More Than A Body.

I read on notproud.com, an online confession site, about an atheist who was confessing his anger. The root of his anger, he claimed, was Christianity with its “stupid” teachings. What particularly irked this person was Jesus’ teaching on lust, or more specifically adultery. “If anyone has looked at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Being ignorant of how human beings function, the confessor described such a statement as being, among other things, “Unhuman.”

My first thought was, how can someone who sounds so dumb get it so right? Not looking at women with lust, and seeing them instead as human beings with value and worth far beyond their exterior is indeed “Unhuman.” In fact it’s supernatural. It is a supernatural gift, from God, given to those who believe in Jesus as trust Him for their daily walk. Based on simple observation of the men in our society, it’s easy to see that WITHOUT the Holy Spirit to guide them, many if not most men see women, real or fantasised as little more than a repository for their ejaculation. That is what’s considered normal by the writer of this post. And it’s not just him. In our society pornography is “normal” and accepted. Look at any magazine rack as you’re waiting in line at the grocery store and you’ll see that because sex has been removed from the context of a faithful relationship, all that is left for people to focus on is technique.

For men, fantasy relationships are often preferred over real ones. As C. S. Lewis said, “When these men say that they “want” a woman, a woman is exactly what they don’t want.” They are completely unable to relate to women in a real manner. A fantasy is as much as they can emotionally handle. What’s worse is that many women are willing to debase themselves in all manner of ways, simply in a desperate attempt to gain attention from men. And that too is NORMAL human behaviour because left to our original state, we use others and allow others to use us. We demean and destroy the true character and worth of other human beings, particularly women, for no other reason than to feed our lust.

Yes, this person was right-on about the teachings of Jesus coming from another dimension, a dimension of love, caring and respect - a dimension where those who are created in the very image of God are deemed to be worth more, far more than their external appeal.