Adultery: Matthew 5:27-30
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Let the Word evoke words. May your life encourage lives.
Here’s a headline that should shock this world:
It should shock this world, but not the society we live in. Most would reject the harsh words that Jesus offers here, certainly in our culture that promotes promiscuity and often reduces women to mere objects of sexual fantasy. It’s not just this day and age, but it has surely become passé to be modest, to have a monogamous (and wonderful) relationship where husband and wife love each other fully. Billboards, magazines, and of course the internet is full of content designed to arouse sexual desires in an effort to sell something or grab our attention. Even in the days when Jesus walked the earth, this was obviously an issue–so much more today.
The heart of this problem is the heart of man. If we agree that adultery is a bad thing, this must come as no surprise, but there is the rub. Do we agree that adultery is a bad thing? (Ok, the definition of we in this case is the big we.) I submit that if we agreed on the definition of adultery, we would be much stronger as a people, as a nation, certainly as the church! After all, Jesus was setting the foundation for the church when he spoke these words to people. Many heard his voice, heard his plea to get serious about wandering eyes and lustful thoughts. I’d be lying to say that I have never had lustful thoughts. This verse serves as the cold splash of water to remind me that lust leads to the highway to hell, it greases the skids and off we go!
I don’t know about you, but I don’t need any help in the area of distraction. My mind can easily wander from focusing on kingdom-building activities to self-serving desires in a moment. Yet when I’m reminded of the short time we have on earth and the command to make disciples of all nations, I really must not give into the desires of the moment.
God knows us all so well and he is quite intentional in his design. He gave me daughters, lovely women, who I’m sure feel the pressure of wandering eyes. Anytime I sense my eyes wandering, I honestly say to myself, “that’s someone’s precious daughter.” I can’t walk around with a baseball bat and protect my girls, but I wish I could! There is so much more to life than lustful, fanciful desires of the flesh, yet Satan knows us as well and uses these desires to distract us, to lure is away for God’s plan. Even though true salvation cannot be lost, we can mislead other quickly by giving into lustful thoughts, sinful glances.
Lord help us to keep our focus on eternal rewards, to see people as your children, our brothers and sisters in Christ, our family. Keep us far from this temptation and help us to recognize it immediately. May these words ring in our ears anytime we are tempted to look at someone lustfully.