Jesus commanded us not to lust, but why does God care so much what we think? Because here’s what we’re really doing when we lust.
A disclaimer: While there’s nothing in this post I wouldn’t say to a group of teenagers, it is still about sexuality. So read it with that in mind.
The secret war
Jesus said:
You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28)
Yet lust is the secret struggle of a massive number of Christians. Indeed, “struggle” may be too mild a term for some. For many Christians–both males and females–it’s an endless and ceaseless war raging in the mind. And with the ubiquitous availability of easily accessible pornography in the Internet age, it may be worse than ever before.
But you don’t need to be a porn viewer to struggle with lust. Because lust has to do with one of the most intimate and private parts of a person–one’s sexuality–struggling with it can bring about a cycle of deep shame and guilt. Many Christians are well acquainted with this shame and guilt over lustful habit. For some, lust is a habit so crippling that it holds them back from joy or productivity in any part of their walk with Christ.
The Christian’s battle with lust is one that, to much of the modern world, makes no sense. The biblical idea that sex is designed for marriage alone is crazy enough. But lust is an inward pattern of thought, not a sexual act. So why are we commanded not just to abstain from sex with anyone other than our spouse, but even from thinking about anyone else in a sexual way? Why does God care even about what we think? Jesus’ command above seems impossible to obey. Many would say it’s even repressive and harmful.
But maybe we would think differently if we truly understood what lust (as Jesus meant it) is. And I think that many people have been taught wrongly in this area.
Some Christians have been taught to hate all sexual desire. As a result, there are Christians who wrestle unnecessarily with deep guilt and shame and mental anguish over the mere fact that they are sexual beings with sexual desires. Some view every sexual desire as bad and something to be repressed until the moment “I do” is spoken at the altar.
Others have been taught that lust is wrong, but never taught why. Some may see lust as a forbidden fruit that gives a rush of pleasure, and fail to see the subtle yet negative effects it has on the way we view other people and relate to them.
And there are others who think the Christian sexual ethic is outdated and repressive, and who don’t take lust seriously and believe it doesn’t affect anyone else.
My hope is to speak to all of these groups. Nearly every Christian struggles with lust. For those who beat themselves up every time they have a sexual thought, maybe a proper understanding of what lust is will save a lot of mental anguish. For those who are trapped in patterns of lustful thought or lust-driven behavior, maybe a realization of what’s really happening will motivate repentance and change. And for those who believe the Christian sexual ethic is repressive, maybe a closer examination will portray it in a different light.
And for all who struggle with lust, to whatever degree, then perhaps a better understanding of just what lust is–and what we are really doing when we lust–might help us think more clearly and soberly when tempted. And maybe it will give us motivation to curb those tendencies within ourselves.
What exactly does it mean to lust?
When it comes to sex, the first thing that’s important to understand is that sex is good, and sexual desires are good. Many overzealous Christians have portrayed sex as dirty and shameful, which is completely wrong. God designed us to have sexual desires, and no one should be ashamed of having them.
Therefore, God isn’t watching our thoughts like Big Brother, ready to punish the slightest deviation. The instruction Jesus gives not to lust is for our good, not because God is revolted by our thoughts.
But what exactly does it mean to “lust”?
There’s a misconception that lust is simply physical attraction. That’s often how the English word is used. But the word the inspired writer used in Matthew 5:28 is the Greek epithymeō, which means “desire,” “long for,” or “covet.”
So Jesus is not talking about noticing that a person is beautiful or attractive. He’s not even talking about being sexually attracted to someone. We are sexual beings, wired for sexual attraction. If we’re sexually attracted to someone, that means the body is working how it’s supposed to. He’s talking about an intentional, conscious desire.
Sexual desires are good, but like any desire, sexual desires can be abused. Not every sexual desire is meant to be fulfilled in the way that seems best to us. God has designed those desires to be expressed and fulfilled in the context of a lifelong covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. So although we can’t control who we’re attracted to, we can control which desires we refuse to entertain and which desires we pursue.
That’s why Jesus phrases his commandment the way he does, speaking of anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her. The “look” Jesus is speaking of is an intentional one. It’s when you specifically fix your eyes or thoughts on another person for the express purpose of entertaining desire for that person. This is what Jesus calls committing adultery in one’s heart.
So what is this desire Jesus speaks of? Well, in this case, it’s what I would call a desire for sexual knowledge of another person. One form that takes is a desire to know someone’s body in a way that only their spouse should. In Matthew 5:28, Jesus is using the example of a man who desires to visually know a woman’s body in a way only her spouse (or potential/future spouse) should. He understands that he can’t actually do that, so he gazes longingly at her and lets his mind create the closest experience to it he can. The multibillion-dollar porn industry is driven by this form of lust.
Lust is not just visual, though. It can also be a desire to know someone romantically, relationally, or emotionally in a way that only their spouse should. Although this hasn’t always been understood as lust, it is no less a form of desire than visual lust. Romance, intimate relationship, and emotional connection are also part of God’s design for sexual relationships, and there is a level of relational and emotional knowledge of another person that should be reserved for that person’s spouse. We now recognize this more than ever as we today speak of “emotional affairs”–a non-sexual but emotionally intimate relationship with someone other than one’s spouse.
All these forms of lust have the same effect. They all pull our attention away from God and his purpose for our sexuality, and draw us into a fantasy world centered on our own sensual desires and imagination–even if just for a few seconds. They objectify the other person, using them as a tool from which to derive pleasure without their consent.
What lustful thoughts always reveal about the heart
We should make sure we properly understand this, though. It would be very easy for a person to say, “I look at/read pornography, I fantasize about attractive people, but I don’t actually desire or covet the people I look at or fantasize about.”
