Purify Your Mind Series (Part 1) by Joe KirbyNäide

Abundantly Adulterous Eyes

I wonder—what goes through your mind when someone attractive walks past you? Where do your eyes move to? Are you disciplined in that moment, or do you lack self-control?

In Second Peter, the apostle describes false teachers who, like Olympic athletes, have trained themselves to scan every woman who walks by and engage in lustful fantasy. Their eyes are “full of adultery” (the literal meaning is “beyond quantity”); in other words, all these men see is sex. It’s what they think about while eating and working; it’s their first thought in the morning and their last at night. They are greedy individuals in general, but their greatest greed isn’t for money or possessions, but for someone else’s wife.

The reality is, every day something tempting catches our eyes, whether it’s on our smartphone, in the street, or even at church! But do you look away? These false teachers didn’t. They may have claimed they were unable to stop, but they festered on what they saw and invited it into their imagination. However, the true believer should learn to obey the voice of the Holy Spirit. If the eyes and heart can be trained to be instruments of lust, can we not reverse that and train them to be instruments of righteousness?