Catchy title, eh? I figured it would raise curiosity because…well…sex sells. However, this blog post is about more than it appears.

What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “lust”? A lot of us instinctively think about it in a sexual sense. I know that was normal for me. As weird as it may sound, the last few months God has been having me rethink the word and what it actually means. He’s been showing me different meanings and usages and how lust applies to other things. God usually shows me a bigger picture on something and I like to build a new foundation of how I think about this thing. A revelation. That’s not to say the word “lust” can’t be applied to sexual desire because it most certainly can. However, as God has shown me even the meaning of lust has become perverted. There’s another word He’s been having me learn new stuff about….”perversion”. For a Christian, the words lust and pervert can cause some uneasiness. For those of us who have struggled with sexual desire, maybe it’s a trigger. Maybe some of us just aren’t comfortable with God’s righteousness in us (or even our own righteousness) being associated with two words that evoke the message of sin. After all, only sinning perverts full of lust sit around and watch dirty movies and have questionable motives and tell naughty jokes, right? While that could be an “absolutely yes” it could also be answered with a “not so fast”.

Lust and perversion belong to so much more than sex. In this revelation God has shown me that the enemy wants us to believe that only sexual gratification has been perverted and we are not to bother ourselves with the endless list of other things whose outcome is not their created intention. That’s the enemies plan. God’s plan is that we would know the truth so that we can actively pray in to existence His will for our world. Think about other things that God created but that have been perverted by Satan so that what the world sees doesn’t even remotely look like what God made. Yes, sex is one of those things but it’s not the only one. Another one that God showed me was peace. Our society is craving peace in world where wars, terrorism, and politics seem to be the guiding force of the direction our world is headed.  Peace would seem like a good thing, right? However, when we try to obtain something that was created by God and a part of God WITHOUT God, then we have perverted it’s intention and turned it in to something else. You can’t have peace without the Prince of Peace. Our world wants everything good but also wants to leave out the One who created it and called it good to begin with. That is the principle of perversion.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan approached Eve and asked her about the forbidden tree and it’s fruit. He probably already knew what it was and why it was there and what would happen but he pretended like he didn’t. Then, he continued to trick Eve by making her think that what she said that God told her, wasn’t what God really meant. In other words, Satan presented a version of God to Eve that was not the character of the actual, real God. Satan convinced Eve that what God had told her was not really what God meant. What she heard was not the way that God meant it so she could just do whatever she wanted to do. He went a step further with his deceit and changed his tune to “God just told you that so that to keep you from being better and having fun and being like God. God is tricking you so you should do what you want to do.” Pick a lane, snake. Is it not what God meant or is God tricking Eve? You can’t have it both ways. How many times do we let the enemy of our souls trick us with the same reasoning he did Eve? Satan ALWAYS perverts what God intended. How else do you think he convinced one-third of the angels in heaven to trade for hell? He perverted the character of God and what He intended and who He is.

Remember, kids. Satan tempts us by making (perverting) things to “seem” good so that our desire shifts from  obedience to lust. As a Christian, lust and perversion should be something we need to be aware of. We just need to make sure we aren’t so focused on one thing that we allow it in other areas of our lives.