Always looking to greener pastures will keep you from seeing the bounty God has set before you.
People often want someone they cannot have. They feel something is missing in their life; they don’t feel their needs are being met. They carry within them dreams and ideals of what a fulfilling relationship would look like. Real life with their partner is often not what they imagined it to be. Because of this, passions fade. They find themselves in love with an image and not the other person. Their eyes and heart begin to wander; they believe fulfillment can only be found somewhere else. They believe their fairy tale ending could still be had somewhere out there. So they look around to survey what everyone else has. First impressions are always favorable when everyone tries to put their best foot forward. They see how God has blessed others and they begin to crave it for their own. Rather than look to God to bless them in kind, they covet what rightfully belongs to someone else. Setting one’s desire on the forbidden heightens their feelings to an obsession. Coveting is really a form of Idolatry; it is to chase a fantasy. The fantasy is not real and it will never provide what you hope from it. Looking to greener pastures can keep you from seeing the bounty God has for you. Changing how someone feels about this begins with changing one’s mindset. Finding a better way always begins by seeing things in a new light.
Why dream of things that can never actually satisfy?
Why do something that does not profit you? Anyone considering this path should see it for what it is. The look but don’t touch philosophy is only a recipe for personal torment. The eye never has it’s fill of seeing. The man who looks with lust at a woman will eventually want to touch her. Sweet nothings may sound good to hear for a woman but they still mean nothing. At the end of the day, they are just empty words that will leave you empty. There is nothing more frustrating than having your passions worked up only to have them left unsatisfied. Such frustration is enough to drive anyone crazy. Why set your heart on what other’s already have? You can never have them. Why Chase the rainbow’s end when you can never reach it? Why dream of things that can never actually satisfy? It is always better to marry the one God gives you than to burn with passion for someone you can never rightfully have. Make no mistake burning with such unfulfilled passion sucks. The envy coveting arouses will eat at you. Envy is a state of discontentment & resentment at someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck. Envy hates those that are better just because they are better. Envy may think that their neighbor’s loss will make them better off when in truth it does not. Messing up someone else’s good thing will not make you better off or fulfill you.
How Coveting is a pathway to the dark side.
The unfulfilled yearning that coveting arouses in people will make them depraved. Depravity always implies lack. You don’t yearn for it unless you first lack it. Satan must keep you hungry to fulfill his will. The desire becomes a must have. Desperate people will eventually turn to desperate measures. For this reason, coveting spawns all levels of evil in the heart. An evil heart leads to evil acts. A thief steals something because He first covets them. An adulterer sleeps with another man’s wife because He first covets her. It’s not for lack of knowledge of God’s commands that our heart turns away from him to other things. So in this sense, coveting is a root sin. Lust naturally corrupts People because they are willing to resort to any evil to fulfill that desire. In our culture, we label any strong harmful need to regularly have something as an addiction. Evil promises them a shortcut to meeting their passion. This line of thinking darkens the heart of a man. They cannot sleep until they do evil. Eventually, these seeds will sprout and rear their ugly head.
God does not make a distinction between your heart and what you outwardly do.
For our own good, Scripture prohibits people from outwardly practicing sexually immoral behavior, but it also prohibits them from even thinking about doing it. Many men will look at the Girl next door and say to themselves, “I can look just as long as I don’t touch.” They may not go out and overtly perform those deeds, but they fantasize in their heart about them all the same. They become wannabes. How are you any different than them, if your heart is in the same place? As a man thinks in his heart, so is He. Being a Wannabe is not a safer spiritual position. If you only limit your outward behavior and do nothing to change your heart, you are not saved. Do not be deceived! The covetous person will not inherit the kingdom of Heaven any more than the homosexual, fornicator, adulterer, or sodomite (I Cor 6:9-10). Men may deceive themselves or others, but one cannot fool God. If you lust after a woman in your heart, the Bible says you have already committed adultery with her in the eyes of God. With this beatitude, Jesus intended to guide Christians on the right attitudes- to- be. The Bible says that anyone who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. It is only when the apostle Paul learned to appreciate the command against coveting that He realized how wretched of a man He really was- we too need to appreciate this condition. It is in our hearts where we must examine ourselves and set things right.
Real Change requires putting your whole heart into it.
If you follow God, you have to put your whole heart in it to make it. This is why God wants to change you from within by his Spirit. Once our heart is set straight, everything else follows. This is what Jesus meant when He said ‘clean the inside of the cup, that the outside may also be clean.’ So allow Jesus Spirit to wash your heart and your mind. For it is what proceeds from our heart that makes something unclean. You need to be changed from within; the Bible calls it being born again. Running away in your mind to what belongs to someone else is not the answer. There is a better way. Happiness and fulfillment really come from within. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Does God not have the ability to fulfill your dreams? If you see How God can bless others, why would He not be able to bless you in like manner? If you are single, are there not plenty of fish already in the sea to choose from? If you are married, why not allow God to take your relationship in a fresh direction? Let God show you how to tap into the sources of refreshment your spouse really has to offer. Just expressing your heart’s desires to your spouse goes a long way toward fostering intimacy and rekindling passions. If people would only bring a small fraction of their fervor into their current relationship, they would eat to their heart’s content and never have a need to look anywhere else.
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