"what you see in your spiritual life today is the result of what you've put in the soil of your life in days past"Everyday of our Christian experience should be a day of relationship to God on the basis of His grace alone.Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace and your best days are never so Good that you are beyond the need of grace
lust is craving sexually what God has forbidden to lust is to want what you don't have and were not means to have.Lust wants to go outside God's guidelines to find satisfaction but among you there must not be even a hintof sexual immorality or any kind of impurity of of greed because these are improper for God'sholy people God's standard of not even a hint quickly brings me to the end of my own ability and effort.It reminds me that God's standards is so much higher than the standards I place for myself that the only victory of Christs death and ressurected can provide the right power and the right moptive needed to change me lust is our enemy and has hijacked our sexuality.We need to keep reminding ourselves that our goal is to rescue our sexuality from lust so we can experience it the way God intended we must fight fire with fire.the fire of lusts pleasures must be fought with fire of God's pleasures God gave us our drive so we would drive toward something just as he gave us an apetite so that men an women would keep being joined together and creating offspring in marriage the crucial issue in each of these examples is how we respond to the urges and desires of our sexual drive noticing an attractive person is not wrong but undressing that the person with our eyes on imagining what it would be like to have them is God says not even a hint because you can't give in to lusts demmands and hope to pacify it.It always grows and it does,lust will rob you of your ability to enjoy the godly pleasure only the power of the gospel can rescue us from the prison of our sin,and only the motive of grace can sustain us in the on going struggle against lust.getting these two wrong will derail our efforts the person who ahs experienced God's grace and has been genuinely converted can still choose to sin but he can't love sin like he used to.He can't continue in sin indefinitley my bigger outbreaks of sin are usually triggered by smallersins that I wasn't diligent in guarding against don't worry about what others think or wether or not they understand just obey God change will occur as you obey.It is not enough to hear truth and agree with it,we have to do what it says talk to God in prayer.repent of your apathy toward sin and determine what obedience would look like.Then seek to be faithful in that area.Take it seriously,pray about it fight the little battles.Flee temptation as God gives you the grace to change in that area you can move on to another area none of us should feel safe because our expressions of lust are culturally acceptable or civilized all lust is bad.Apart from God's race working in us and changing us,we are all monsters.regardless of how lust is expressed,it's motivated by a sinful desire for the forbidden pornography reinforces the lie that women aree sexual playthings for men's enjoyment that women want to be used,not loved and cherished so when a woman sees a seductive ad featuring a man,she might be tempted to fantasize about sex with him but the odds are that this temptation will be rooted in fantasy about a relationship with him,with physical plesure being a subset of her craving for passionate attention and emotional intimacy in fact,I would strongly discourage a man and a woman from talking about lust together unless they are engaged or married you can help guys in their fight against lust on how you clothe yourself as well as how you interact physically with guys sometimes attracting guys migght make you feel good about yourself but it could encourage them to sin.the way you dress can either help or hinder the men around you who are trying to resist it.There's a big difference between dressing attractivley and dressing to attract masturbation is an expression of lustful heart private acts matters to God because it involves our hearts.and God is passionately committed to our hearts belonging completely to Him masturbation reveals the dirt in our hearts.It is an indicator that we are feeding the wrong desires that's why problems with lustful actions are symptons of deeper heart problems some people don't want to get married because of plain laziness,selfishness and other times its cultural emphasis on career and material success the world is increasingly delaying and avoiding marriage -we should do the opposite,no one should be ashamed to want to marry young and enjoy wife of their youth sometimes we are more concerned with what others think than what God might think we don;t like having anyone else tells us what we can and can't watch.If anyone tries,we are ready to defend our viewing habbits I do want to look at how we can practice Biblical discernment and wisdom when it comes to our viewing habbits media never reasons with us in its attempts to convince us to love lust and sin tv and film stir up feelings and emotions that bypass our minds and go straight to our affections we need to examine the cumulative effect of our media habbits on our atitude toward God toward sin and toward the world if it hardens your heart toward God,if it obsures your awareness of the ugliness of sin and the holiness of God,if it takes the edge of your spiritual hunger,then it is sin but we are to realize that discernment is more than just disapproval alone,isolated and without accountability,our enemy goes after people who have isolated themselves from other Christians most important,seek to build real relationships wiht others.Don't wait for others to approach you,be the one to take the first steps accountability works best when the other person gently challenge you.Accountability can be flexible.the common goal is to help you and your partner or group do what pleases God and avoid sexual sin don't let pride keep you from reaching out for help.Please don't hide your struggle or think others might look down on you if you confess your sin repentance involves a change of heart and a descision to turn away from a sin.It is proven over time and involves an on going choice to put sin to death it is possible to feel bad about something and even tell someone else but not genuinely turn from our sin.accoutability relationships give us a chance to have others encourage us to demonstrate genuine repentance christian life is a race we run together what you see in your spiritual life today is the result of what you've put in the soil of your life in days past Read your Bible with heartiness of spirit.Be diligent in prayer...
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