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Male Sexuality on God’s Terms-Part I
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By Fred Stoeker
Read Part
Two.
Sexually, are you walking with God on His terms? I wasn’t.
During college, I had memorized the dates when each of my favorite
pornographic magazines was delivered to the campus bookstore. On those
days, I’d sweep through their door as they opened for business at 9:00
a.m. to snatch up the latest copies. In my first year out of college, I
had four girlfriends at once and was sleeping with three of them. I was
swamped in sexual sin.
But one lovely May evening I committed my heart to
Christ, and shortly ditched the girlfriends. Within a year, God
introduced me to my wife Brenda, a pure lamb who had never strayed from
His paths.
I had never seen such purity. Inspired, I knew something had to be done
about the pornography. Since my wedding in 1981, I have never purchased
pornography, nor have I viewed cyber-sex on the Internet.
Trouble is, I was like most Christian men. Like the boy who
ignores his neck and ears at bath-time, I had only cleaned up so far. I
still lingered long and hard over lingerie ads in the Sunday morning
newspaper inserts. My eyes still locked on joggers and other thinly
clad women. On business trips, I still watched PG-13 and R-movies.
These didn’t warrant God’s attention, or so I thought.
But God’s standard was far higher than I had imagined, and
soon I sensed that I was paying some prices in my spiritual life over
these things, including a distance from God. What is God’s standard?
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality.Ephesians 5:3
A hint? Not even a hint? As a new Christian, I wasn’t sure what that meant.
Neither did anyone else, it seemed. Christian brothers responded to my
questions, “You can’t control your eyes! Don’t worry about this. God
understands!” Or, “You can’t control what you think about! Who knows
where thoughts come from?”
No one seemed concerned, so I just pushed more heavily into
church activities, hoping to eliminate that distance from God. I
chaired the Young Couples Activities Committee, and soon earned a
reputation as an effective Sunday school teacher. I seemed the model
Christian.
But I knew the truth. I was paying prices, and the bills were piling up. Do you recognize any of the following in your life?
I was paying a price with my God. I couldn’t look Him in the eye
anymore because I had already prayed nine hundred times about my sexual
sin and had still done nothing. Every Sunday in the sanctuary I saw men
in true worship, but knew I wasn’t making similar connection with Him.
I was paying a price with Brenda. I couldn’t give myself fully
to her, suspecting that one day she’d discover my sin and loathe me for
it. It was too risky to give her my whole heart. And then there were
Brenda’s dreams. More than once she rushed downstairs with tears and
terror on her face while I was in the very act of viewing lingerie ads.
“I just had a horrible dream. Satan was chasing me, and I was racing
desperately to find you so you could protect me. I called and called,
but no matter where I ran, I couldn’t find you.” Torn, I wondered, “Has
my sin crushed my spiritual protection over her?”
And what about my precious son? Might this be a generational
sin? I was tortured, crying deep inside, “Will I pass this on to my
son? Is there no way to be free from this?”
At work, if I lost a couple deals in a row, I’d wonder if God taken off
His hand of blessing from my life. At church, I never arrived prepared
to minister to others. Every Sunday morning I would arrive at church
needing prayer and forgiveness over what I’d just done with the
newspaper.
I had no peace. I was paying prices in every area of my life, but the worst was that distance from God. I hated it.
Two Bible verses chased me. The first one echoed daily:
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but do not do what I say?”
Luke 6:46
Jesus had a point. Was He my Lord, or wasn’t He?
The second made my head spin:
“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.” Job 31:1
A covenant with the eyes? How can eyes keep a promise? While I didn’t
understand, one thing was certain--I had clearly fallen short.
Meditating upon this verse again and again, I was convinced that Job
could help me.
Then one day I was driving down Merle Hay Road in Des Moines
having just failed God for the millionth time. Tormented by grinding
guilt, I’d finally had enough. Slamming my fists into the steering
wheel, I shouted, “I don’t care what it is going to take or what it
will cost, I am going to make a covenant with my eyes. It stops here.”
