LUST-CAUSES
“Self” is at
the center of our lusts – our supposed needs for significance, worth, security,
identity, or esteem. A psychologized, man-centered view of God and of man appeals
to our natural sense of loving ourselves and thus deceives us.
Attitudes of a Transformed Heart, Focus,
2002, p. 41.
The process
of lust is simple. It begins with
attraction, it turns quickly to dissatisfaction with your current situation –
you become dissatisfied with your spouse or with the one that you are
supposedly in love with – it moves to fixation on another and you become
ungrateful, discontented, and obsessive.
You become filled with lust, and your thoughts and your mind are filled
with images of the other person. You
have nothing on your mind but an appetite for them. This person becomes on object of
worship. They eventually are not even
considered a person, because they’re an object, and you’re just looking for satisfaction. Gentlemen, this is classic idolatry!
Bill Shannon
A Passion for Purity, Shepherd’s
Conference, 2005, Session #33.
Most men are stimulated by sight.
Without even touching a woman’s body, a man can be aroused. It can happen very easily. Perhaps this is why Jesus warned men about the
danger of looking on women who are not their wives (Matthew 5:28). Perhaps it is because men are easily aroused
that the book of Proverbs contains admonition after admonition to men
concerning the danger of being seduced by loose women (Proverbs 5:1-23;
6:23-35; 7:1-27).
Wayne A. Mack
Strengthening Your Marriage, P&R
Publishing, 1977, p. 129. Used by
Permission.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the observation that when lust takes
control, “At this moment God…loses all reality…
Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of
God.” What a world of wisdom there is in
this statement! When we are in the grip
of lust, the reality of God fades… This
is what lust does! It has done it
millions of times. God disappears to
lust-glazed eyes.
R. Kent Hughes
Disciplines of a Godly Man, Crossway Books,
1991, p. 25.
The evil in our desires often lies not in what we want
but in the fact that we want it too much. Natural affections (for any good
thing) become inordinate, ruling cravings. We are meant to be ruled by godly
passions and desires. Natural desires for good things are meant to exist subordinate
to our desire to please the Giver of gifts. Grasping that the evil lies in the
ruling status of the desire, not the object, is frequently a turning point in
self-understanding, in seeing the need for Christ’s mercies, and in changing.
David Powlison
Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers, 2003,
p. 149.