When God's Word is hidden in your heart, the likelihood of you sinning decreases dramatically. Proverbs 23:7 tells us that a person is, becomes, and does that which he or she is thinking or meditating in his or her heart. If your heart is full of God's Word that cautions you against sexual sin, it's going to be very tough for you to sin in that area. And if you do sin in that area, it's going to be tough for you not to feel bothered by it.

As we saw in Psalm 119:9, a person can keep stay pure only by obeying the word and following it. Of course, before you can obey the word, you have to hear it (James 1:22). This leads to the issue of what you're seeing with your eyes and hearing with your ears.

These two gateways to the heart make all the difference in the world to your success or failure in the area of avoiding sexual sin. The person who devotes time to feeding on licentious and prurient sights and sounds (talk) is sure to have a licentious and prurient heart. The result is likely to be a life of sexual sin. Even if the person wants to stop, their heart will not let them because sown seeds must be harvested (Galatians 6:9). Until new seeds are sown, the harvest will be the same sexual perversion it's always been.

I have found two scriptures in particular to be of great benefit regarding keeping the sights I take in to be holy and not lustful. The first is Job 31:1 (AMP):

I dictated a covenant (an agreement) to my eyes; how then could I look [lustfully] upon a girl?

Short, powerful, and to the point. Job says, "Hey! Eyes, you're not going to sin! Whether you like it or not, I've become a dictator over you and entered you into an agreement with my heart that says we're not going to look at women lustfully."

In this case - through his spirit man - Job has overridden his flesh and its desires to partake of sinful pleasures. In his heart, he's determined that he's not going to sin. In other translations Job says that he's not going to "undress a girl with his eyes" or "stare at a young woman with desire."

How can Job do this?

The answer is found in the second scripture beneficial to keeping your heart pure via the eyegate, Matthew 5:27-28:

"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

For years I heard these verses and thought, "Man, how do I know if I'm lusting when I look at a woman? How can I differentiate between a normal look and a lustful look?" I got my answer one day when verse 28 was opened up to me. The Lord said that if I look at a woman with the sole purpose to lust for her, then I've committed adultery in my heart. This explanation helped me out tremendously and gave me a standard to go by. I was able to tell very quickly whether or not I was taking a second look just to check a woman out or whether I was looking just to lust. Obviously, if I was purchasing material just to lust, then I knew what my motive was.

Practicing these two practical, yet anointed scriptures will help you keep your heart clean as far as your eyegate is concerned.

Since men are usually visually stimulated, dealing with the eyegate is the primary way to avoid sexual sin. However, the eargate must be dealt with also, particularly for women. Mark 4:24 (AMP) reads:

Just as faith comes by hearing the Word of God, lust and perversion come by hearing the words of perverted sex talk. These words are usually heard through songs, jokes, movies, and television shows that make light of sexual sin and endorse it - as long as you don't get caught or get an STD. It behooves Christians to separate themselves from all contaminating influence to guard their ears.

When you hear words, your brain develops a picture of those words and deposits them into your heart. Sooner or later, you're going to see the manifestation of those words in your life - for out of the heart flow the issues or forces of life. Though the joke or song seemed harmless at the time, it was actually producing a picture of lust within you.

After the thought is matured, then an action will follow. Following the action is death (James 1:14-15)

Women: Beware of smooth-talking men who will say the right things to charm you. Their words just could be words of death. Guard your heart!

Men: Beware women whose lips (words) drip honey as a honeycomb and are smoother than oil. In the end, she is bitter as poison and will destroy you. Guard your heart!

Disciplined eyes and ears are crucial to you guarding your heart. And protecting your heart from contaminating influences is a must if you're going to successfully avoid sexual sin.

Continue To Part III