THE FORBIDDEN TOPIC

                                                 THE FORBIDDEN TOPIC
                                                         SEXUAL DESIRE

Anyone who has ever attended a Christian church has, no doubt, been made painfully aware of two scriptures.  One of them is;
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2 Ti 4:12 "Flee also youthful lust..."  And the other is;
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1 Th 4:3-4 "For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God...For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity,..."
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 However not many of us were ever taught how to adhere to this moral imperative. Some seem to think that no one in the church has figured out how this "sexual abstinence thing" works...if it works at all.  Others believe that avoiding temptation is the same as fleeing lust. Still others believe it is an unattainable goal calculated to keep believers permanently defeated, praying continually for forgiveness.. Some of us who are built with an irresistible appetite for sexual gratification are led to believe that marriage is God's holy solution for the problem.  But none of these are even close to God's answer to a life frustrated with unsatisfied sexual desires..
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Now while it is true that sexual desire is referred to as "youthful lust" it nags at some of us even in old-age.  I know it dominated me as a younger man until I learned to accept its impulse as a spiritual event...a reminder of His life within me. So let me try to explain how this thing is supposed to work using my own personal experience. 
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The desire to avoid pursuing my passion was not my preference and certainly not my desire, nor even an idea of my own but it was His.  In my life the idea was without a doubt God's and God's alone. It was not me who, at the moment of temptation, wanting to abstain.  It was obviously some One else's desire, namely God's. The recognition of another separate desire working in me was enough to momentarily distract me from the goal of sensual fulfillment just long enough to allow me to ask myself, "Do I really want to indulge in this or wouldn't I rather remain connected with God?" Over time I finally realized that I really want Him more than anything else. After all there is a satisfaction in God which is found nowhere else...a satisfaction without regret.  Each temptation became a reminder to turn my focus back on God.  Even now, as a tottering-old-fool, I still need to receive these reminders. They refocus my spirit and provide freedom from my own inordinate desires.
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 FUNNY THING  While write this (originally on Facebook) an add popped up on the screen displaying a very alluring half-dressed woman under the name of Renegade Raye. That is the moment...right there.  An instant when I could ask myself.  "Shall I now turn toward God or turn my back to Him?"  If my preference is God I can then ask Him to make me aware of Him inside me...something like, "God, Give me God consciousness."  At moments like this the habit of refocusing on God within has become rather automatic.  But it was not always so. Earlier each such confrontation would initiate a conflict between my desires and somebody else's desires (God's).  When I recognized and honored those other desires as God making Himself evident within me the struggle ended. I discovered that the allurement was a signal to once more turn my attention toward the Holy Spirit inside.
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 Running away from sex's forbidden attractions only increases their power. I was unable to turn toward God within while running from outward temptation. After all it is not the outward temptation but my own human desire within that gave sex its power.  While I was fleeing the temptation I was focusing outwardly on temptations source,  I was looking in the wrong direction to see God, my solution.  God was  within me, there expressing his own desire for my purity.  It is God who desires what I do not desire.  It was a conscious recognition of God's personal connection within me, not striving for sexual abstinence, that produced freedom from my desire to engage in some illicit  interaction or degrading fantasy.  Each moment I acknowledge God's presence within I was free from the hold my own desires held over me..
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It is neither the fault of the lady posing in the add nor her promoters that I natural respond to such things. It is not even a flaw in my character. Our response to sexual stimuli is a law of nature...admittedly it is more forceful in some than others.  We are just made that way.  However tempting  events can and do have a very positive spiritual outcome when they serve to jar us out of our spiritual complacency.  Their existence is purposeful.  They occur to heighten our awareness of God, Himself, alive on the inside of all of God's children. In the process of being tempted we are reminded that without Him we would be slaves to our desires. Remember Christ took on the cross and sent His Spirit not only to free us from the guilt of indulging our desires but to free us from their power they have over us as well.  Attending every temptation then is the opportunity for a renewed recognition of our intimate union with God.  So, No, don't blame the temptress nor her handlers for our own desires. If we let them, those moments of temptation will drive us guiltlessly to our Savior.  Incidences of temptation are unavoidable and can never be eradicated no mater what laws are pasted or moral codes deify them. They, in fact are not the enemy our desires are.  They exist to prompt our recognition of God living inside us and by so doing we gain freedom from the destructive power of sin, including our own sexual desires for which I, personally, will be forever grateful..