Men must focus on walking in purity.

“But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire…” Romans 7:8

The battle to live a pure life and not give in to our covetous desires has many casualties of war. Lust is a temptation common to all men, no matter how mature. If you don’t have a plan to fight this evil in your own life then you are either in the darkness or on your way back there. I have been a Christian for nearly two decades, and as a man in my forties, I have seen no sin more cancerous and destructive than lust.

Middle-aged men who are not focused on God can be easily won over by younger females because it makes them feel young and in control. When I was younger I only learned to “deal with” the opposite sex through experience, rather than through godly wisdom. This was challenging especially since I was not secure with who God made me to be as a man. Sadly, I did not have a major father figure growing up to provide me with the kind of role model that I needed. However, I can never let this be an excuse for me to avoid treating women as God commands. I am responsible for my own sin.

By the time I became middle-aged, I had more than a few difficult and even destructive relationships with the opposite sex near my own age. Many lessons were learned that gave me some degree of confidence and even depth of character that comes from the weathering of life. This can sometimes be attractive to a young female who may pass my way and we’ll share in that mutual pull toward lust. A worldly and deceptive air of powerfulness can come over me as the older more “mature” figure. This is a fancy way of saying that I become prideful. If the younger woman shows me some attention, and I am not walking with God, the temptation to lust or flirt can be almost irresistible to my older male ego. As men, we cannot give in to such unspiritual urges.

Make no mistake; as Romans 7:14-20 describes, this is evil and our conscience hates it. “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

Some may give up and ask, “So, sin lives in me, but what is wrong with getting attention from a young woman?” The answer to that is the same as the implication of Proverbs 6:27; “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?” You will get burned by your own sin, first in your heart, and if fully grown, it could lead to worse.

The Christian man can be devoured by lust and easily lose focus on God as well as his own commitment to live pure. I have been there myself. You can lose yourself… even your God-given identity, if you live to please self (Luke 9:23-25). I am not alone in the battle against just living for self. Therefore we can overcome if we look to God and other true disciples of Jesus for guidance in who we need to be in Christ. As men we need to be won over by Jesus, not women in the world. God is to be our rock. Our hearts are to be his.

When I seek the deadly pleasure that comes from looking at a younger attractive woman I am seeking a deceptive feeling. That lustful feeling of being young again is a lie and it won’t last. Only God can make us endure. He alone can be our inspiration for living. Living for a young girl will only turn us into mush. We are to stand in Christ and face him. This is why I believe God says our hearts are to be toward our work and a woman’s longing is to be for her husband. Our work is to follow God and be about his purpose. We must keep that mission and not the worldly mission of a little boys chasing after girls, unless we want to remain little boys.

The compound danger of flirtatious and lustful behavior is that it often leads to sexual immorality and all the regrettable consequences that go along with it: shame, diseases, children out of wedlock, etc. Men who give in to this temptation become slaves to these sins rather than free men in Christ. Romans 6:6-10 calls us to put such sin to death. “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin–because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”

Only men ungrateful for Jesus’ sacrifice pursue the fleeting feelings of youth, behaving as boys in the bodies of men. God brought you to maturity as a man not to relive the past with lust, but to look forward as a mighty man of God: to be an example to those younger men who can look up to us and see a man to imitate in the faith. Let’s hold on to Christ as our true father figure, pressing onward with discipline and purity in our hearts to God.

Marc Hill, 2007

Edited by Joe Chiappetta

Categories: Articles