Guest post from George, my hubber. Click here to email George.
In many discussions with men who have/had the struggle to look at either pornography or other women in public I have asked a simple question, “How SHOULD you view women?”
Too often, men and women go round and round with the same old talk. The problem is that we focus on the problem, and in the minds and hearts of those involved, the problem grows and grows. Soon it is as if you are standing at the base of a mountain and looking up at the top of it. Everyone starts to wonder, “Will I ever get around this massive hurdle?”
But the hurdle or mountain doesn’t need to be jumped or climbed over or even walked around … it needs to be moved. Yes, you remember that the Lord said “…if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” — And nothing is impossible when Christ our true life is living in us. So, the problem needs to be dealt with. It needs to be removed. And yet, even if we say we have faith that it can be so, how is that applied practically?
Too often we think that “faith” is only a mental belief and a mental trust. We forget that faith must not be divorced from faithfulness and fidelity. Jesus said “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (Revised Standard Version). So our faith which ought to have it’s roots in the love of God, calls for us to keep the commandments of Christ.
Most often those who are willing to fight through this, usually claim to have some level of love for God and also claim to have faith. Well, this is where the rubber meets the road. Again, according to the Lord, in order to say that we fully love Him, we must also keep His commandments. And we know that lust falls into the category of NOT keeping His commandments.
So, how can we begin to look at women, or human beings differently in order to live out the commandments of Christ?
The short answer is simply this. Love God more. That is what you will hear Ashley and I say more times than we can count because in total, this will change everything. But in this case I am going to offer what I think is a tool to looking at people and, in this case, women specifically in a new way.
The Creation account clues us into something really important. We are all made according to the image and likeness of God. And I want to hit home the words ACCORDING TO. What are these words noting? Simple, it denotes that there is an original in order for there to be someone (humankind) that it is made after (according to). And we know that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” Col. 1:15
Can you see where I am going with this?
If man is created according to the image and likeness of God, and Jesus Christ is that image, then it is also just as easy and correct to say that Mankind was made according to Christ. Christ the original, and man made after… made with that image in mind. Every human being walking about the face of the earth is made in this image, weather or not they bear all virtues or if they are horribly distorted from their intended purpose. Everyone is a moving picture of Jesus.
Can you take a hold of that and see how enormous that is for the way we live our lives? If we could simply begin to see every person as the image of God who is Christ Jesus, I think we would have a hard time using them in any way.
If Jesus stood right before you, what would you do? Would you masturbate to Him? In our workbook, Ashley says at some point that if you are utilizing the workbook, chances are you already have masturbated to the image of Christ. Because we are to see all people as the images of God, which is Jesus Christ. I don’t think you’d masturbate to images of Jesus, I think what you would do is fall on your face and worship Him! The very person of Jesus demands reverence and respect. And if we could see others as we see Jesus we would not worship them obviously, but we would honor them and revere them… we would respect them and treat them with utmost love and kindness. But then again, to do this requires that we love God first with our whole beings, and then we will love others as we love ourselves. We would see ourselves as part of a created species that bears the image of the invisible God, and every human being (our neighbors) would by necessity call us to love them and treat them with the respect they are due.
If you cannot masturbate to an image of Jesus, if you cannot lust over an image of Jesus, then you should not masturbate or lust over any other person in this world.
May God grant all of us the ability to see every human person this way, to the glory of God!
-g-