Anyone who says that is fooling themselves.
If you choose to set your eyes or your mind on someone because doing so gives you pleasure, then obviously on some level you desire them. There is just an overriding reason you don’t actually pursue them. Maybe you don’t want to lose your job or your spouse. Maybe you know it’s just not possible or worth the effort to have a sexual relationship with that person, due to age or social standing or that they just don’t like or know you. Maybe you don’t want the guilt that comes with betraying your marriage vows, or betraying your commitment not to have sex before marriage. Maybe you fear God will somehow punish you for it. Those are all painful consequences that make it not worth pursuing the desire. But the desire is there, and it is strong enough that you even enjoy imagining its fulfillment in your mind. And if you willfully indulge that fantasy, then that means it’s not the wrongness of the act itself that turns you off, but the consequences.
Rather than pursue God’s will, a person who lusts tries to see how far he or she can run from God’s will without suffering excessively painful consequences. A lustful heart is not dissuaded by the wrongness of a particular sexual interaction–after all, it derives pleasure from imagining it. Rather, it’s turned away by practicality or self-preservation or avoidance of pain. One who willfully lusts, then, is not averse to whatever act he or she is imagining–whether it’s seeing something or doing something–but the consequences or difficulty of carrying it out.
And so, when you’re entertaining lustful thoughts, whatever those consequences are that keep you from carrying out those thoughts, if they were taken away … if there were no punitive consequences … if no one would ever find out, if you knew you wouldn’t be rejected … if you knew you wouldn’t feel guilty afterward … if you knew God would never punish you for it … if there were no negative consequences other than that the act would grieve God to his heart … then would you pursue that sexual knowledge in the way you imagine doing so?
A person with a lustful heart would.
Some would deny this. In fact, I bet nearly everyone reading this would deny it. Some would insist they would never cross that line, that they would never do something so offensive to God. There’s a difference between imagining and acting, between reality and fantasy. But take a second and consider this. If one enjoys imagining things that grieve God to his heart, and deliberately does so for their own enjoyment, they already show that they are desiring their own pleasure more than God’s. So why would that change if all obstacles and disincentives to fulfilling that desire were removed?
There’s a reason Jesus equates lust with adultery of the heart. No, lust is not identical to adultery. I don’t even think Jesus is saying lust is morally equivalent to adultery. But willful imagination always springs from a heart that desires the thing imagined. This includes every form of lust. Lust is an inward manifestation of a desire for adultery (or other sexual sin). As such, lust comes from the same place as acts of adultery. A lustful heart is the same kind of heart as an adulterous one. A person who willfully lusts has already conditioned their heart to commit adultery. They just hold back for the sake of their own self-interest.
Willful lust reflects a desire to sin against one of God’s children in the most intimate way. It is the indulgence of a desire to sexually know a person in a context other than what God designed sexuality for. The other person has no say in our indulgence of that desire, but is unwillingly subjected to our own illicit thoughts about them. As such, lust depersonalizes others and directs one inward toward the self.
This is true even if the object of lust is a fictional character or imagined person. It still degrades God’s image as an ideal and conditions the heart to depersonalize the human form. And it creates a one-way experience of sexuality, focused solely on the self, when God created sex to be a mutual sharing of two people with one another.
Lust reflects a heart that thinks, “I wish I could do this, but I’m going to get as close to it as I can.” Such a heart runs from God, not toward him. It finds fulfillment in things that are not real.
When we indulge in lustful thoughts about another person, that’s exactly what’s going on under the surface, in the heart–every time.
So perhaps, the next time we are tempted to lust after another person, we might think of what is underlying that lustful thought. What kind of heart is within us? What kind of heart do we want to cultivate within ourselves? One that focuses inward on its own desires, or outward at God’s will?
Summary: Some reasons why Jesus commands us not to lust
The reason Jesus commands us not to lust is not that God is being super-strict, commanding us not to even think of disobeying him. It’s because God knows all the things are going on inside of our hearts every time we lust. Those things are very damaging to our hearts and minds, even if we’re not aware of them. And they manifest themselves in the ways we treat others, even if we can’t see how. Some of these things include:
- We actively desire to sin against another person by sexually knowing them outside the setting in which God designed us to sexually know one another (marriage).
- We condition our hearts to commit adultery.
- We depersonalize the person we lust after, using them as a tool in our own imagination.
- We run from God and try to get as close to the sin we desire as we possibly can while minimizing the consequences.
Your promised victory
As I said, lust is a struggle that countless Christians deal with, including most of those you see every day. This doesn’t mean we’re dealing with a huge bunch of perverts and deviants in our midst. You could make a similarly damning list for just about any thoughts of sin we entertain in our minds. It just goes to show how rebellious and sinful we all are, how far we’ve strayed from our Creator’s design for us, how badly we need a Savior, and how merciful and patient God is with us in the depths of our failures.
Thankfully, God sent us the Savior we need. And when we fail or feel that we’re in danger of failure, we can always run to him. Perhaps the worst thing lust does is to make us forget our Savior, and that we are saved. The guilt and shame of sexual sin can distort our perspective and make us focus on behavior modification rather than living into the true life we’ve been gifted by God.
When we lust, we are living a lie. We’re living in our own minds and not the mindset of God. The goal for someone struggling with lust is not to simply fight off illicit sexual thoughts as they come. Simply trying to do that every time will be a losing battle. Rather, the goal is to learn to live fully into the life God has given us, and learn to see others as God sees them. That’s part of what we’re saved for.
