Day 24: Love vs Lust

DARE: End it now. Identify every object of lust in your life and remove it. Single out every lie you've swallowed in pursuing forbidden pleasure and reject it. Lust cannot be allowed to live in a back bedroom. It must be killed and destroyed - today - and replaced with the sure promises of God and a heart filled with His perfect love.

Beginning in the garden of Eden, it started with the eyes noticing the unforbidden fruit and then it escaped to the heart, with feelings of shame and regret. Adam and Eve, as with us, were given everything they needed for a productive and full life. The Bible states that God will provide the basic of food and clothing, and we should be content with that. We might say we are and want nothing more, but that would be a lie. We are of this world. We always want more and our flesh wants us to seek more worldly pleasures. we might look, stare and then fantasize, and barely turn our eyes away - but then curiosity captures our heart and we become entangled. THEN we act on our lust.

Lust is generally thought of as a sexual sin, and it can be, but lust can be lusting not just after people. We can lust after possessions, power, higher positions, etc. For me, I have always lusted after love! I know there have been times when I was turned from the face of God, and thought 'if I could only have this'. The Bible says in I Tim 6:9 "But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction." Ive been there. We have all been there. God knows about our secrets...God knows about my desires.

Lust cannot be in a marriage and it cannot be in a Christian life. It, along with selfishness, is a total opposite of LOVE. Lust is the first step out of the fellowship of love. Lust breeds more lusts, and more lusts. And when lusts for someone of something else in a marriage, it breeds anger, numbs hearts and destroys marriages. In our experience - it led straight to loneliness and emptiness.

So whatever your lust, whatever my lust might be - it doesn't have to be for the world to know, like in this blog! :) But I must realize something that has taken years to learn - it is a misguided thirst for satisfaction that only God can fulfill. Ive said this before, but still learning it, lust is not letting God fulfill the desires of your heart. For me, it is putting my spouse on such a high pedestal and wanting to feel that love from him every second, but he can't that. Funny how I tend to LUST for LOVE and the two just don't mingle. That's why today's lesson is so important for me. I can't lust to be loved by Cory - he can't love me the way I need. He can do his best and he should try to love me that way - but true love is when God fills me! When my eyes and my heart and my actions are from him, it will lead to lasting joy!

This is soo soo hard for me. I am strong in every area of my life, but in my 'love' relationship. My sister will tell you, I've always had a man in my life. I've never been single at all. I long for that connection, that security, that love. But I've never been satisfied the way I need to be. I've grown bitter when Cory couldn't give me the love I wanted...when all along God has been ready and willing to give it to me. This is a struggle for me! The worst...this is the one I need your prayers on. Learning to let God love, and not being so hard on Cory when I look to the wrong place, him, for that love. Daily receiving of the unconditional love that HE has already proven to me through His son and the cross, should be enough!

"Do not love the things of this works. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him." I John 2:15

LUST IS THE BEST THE WORLD HAS TO OFFER, BUT LOVE OFFERS YOU THE BEST LIFE IN THE WORLD! This has to be my daily eternal prayer - Get love from GOD!