The mind a beautiful, complex and mysterious animal. I was talking with a friend recently, and we chatted about how we occasionally obsess about things. Some people obsess about money, as the guy in the photo here may be doing.
Most men obsess about sex. If he’s honest, every man knows what triggers his temptation to sin sexually. As one author has said, "This is every man’s battle." Men know what pushes their buttons. Sure they do. The internet, certain stores, going back to their office at night, watching certain cable channels, particular magazines, often places they drive by, music they listen to.
Sadly, too many people know what it means to obsess about alcohol and drugs. Of course, those folks know what triggers their behavior, too.
Would you say, normally speaking, that actions follow the mind? Me, too. That’s how God has wired humans.
"So what’s the first line of defense against obsessing?" I asked my friend this very question, thinking he would speak about the absolute need to hold ourselves accountable to other men. I thought, he’s going to say that as soon as we begin to obsess we need to call someone. Accountability surely must be the key.
"Reading the Word every day," he answered without hesitation. "When I read the Word every day I have a much better chance of having pure thoughts and not having compulsive thoughts."
"What about accountability partners?" I asked.
"They are very, very important — even essential," he said. "I would never try to do my life without being accountable to another man. But they are not the first line of defense. You have to stay in the Word of God, if you’re going to have a prayer of a chance to stay pure. You have to read and meditate on the Word of God, or your thought life will never be even close to what you want it to be."
So here’s the deal, men. We need to be accountable to others brothers, certainly. And frankly, some guys never have allowed another man to look into their life. That’s why so many men, yes even Christian brothers, lead lives of quiet desperation. They may want to tell the truth to another man, but they just never have. And so they just stuff it year after lonely year. Many act out by viewing pornograhpy, getting drunk or smoking dope. Ain’t a very pretty picture, is it?
But is my friend right? What do you think?
In my opinion, he’s absolutely right. He nailed it. If we aren’t getting into the Word and allowing the Spirit of God read our mail [read … heart] first, will we we ever be pure-hearted? Will we ever rise above our sin and walk in victory?
Here’s something we must always take to the Word with us. We must always approach Bible reading fully confessing first and foremost that the heart is evil above all things. We come to the Word with a soiled heart. How evil is it? It’s more evil than any of us could even begin to imagine. It’s evil, utterly evil, desperately evil.
That’s why a brother can lead a great ministry time, get words of knowledge, see someone healed and then go out and rent a pornographic movie. That’s sick, you say. Of course it is. It’s just as the Apostle Paul once said, "Oh wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death."
I’ll put as simply as I can. We must pray repeatedly, "Oh God of hope. Help we hapless, undisciplined creatures, giving us a desire to be men of the Word." If we don’t pray this men, we’ll die. And God desperately needs men who are alive, not dead.
Fight to find time in the Word, men. Fight.
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