Lust and Dating
Hello again, if you are new to this blog I highly encourage you to read part one before reading this post. Entering the dating scene after ten years of being in a rocky marriage was terrifying. Because although my marriage wasn't ideal by any standard, it was familiar. To me familiar equaled safe. Now instead of taking the time to heal, recover and figure out who I am in Christ. I searched for someone to anchor me in the midst of all of my uncertainty. Dating with a broken heart is never a great idea, but I did it anyway. On one level it felt good to know that I was desirable and wanted, but what I quickly found out, was that desirability seemed to be the main thing. I was bombarded with different offers, some from really respectable gentleman and some from straight-up perverts. However at the end of the day, it appeared that in order to be in a relationship sexual immorality would be required.
I knew what God's word said about waiting and not being unequally yoked with unbelievers. Although I saw God's provision in other areas of my life I didn't quite trust Him with my love life. So for a season, I did things the world's way. Dating the world's way made me feel really empty because I gave away the most permanent and precious parts of me to temporary people. I also found out that in order to date "successfully" my heart had to change in a way that I did not like. In order to guard my heart, I had to become cruel, and standoffish in order to keep a man's attention. I hated the person I was becoming, someone that can use and throw away another person's affections in order to protect myself from hurt while searching for the one. Cruelty, lust, selfishness, lack of self-control, impurity are all characteristics of Satan. I should not have been surprised that since I was doing things the world's way, I would begin to take on the world's characteristics. Let's not forget I was not fully divorced before I began dating, so I can add adultery to the list of sins that I was quickly piling up.
One of the beautiful things about God is His grace and mercy. I began to seek God's face because I had no peace in this area of my life. During this time the Lord revealed a new dimension of Himself to me that I truly had never known before. God was showing me in His word that He would be my anchor in the midst of my storms. Instead of trying to forge my own path that was leading to nothing but rebellious wilderness wanderings, God offered me another way. If I would humble myself, repent and submit to God, He would become not just my Healer, but my Husband too! One of my favorite scriptures during this season of testing was Isaiah 54. I used to say verses like this to myself over and over again. "For Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth. For the Lord has called you, like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused, says your God. For a mere moment I have forsaken you, But with great mercies, I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; But with everlasting kindness, I will have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer."Isaiah 54:5-8 NKJV
I knew what God's word said about waiting and not being unequally yoked with unbelievers. Although I saw God's provision in other areas of my life I didn't quite trust Him with my love life. So for a season, I did things the world's way. Dating the world's way made me feel really empty because I gave away the most permanent and precious parts of me to temporary people. I also found out that in order to date "successfully" my heart had to change in a way that I did not like. In order to guard my heart, I had to become cruel, and standoffish in order to keep a man's attention. I hated the person I was becoming, someone that can use and throw away another person's affections in order to protect myself from hurt while searching for the one. Cruelty, lust, selfishness, lack of self-control, impurity are all characteristics of Satan. I should not have been surprised that since I was doing things the world's way, I would begin to take on the world's characteristics. Let's not forget I was not fully divorced before I began dating, so I can add adultery to the list of sins that I was quickly piling up.
One of the beautiful things about God is His grace and mercy. I began to seek God's face because I had no peace in this area of my life. During this time the Lord revealed a new dimension of Himself to me that I truly had never known before. God was showing me in His word that He would be my anchor in the midst of my storms. Instead of trying to forge my own path that was leading to nothing but rebellious wilderness wanderings, God offered me another way. If I would humble myself, repent and submit to God, He would become not just my Healer, but my Husband too! One of my favorite scriptures during this season of testing was Isaiah 54. I used to say verses like this to myself over and over again. "For Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth. For the Lord has called you, like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused, says your God. For a mere moment I have forsaken you, But with great mercies, I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; But with everlasting kindness, I will have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer."Isaiah 54:5-8 NKJV
Lust and Singleness
Eventually, God gave me the command to stop dating and to let Him choose my mate. This was a hard edict for me to accept, but I did it for the most part lol. At first, it was a struggle just learning to accept that it is ok to be alone but not lonely. Those two concepts are not the same thing. One of my biggest fears was to end up alone, but what I was really afraid of was the feeling of loneliness. My main coping mechanism for loneliness was porn and masturbation. Just like how alcoholics drinks to stop feelings of depression or fear, I used masturbation to get that dopamine high to cope with life. The closer I got to God during this time the more convicted I got of this sin, that I had since my teenage years. I found myself in this cycle of wanting to please God in this area and giving in almost all the time to my flesh. However, God knew exactly what to do to get my life to change. He made my life harder!
