Command 7 : Do Not Lust | Day 46

Win With a New Focus!

When Jesus saw a woman, He did not lust after her. We know this because He “was tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). What then did Jesus "see" when He looked at a woman? He looked past her outward appearance and into her heart. This is consistent with the nature of God:

“Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (I Samuel 16:7).

Based on the responses that Jesus had in His contacts with women, we can draw the following applications to the needs we should focus on when we see a woman, especially a woman with immodest dress or appearance:

1. Think of her father, who has a God-given responsibility to train and protect her. How can we help him fulfill this responsibility? (Matthew 9:18)
2. Imagine the concerned mother who will grieve over a daughter who is not protecting her purity and will feel a special sense of guilt and rejection. (Matthew 15:22)
3. Realize the deep and destructive sense of guilt and shame that comes from past immorality, often accompanied by a corresponding bitterness toward all men for their part in causing it. (Luke 7:37-38)
4. Be sensitive to a multitude of personal pressures and anxieties that women often bring upon themselves because of self-imposed goals or lists of things to do. (Luke 10:38-40)
5. Understand the deep need in every woman to be trained in God's truths that will satisfy her inward longing for a personal relationship with her Creator. (Luke 10:39)
6. Discern the underlying needs for love and acceptance, and look for ways to give rather than to get. (John 4:7)

Job had a powerful answer for lust: “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?” (Job 31:1)

God boasted to Satan about Job, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” (Job 1:8). The covenant Job made with his eyes not to lust after women was a key factor in his moral integrity.

Let's make a similar covenant with our eyes right now. Then when we see a woman and are tempted to lust, we can immediately pray for God to protect her and carry out His will in her life, so that she can become the Godly woman He designed her to be.