The simple (but not easy) process of disciplining your mind for sexual purity

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus raised the bar on all sorts of issues: anger, anxiety, love, prayer, and giving to name a few. But when he raised the bar on sexual temptation, he must have caused more than a few jaws to drop. Look at what he said:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Undoubtedly, there were those who heard Jesus’ words that day who had not committed the act of adultery, but it’s doubtful that there were many who hadn’t thought about it. Jesus singled out adulterous thoughts as the culprit. He knew that every sexual action was first preceded by a desire, and each desire was fueled by thoughts. Because we are moral creatures endowed with a choice, our thoughts don’t just happen unconsciously—we choose what we think about. Granted, those thoughts can happen so quickly that we forget they are choices—particularly when they are repeated thoughts we have previously dwelled upon. They begin to feel instinctive, like the base sensations other creatures in the animal kingdom experience. But man is different than the animals. As moral creatures, we choose to dwell on certain thoughts that are either right or wrong.

So how do you drive those habitual, sinful thoughts from your mind? In his book How to Say No to a Stubborn Habit, Erwin Lutzer writes the following:

Try this simple experiment. Think of the number eight. Have you visualized it? If so, exercise your willpower and stop thinking of the number eight right now.

Were you able to do it? Of course not. At least, I’m still thinking about that number. Can we, by sheer willpower, stop thinking about the number eight? By no means. Trying to push it out of our minds actually causes us to focus our attention on it.

What a picture of us when we try to overcome sin. We may get on our knees and ask God to take the desire away; we then determine not to think those lurid or greedy thoughts, but there they are again. We resist them once more, trying desperately to push them out of our minds. But we are trapped. Try as we might, we just can’t get them to budge.

Can we really be free? Yes, we can control those thoughts, but not by trying to stop thinking about them! To simply resist evil is to make it grow stronger. Our determination not to think lustful thoughts only reinforces them in our thought patterns.

How, then, can we be free? Let’s return to our experiment once more and think of the number eight. Although we can’t stop thinking about it by sheer resistance, we can push that number out of our minds quite easily. Here’s how: Think about one or two bits of information about your mother. Reminisce about your place in the family, whether you are still connected with it or disconnected. Concentrate on this new information, and you’ll stop thinking of the number eight.

God gave us a new paradigm of thoughts to press out the old ones. We find it in Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things […] and the God of peace will be with you [emphasis added].

This passage provides an excellent replacement list for your thinking. You now have eight new qualities to dwell upon that can replace their sinful antitheses. It’s simple, but not easy. However, I have found that the more that I practice that process, the easier it becomes.

Taken from Strength for the Struggle: biblical strategies for standing against sexual temptation. Available on Amazon.com