Avert your eyes.
God talks often to me when I'm at the gym. So here's one thing He quickened to my spirit literally just now.
On the gym TV, I just saw a pizza commercial. It was very cheesy. It was....lust-provoking! Then my spirit said, "look away."
“But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Mat 5:28)
Sometimes, the "other man" in our life, the other God, is food and pleasure.
“What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23)
Someone once said, "Eyes are windows to the soul." We usually understand that to mean when we look into someone's eyes we can peer through the "window" into their soul. What about this interpretation: through the eyes, the thief and robber finds a "window" to crawl through, an entrance into our thoughts?
When I had an eating disorder, I learned to avert my eyes from looking at the magazine covers in the checkout at the grocery store. I stopped buying Cosmopolitan, because I coveted and obsessed about the airbrushed bodies on the cover and littered throughout. I stopped looking at anything that would entice thoughts to spring to life that could lead to sin...
When I was even younger I figured out not to go to the mall or window shop because looking made me want things.
I challenge you, and myself, to consider what you tend to let in through the "eye gate." To think something is not the sin, but to entertain the thought willingly and mess around with it is...because it can so easily lead to the lust and sinful action.
“...but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.“ (James 1:14-15)
Where do you need to avert your eyes today?
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If you need help in this area, consider taking my Break Every Chain course/support group starting May 1st!