Love vs. Lust

“Lust is in opposition to love.  It means to set your heart and passions on something forbidden.  And for a believer it’s the first step out of fellowship with the Lord and with others.  That’s because every object of your lust – whether it’s a young coworker or a film actress, or coveting after a half-million dollar house or a sports car – represents the beginnings of a lie.  This person or thing that seems to promise sheer satisfaction is more like a bottomless pit of unmet longings.  Lust will make you dissatisfied with your husband or wife.  It breeds anger, numbs hearts and destroys marriages.  Rather than fullness, it leads to emptiness.  It’s time to expose lust for what it really is – a misguided thirst for satisfaction that only God can fulfill.  Lust is like a warning light on the dashboard of your heart, alerting you to the fact that you are not allowing God to fill you.  When your eyes and heart are on Him, your actions will lead you to lasting joy, not to endless cycles of regret and condemnation.

[Set] your eyes on the Word of God.  Let His promises of peace and freedom work their way into your heart.  Daily receive the unconditional love He has already proven to you through the cross.  Focus on being grateful for everything God has already given you rather than choosing discontentment.”

Today’s Dare:  End it now.  Identify every object of lust in your life and remove it.  Single out every lie you’ve swallowed in pursuing forbidden pleasure and reject it.  Lust cannot be allowed to live in a back bedroom.  It must be killed and destroyed – today – and replaced with the sure promises of God and a heart filled with His perfect love.

Lust has not really been a problem for me.  I truly am grateful for all that I have been given.  Sure there are things I want, but I realize that they are things – just things – things I don’t really need to be happy.  God has promised that if we seek first His Kingdom, then He will satisfy every desire of our hearts.  I am truly blessed and can honestly say that I have everything I ever wanted.

--Amy