause or root of the action.
I love it when brothers tell me that, when it comes to temptation, they look… but then they remind themselves not to look… so they stop looking… and yet, they still struggle with temptation so many years later. What we fail to realize is, these "quick fixes" leave as go as fast as they show up in our minds. The sin itself is a slow-moving, unstoppable force, waiting to bury your in it’s fall. The longer we don’t address the root, we slowly begin to compromise our walk & faith for that sin. "I won’t look" stops after a short while… turns into no thought whatsoever when temptation shows up… and turns into the subconscious "it’s ok to look… I’m admiring beauty as opposed to lusting"… by then, we’re buried.
But scripture tells us how to manage our thoughts before it even gets close to being this bad...
Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. | ||
2 Timothy 2:22 |
Where our "noble" attempts to resist temptation are commendable, we sometimes fail to replace the temptation itself with something positive. "Thinking you did something wrong" shows up before you’re "doing something wrong". Turning away from sin is the first step, but the next, immediate step needs to be us turning towards God: goodness, integrity, love, forgiveness, and peace.
I’ve lived with the excuse "Sexual desire is just something that I’ll have to live with" way too long. I know… It’s a cop-out and robs God of what’s rightfully His (my attempts to overcome it), and puts no faith into what He has done, and continues to do, for me.
