God created us male and female.
One of the greatest struggles in our world today is attempting to see people, men and women, as God desires us to see them. God created humans in His own image, male and female he created them.
When we are pursuing purity, we are able to see all people as created in God's image, and we experience FREEDOM in how we relate to both men and women. As people living in a fallen world, we have no ability to purify our own hearts but must rely on God to purify our hearts. Why? So we can be free to love people as God intended.
I have learned that the fight for freedom, the fight for purity is not a one-time event, but a constant submission, marked by failures and challenges, a daily prayer of, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10)
We are meant to CELEBRATE the gift of God creating us male and female. Lust is perhaps the greatest destroyer of this. We must fight and pray to see one another with love and not lust.
I think we mistakenly think of lust as a synonym for sexual desire, but lust is actually only a selfish and self-gratifying sexual desire. Sexual desire is good, created by God, a gift to be enjoyed and meant to express love in marriage.
Love = GIVING of oneself for the other's good
Lust = TAKING from a person, using a person, viewing a person as a means to one's own gratification
This is why lust causes so much shame and damage to a person and to relationships.
God desires us to be free.
God desires us to love and be loved.
And he never meant for us to struggle with all of this by our own strength alone. He meant for us to reach out to Him especially when we feel like a lost cause.
Identify an area in your life where you struggle to see people as created in God's image. Confess it to God today (Let's be serious, he knows anyway...) and ask God to create in you a pure heart.
Take action against this area of brokenness by taking a concrete step: Do you need to ask a friend or mentor for help? Usually keeping our struggles secret prevents them from healing. Do you need to get rid of something in your life that incites lust? Do you need to seek counsel to begin viewing men or women in a healthy way that honors other people and God?
Remember that God desires us to be free to love people with a pure heart, and that it is an ongoing process of seeking love, freedom, and purity daily. It's a fight worth fighting.
