There will always be someone who will not see your worth…..DON’T LET THAT PERSON BE YOU.  The relationship that you have with yourself sets the tone for every relationship you will ever have.  To that point, if you have not learned how to take care of yourself, then you should not look for a relationship to come with provisos to take care of you.

You deserve the love you keep trying to give to others, but first the most important love you need to receive and is the love the Lord already has for you, and second, the most important relationship goal you need to establish and cultivate is an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

With that being said, it brings to mind how important it is that SINGLES should NEVER COMPROMISE HIS or HERS WORTH and VALUES to fill any angsts of loneliness.  Being single can be and should be a beautiful season in your life when you embrace it as an opportunity to vertically grow in the love relationship Christ has designed for you to have with Him, intentionally follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit to cultivate spiritual maturation in the Lord, and purposefully use your season of singleness as a time to become acquainted with the most important person in your life……….YOURSELF!

In so doing, the more you grow in your relationship with the Lord, whether you are single or married, the less of a struggle you will have regarding one very strong issue that constantly comes up as an inquiring matter……DEALING WITH THE ISSUE OF LUST.

KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LUST and LOVE
IS DECIDEDLY A DECISIVE, RESPONSIBLE ATTRIBUTE
OF
SELF-RESPECT

SO, WHAT IS LUST?
LUST is always CENTERED on SELF because it seeks only to pleasure oneself.  LUST is not only sexually, it can be covetously for the tangibles and intangibles of life such as a career, a relationship, status, and things.  Becoming so focused to obtain and acquire things will causes a separation between you and your relationship with the Lord because He is no longer the CENTER of your life….YOU ARE.  What is more, because the world will never satisfy you, you will always NEED MORE and WANT MORE because you will NEVER be fulfilled.  As you allow LUST to begin to feed your wants and desires, it will also begin to widen the void in your spirit that can ONLY be satisfied by Christ.

LUST can start with one porn magazine that grows into watching porn, LUST can start with buying a few pairs of shoes that grows into an absurd collection of designer shoes, LUST can start with being envious of another person’s position to growing into entertaining thoughts of how to sabotage that person to obtain that person’s position, LUST can start with being jealous of the social standings of someone who is popular in the community to growing into executing plans to ruin that person’s reputation in the community.

SO, WHAT IS LOVE?
LOVE focuses on OTHERS.  Showing LOVE towards someone does not necessarily mean being in LOVE with that person.  When we love someone, whether platonically or romantically, our purpose and objectives become about pleasing that other person, whether it is helping someone out, serving at the church, putting the grocery cart where it belongs so it does not become a runaway cart in the parking lot, having patience with someone who provides some form of service to you…even if it is slower than you prefer, having empathy towards someone who has to live daily with a challenge in life, having an understanding heart in any given circumstance that includes not jumping to conclusions and not making assumptions, and lastly, but certainly not exhaustively, not needing to have the last word and be a person who is a “RIGHT-FIGHTER.”

When showing LOVE towards someone, you want the best for him or her.  You will want to encourage and edify them towards a vertical relationship with Christ; in other words, regardless of the length of time the relationship will be with each individual person, you want to build with them, not tear them down.  When you love another person, you are not thinking of what you are going to get out of it, but how God will be glorified in it and through it.  If you have pure love, in all things you will want to show the love that Christ has shown to you.

QUESTION:
SO, HOW DO YOU OVERCOME THE STRUGGLE?
ANSWER:
You MUST be……INTENTIONAL.

In order to distinguish BETWEEN the fine-line of LUST and LOVE, you have to be HONEST WITH THE REAL-TIME ANSWERS to the QUESTIONS YOU TELL YOURSELF in GIVEN SITUATIONS:

REMEMBER: 1 Corinthians 10:13 (AMP) “No temptation [regardless of its source] has overtaken or enticed you that is not common to human experience [nor is any temptation unusual or beyond human resistance]; but God is faithful [to His word—He is compassionate and trustworthy], and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability [to resist], but along with the temptation He [has in the past and is now and] will [always] provide the way out as well, so that you will be able to endure it [without yielding, and will overcome temptation with joy].”

SCENARIO:  THE THINGS YOU CHOOSE FOR ENTERTAINMENT
When you are watching TV, reading a book, hanging-out, or going to a movie, ask yourself is the choice I am making jeopardizing my relationship with the Lord?

Remember the cliché, “You are known by the company you keep”……..well, it does not necessarily means the people you socialize with, IT ALSO INCLUDES what YOU ALLOW TO KEEP YOU COMPANY.  The things you gravitate to for entertainment (people, things, places) absorbs into your soul, spirit, consciousness to influence your perceptions, and if those things are not in line with KINGDOM LIVING, they can negatively counter your gift of discernment.  As the enemy knows we all have FREE WILL TO CHOOSE and knows your WEAKNESSES as well; as a result, he is surely in favor of you FREELY choosing those things that TEMPTS YOU that will cause a gulf between you and your relationship with Christ.  With this, understand that it is the enemy who is the one who magnifies your proclivities……because it is his way of GETTING YOU to fall and GETTING YOU for himself.  It is his way to steal, kill, and destroy your relationship with Christ, and ultimately to destroy you.  Nevertheless, the Lord has declared to us all 1 Corinthians 10:13.