I had engaged the battle. Perhaps you need to engage the battle.
You are robbing your wife. You are robbing your God. How long must they
wait? Isn’t it time?
You need a covenant with your eyes. God made men differently from
women. We actually draw true sexual gratification through our eyes.
While our wives are supposed to be our sole vessel of sexual
gratification on the earth, most men are drawing a good bit of their
sexual gratification from the environment surrounding them through
their eyes. Consider my story.
As part of the covenant, I set a blockade around my eyes concerning
joggers, billboards, movies, lingerie ads and the rest. About three
weeks into the process, my desire for Brenda leaped off any known
scale. Since only she could pass the blockade, she looked mighty fine.
She noticed the jump in my desire, but passed it off as a temporary
little jag, saying to herself, “I’m sure this will be over soon! Men
are so weird!”
But before long she began to worry, asking herself, “What if this is
permanent?” Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore, turning to me and
leveling the question, “What am I doing to make myself so attractive so
I can stop it?”
It was clear what had happened. Evidently, far more of my sexual needs
were being filled through my eyes than I had imagined. I’d been blind
to it, but having blocked these outside channels, my full sexual desire
was now aimed solely at her.
You, too, are likely drawing some sexual gratification from
outside your home. To be sexually pure, you must train your eyes to
“bounce” away from sights of pretty women and similar sensual images.
“Bouncing the eyes” is the foundation of Job’s covenant with the eyes.
By nature, of course, your eyes bounce toward the sexual. Until now,
you’ve always looked to your heart’s content. You must build a reflex
action by training your eyes to bounce away from the sexual
immediately, like the jerk of a hand from a hot stove. When your eyes
bounce toward a woman, they must bounce away immediately.
How do we train the new reflex? This habit of your eyes is no
different from any other habit. Experts say that anything done
consistently for twenty-one days becomes a new habit. I’ve found that
with strong conscious effort over a six-week period, your eyes will
learn to consistently bounce away from the sensual.
I’ve been overwhelmed by e-mails from men who are now free
from sexual sin after years of struggle. My book Every Man’s Battle was
written to provide a detailed, step-by-step plan for building this
covenant with the eyes. In this process, you must define your greatest
enemies to your sexual purity, the most obvious and prolific sources
for sexual gratification outside of your wife. Where are you weakest?
Where do you look most often? For me, I had no trouble coming up with
my Top Six:
1. Female joggers in tight nylon shorts
2. Lingerie advertisements
3. Billboards of scantily clad women
4. Beer-and-bikini commercials
5. Movies rated PG-13 or higher
6. Receptionists with low-cut or tight blouses
You’ll then need to define a defense for each one. In Every Man’s
Battle I share the details of my defenses and the obstacles to victory.
Your mind and eyes will initially resist this discipline, and will
fight the blockade. My own experiences will teach you what to expect.
But in the last analysis, the key to sexual purity lies not in your
eyes, but in your heart. Are you committed to God’s standard? In
Ephesians 5:3, God said we must not have even a hint of sexual
immorality in our lives. We struggle with this standard. God cannot
possibly mean this as it is written!
Knowing we’d argue, He followed verse three with these verses so we wouldn’t be fooled by our own empty logic:
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things,
God’s wrath comes upon those who are disobedient. Therefore, do not be
partners with them. Ephesians 5:6-7
Jesus hung on the cross that you might be free. He was beaten into
hamburger. Doesn’t He have the right to set the terms for your
sexuality? Shouldn’t He expect you to follow? Why do you call Him
‘Lord, Lord,” and do not do what He says?
Read Part
Two.
Fred Stoeker, co-author of Every Man's Battle
(WaterBrook Press), regularly writes and speaks to men about sexual
purity. He works with "restoration teams" that help restore pastors to
ministry after adultery.
Spread
the Word!
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