One of the top five lies that lust likes to use is, “You can handle this by yourself.” Once you believe this lie, all hope of you getting better is gone.
Lust leads you to believe you can handle it all by yourself. This secret lets lust get away with all the destruction it has planned for your life. The truth is, lust—like most sins—is a team effort. James 5:16 tells us that if we confess to each other, we can be healed. Most men aren’t free from lust because they believe the lie of secrecy instead of the Word of God.
I couldn’t have even begun to break lust in my life until I confessed to another man. Once I obeyed the truth of James 5:16, I started to move toward a lust-free lifestyle. Had I continued all those years ago to disobey that one truth of confession to a man, I would never have been able to write one page of this or any other book.
Another commonly used lie of lust is that it acts almost like a scam artist or perpetrator. Lust comes to you as a friend during your adolescence or young adulthood.
Acting like it understands your problems, lust will distract you from the pain of your failures and inadequacies, and even support you through breakups of romantic relationships. This lie wants you to depend on its escape, comfort and medicine.
Lust is like the guy at work who is always being nice and complimenting the single mom, so eventually he can manipulate her into a sexual relationship. Lust has been a friend with false motives toward you. Lust has unconditionally accepted you, accepted your sexual thoughts without question and let you enjoy the sanctuary of a false secret life with it. Remember, none of this is real or true. But as an adolescent, you buy it hook, line and sinker.
The relationship you have with lust is very real. The lie is that lust is a friend. Lust means absolute harm, pain and destruction toward you and everyone you love. Lust is a psychopath at heart. Lust cares nothing for you but gets pleasure out of deceiving you and one day reeling you into a situation that can destroy everything in your life. To ever be lust-free, you will have to acknowledge the relationship with lust, its false benefits and be willing to uncompromisingly end this relationship.
Even though lust is a psychopathic liar inside of you, it can come across as compassionate in regard to its own best interest. When you are trying to fight off lust, it will throw you a curve ball that seems compassionate such as: “You’re not perfect. It’s OK.” Actually, this is you rationalizing, thinking differently than God.
You can even hear the sweetness in this and other rationalizations. That sweetness, much like a siren song, allows you permission to lust, to drink in the image of that woman, filling you full of the unreal satisfaction lust brings. After all, you’re not perfect.
We all know we aren’t perfect. Lust knows that as a man of God, you can kick it and all of its rationalizations out of your life for good. What lust doesn’t tell you is, even though you aren’t perfect, you do have the authority to kick it out and win every single time. You even have the authority to battle on your brother’s behalf, working together to pull lust out of his life forever.
When lust says you aren’t perfect, you are very close to a win. You can yell from your inner man, like David did when facing Goliath. You don’t have to be perfect to beat lust, but you do have to stop believing the lies that lust continually feeds you. God is with you, and lust will have no authority over your life. Lust won’t destroy you or those you love. You have the authority to tell it to leave right now. When it hears that, it must leave.
Doug Weiss, Ph.D., is a nationally known author, speaker and licensed psychologist. He is the executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the author of several books including, Lust Free Living. You may contact Dr. Weiss via his website, drdougweiss.com or on his Facebook, by phone at 719-278-3708 or through email at [email protected].
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