The best way to “flee” is “to be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (Ephesians 4:23). 28 Think new thoughts. Train your heart to hate evil and to love good.29 Jesus reveals that immorality starts in the heart when wrong desires or “lusts” grow there.30
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell (Matthew 5:28-29).
See how seriously the Lord treats lustful looking. Cut your eye out! Of course, removing a bodily organ does not remove sin (since sin is in the heart). But Jesus draws for us a dramatic picture, a message that surely shouts, “Do all it takes to fight temptation!” The evil forces warring against you are powerful, clever and deceptive.31 The temptations and pressures are enormous.32 A half-hearted defense can never hold back such determined attacks. Resolve to fight sin with all your heart and strength. Are you determined enough to ‘gouge out your eye’ (if that would actually solve the sin problem)? Then certainly you should tear up that book or magazine that can twist your mind. Turn off that sensual television program! 33 Leave that tempting person or situation! Just as seriously, avoid being the temptation.
…but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” (Matthew 18:6-7).
Among other things, this means dressing modestly, not in ways that stir up sensual feelings in others. It means being careful about how your touch and your words affect others. It means care about where you go and with whom. Set rules for yourself before passions overtake your relationship. Avoid even a suggestion of sexual sins.
But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints…. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret (Ephesians 5:3,11-12).
If the mere mention is “shameful,” how much more shameful it is intentionally to watch immorality (for example, at the movies)! Doctors tell us, “You are what you eat.” You use healthy food to grow a healthy body. Likewise, you are what you think about.34 And you think about things you choose to keep seeing and hearing.35 If you take in filth, your mind and your life will become filthy. You would not want to eat rotting garbage found in dark alleys. So why go to worldly sources to feed your mind on their garbage?
If Jesus were personally present, what would you read, watch and participate in? In fact, Jesus is present! 36 He promises disciples of every age, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). So train your mind to be conscious of His presence. Do what you know He approves. Avoid things that make you feel shame or discomfort when you remember He is right there with you, seeing all that you see and do and think.37
28. cf. Colossians 3:1-2; Romans 12:2; Proverbs 4:23
29. Romans 12:9; Philippians 4:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22; Hebrews 1:9
30. Matthew 15:18-19; Mark 7:21-23; Colossians 3:5; James 1:14-15
32. Matthew 10:22; 24:9-12; John 15:18-19; 1 Peter 1:6-7; 4:12; Revelation 11:7
33. Job said, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” Job 31:1. Compare false Christians, 2 Peter 2:14.
34. Proverbs 23:7; 27:19 cf. Proverbs 4:23; Colossians 3:1-2; Philippians 4:8; Titus 1:15
35. Eyes: Matthew 6:22-23; 2 Peter 2:14; 1 John 2:16. Ears: Luke 8:8,11-18; Acts 7:51,57; 2 Timothy 4:3-4
36. Psalm 139:1-16; Acts 17:27-28
37. Proverbs 5:21; 15:3; Jeremiah 16:17; 32:19; Hosea 7:2; Hebrews 4:13
Picture: A millstone at Bethany, Israel.