1 John 2:16 (AMP) “For all that is in the world—the lust and sensual craving of the flesh and the lust and longing of the eyes and the boastful pride of life [pretentious confidence in one’s resources or in the stability of earthly things]—these do not come from the Father, but are from the world.”

SCENARIO:  COVET
To COVET means to long for, wish for THINGS that BELONGS to someone else…..WHAT IS MORE, to seek TO TAKE by DECEIT, FORCE, or MANIPULATION (which is a form of witchcraft).  It is the yearning for something or someone that does not belong to you….their job, their car, their house, their social status, their family, their clothes, their children, their money…….their WHATEVER’S.  Coveting is self-serving for it lacks empathy and knows NO BOUNDARIES and knows NO LIMITS.

Remember, LUST is more than just about sex – it can be anything you idolize, anything you worship other than God.  In scripture, to covet is considered to be a very grievous transgression, and as the tenth (10^th) commandment it forbids coveting anything that belongs to a neighbor, including his house, his wife, his servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to him (Exodus 20:17).   Paul reminded the Ephesians that greed or covetousness is equal to immorality and impurity {Ephesians 5:3 (AMP), “But sexual immorality and all [moral] impurity [indecent, offensive behavior] or greed must not even be hinted at among you, as is proper among saints [for as believers our way of life, whether in public or in private, reflects the validity of our faith].”}

SCENARIO: SEXUALLY
When you look upon the opposite sex, do you allow your mind to wander?  In other words, “GO THERE!”  Do you rebuke the enemy beforehand?  God says in the Gospels that when we LUST it is the same as committing adultery, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who [so much as] looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28 – AMP).  God takes this issue very seriously, the question is…….Do you?  What is more, to ensure that we are not contributing to a problem, it is ALSO our responsibility to dress appropriately and behave modestly so that we are not UNKNOWINGLY being caustic in stimulating a problem.

YOUR BATTLE STRATEGY:
Your ONLY strategy is to be HONEST with YOURSELF, and STOP RATIONALIZING what is DISOBEDIENT TO GOD. Quenching the thirst of LUST is like pouring a glass of gasoline onto a flame as it ignites and grows into a fire that consumes, and likened to a recovering alcoholic yielding to the LUST of taking a drink of alcohol again……resulting into him or her craving more and more without the will power to walk away.  When you allow yourself to indulge in ANY PARTICULAR LUST, it makes you MORE VULNERABLE TO OTHER TEMPTATIONS.  However, YIELDING to LUST and BEING EXPOSED to LUST are not the same.  If there is a LUSTFUL temptation in your life, the enemy WILL MAKE SURE that you be exposed to it AGAIN (just as he TEMPORARILY left Jesus until a MORE OPPORTUNE TIME (Luke 4:13 – AMP), but by the GRACE OF GOD, through the RESURRECTED POWER OF JESUS CHRIST, and the GUIDANCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT you can be SET FREE.  Once you begin to be honest with yourself and not rationalizing away your weakness, you will be taking VERTICAL STEPS towards aligning yourself to LEAN and RELY on the LORD as in your weakness, His strength is made perfect as 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 tells us, “Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me; but He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you [My lovingkindness and My mercy are more than enough—always available—regardless of the situation]; for [My] power is being perfected [and is completed and shows itself most effectively] in [your] weakness.” Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ [may completely enfold me and] may dwell in me. So I am well pleased with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, and with difficulties, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak [in human strength], then I am strong [truly able, truly powerful, truly drawing from God’s strength].”

The Lord, Jesus as One (1) person having two (2) natures (Divine and Human), He is the ultimate example for Kingdom Living; as a result, we, being made in His IMAGE have to be proactive in following His examples to overcome TEMPTATIONS and live victoriously in the areas of TEMPTATIONS (Luke 4 and Matthew 4).  In so doing, we are commanded in Galatians 5:16 (KJV) to Walk in the Spirit so that we won’t fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  To do this, we have to study the WRITTEN Word of God, to cultivate a relationship with the Lord to grow into the revealed knowledge of how to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit TO WALK in the Spirit and TO SPEAK the WRITTEN Word of God as the Lord, and praying continuously about your struggles while seeking Christ in all things FIRST (Matthew 6:33) so He will perform Psalm 138:8 in our lives, “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands” (Psalm 138:8 – KJV).  Nevertheless, don’t just PRAY….OBEY!

God puts the responsibility to ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE and not PASSIVELY SPECTATE for obedience on each of us.  We are to do WHAT WE CAN, and the Lord will do WHAT WE CANNOT.  Which means you are not supposed to continue to go on DISOBEYING as if you can’t help yourself while waiting for some MAGICAL MOMENT OF DELIVERANCE, but you are to do as Hebrews 12:1 (KJV) says, “…let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” and allow the grace of God that Titus 2:11-12 (KJV) proclaims to become evident in your life, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world…”

Bottom line, when it comes to LUST, it is ALWAYS SELF SEEKING, to please oneself.  Essentially, the construct of LUST is to build your own kingdom instead of the Kingdom of God.

Peace and Grace,
LaTrica Sanders

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