Maintaining Sexual Purity in a Sex-Crazed World: Lust

Hi Lovelies!

Today I'll be starting a three-part series on maintaining sexual purity in a sex-crazed world. This topic has been on my heart for several weeks now so I believe God was leading me to write. Many times, when we think of sexual purity, we equate it just to waiting till marriage for sex. But today I want to say it's more than that! Sexual purity actually starts from the heart. In our equating sexual purity to just waiting for sex, a lot of us have thought it okay to do everything else but have sex. I won't lie I've also been guilty of this faulty thinking till the Holy Spirit began to convict me. The issue of waiting for sex is not so much about the sex itself as it is taming your flesh and saying no to lust. So, today we'll be focusing on the heart aspect of sexual purity. In subsequent posts, we'll focus on the why and how to wait aspect of sexual purity.

So, what is lust? Dictionary.com defines it as an "intense sexual desire or appetite" or an "uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite". Sure the definition describes what a lot of us must have felt at some point in our lives. I mean we live in a sex-crazed world. Sex is everywhere! It's in our movies, music, commercials, magazines, and even social media. We live in a world where sexual content is now so easily accessible. So, it is no surprise that lust is a huge challenge for many of us in this generation. Lust manifests itself in several ways from fantasizing about having sex to masturbation to pornography to engaging in just a little foreplay with your bf/gf to premarital sex. While sexual desires are natural, they are only to be expressed within the confines of marriage. God is the creator of sex and as the creator, it's only him who can prescribe how to use it. It's not our place as mere men to dictate how to use sex. After all, our bodies don't belong to us. They were given to us by God for His glory (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). I'll speak about this in more detail in my next post.

Now, the big question is how can we stay pure despite all the sexual content we're surrounded by? There are two sides to this, a spiritual side and a physical side. We'll explore them below:

1) We must be mindful about what we feed our hearts (minds) with: Our hearts is the production ground of our lives. Proverbs 4:23 says we should guard our hearts diligently and Proverbs 23:7 says "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he". Basically, we are what we feed our minds with. We can't keep feeding our minds with junk and expect not to produce junk; I'm sure we've heard the term "Garbage in garbage out". Sexual sin doesn’t just happen. It is a culmination of stuff we've fed ourselves with over the years. It is a result of the little decisions/compromises we make every day. Like I mentioned earlier, sex is everywhere: movies, music, books, social media. But do we realize that we can control what we choose to watch, read, and listen to? We don't have to watch that movie just because everyone is talking about it.We don't have to listen to the music of that artist who keeps talking about sex. We don't have to keep going to places that stimulate sexual temptations. We have choices to make so let's make godly choices!

2) Feed on the word of God: Psalm 119:9 says "how can a young person stay on the path of purity? by living according to your word" and John 17:17 says "sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth". We can overcome lust by starving it and feeding on God's word instead. Lust is a monster so the more we feed it, the more it grows. Like I said before, "Garbage in garbage out", similarly "God in God out". There are several ways of getting God in: studying our bibles on a daily basis, listening to sermons, listening to worship music, reading christian articles and books, etc. The list is non-exhaustive, I'm sure we can come up with other ways. But my point is that we must be intentional about feeding our hearts with the right things.

3) Pray: Matthew 26:41 says "Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!". So, a little background to this verse: this is the night Jesus is to be arrested and betrayed so he’s feeling quite distressed. He heads to a garden with his disciples to pray. He tells them to “keep watch with him”, that is, to pray with him. Jesus then heads a little further from his disciples to pray and when he comes back, he finds the disciples sleeping. So, he makes the statement above specifically to Peter. This causes me to wonder, maybe Peter wouldn’t have given in to the temptation of denying Jesus 3 times if he had prayed.  The second part of that verse says “the spirit is willing but the body is weak”, so the truth is that deep down within the heart of every believer is the desire to please God but our flesh is weak.  So, to avoid falling into sexual sin, we need to pray. I mean there’s only so much we can do within our own power so we must engage the power of God. 

4) Association: the people we associate with will either hinder or help our walk with God.  A hard reality we believers have to face is the fact that to live the lives God has called to live, we may have to let go of some friends. A lot of people fall into sexual sin due to peer pressure. It’s like everyone is doing it so why not join them? Therefore, it is important to have godly friends; friends who make it easier for us to obey God and friends who can hold us accountable in our sexual purity journey.  Proverbs 13:20 says “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm”. In other words, we reflect the kinds of friends we keep. Now, where can we find godly friends? A good place to start is by joining a lifegroup at church or joining a youth fellowship at school. It’s not like the people we meet at these places are perfect but the truth is that they’re at least on the same journey of bettering their relationship with God and, they are more likely to share the same godly values/principles as us.

5) Keep busy: I’m sure we’re all familiar with a saying that goes “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. Before the devil gives you something to do, give yourself something to do. It is important that we plan out our activities each day, even when we’re on holiday. When we’re occupied, it is much harder for sexual temptation to creep in.

A final word, everything we need to live godly lives is already in us because the spirit of God dwells within us (2 Peter 1:3). God will never tell us to do something impossible. While, maintaining sexual purity in this sex-crazed world seems rather impossible, we should always remember that God’s grace is available to help us and that we can do ALL things through Him who strengthens us.