By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
As we continue to work through The Sermon on the Mount, we see Jesus continuing to make sin that which occurs in the heart/mind before it ever reaches the physical.
Matt 5:27-28 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Under the Jewish interpretation of this passage, I have never committed adultery against my wife. But Jesus didn’t leave it there.
He made it adultery if I lusted after another woman. Under that standard, I am an adulterer. And for the sake of 21st century clarity, the same principle applies to women lusting after men as well as homosexual lusting or any unrestrained lustful thoughts God defines lusting not as a gaze or a thought quickly withdrawn but as a thought that is cherished and nurtured until it leads to mental and physical passion.
Since I’m a man, I will speak for them about sexual lustful thoughts. Men are visual and are often attracted to a woman based on her physical appearance. It’s that attraction that keeps the species going.
If I am at a stop light and a woman walks in front of me crossing the street and I find her attractive for whatever reason, that is a natural reaction. It is not sin.
However, if I focus on her and begin to use my imagination about her, then I have crossed into the sin of lust which Jesus defines as fornication/adultery. We have the responsibility to keep our thoughts pure and in line with godliness.
I will say for the most sensitive of us, those thoughts have to be identified and allowed to remain. I think there has to be an element of intentionality involved.
I don’t believe God calls it sin until we discover that we are thinking those thoughts and then allow them to remain.
2 Cor. 10:5 says, “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Once we realize what we are thinking, we have the responsibility to stop right then or in other words, to take that thought captive and stop thinking about it or then we are sinning.
In today’s world where we see things on TV and in the movies that are easily lust producing and where porn of any kind is just a click away on our computer or phone, keeping purity in our thinking is very difficult.
Add that to our society’s libertarian thinking where the concept of morality has been just about eliminated, there seems little reason to restrain our thinking.
So, ask yourself, why did God set such high moral standards that seem contrary to our very natures? The answer is really simple: because he loves us. And like our love for our children, He puts certain limitations or boundaries in place to protect us.
We don’t let our kids play on a busy street because we know that they could get seriously hurt. The same thinking works for God. He knows that the lust in our minds will do harm to our physical relationships.
For instance, studies have shown that pornography leads to sexual dysfunction, decreased libido, unrealistic expectations, guilt, shame and the inability to feel pleasure.
God didn’t need any studies to know that. He put lust on his “No-No” list to spare men and women from losing so much in their marriages. His boundaries are actually love-in-action.
That woman we dream about in the other office is not nearly as perfect at home as she appears at work. And if we are married, we know what our spouse looks like after a hard night with the kids or a bout of stomach flu.
No way she can compare to that woman we work with…in our imagination. All our lusting accomplishes beside sin, is to make us discontent with our wife and that discontentment is often the start of the decline of our marriage.
God’s tender mercies are on display in his commands. He sets boundaries like this verse to keep us from destroying the good relationships he has for us.
Every boundary is given with the idea of saving us from the consequences of sin. God is not a cosmic killjoy. He is a loving father helping us to live our lives to the fullest.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.
