You may be a born-again man who can't stop your eyes from bugging out of your head and lust from forming in your heart when a beautiful woman walks by. Sure, you're a man. I know she's a woman!
But that doesn't mean you're supposed to turn into a panting dog, drooling all over the floor. God didn't make women just so men could lust after every good-looking one who walked through the door.
Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't notice beauty. Don't let the pendulum swing completely the other way. There is nothing wrong with recognizing beauty in all of God's creation, including women.
But there is a heart issue here when lust gets involved. Women are more than just a bunch of parts. They're people whom God created. If you're lusting after women, you've got a defect, a bad piece of fruit hanging off your branch, and you need to allow God to purge you of the root of that problem.
Lust is nothing to be ashamed of. It's just something to be delivered from. And nobody has to know about it but you and God. Remember that you're stronger than any kind of lust.
God can change your heart! He is a big God. He created your sexuality. So He sure can fix it up if it's going in the wrong direction. He can sure bring it back in line if it has gotten over into lust or perversion.
Jesus talked pretty straight about lust. He said that if you had lust in your heart for a woman, in His eyes you'd already slept with her. You'd already committed adultery. And that is serious business to God.
Whoever you are, if you've got a problem with lust or perversion, God can take care of it. He can purge you of every impurity.
When Jesus took your infirmities, the Bible says that He took your iniquities too (Isa. 53:5). Iniquity is just another word for rebellion. It is another way of saying that Jesus delivered you from rebellion against God and His ways.
Addiction isn't God's way. Lust isn't God's way. Sickness isn't God's way. Why do you think Jesus healed people so many times and said, "Your sins are forgiven," when He did it? Because all of it—sickness, addiction, lust—is about rebellion.
It's just that in sickness, your body is rebelling against God's way, and in lust, your mind is rebelling against God's way. Anything that isn't faith is sin (Rom. 14:23). That is the bottom line.
You can let the purity of the Gospel touch you as far as the pollution of this world has. You can allow God's precious Spirit to invade those rebellious cells and command them to line up with the Word.
This isn't fairy tale stuff here. It's true. It's powerful. And it's within your reach.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers