SUNDAY - 11TH FEBRUARY, 2024
MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE - Olusola ADEJUMO
THE DANGER OF BURNING IN LUST
Genesis 39:12, KJV
"And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out."
A true life story that morals the danger of lust was told by an elderly Christian minister that you'll know if mentioned. In one of his sermons I had listened to, he warned on thinking wrongly or lusting. He sited an instance of a minister who in his unguarded hour on the pulpit introduced an invited woman minister as "having mega breasts". How did that result? While the invited woman minister is truly bursty, the man of God (the host) was lost in deep thought and fixture on her outlook. He must have savoured that look and naked the woman probably in his mind. Unfortunately, he forgot himself while trying to call her to the pulpit during the introduction. I imagined what a day it would be in public that day when his heart's secret was disclosed in front of his whole congregation.
Just as disgusting as this event looks; just as unwanted and amoral that thought that was revealed looks, many thoughts in many hearts still look that same way if we'll have the secrets of their hearts disclosed. However, if that doesn't happen now, it'll happen one day when the secret of everybody's hearts would be made manifest.
Beware of lust! This story is going to find further fulfilment in a story handpicked from the Bible. Potiphar's wife started by "casting her eyes on Joseph". When she did, she began to lust after him. She began to savour Joseph in her mind. She'll often fondle and naked Joseph in her mind. She imagined how sex would look with this young, vibrant and handsome young man. That's how people begin when they get infatuated with a person. After this stage of imagining, she graduated to wanting to do the act. She began to talk to Joseph "day by day" to lie with her as the Bible puts it. By speaking to Joseph that often and seeking to persuade him to lie with her shows how intense and how inflame she has now become. She wants to have sex. However, she hasn't reached the height of desperateness at that time. Madam reached the height of it all when she couldn't gather or refrain her urges again. At that time, she doesn't want a no for an answer. She's not also ready to give Joseph a choice like before. She wants to enforce it now. She actually wanted to rape Joseph. It's at that point the Bible says, "she caught Joseph by his garment". When anybody gets here, they don't mind their status, reputation or image again. They can misbehave because of lust that has thus conceived in them. Do you know the madam of a house out of having been sex starved or having cultivated intense lust could grab her subordinate that she pays his salary? That's the height of it all. But before that would happen, other processes I already highlighted must have played out. Potiphar's wife exemplifies all these stages of lust. That man of God who made a mistake confessing what he shouldn't confess did after savouring the appearance of that invited minister and swallowing her whole. It was that he was lusting after when he forgot himself and said what he shouldn't have said.
No one just falls into the sin of fornication or adultery like that. It has to bud. It takes a sort of preparedness. It is when lust has conceived that it brings forth sin (James 1:15). However, people do say it happened without their knowing how. That's a lie. The devil is not seeking much room to make you fall and have your image spoilt - staining your conscience. He's only asking for one. He has plans for you. He just wants to breed unnecessary familiarity between yourself and that colleague at work. He just wants you to sympathize with him/her and see her as a victim of an ungentlemanly man at home. He just wants you to make the mistake of petting her not to cry anymore. Then, you'll be gone in a jiffy. Beware. The Bible says, "but a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire" (James 3:5). Little avenue given to the devil is always maximized to its height. Through that sole opening, the disrepute that you can come into is unimaginable.
God wants us to be pure at heart and clean outside. It is holiness within and without. As we know, it is not what a man eats that defiles him [because that goes out] but what he says that comes from his heart (Matt.15:11). Beware of what you're thinking because you're what you think. Beware of the kind of garden you're cultivating and watering by your thoughts which is why the Bible admonishes that we set our affection on things on high.
PRAYER: Lord, I set my heart on things on high. My mind is not for lust. I purify it with Jesus' blood.
BIBLE IN A YEAR: Exodus 32:1-33:23, Matthew 26:69-27:14, Psalm 33:1-11, Proverbs 8:33-36
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