The Way of Jesus: Desire and Lust
Jesus continues to illustrate the kind of whole-hearted living that is truly flourishing –
the kind of life where what is going on outside is also true of what is going on inside.
This time he addresses adultery and lust. God commanded his people not to commit
adultery because their relationships were meant to tell the truth of what God is like
and what God has done. God created us, male and female, in his image and gave us
the covenant of marriage to be a picture of God’s enduring love for humanity. The
entire Bible is a love story – the love story of God, a pure, faithful bridegroom who
pursues with endless love his unfaithful bride (Israel and now the Church). The reason
why God commanded us to not commit adultery is because our marriages are meant
to display God’s faithful love for us.
Likely, many who were listening to Jesus were saying to themselves, “I’ve not
committed adultery – I’ve not cheated on my spouse.” To which Jesus says, “But I say
to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed
adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus goes straight to the heart where the seeds of
adultery begin. He knows that we all have good God-given desires that when wrongly
motivated or directed become destructive. Lust happens when a good, God-given
desire (like sexual intimacy) is sought to be satisfied in a non-God-given way (sex
outside of the covenant of marriage between a man and woman). And the seeds of
lust are discontentment. Whenever we are not content with God’s present provision
or God’s way to rightly satisfy a desire, we experience covetous thoughts. We want
what doesn’t belong to us. We do this with things, opportunities, experiences and
relationships. And when we do, we learn to use and abuse people for our own selfish
desires instead of loving and serving people like God in Jesus Christ has loved and
served us.
The key to killing lust is learning to be content with what we have. And the key to
contentment is thanksgiving. When we give thanks for what God has done and how
God has provided, we learn to be content in every circumstance. When we forget
what God has done and fail to thank him for what we have, we become consumed
with what is wrong and what is missing. God wants us to remember and give thanks
