Why is lust such a deadly sin? Well, in addition to the completely Spirit-destroying impact it has upon our souls, I think it is a sin because it defiles the highest and holiest relationship God gives us in mortality—the love that a man and a woman have for each other and the desire that couple has to bring children into a family intended to be forever.
Someone said once that true love must include the idea of permanence. True love endures. But lust changes as quickly as it can turn a pornographic page or glance at yet another potential object for gratification walking by, male or female.
True love we are absolutely giddy about—as I am about Sister Holland; we shout it from the housetops. But lust is characterized by shame and stealth and is almost pathologically clandestine—the later and darker the hour the better, with a double-bolted door just in case.
Love makes us instinctively reach out to God and other people. Lust, on the other hand, is anything but godly and celebrates self-indulgence.
Love comes with open hands and open heart; lust comes with only an open appetite.
He then said that "These are just some of the reasons that prostituting the true meaning of love—either with imagination or another person—is so destructive." I'm sure there are others, but these will suffice. Just about everything that is good about love is twisted and subverted in lust.
I think that's a large part of the reason so many Christians are so strongly against homosexuality. They focus on the "sexuality" part and assume that those feelings of attraction are mostly motivated by lust rather than genuine love. Yet, I know a homosexual person who is one of the most genuinely loving people I know, and we all know that heterosexuals can be terribly susceptible to the vice of lust. As far as I can tell, gay people are no more lustful, on average, than the general population. Lots of people are guilty of the sin of lust, not just gay people, and I haven't seen any solid evidence that gay men are more lust-driven than any other men.
No matter who we are or to whom we're attracted, we all need to be careful to ensure that our desire to be around people and spend time with them is motivated by genuine love, not some twisted counterfeit. Those who don't feel sexual attraction may think that they're safe from experiencing counterfeit love, but they're not. Love has many counterfeits. Though lust is likely the most egregious of love's counterfeits, it's not the only one. When we think we love someone, we need to consider whether we truly love them as human beings or whether we merely like them, or whether we're just hoping to get something out of them.
People can "love" other people in many different, bad ways and for many different, bad reasons. If we want strong, positive relationships, we need to make sure that we love others in the right ways and for the right reasons.
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