If they are sure enough and that’s real money in there and it’s really tax-free and it isn’t stolen goods, they will have self-control. If they are sure the friend will die a gruesome death, they will have self-control. The decisive issue is whether they believe the stakes are high enough and sure enough. That’s what controls them - what they believe - not the sexual desire. They are decisively controlled by what they believe - what they believe will happen if they act on the lust or don’t. The fact is 99% - I’m just leaving 1% for wild pathological cases that I cannot imagine - 99% of those who give way to lust in pornography, or fornication, or adultery are not decisively controlled by their sexual desire. You are not addicted to that moment.Īddiction is a relative term. But if you do not look at that nudity, I will give you a satchel with one million dollars in cash,” you will have total self-control. Or if a man walks into the room and says, “If you look at that nudity, I will not give you the million dollars that I have in this bag, tax-free. What you have shown me, through our faith, is that true men are. You may use your own words, such as this is hard, or this really hurts. Acknowledge it by saying this is a moment of suffering. For example, tonight if you are feeling totally in the sway of a sexual desire, more blazing, more powerful than you have ever felt it in your life, and you believe you cannot resist the temptation to look at some nudity online, and suddenly a black-hooded ISIS member drags your best friend or your spouse into the room with a knife at his throat or her throat and says, “If you look at that website, I will slit this throat,” you will have self-control. Thirty years ago I pledged my love to you and only you, love. Remember a specific time or event where your addiction (or someone else’s addiction) has caused you suffering. What I mean by this is if the stakes are high enough and sure enough, you will have all the self-control you need to conquer any sexual temptation. “If the stakes are high enough, you will have all the self-control you need to conquer any sexual temptation.” I would stake my life on the guess that in this room no one is absolutely addicted to pornography or any sexual sin. They happen because you are trying to fill the hole of an abandonment wound from childhood. Ponder with me for a few minutes the natural and the spiritual role of self-control in relation to lust. Addiction or attachment disorder becomes a survival pattern. The only way that kind of dishonor can daringly be carried out and hold sway is by disregarding God while we are in the sway of lust. The lusted-after woman or man in your head or on the screen or on the street is dishonored - not treated as a scared, precious, eternal person in the image of God whose eternal destiny is always paramount and whose holiness we either long for or ignore. It disregards the promises and the warnings of having or losing the beauties of Christ. Lust is a sexual desire that dishonors its object and disregards God.
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