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Jesus said even if we lust after someone else we are commiting adultery in our hearts.  With all (most) of the media today trying to slam "sex" down our throats, do you think any married couple has a realistic chance(given our sinful nature) of avoiding adultery?

I assume you refer to Christian married couples.

If so, they are empowered by God the Holy Spirit to live a life of obedience to the vow of marriage made before God, 'till death parts them.

Adultery, as all other sins, are committed by people who desire to please the flesh rather than honoring the Lord.

One must comit himself to being faithfull to whom he has been espoused, physical to his wife, and spiritually to Christ. (Jas 1:13)

However everyone is tempted by his own evil desire, note;

Jas 1
14  But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

It bengings by seeing with the eye; as it is written;

Gen 3
6  ........when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Jesus said;

Mat 5
28  .............whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

He goes on to give the solution to keep those not committed who have not resolved in their hearts to live a life obedient to the leading of the Spirit of Christ, at;

Mk 9
47  ........if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
48  Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
49  For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
50  Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.



It is possible to live a pleasing life unto God, note;

Jas 4
7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8  Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.

[To the dpuble minded the Word syas;]

Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9  Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

In the end even the doubleminded after they have sinned and have been tormented seek relief from the Savior, in this life.

Some never learn this lesson.

So, isn't easier to settle the matter in ones heart and mind to not sin, than to go through the excersice of sinning and then crying and pleading and wondering why God doesn't answer prayers??


Blessings,

Petro




This doesn't mean one will not stumble and be tempted, but we are assured God does not tempt men with evil.

As a very wise friend of mine says,

"It is one thing to have a thought; it is quite another to invite it in and throw it a teaparty."

You may not be able to stop a thought from popping into your head; but you can say to it, "I know what you are and where you're from, and by my faith in Jesus, you have no power over me. Be gone!"

We do not directly and consciously choose our automatic thoughts; don't waste your energy berating yourself for them! But how we handle them, we can choose. We have God; we don't need the empty satisfaction that indulging our thoughts promises. And as that becomes a reality for you, and as you practice evicting those unwanted thoughts, you may very well find that, with God's help, those thoughts lose their power and come to you less and less often.

In His love,

Grace

Amen, Grace,

And welcome to this fiorum.

I am reminded how a friend of mine described the television as an invited guest who came and stayed..

He said; You invited it in one day, and it never left.

Sometimes, you got to put the boot to work.


Blessings,

Petro

Thank-you for the welcome, Petro! :)

It is important to settle the matter in ones heart and mind to not sin. We must recall, though, that none of us really fully do so in this life. We can to the extent that our hearts are converted, but who among us has no unconverted parts in their heart? We all fall short of the glory of God; even the apostle Paul!
Rom. 7:19, 22-23  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.  22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  
I find myself moved by the courage and humility with which this great man shares with us his struggle and weakness.

Jesus began his Sermon on the Mount speaking to the masses, with the beatitudes.
It is when He turns His attention to the scribes and the Pharisees that He speaks of anger and lust. He is speaking to those who have followed the letter of the Commandments and self-righteously consider themselves to have earned their spot in in the Kingdom. He is telling them, "hey, you don't get it, do you? You believe that you have "made it", but don't you see that when you ogle women who are not your wife, you are breaking the spirit of the law? Don't you be smug, complacent and self-righteous; you still have plenty to work on, and a long way to go!"
Were there none among the masses whom he first addressed with the beatitudes who had ever looked at another besides their own husband or wife? Given that it was the elite who had the luxury of studying Torah instead of toiling in the fields all day, many of them likely had far worse moral track records than the scribes and Pharisees. Yet He said to them, "Blessed are the poor in spirit..."

We need to ask ourselves, "What does this mean?"

-Grace

No.  It can not be avoided.  I believe if someone says otherwise then they don't know their own heart (in other words, they are self righteous = idolatry).

Keeping the LAW is imposissible for mortals.
That is why Jesus is... JESUS!  :)

JudgeNot. It cannot be avoided? I don't understand. Are you saying that Adultery is inevitable due to the media?

An older monk and a younger monk were on a pilgrimage and they came upon a stream or river. At the edge of the water, there was a beautiful, naked, young woman who asked if they could carry her across the water.

To the shock of the younger monk, the older one agreed and had the woman climb up on his shoulders and carried her across the water.

Some time later, the younger monk made a comment to the older monk about how he was scandalized that the older monk would allow a beautiful, naked, young woman to sit on his shoulders...after all he had taken a vow of chastity.

The older monk replied..."Are you still carrying her?..I left her back on the other side of the water when I put her down."

The media helps (or worsens?) - but even without the media we are slaves of sin.  It is not possible for us to keep the Law.  Even before TV, man committed adultery in his heart through fantasizing, etc. (Jesus recognized it in us WAAAAYYYYYY before 'media').  :)

Adultery - in the heart or otherwise, is just one of tha Laws man (and woman) is not capable of being 100% successful in keeping.

Again - that is why Christ took our sins upon Him at Calvary...
(Praise Him!)

While I agree mostly with you on this one Judgenot the comment about us being slaves to sin I feel is incorrect.  Jesus came to break us from the yoke of sin.  We are no longer in bondage to it.  And we have dominion over it.

Although I agree we cannot be 100% free of sin in our hearts and minds we can control it.  And with a strong foundation in Christ and continued growth in our faith then we can overcome our sinful nature.  

We should not dwell on the idea that we cannot be exactly like Christ.  For that can give Satan a foothold and allow the seed of sin to be planted and grown.  Instead center on the Spirit and what He has and can accomplish with out lives.  Never think long on the negative but put your trust in God to guide and direct your heart to the right path.

I just have to say it -

if you are still a SLAVE to sin, then you are not a SLAVE to Christ.

(at least, that's my understanding)

No, that doesn't mean we will never sin again. But continually striving to be like Jesus sure helps.

Gracey  :)

Tog_Nerve, I agree partly.

What I agree with strongly is that we should not be drawn into thinking long on the negative. It is all too easy on one hand for our acknowledgement of our imperfection* to become complacent acceptance, or on the other hand, lead us to discouragement. Jesus' purpose in speaking as He did in Matt. 5 about lust and anger was not to make us all feel like miserable worms, but to jolt out of complacency those who self-righteously thought that they had "made it" by satisfying the letter of the law.

*a side note- as I understand biblical perfection, it refers not to perfect behavior, but to being turned fully toward God. It is to do with the direction you're moving in, not with where you are on the path.

But that we are no longer in bondage to sin? There I must disagree. The evidence in my life is that salvation is a process. I'm so much freer than I once was, but almost completely free of it? Not by any stretch of the imagination! Nowhere even close to 100%, or even 80%!

I think that to think that we can control it or that now that God has intervened on our behalf we can overcome our sinful nature, is erroneous too. It is not like God reached down, fixed us, and now it is up to us to be do-right Christians, by our own efforts, since, after all, God has done His part, right?

No, I believe that the only way that our sinful nature is overcome is by our turning to Him, relying on Him from day to day and from moment to moment. You speak, Tog_Nerve, of our putting our trust in God to guide us and direct us, so I'm guessing that you probably don't disagree. It can be misleading, is all, to put it in terms of our controlling it; that can put us back under the law so easily.

I hope this helps.

In His love,

-Grace