Tips on How to Overcome Lust
To learn how to overcome lust, it’s important to know who and what we’re up against. Everywhere we turn, billboards, messages on posters and men and women dressed seductively assault our senses. When we return home, our computers are full of the same images.
A barrage of worldly attractions clutters the straight and narrow path God laid out for us. Lust consumes the spiritual food we dine on every morning so that by lunchtime our resolve to keep a pure heart dwindles.
When we hear the word lust, most of us think about sexual lust but many things compete for prominence in our hearts.
How to Overcome Lust as a Christian: Know Your Triggers
Knowing what to avoid to overcome lust seems too simple. Surely, if something or someone causes you to lust, you look away and change your thoughts. Most of us don’t think about what our eyes feed on. Nor, do we contemplate when we reach danger zones.
For years, I lusted after houses. I’d look at different structures and see myself living in them. In my childhood, I helped my Dad work on building projects. I’d get the tools he needed and watch what he did with them. Early on, I saw objects created out of what seemed like nothing. I was hooked.
I can’t blame him for taking my love for houses and construction too far. It’s not uncommon for me to spend hours reading about how to construct furniture, make repairs or devour home plans like they’re candy. There’s nothing wrong with pastimes unless they consume you. Essentially, I’ve wasted precious time I can’t get back.
You may not lust for houses or people but you could covet cars, clothing, furniture or any number of things. By succumbing to the spirit of lust, we search after forbidden things to replace our passion for God.
How to Overcome Lust: Recognize the Spirit of Lust At Work
Every day Christians fight the same battle, the war between the flesh and the spirit. Our bodies want to sin and our spirits want to please God. As you already know, the moment you became a Christian, you gained an enemy. Satan destroys anything he touches and wants you to be part of his team for eternity. He hates when you join forces with Jesus.
So, he sends spirits from hell. The spirit of lust weaves its way into your life in subtle ways. You learn how to overcome lust of the eyes by refusing to flip through pages of Playboy./ You don’t visit porn sites, or consider making a move is on your neighbor’s wife or husband. If you entertain lust, your spirit is desensitized so sin doesn’t seem like a big deal. Note: See my book “Cheating Spouse Help Book for Christian Men: To Stop Cheating on Her” to help you overcome lustful, sexual desires.
Unless someone or something jolts you back to your senses, the spirit of lust continues to grow. You’ll entertain dark thoughts and accept them as truth when they’re lies. All the while, you lift your hands in worship and court phrases like “Thank you Jesus” and Amen” while going through life in a blind fog.
You aren’t overcoming lust when you say, “What’s the big deal?” You aren’t sorrowful and don’t regret hurting God or your loved ones. That’s right. Your self-centered sin not only hurts your family but hurts God. He remembers when Jesus was the real object of your love.
How to Overcome Lust of the Eyes
These tips uncover the root cause of lust and steer you back toward God to take a path away from lust.
- Be aware of boredom and stress: King David thought he deserved a well-deserved rest so he took it. He gave in to boredom when he should have been on the battlefield with his soldiers. Instead of focusing on God and His plans for him, David looked and looked and looked again at Bethsheba until lust overtook him. He had to unlawfully have her as his. He failed to recognize that he was in lust’s danger zone.
- Live a purposeful life: A life with purpose leaves no time to dance with sin. Find God’s purpose for you and devote your days to living out His will for you.
- Realize that lust is a substitute for love: God built into each man and woman sexual desires reserved for their wife or husband. Lust fails to honor the other person and lacks holiness due to their covenant relationship.
- Don’t follow your emotions: Our emotions trick us so we believe it’s okay to follow evil desires. If we do, temptations can ambush us quickly. If you need to run away from lustful situations, then do as Joseph did when he fled from Potiphar’s wife.
- Don’t fuel lust: Make a vow to stop entertaining yourself with media attractions (TV, internet, magazines, music, social media sites). Don’t ween but stop these attractions cold-turkey to disarm their power over you.
- Keep your eyes on Jesus: I know. Keeping your eyes on Jesus seems to be an answer to every problem Christians encounter. Well, maybe it is. To do what Philippians 4:8 recommends: to think about what is pure, lovely, of good report, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy is good advice. Jesus has all these qualities and more. Loving him more than anything else drowns out lust.
- Walk in the spirit: You choose whether you follow your Father in heaven or the father of lies. It’s a conscious decision. Another way to describe walking in the spirit is dying to strife, anger, envy, etc. We die to nasty traits in favor of spiritual fruit (love, joy peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control, etc.).
- Speak the Word: To clean your spiritual house you must say the Word of God to rid your spirit of filth. Say something like, “In the name of Jesus, I refuse to dwell on lustful images or allow lust to control my thoughts.” Repeat that statement as many times as necessary. You can sense when the spirit of lust leaves you.
- Guard your heart: Lust enters through your eyes and goes directly to your heart. If it lodges there, the rest of your body follows however lust leads. That’s the danger zone you never want to reach which I’ve referred to.
- Ask for forgiveness: When you have a repentant heart, you seek God’s forgiveness. You no longer attempt to cover up wrongful deeds or make provisions to sin.
Perhaps you’ve noticed, the world is getting increasingly darker spiritually. Right is wrong and wrong is right. The earth groans under the weight of sin and Christians feel the accompanying oppression.
Therefore, it stands to reason that sin will continue to abound and Christians must commit to staying on a sure path toward holiness. Overcoming lust takes determination, and a willingness to identify the root causes. Ask for God’s help on how to overcome lustful thoughts and temptation influencers.