The dangers of lust
The Psalmist realized the dangers of lust when he wrote:
(Prov 6:25-29 NIV) Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, {26} for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life. {27} Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? {28} Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? {29} So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.
Begins with the eyes
(2 Sam 11:2-4 NIV) One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, {3} and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” {4} Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home.
Lust always begins with the eyes. That is why Jesus taught a hyperbole that if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. What Jesus wants to emphasize is that the sin of adultery is so serious that it warrants drastic steps to prevent one from falling into sin.
(Mat 5:28-29 NIV) But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. {29} If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Pray to God for protection against lust
(Psa 141:1-4 NIV) A psalm of David. O LORD, I call to you; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you. {2} May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. {3} Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips. {4} Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies.
We need to ask God to take captive of our thoughts
(2 Cor 10:5 NIV) We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Once something gets through our eyes and we lust for it, it lingers in our thought. We need to ask God to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. We should never allow lustful thoughts to remain in our minds.