Purity in the Mind of Christ

How did Jesus Christ respond to lust and temptations against His purity? Hebrews 4:15 tells us that He was tempted like we are, yet without sin. Did this include lust? Probably in some way, yet He never entered into sin. Think about it this way: He endured lust so that our lust could be crucified with Him on the Cross.

Is this too bold a statement? I think not. The thing that must be remembered is that His abject, sheer, unbridled object, love, and joy was His Father's glory. The glory that was also His before the world began (John 17:5). We behold this glory in Christ's face, and are changed into the same image (2 Corinthians 3). How does this connect? Jesus Christ's mind, affection, and will was set on His Father's glory. This is how He was pure: His mind was focused on God. He didn't choose to just resist temptation, He resisted temptation because He though more of His Father. Our mind, affection, and will must be likewise. But why list it in that order?

Dr. Lamansky has been giving lectures on Hamartiology (study of sin) in Systematic Theology 3 for the last several weeks. This last lecture on Monday was really great: our mind is the guardian of our affections. If you're like me, you've heard it for years at the mostly erroneous Basic Seminar. Where the mind goes, the affections will follow. And what your affections are pointed at, that is what you will choose. Thus, the secret to fighting lust, or any other sin, is not to simply "do it." It requires your mind being set on Christ, knowing that your affections will follow (Colossians 3:1-4). Now, this imperative that Paul gives demands a question: what are you thinking about? And then... why aren't you thinking about Christ?

Every man struggles, at varying levels, with lust. It's why Paul said that every man was to have his own wife in 1 Corinthians 7... so that lust wouldn't break out into sin. This may be shocking to women, but it's true. But even more troubling is what Kuiper pointed out: instead of empathizing with others who lust and trying to understand how the deceitfulness of sin works, we self-righteously judge. Years ago I had an epiphany about my relationships with others: every action that a person makes is a reaction to their experiences in life, which often include areas they have been or are deceived in. If someone is consistently angry, it is likely because someone has been angry at them. If someone struggles with lust, it's likely because no one took the time to talk to them or be accountable with them. If someone seems unable to make decisions, it's likely that they've been burned before, or have never been trusted to make decisions. Realizations like these bring compassion.

So what's to be done? First, We must look at ourselves! Allow God to show us who we really are. The hidden sin that is there, under the surface, waiting for the opportunity to strike. After discerning this in ourselves, and realizing that we too are capable of sinning, then we can compassionately help others. An objection might be raised: can we not help others until we have mastered that area in ourselves? No, that's not the point. In recognizing that we have sin, we not only help ourselves by allowing the Spirit to begin His purging work, but we also help others in showing them that 1) we too are imperfect, and 2) we are being changed into His same image, so that 3) they can have an example to change into His image too. This can't be just about telling others how to do right. We must show others how to do right.

It's nothing short of a call to open our hearts, as men, to each other.

Pax.

Purity

For the first time in my life I am realizing why this was the theme of so many of the summer camps I went to. Why I heard so many messages preached from Proverbs 7. Why Dr. Jaspers preached his heart out to us at Leadership Camp on this passage. Why Joshua Harris wrote so many dating books. Why my Pastor Mcqueen screamed at us in Victory Baptist School's chapel "WAIT!"
Never really listened to him, but it was still nice of him to scream at us. It all fits together. I think the older generation misunderstood us though. I seriously think if they would have got down with us and gotten their hands dirty in the explanation instead of dealing with purity in a high philosophical manner so many of us wouldn't have fallen.
I think it would have helped me. Maybe my affections would have been in a better place earlier on in my life. Don't get me wrong I was never a womanizer I am still pure in a physical sense but when I see what sewer my mind has crawled out of its a wonder. We escape out of our little sin taverns and we fall on our faces and ask why didn't you tell us it would hurt so bad?
Our own sin and our own lusts flagellate our spiritual bodies with malice and discontent. Telling us that we should have been more impure or more pure leaving us never satisfied. It wrecks our mind, it ruins our testimony, and leaves us unsatisfied for the pure life. A life of lusts has no taste for a life of resilience and self control. When we are so used to giving in to every temptation that comes upon us it is hard to get used to saying no once let alone for the rest of our lives. A longing for impurity. A mouth thirsty for the unsavory. An unsatisfied boyfriend. A dirty mind. A severe ungratefulness for standards and guidelines that are so good for us. Even when the standards are self imposed we loathe them.
Now we go into another world. The world of someone else's lust problem. Its almost like we have never expected anyone else to go through the same issues we have went through. Like screaming "Wait!" only to realize that we ourselves have done the very action we condone. We sneer and criticize those who are in our own minds corrupt and unfaithful when our minds have trailed there so often. Only by His grace have we not slid further into Sheol. We slander and abuse those who are already hurt being our own imagination. Instead of lifting up we cut string by string at their emotions declaring them wicked.

FAITH: So soon as the man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow, for down he knocked me, and laid me for dead. But when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him wherefore he served me so. He said, because ofmy secret inclining to Adam the First; and with that he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backward; so I lay at his foot as dead as before. So, when I came to myself again, I cried him mercy; but he said, I know not how to show mercy; and with that he knocked me down again. He had doubtless madean end of me, but that one came by, and bid him forbear.

CHR. Who was that that bid him forbear?

FAITH. I did not know him at first, but as he went by, I perceived the holes in his hands and in his side; then I concluded that he was our Lord. So I went up the hill. {178}

CHR. That man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none, neither knoweth he how to show mercy to those that transgress his law.

We have these same same tendencies. To crucify others on our own morality. To punish them
under our own moral law. Not even properly based moral law but upon our own ideals of right and wrong.
We have come upon them as Moses to the unsaved and pummeled them with our words and downcast
glances.As we pummel them they look up in sorrow and ask why and we tell them because they are dirty
sinners and our mouths drop open as the words exit our mouths: "Just like I am."