Overcoming Lust Isn't About Wanting Less: It's About Wanting More

Yesterday we watched a lizard die and become a stallion. There's a detail in that story that's easy to miss: the angel didn't leave that man with nothing. He didn't kill the lizard and walk away, leaving the man empty, desire-less, hollowed out. The lizard came back as something greater, something the man could actually ride, something that carried him forward instead of dragging him down.

That detail is the whole message for today.

A mistake a lot of men make

Once they get serious about this fight, they start to believe victory just means the absence of desire: wanting less, feeling less, becoming the kind of man nothing tempts anymore because nothing in him responds anymore. I need to tell you plainly: that is not what God is doing in you.

Victory isn't just a negative. It's not just an "I don't." It's a bigger "I do."

The starving man and the sad hamburger

Imagine a starving man. Truly starving. You set in front of him a hamburger, not even a good one. Slightly overcooked, a little sad, nothing special. You tell him, "Don't eat it."

He might actually pull it off. Willpower is real. Some of you have done exactly that for years: sat in front of the burger, gripped the wheel, refused to eat. That's a real victory, and I'm not diminishing it.

But now something harder: what if the goal isn't just "don't eat it"? What if the goal is that he doesn't even want to? That's a different question entirely. Because now we're not talking about his actions. We're talking about his desire. And you cannot out-discipline a desire. You can only out-satisfy it.

So how does a starving man stop wanting the sad little hamburger? You give him a better meal. A steak, cooked right. A loaded baked potato. Now the hamburger isn't winning some heroic battle against his willpower, it's just not interesting anymore. Not because he became a man who doesn't want food. Because he became a man who got something so much better that the burger stopped being where his hunger pointed.

Sin is killed by being overwhelmed, not starved

Temptation loses its grip fastest not when you white-knuckle past it, but when there's something genuinely, deeply enjoyable in front of you that's also pleasing to the Lord. The strategy was never "reject the old joy and feel nothing." It's "reject the old joy because you've found a better one."

Your body is not the enemy. Your drives for God's gifts, for food, for beauty, for closeness, for pleasure, for sex, are not sinful. God made a body and called it good. Jesus, our Savior, was God come in the flesh, and He had a body and drives too. He built desire into you on purpose, before sin ever entered the picture. So the goal was never "how do I want less." The real question, the one almost nobody asks, is: what are the holy joys that can righteously fulfill what I'm actually longing for?

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!"

Not "starve and see." Taste.

"…who richly provides us with everything to enjoy."

Everything. That includes your marriage. That includes sex with your wife, meant to be incredible, mind-blowing, free from guilt, free from the need to fantasize about anyone or anything else, because it's not a concession God is tolerating. It's a gift He's offering.

There's an old hymn I think about that says essentially this: that the man who's tasted the deeper, lasting joy God offers finds it far easier to let go of the cheap, passing pleasures sin promises, not because he's forcing himself to give something up, but because he's already holding something better.

Don't let anyone tell you that maturity in this fight means becoming a man who doesn't want anything anymore. That's not sanctification. That's numbness. God isn't calling you to want less. He's calling you to want rightly, and to want so fully that the sad little hamburger simply stops looking like a meal.

This is Day 38 of Victory Over Pornography. Continue to Day 39 →