Protecting Your Marriage: Part 2 - by Kerry Shook

Liberating Truths About the Ten Commandments

Yesterday, we looked at the first three ways to overcome the lure of lust and protect your marriage. Here are three more:

4. Guard your mind against the progression of lust.

What is the progression of lust? It begins with someone getting our attention. That can lead to attraction and, if left unchecked, may result in addiction. The act of adultery usually begins with an emotional affair. We allow someone to get closer to us than our spouse. If you share your deepest emotions with the opposite sex other than your marriage partner, your marriage is on dangerous grounds. If you are being lured into an emotional affair, you need to get out NOW! Cold turkey! Leave! In fact, the biblical command is to run. “Flee immorality!” 1 Cor. 6:18 The Bible offers three ways to protect yourself from the progression of lust:

• Guard your eyes

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust upon a young woman.” Job 31:1

• Guard your heart

“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Prov. 4:23

• Guard your mind

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

5. Starve lust and feed love. Keep the home fires burning.

Focus on meeting each other’s needs. That begins by understanding what their needs are. Too often, we try to meet the needs of our spouses that are really just our own needs. What is the need of your spouse? 1 Corinthians 7:3, 4 says, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but to his wife.”

6. Build in accountability and avoid complacency.

Because we are all broken and live in a sinful and broken world, lust is every man’s battle. It’s so easy to point a finger at someone who has failed and forget that it could have so easily been us. In 1 Corinthians 10:12, the Apostle Paul said, “If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.” That’s why accountability is so important. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “One standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer; three is even better, for a triple braided cord is not easily broken.” That three-fold cord weaves God in the relationship between a husband and a wife and will affair-proof your marriage, enabling you to experience a love that lasts a lifetime!