....having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (Peter 1:4). Lust is an overpowering desire that is insatiable. The word picture of lust in the Greek is like a man running up a hill, who is out of breath.
This man is in hot pursuit of the object of his desire. This object of his desire might be sex, drugs, status symbols, or having the spotlight, which is pride! The word fatal attraction gives a hint of the meaning of the word lust.
Unfortunely, many children are conceived in lust instead of love. That is,
the parents have no committment to each other and simply engaged in sexual activity for self-gratification. Therefore, the parents seldom are willing to get married in order that their child might experience the joy of being a part of a family. It takes a family to give a child a sense of their own self-worth and create emotional stability!
A child born out of wedlock will lack emotional stability and will feel that they aren't very important. This kind of child will be both very needy and
extremely angry. Often, they will be driven to express their anger and rage on innocent people and become a menace to society.
You can almost predict that they will engage in anti-social behavior and criminal activity. They will be vulnerable to joining a gang, where they gain a certain feeling that they are important and that they belong! A gang gives them the opportunity to be a part of a organization where they can express their anger and rage in a united cause.
As a Chaplain in the Hamilton County Jail, I saw young men, who were in their early twentys, who might have six or seven children by different women. I had one inmate, who was 43 years old, who had twenty-eight children by nine different women. I learned to hate the word, baby's mamma, because it meant that the baby would grow up without the benefit of being a part of a family.
Their father would be what I call a drive-by father, who wouldn't be a part of their child's life. Therefore, this child would find it difficult to relate to authority including God. Therefore, they will be in conflict with authority whether in school, in Job Corps, the Armed Services, their employer and even law enforcement officials (police).
Their view of authority will be so distorted and they will have such an inability to relate to authority that they will have to make their money in criminal activity because they can't keep a job as they will not follow the directives of their employer. Tragically, they will be sent to a correctional facility, where every aspect of life of their life will be controlled by authority seven days a week and twenty-four hours every day. They will learn to survive in this manner and it will become their comfort zone. Therefore, they become institutionalize and cannot survive in a free society!
It was lust that created everything that I previously mentioned. The corruption is like an apple that has a small area that is spoiled and the corruption will spread and the entire apple will become rotten. Lust destroys individuals, family units, children and affects the very fabric of our society. Our society is rotten to the core as a results of lust!
It is lust that creates incest, molestation, rape, and human trafficing of children. Children are exploited and appear on the internet posing both
nude and engaging in sexual activity with adults. Millions of adults have an insatible appetite for child pornography. Pornography on the internet
has become such an addiction that fathers have molested their children, both male and females.
Many families are destroyed because of adultery as the married person developes an unhealthy intimacy with a member of the opposite sex that leads to a sexual relationship.
I have also learned that sometimes adultery takes place as a way to get even with their cheating partner. I recall an episode that took place when a layman preacher came home unexpectly and found his wife in bed with the music director of the church that they attended.
This particular wife confide in me that this happen because she learned that her husband had a sexual relationship with her best friend while she was pregant with their youngest child. She wanted to hurt him because he hurt her by being unfaithful with her best friend!
Children disappear, daily, around the world and end up being sold to the highest bidder as human trafficing has become a billion dollar business.
Worst yet, children and women are kidnapped and raped. Most of the time the victim is murdered. There has been a lot of serial killers, who sexual abuse their victim and then murder them. It isn't just girls and women that become targets of serial murders. John Gacy in Chicago and Wayne Williams in Atlanta were serial killers, who sexually assulted boys and young men and then murdered them. Lust has a close connection to violence!
Recently in the East, two men engaged in a home invasion and then beat-up and then tied up the father and made the mother go to a ATM machine and withdraw money. One of these monsters raped the mother and strangled her to dead. The other monster sexually molested the 11 year girl and then placed graphic videos of her on his telephone.
These men qualified as monsters as they placed pillowcases on the 11 year
old girl and her teenage sister. They then poured gasoline near them and around them and started a fire that resulted in these two girls dying of smoke inhalation. Lust has a powerful potential for violence.
The Bible declares: "Where do wars and fights come among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your member? You lust. and do not have. You murder and and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss (wrong motives), that you spend it on your pleasure." (James 3:1-3).
Therefore, the Bible makes it clear that overpowering desires are at war in our body and make us so frustrated and this often leads to violence and warfare.
Lust is such an overpowering desire that we are constantly compelled to want more whether it is sex, drugs, food, and even tobacco. Tobacco is such a powerful addiction that many individuals will continue to smoke even though they are dying of lung cancer.
It doesn't matter if the drug addiction is creating major health risks that puts our life at great risk. The overpowering desire will trump common sense and logic that leads one to being dominated by their favorite drug in a greater degree and at a higher level! Lust of the flesh.
Prestige and power is also intoxicating and very addictive that causes the so-called movers and shakers of our world to "walk over people in their pursuit of reaching the top." They can't get enough recognization, praise, and honor for themselves. The love for money is the root of all evil. Money never sleep as it drives a person to become so sellfish that they become insenistive to their own family. These kind of people work long hours and end up becoming strangers to their wives and children. They are driven to be number One in their world. Their stress drives them and often drives them to a early heart attack or stroke! Pride of life.
Status symbols are very important to a lot of individuals as they want bigger, better, and more expensive cars, homes, jewelry, furniture, and their overpowering desire to have either a second home on the lake or on an ocean front or even a home out of the county like Mexico or Bermunde. Lust of the eye.
The Bible declare: "Love not the world neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world (I John 2:15-17).
The lust of the flesh is instant gratification, which includes sex, drugs, and gluttony. This is a philosopy of Hedonism. Simply said; Does it feel good?
The lust of the eye is a philosophy of Materialism or Greed. The desire for things. Simply said; Does it look good?
The pride of life is a philosopy of Secular Humanism, which includes prestige, power, and the craving for the Spotlight. Simply said; Does it make me look good?
The love of God is suffocated out of our heart if we love the world, which is embracing the philosophies of Hedonism, Materialism/Greed, and Secular Humanism that causes us to controlled by the Lust of the flesh; Lust of the eye; and the Pride of life.
According to the Bible, if you love the world then you're an enemy of God: "....Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity (hostility) with God? Whosoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4b)"
But praise the Lord that: "But He gives more grace. Therefore, He says
God resist the proud, and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6)."
These overpowering desires are so powerful that we are no match to them as they can quickly dominate us. But God's grace is much more powerful and through the Holy Spirit we can have victory over them.
The Bible says: " Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Gatalians 5:16)." The flip side of this verse is also true: Walk not in the Spirit and you shall fulfill the lust of the flesh!
God has given us exceedingly great and precious promises that we might
learn to rely on Him and His promises in order to obtain his power. In I Corinthians 10:13, God promises....He will not permitted you to be tempted above what you are able....He will make a way of escape that you can bear it. In James 4:7, God promise that we can ....resist the devil and he will flee from us if we first submit ourselve to Him.
