The Eye is the Lamp of the Body – Part 3

I want to define the word “pure” before I go on because like the word “sensual” we have a distorted idea of what it means. Imagine a bath tub full of clean water…let’s say it is made of 50,000 water drops. Now take 1 drop of black ink and drop it in it: is the water in the bath tub still considered to be clean? The answer is no, it is not.

The biggest problem with lust in North America is that North Americans don’t have an accurate view of what an immoral, sexual, and sensual sin is! Christian girls think that wearing tight jeans is actually dressing godly! Or that showing a little cleavage is actually dressing modestly! Christians think having a girlfriend or boyfriend who they are not planning to get married to, nor ready to get married, nor know God’s will in this matter, holding hands, or that kissing, sitting in each other laps if they are engaged is actually within God’s will for their lives as His children! (They think it is part of being “light of the world”!) Many Christian girls take self-portraits with the camera being held way high above their heads as if they are photographing their chest not their faces! These are practices we see the world do on worldly online profiles and they do not fit us—God’s chosen children.

Christian youth don’t actually run away from temptation they actually embrace it! How do I know that, well it is simple: most Christian teens ask “how far is too far?”, and “how much is too much?” Those are not questions of godly teens who are seeking to follow their Lord and Master. A person who is walking in the midland does not concern himself with questions such as, “How steep is the cliff?”, “Will I get hurt if I fall?”, “Or how far is it?” My rule when I don’t know God’s will in something is this: if in doubt don’t do it.

We embrace sin and then we wonder, ask and wail why we fell into temptation! To think that you can get close enough to sin but not sin, is to say

“I am godlier than king David, wiser than king Solomon, and stronger than Samson!” (Not my quote; I read it on the Internet few years ago.)

In the summer 2003 I needed help with how to resist lust, and because I am not a member of a local church (I am not admitting this as something I am proud of) I have a lot of questions that I do not have the answers to and so I went to a Christian chat room and it was my first and last experience with a chat room. I asked the “Christians” there: how can I overcome the sin of lust? Do you know what their answers were? Here is the one that stood out the most from the rest because it was the first reply (obviously he was very confident of his spiritual wisdom!), “What’s wrong with lust? My father and grandfather lust after girls all the time and they are doing fine!”

I simply answered: Yes, my father lusts too, but I follow Jesus Christ, not my father or your father.

You know, after my reply every single man left the chat room and the only two remained were the two women who were the creators of the chat room! Needless to say I didn’t get answers there either, but God was ready to teach me how to overcome lust.

About two months ago after listening to Paul Washer for few times I knelt in prayer and said something like this:

“Lord, here is the deal. I am either saved or I am not. If I am saved then I must be born again, and if I am born again I must have a new attitude toward sin—toward lust. But if I am not saved, then I am not born again, and that can very well explains my attraction to sin. So if I am not saved please show me how, because even though I think I have been a Christian since 1999, still I would rather find out if I am not now than when I die and be lost eternally in hell. It is better to find out sooner than later.”

The point of my prayer was this: we are either new creation or we are not. You are either born or you are not—there is no middle ground. And I wanted to know: am I saved, or am I not? Let me explain it better this way:

When was the last time you were planning to go somewhere and were very tempted to go there walking on all four? Never! You’ve never been tempted to do so. And even when you were just a little baby and still crawling, you were actually eager to stand up and walk—you strived daily to do so! Why aren’t we tempted to walk on all four? The answer is simple: because we were born humans, and humans walk straight up on their two feet only. In other words: we were born this way, and to be tempted to walk on all four is contrary to the way we were created/designed by God.

In the light of the illustration above, honestly ask God in prayer this question: Lord, am I saved? Am I born again? Am I a new creation?

You see, the Christian life is not about keeping records! It’s not about saying, “I’ve been saved since I was 12”, “I serve in church every week!”, “I am the pastor’s son!”, or “I’ve been going to church and hearing the gospel for 40 years…of course I am born again!”

Being born again is NOT the work of man, is not a method of psychology, and it is certainly not achieved by being nice and friendly, serve in church, or by any good works. You see, a baby can kick all she wants in her mother’s womb, but she will be born only when her mom gives birth to her!

I am not saying this to scare you. I know the fact that we think we’ve been Christians for 20 years is just a delusion is hard to take, but for me personally: as hard as the news sound, nothing is more painful and dreadful than to spend eternity in hell. And maybe in those 20 years you were in the Holy Spirit’s spiritual womb preparing you for birth—to be born again.

The bottom line is this: if you enjoy sin; if you rather for one day there would be no God, no Jesus Christ, no Holy Spirit, no Cross, no Heaven and Hell, no Bible, no eternity, no guilt, no shame, and no bad consequences to sin just so you can indulge in all the sinful acts you desires to be involved in…chances are you are not born again. If you feel sad when the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin and asks you repent, ask for forgiveness and never indulge in that sinful behaviour again, but deep down inside you know you will miss this sin and it makes you “happy”…chances are you are not born again.

So last week something happened. While I was on the subway I was tempted to look at a young lady in front of me, and then for some reason I asked myself this question, “Do you want to look because you can’t help it—you are drawn sensually to look at her; you are spiritually bound by sin like when you were addicted to pornography—or is it because of habit?” And the answer was, “I really don’t feel any obligation, need, or a desire beyond my control (such as being addicted to porn, or lust) to look at her.” So I decided to look in the other way and see how I feel. So I did look in the other way and I didn’t feel anything—it was as if she didn’t exist or that she was just another human being on public transportation! You see, “We already have all we need to live a righteous life!”

That delighted me; I thought to myself, “I don’t have to lust, it is not something beyond the power God has given me, maybe I do it because it is a habit.” I think in many cases it is not that we are addicted to something beyond our control—not every sin we continually give in to is because we are oppressed by Satan. Sometimes we simply choose to do it for whatever reason, maybe because of habit. How many bursts of anger we can control easily but choose not to?

Before we become Christians we were helpless to free ourselves from the power of sin over us, its attraction to our sinful nature, and couldn’t discern Satan’s lies and fight them with truth—because we didn’t know who is the Truth—but now we have the power of resisting sin and so we don’t have to sin, we are not helpless against it, but because of years of living a sinful lifestyle we carry this habit with us. So next time you are tempted to lust, ask yourself the questions: Why do I want to lust? Is it because I can’t help it or simply because I am used to it? Either way you need to talk to your heavenly Father and straighten things out. Sinning because you are used to it (out of habit) does not make sinning any less despicable in God’s eyes. On the contrary it might be a sign of a worse spiritual condition than not being born again, because it shows that you had experienced God’s power, love, work in your life, and have had an intimate relationship with Him but all that has not impressed you, touched your heart, and He didn’t leave an impact on your spirit enough for you to leave your life of sin.

If you have not read any of the words I mentioned above that’s fine as long as you read this:

Your capacity and ability to resist lust (sin in general) increases as you grow older in your faith and grow deeper in your relationship to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. If someone has told me 10 years ago that one day I will be able to resist lust I would’ve thought they are crazy, but it is true. Time, and getting older and worldly wiser has nothing to do with it, but rather time spent with God and maturity in faith that makes all the difference.