Fight fire with fire..
I have a resource to share that I came across today. It concerns the mental warfare between holy and unholy desire. We know from experience and from Scripture that the battle that really counts is fought not in our visible behaviors and audible words, but in the unseen chambers of our minds and hearts, where a lifelong war is fought for our thoughts and desires. God's will or our will? God's thoughts or our thoughts? Desiring God or desiring me/that car/that woman/that relationship?Well, this resource specifically concerns temptations of a visual nature. Guys, I think this might be helpful for you. I've heard some people say that, on the average, men think about sex every 6 minutes. Sadly, sometimes this is not far from the truth. Our sex-saturated culture is a lethal weapon in the hands of a Devil with crosshairs on our eternal souls.
Visual temptation is strong. Very strong. It isn't enough to just look away. The image remains in the mind, unless it is replaced in its schema by an alternative image.
Try this: try not thinking about a black cat. Don't think about it. Try as hard as you can to avoid having an sort of image whatsoever of a black cat. Resist any mental images that even remotely resemble a black cat.
If you're like me, you probably didn't fare very well at not thinking about the black cat. Unless you immediately thought about something else.
So here's a suggestion. Why not fight fire with fire? If Satan throws a visual image to incite lust, why not parry the lunge by straining our thoughts in another direction, at another visual image, say, of Christ crucified? What could be more incompatible with lust?
Here are some helpful words from John Piper (in Pierced by the Word) to help you focus your thoughts:
Demand of your mind that it fix its gaze on Christ on the cross. Use all your fantasizing power to see His lacerated back. Thirty-nine lashes left little flesh intact. He heaves with His breath up and down against the rough vertical beam of the cross. Each breath puts splinters into the lacerations. The Lord gasps. From time to time He screams out with intolerable pain. He tries to pull away from the wood and the massive spokes through His wrists rip into the nerve endings and He screams again with agony and pushes up with His feet to give some relief to His wrists. But the bones and nerves in His pierced feet crush against each other with anguish and He screams again. There is no relief. His throat is raw from screaming and thirst. He loses His breath and thinks He is suffocating, and suddenly His body involuntarily gasps for air and all the injuries unite in pain. In torment, He forgets about the crown of two-inch thorns and throws His head back in desperation, only to hit one of the thorns perpendicular against the cross beam and drive it half an inch into His skull. His voice reaches a soprano pitch of pain and sobs break over. His pain-wracked body as every cry brings more and more pain.
My friends, that was the price of our sin. That is how serious rebellion against God is. That is how much God loves us.
I'm not saying focusing on those particular images will grant you instant victory in whatever battle against temptation you are facing.
I am saying that we need to fight violently, to do more than "look away" or "pray". We need to somehow lift our eyes from the mire of our sin and temptation and behold the glory of our Savior. We have hope that doing this will connect us to the Grace that will save us.
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect [or contemplate] the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (I Corinthians 3:16-18)
Labels: For the spirit, Musings
posted by Joel Chan @ 3:26 PM
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