“Many Christians come to Christ out of their search for something missing, yet after receiving His salvation, they go elsewhere for further satisfaction.” Beth Moore
I became a Christian on June 25th, 2005. I was a young, twelve year old girl with a lot of pain already in her heart, and when I heard about a God who actually loved me enough to die for me, I thought He was the puzzle piece to fill the hole of dissatisfaction and pain in my life.
He is that puzzle piece, but I didn’t experience full satisfaction in Christ until I had already been a Christian for nine years. I was the epitome of the quote above: I had salvation in Him, I even had a relationship in him, yet I found my satisfaction in idols that never kept me satisfied. In 2014, God finally convinced me to go on a journey with him to overcome my idols, and one of my biggest idols was lust.
What even is idolatry?
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest fare.” Isaiah 55:1-2
We were all designed to have a full abundant life of satisfaction with the Lord. This verse above fully illustrates that. God is supposed to be the ‘richest fare’ that delights our souls. David was someone in the Bible who clearly had found his satisfaction in God: “My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you like in a dry and weary land, because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you (Psalm 63).”
Yet although we are meant to have total satisfaction in the Lord, it is a rarity in this world. How often do we see young men and women who unconsciously believe that they will never be satisfied until they fin ‘the one’ or are married? How common is it to see the Christian family that wants the bigger house, the nicer furniture to feel complete? How often do we see men and women who work until they have nothing left because they believe once they make more money, or get that promotion, they will be satisfied? How often are we those people? Our actions often reflect this verse, spending our time, energy, and money on what doesn't satisfy.
Often, our idol of lust isn’t necessarily the pleasure that comes with lust, but what we are trying to satisfy with lust. One of God’s ordained desires in a woman’s heart is relational intimacy. We were meant to feel loved, pursued, and special. These were put in our hearts so that God could be the fulfiller of these promises, yet lust can become an ugly idol that we try to use to meet these needs. The Dopamine and Oxytocin released in women’s brains during orgasm create feelings of love and bonding. For a woman who doesn’t truly feel loved and known by Christ, lust can easily creep in and try to fill His place. This is just one example of how dissatisfaction can lead to an idol of lust.
This dissatisfaction we have with ourselves, with our lives, with our relationships, with our God--they lead us to choose lust over God, forsaking his design for marital love. Yet, seconds after gorging ourselves on sexual sin, we experience the deep dark pit of dissatisfaction.
Ever Diminishing Pleasure
One of my favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis describes how Satan uses the promise of satisfaction to draw us to lust, yet never makes good on that promise. In it a veteran tempter explains the corruptibility of pleasure to a young demon:
“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are in a sense on the Enemy’s [God’s] ground…It is His invention, not ours…all we can do is encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy [God] has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees which he has forbidden. Therefore, we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. To get the man’s soul, and give him nothing in return.” –C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Letter XV
C.S. Lewis is saying that Satan cannot create the pleasures of this world, only God can. Therefore, God created sexual pleasure, and it is a pleasure we we’re all created to long for because it was made by God to be enjoyed in his design. But, Satan twists this by creating lust, and lust, pornography and masturbation are all sins that in the end bring the least pleasure in return. Compare the pleasure that comes with being truly known, loved and satisfied by God to lust. Lust, masturbation, pornography, and sexual acts outside of marriage—the pleasure of these fall comically short of the fulfilling pleasure our souls were created for. We seek out lust for satisfaction and pleasure, yet are slapped in the face by the fact that every time we return to those sins they decrease more and more in pleasure.
Lies and Truth
“He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; He cannot save himself, or say, ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”-- Isaiah 44: 20
A whole new pouring of conviction washes over me just now as I re-read the verse above. When we indulge in lust and pornography, we are feeding on ashes. We have the grace of being right with God, the opportunity of satisfying every desire in our hearts by having a relationship with Him, yet we continue to feed on ashes, and our deluded hearts mislead us to believe that pornography, masturbation, and pre-marital sexual acts are just a step down from the real satisfaction.
Brothers and sisters in Christ—can we have the courage to look down at our right hand, which is grasping lust with a white knuckle grip, and admit that it’s a lie?
Because God knows our idolatry, our offenses more than even we do. He knows our deep pits of shame we fling ourselves into, our red marks on our calendars for all the days we’ve messed up, our most ungodly, twisted thoughts, our continual choice of our flesh over him, and yet, he writes this in the next verse:
“I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”—Isaiah 44:21-22
Today, take the courageous step to admit that the thing in your right hand, the lust, the idolatry, the sexual sin—is a lie. It will never bring you the satisfaction you desire. True satisfaction can only be found in an intimate, loving, close, growing, relationship with Jesus Christ, who saw your sins at their fullest and then said “Return to me, for I have redeemed you.” Step away from the idol, and cling to the One who will never leave you unsatisfied.
