Guest post by my husband.
Lust plagues so many men, and I was one of them. And to be absolutely clear, I believe the temptation to sin never fully goes away, although as an individual you can become more than just a recovering addict. You can become a victor through Christ.
If you have stopped watching porn for a short time, please remember that you are still at the epicenter of the fight. The fight will take time and may cost you a great deal of pain. So, decide now to see it through … not simply for your wife, or for yourself, but for the love of God. To live a faithful and pure life for the God of the universe must be your aim. The results benefit you and your wife, but the goal is to seek Him in all things first.
If your main problem right now is simply gazing at women and lusting after them, I want to talk a little bit about the eyes.
In the Gospel of Luke (11:27-36) Jesus talks about the eyes being the lamp of the whole body. He mentions that if your eye is full of light and not darkened at all, that your whole body will also be lit up, but if your lamp is darkened, so will the whole body be darkened (partially or fully).
Pair that with the old statement “Garbage in – Garbage out… What goes in must come out.” If you have for a very long time darkened your eyes with evil images, well, you are probably well filled with dark things. Not to say you are completely darkened, but certainly the part of you pertaining to sex is corrupted. You have an incorrect view of sex. Even if you can state what sex really is, you do not function with that as your true mode of understanding. Meaning … you KNOW what is true, but have acted and still do act in the opposite manner.
To put this simply, I think for a man there are stages that they eyes go through, which you may now be going through.
The first stage is the original state of each human being. Your eyes take in and register various things. They definitely recognize beauty. This is a God-given function for the eyes, because obviously we seek out a mate and the eyes play a role in this. We see beauty in all things, not just people, but places, things, nature, buildings. This is not an impure way of seeing, but can easily become impure if you begin to see beyond the beauty of something and look at it as an object. Women and men alike are beautiful, but the second we view them through the eyes of lust (instead of God’s eyes) we will see them as objects. It’s a self-centered lens we put over our eyes to view others, and it is not pure.
The stage that you may be in as you begin your fight toward purity may be a stage where you try to unveil the corrupted lens over your eyes. When your eyes are corrupted the natural purpose of the eye is twisted. Usually this happens because someone or some thing is put before the eyes that the eyes want to see. Right now, I’m specifically talking about sexual content. For me this happened many times and little by little. At an early age I was exposed to sexual content in R-rated movies. When I was 13 a friend brought pornography up on a computer screen. Not enough time to really think in that situation. The image was put up and my eyes bit the apple … especially since they had been preconditioned to receive that kind of image.
The enemy of our souls works very hard to trap us and he starts very young. He uses the natural function of the eye and exploits it with corruption. A woman’s body is made to be beautiful and to arouse a man, but that is intended for the marriage bed. The enemy puts it in front of us in an exploited manner, even to the point of taking it to depraved levels. The depravity is tied to the natural instinct and corruption takes place on levels of the mind and heart, because the eyes take it in. The eye’s are darkened with evil and the body follows suit.
The next phase your eyes go through is tied to this last one (most likely if you are reading this you have started into this phase). This phase is where you cut out your old, dead eyes. Obviously not a literal statement, but hear me out.
Since your lamps have gone bad, you need new bulbs! How do you go about this part of the journey?
First, you must remove everything that causes any level of corruption that is within your power to remove. I recommend being careful where you go – stay away from any place that has sexual imagery. The mall, the grocery store, video rental places, places to rent movies online, and so forth — they all have too many land mines in them to justify entering. In regards to individuals in public, do not allow your eyes to rest on anyone, and do not allow your mind to linger. Fight the desire to ponder with making petitions to God. Speak your desire to be a man of purity, honor, and faithfulness to Him. Ask Him to purify your mind and heart and to protect you from the evil one.
The battle rages at this part of the journey, because you are person who is no longer taking in the drug that keeps you unable to fight. Instead, you are seen as a threat to the darkness, because you could become free and effective for freeing others and bringing light into the darkness. Your mind will be attacked using the images you have taken in and anything else the enemy can throw at you. He may even whisper to you that you cannot do this! Remember … he is the father of lies.
Meet every painstaking challenge with petitions, but also WORSHIP. Confess what is true about God – that He is holy and worthy of praise. Thank Him for the opportunity to suffer through this to attain more fully the life of Christ. Do this, and the enemy will grow frustrated with you turning temptation on its head. The enemy wants you to fall and to fail and worship is the exact opposite of what they want. As Paul tells us “Make every thought captive to Christ” – you must make Jesus your truest companion. Turn all of your thoughts over to Him and as often as needed. When you do this, He will strengthen you for this fight.
Finally, get some new eyes … or, in better words, your eyes are made new. After removing all the corrupt input for a great length of time, making Christ your companion and worshiping God and petitioning for Him to change you, you finally begin to see the way He wants you to see. Your eyes are much like the original state of the eyes at an earlier age. You see and recognize beauty, but it doesn’t send you spiraling into sin. Not to say that no temptation exists, because there is still an enemy that will try on occasion, but you do what is right when the temptation comes. And in your heart, you desire what is good and right. As a married man, you will desire to look at your wife as your fulfillment. Other women may be aesthetically pleasing, but your wife’s beauty is all of that and even transcends the beauty of the eye. She is the only one who is so beautiful because she is your completion. Her beauty far exceeds anyone elses, and that captivates your heart, mind, and eyes.
Your new eyes don’t want to see corruption. They don’t want to rest on the image (on screen, in print, or in person) of someone who is scantily-clad. You will desire to be pure even in what you see. You will never be able to live life entirely without seeing things, but you will be re-wired with new light bulbs … and your whole person will be lit up. You will love truth and holiness and reject anything that is not of God. Eventually you will be free to interact in the world again, but you will still be cautious … you will desire to keep the lamp lit up to its fullest. You will maintain yourself for the Love of God and neighbor (your wife) and also yourself. Your eyes will be new and you will be too!
My prayer is that you would indeed be free and that Christ may bless you richly with the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. Decide to put on the new man (Christ) everyday, while you put your old self and old eyes to death. My prayer is also for your wife, that she might be healed and transformed also. Marriage is so beautiful and sex is, too. The enemy hates you both and your marriage … and sex. Don’t allow him to win. Fight for your marriage, for your own purity, and for the God you so love. It’s not an easy fight, but it’s possible to find victory. I have after struggling with lust for over a decade. I know you can, too.
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