One of the amazing concepts of going through a Wilderness is that it is the place where God can purify, edify, and change a person into becoming more like Christ. Through the various trials that came, I learned about pressing in and developing a real everyday fellowship with God. The closer I got to God the more sensitive I became to the areas of sin in my life. I can honestly say for the first time, I truly began to see the ugliness of my sin and the depravity of my flesh. I was the temple of the Holy Spirit yet I was committing sins that were defiling the temple where God's Holy Spirit dwelt. I was no better than the Israelites that God spoke out against in Ezekial 8. The Lord made clear to me that I could no longer view pornography, commit masturbation and keep in fellowship with Him. I had to stop but how?
At first, I did it out of sheer will power and scripture. Satan is never going to let anyone just walk in purity without a fight. In the beginning, I had to learn to resist with scripture and prayer. I took to heart James 4:7-10 "Therefore submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." I said scriptures like this every time I got thoughts to indulge my flesh. Soon as I committed to obeying God in this area, He gave me more advice on protecting my purity. I became sensitive to the music I listened to and the shows I watched. I love playing music as I do chores like dishes or cooking. One day while washing dishes I was listening to Normani's song "Motivation". I'm not sure if it was during the song or immediately after but I noticed that my mind was bombarded with lustful thoughts. Images from past sexual encounters played in my head and I had to really fight to get the spirit of lust to leave me alone.
That moment was hard but a great object lesson in protecting my eye gate and ear gate. I couldn't just play anything I wanted anymore. My flesh HATED the thought of restricting my music and the things that I saw. But Satan uses those things to harass and entice men to sin. It makes no sense for me to make my life harder because I value the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life more than anything else. Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-30 NKJV " You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell".
Deliverance From the Spirit of Lust
Little did I know that through all this that God was laying the ground work for me to gain complete victory over the spirit of lust. I found that now the time periods between repentance and sinning were growing longer and longer. Which for me was HUGE progress, but still there were times when it felt like an unsatiable urge would just consume my thoughts for HOURS at a time. I would pray to the Lord about what to do about it. Because I didn't understand why would that still be happening to me if I was controlling what I saw, hear, and I was feeding on a strong spiritual diet? Then one day I came across a teaching by the late Derek Prince called blessing and cursing. The sermon was about how Christians can still be afflicted by demonic forces that can cause sin and other unexplainable bad things to happen in their lives. I have always been wary about talks about demons and the like, the concept is scary and I wanted nothing to do with it. I figured that I wasn't under a curse because Christ became a curse for me when He hung up on the tree. But there was still this "thing" that afflicted me when I least expected it. So due to an odd series of events that happened to me over the prior two weeks, my mind was open to hearing this concept of deliverance from demons.
The presentation was simple and straight forward. Due to sin, demons are able to attach themselves to an individual causing them to be bound to that particular sin. But because Jesus has all authority now, we as believers can exercise that authority and rid ourselves of these demonic guests. Basically, the process was repent of sin, let the Holy Spirit guide if there are any other areas that need repentance, and command the demon to leave in the name of Jesus. That is the short version of the sermon I will post a link here to the full video. That is what I did I told the spirit that I repented of the sins of lust, sex, and masturbation and due to that, they no longer have the right to reside in my body. Then I commanded them in the name of Jesus to leave me now, and for good measure, I also plead the blood of Jesus against it. At the time I did this I was cooking in my kitchen, maybe in hindsight I should have been alone somewhere in my room in a quiet place. But I have kids and there is no such thing as a quiet place in the afternoon. But in the end that didn't matter. First I started burping really loud obnoxious burps. That freaked me out because I was doing this by myself and didn't want anything weird to happen on an Excorcist level if that makes sense.
I started praying harder because it felt like I was making some kind of progress. The burps turned into a nauseous feeling like I was vomiting something up from my stomach. I could feel the thing or things leave my body. When they were gone it was an incredible feeling of lightness and cleanness. Ever since that day, my walk with the Lord has been dramatically different. I no longer had a live-in saboteur pressuring me to give into my flesh all the time. Now when the bible talks about no longer being a slave to sin, and to be holy for I am holy, I am joyful because it is now possible to do. It is possible to live a holy life as a living sacrifice before God. Now although I still have the sin nature and I will always have the possibility to sin. I don't have to practice sin on a daily basis like I was before. Christ paid a huge price to redeem me from sin, and now I can fully enjoy this gift from my Savior.
