Jesus' Teachings on Adultery and Lust: A Call to Whole-Hearted Living, Study notes of Religious Studies

Download Jesus' Teachings on Adultery and Lust: A Call to Whole-Hearted Living and more Study notes Religious Studies in PDF only on Docsity! The Way of Jesus: Desire and Lust Jesus continues to illustrate the kind of whole-hearted living that is truly flourishing – the kind of life where what is going on outside is also true of what is going on inside. This time he addresses adultery and lust. God commanded his people not to commit adultery because their relationships were meant to tell the truth of what God is like and what God has done. God created us, male and female, in his image and gave us the covenant of marriage to be a picture of God’s enduring love for humanity. The entire Bible is a love story – the love story of God, a pure, faithful bridegroom who pursues with endless love his unfaithful bride (Israel and now the Church). The reason why God commanded us to not commit adultery is because our marriages are meant to display God’s faithful love for us. Likely, many who were listening to Jesus were saying to themselves, “I’ve not committed adultery – I’ve not cheated on my spouse.” To which Jesus says, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus goes straight to the heart where the seeds of adultery begin. He knows that we all have good God-given desires that when wrongly motivated or directed become destructive. Lust happens when a good, God-given desire (like sexual intimacy) is sought to be satisfied in a non-God-given way (sex outside of the covenant of marriage between a man and woman). And the seeds of lust are discontentment. Whenever we are not content with God’s present provision or God’s way to rightly satisfy a desire, we experience covetous thoughts. We want what doesn’t belong to us. We do this with things, opportunities, experiences and relationships. And when we do, we learn to use and abuse people for our own selfish desires instead of loving and serving people like God in Jesus Christ has loved and served us. The key to killing lust is learning to be content with what we have. And the key to contentment is thanksgiving. When we give thanks for what God has done and how God has provided, we learn to be content in every circumstance. When we forget what God has done and fail to thank him for what we have, we become consumed with what is wrong and what is missing. God wants us to remember and give thanks