Lust of the eyes and the Pride of life Part 3

I was exposed to pornography at 11 years old.

What resulted from that corrupt filth wasn’t just the death of my childhood innocence, but an exposure to the perverse ideal of what God actually intended for intimacy.

Sex was portrayed not as what you could offer someone, but what you could TAKE from them.

The sacred nature of private and exclusive intimacy was replaced with the an unhealthy appetite for endless encounters and the adrenaline rush of conquest.

Take.

Use.

Discard.

Repeat.

Beyond the safe constraints of any commitment at all, was a never ending pursuit of gratification of the flesh and selfish ambition.

Love became lust, and lust is never satisfied.

“How much is enough?” someone once asked John D. Rockefeller.

“More.” He responded.

“More is enough.”

Over the course of the next twenty years, pornography, film and television, music and the culture entirely would train myself and an entire generation of young men to view women not as something to be pursued and nourished, but as objects of desire meant to be exploited.

The pain and destruction that this subconscious ideal created in my adult relationships was catastrophic, and even now I find myself asking God, “why?”

Why was I thrown into the fight of my life before I was even old enough to swing back?

Why allow an innocent child to be exposed to such horrific and satanic content that would cause so much pain?

I know you feel the same way.

Feels like you were setup to lose, doesn’t it?

I feel very strongly about what I am about to share with you next as I feel it has been impressed upon my heart, so please listen.

Why?

Because your salvation is in the struggle.

"This command I received from my Father" is repeated more times in the New Testament than I can count.

“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do” is more than just a spiritual feel-good quote; it is the foundation to everything Christ does.

From the “Father forgive them” to “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” there is nothing that Jesus does apart from the Father or His will.

“I and my Father are one.”

If Jesus was that dependant on the Father, what makes you think you can do life any other way?

You are in the most violent war of the soul known to man.

I’m not going to tell you to get an accountability partner, you’ll just lie to them.

I’m not going to tell you to get internet software, you’ll just find a way around it.

I certainly won’t tell you to discipline yourself because the same snare that trapped many of the bravest warriors and wisest kings of biblical history will do the same to you.

I only want you to understand one thing.

If your salvation is in the struggle, then the purpose is to draw you closer to the Father.

That’s it.

That is the purpose of not just the battle you find yourself in, not just the reason for God allowing such difficulties and pain into your life, but the purpose of your life on this earth entirely.

In the combat of the soul, in the strife of this war - you are being refined.

The reason our Lord has placed you through the fire is the same reason a smith puts silver into the forge.

And do you, Christian, know when that silver has become refined to the point that it can be poured into a cast?

When the Master can look upon it and see His reflection.

Now you understand the purpose and importance of this war of the soul.

You can’t defeat the devil with self discipline, you can’t hide from the daily exposure at the gym, at the mall, on social media and at the touch of a few letters on your keyboard at any moment of the day.

The demon of lust is waiting for you around every corner; ambush set, ready to fire - and there is no ten step program or pastor in this world who can save you.

There is only one person who can save you.

The Father.

He's the only one who ever could.

Now do as Jesus did, and draw close to Him.

I mean DESPERATELY close.

Start the day on your knees in prayer.

“Pray unceasingly” as the Apostle Paul says.

General “Stonewall” Jackson, when speaking of his prayer life said that, “I have so fixed the habit in my own mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without lifting my heart to God in thanks and prayer for the water of life then when we take our meals, there is the grace.

Whenever I drop a letter at the post office, I send a petition along with it for Gods blessing upon its mission and for the person to whom it is sent.

When I break the seal of a letter just received, I stop and ask God to prepare me for its contents and make it a messenger of good.

When I go to my classroom and await the arrangement of my cadets and their places, that is my time to intercede with God for them and so in every act of the day, I have made the practice habitual.”

When he was then asked if he ever forgot to do this, he responded “I can hardly say that I do, the habit has become almost as fixed as to breathe.”

This is what it means to draw close to the Father, my brothers in Christ.

This is what victory looks like.

To have victory in this theatre of war means to have victory in your sexuality, in your marriage or relationship and ultimately in your mental well-being.

Defeat means the absolute destruction of all those things and ultimately the destruction of your very soul.

Defeat in this means the failing of your marriage, the broken heart of your spouse and the insecurity and despair of your children enduring the pain of a broken home.

Your wife, your fiancé, or your girlfriend is depending on you to fight for her.

Your children need you to fight for them.

Your entire culture and nation needs you to fight for them.

You have to love what you’re fighting for, more than the temptation.

You have to love God more than the sin and temptation that lures you.

Near the end of the movie Fury there is a powerful scene with one of my favourite verses from the second chapter of first John that sums this up better than I ever could, so I'll share it with you now.

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.

The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”

I started this with the question of "why" God allowed pain into our lives, but I want you to know that one day you will be thankful for the very same pain you once used to question God's goodness or even His very existence - for it is the thing that will draw you closer to Him.

In the poem A Sleep of Prisoners, there is a profound truth that speaks to the nature of our struggle.

"Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul we ever took."

Ever pain, heartache, temptation and trial points you straight back to the Father.

That longest stride of soul is the step you take back to Him.

My brothers in Christ, there is victory to be had and it’s yours for the taking.

Draw close to the Father.