Porn Show

11.20.12

Matthew 5.28 28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. NASB

The Bible is full of accounts of adultery: the act of two (or more) adults using their bodies and God’s gift of sex as play toys. I fully believe that if there is a way to make a man sully his character, it’s through some sort of sexual depravity. Just put him in the right place at the right time with the wrong circumstances and {poof}.

Jesus knew (and knows) our propensity to let the porn show roll in our minds. How often I have heard it explained, “Just because you’re spoken for doesn’t mean you can’t examine the goods…” Jesus knows how we think and what we think about. And so He reminds us that adultery is not just the act of actually doing it, it’s also the thought of thinking it. We’re to be pure in our actions and our thoughts.

I think it was Emerson who said: "Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny." I think Jesus understood this and knew our propensity to act upon our thoughts. The other thing Jesus knew was we’d waste a lot of time thinking about things that aren’t that beneficial.

Lust is very private – no one really knows the thoughts behind those eyebrows. The woman doesn’t know (although she probably has a clue.) Our kids don’t know although they may have a clue. Our mothers don’t know but they may have a clue. And our wife doesn’t know, but she may have a clue, too. The clue is where our eyes go when we think no one else sees…

The problem is with all the things in this world that need tended to, why would we waste such precious time and energy giving over our thoughts to depravity? Part of the reason is the amount of emphasis we humans place on sexuality. And we moderns are not the only ones with the problem – Jesus preached this sermon two thousand years ago to men who’d never seen a porn mag or a movie. He told them: keep it clean, boys; when you think it, you’ve done it.

Manhood is not measured by sexual prowess. Womanhood is not measured by allure. And yet, fallen creatures we, we insist on making a big deal about something that God intended for great use but has become such a distraction from what really matters. And on and on the porn show rolls.

God says to be holy. That doesn’t necessarily mean celibacy (although there are those who insist that’s true too). Holiness is partly acknowledging the gifts God gives and using them with respect. Holiness (at least in this instance) is measuring one’s humanhood by God’s standards and not what is on the front of the latest issue of ________________ (name the mag.) Jesus was drawing a line in the sand where many men (and I suppose women) have resisted physically, but given in mentally. Jesus was making a point that people are much more than sex toys, and that His people need to believe that, and act and think accordingly.

Father in Heaven, I could confess all my sins but You know and I know. Help me again today with whatever comes my way; and in my head to stay in Your will and heart I pray. Amen.