How do I overcome my sexual feelings?

Many times on television and in the movies, we are bombarded by sexual images of people talking about sex, having sex or looking at pornography. Television and movies even portray minors, people who are underage, having sex. Some times even with adults.

The message is that everyone is doing it before they are married. Teenagers are doing it. Watching pornography is a natural part of the process. All these are lies.

Just because the world thinks this way doesn't make it right. In fact, it is wrong in the eyes of God. It is clear from His Word that sex (in all its forms) outside of marriage is wrong. Whether it be adultery (Exodus 20:14) or fornication (sex before marriage) (1 Corinthians 6:18).

Does God do this to take the fun out of our lives? No, He does it to prevent us from having trouble down the road. Sex has consequences. By having sex, one might develop a sexually transmitted disease or AIDS. One might become pregnant. No matter what, though, our lives will change. Even if we are fortunate one time, the odds are against us the more times we have sex.

Let's say, we don't receive a sexually transmitted disease or become pregnant, we have still been changed by the experience emotionally.

Let's try an experiment. We stick a piece of tape to our arm, and then remove the tape. The more we remove the tape, the less sticky it becomes.

This is the same with us. The first time we have sex with someone, we invest ourselves emotionally. We bond with them. The more partners we have, the less of our emotions we invest until we become emotionally numb to the whole process.

Sex inside of the bonds of marriage is an intimate sharing between a husband and wife. It creates a bond between them like no other. It is a safe environment, a safe haven, or at least, it is was designed to be. Even in marriage, we have perverted sex.

Because of this perversion, we have to deal with inappropriate feelings concerning the opposite sex. What do we do with those feelings?

Feelings are not an accurate judge of what is going on in our lives. For example, let's say we feel that our boss hates us because he is always piling work on us and criticizing us. We confront him, and we learn that he is only hard on us because he sees our great potential. Our feelings were not an accurate judge of what was going on. Now were they?

I had a friend who once had feelings for a minor. I told him that not everything we feel is good for us. Just because we feel like drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes doesn't mean those things are good for us.

What do we do to minimize those sexual feelings?

1 . Pray. In what we call the Lord's Prayer, we read, "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil." (Matthew 6:13). In the Jabez prayer, he prayed, "Keep me from evil." (1 Chronicles 4:10). From this, we can surmise that we can pray for God to keep us from evil, to keep us far from temptation. Prayer is our first line of defense against temptation.

Minimize the amount of television and movies we watch that include sex. For years, I watched soap operas. My mother and my great-grandmother had watched them for years before I was even born. For me, I struggled with impure thoughts because of them. God broke that addiction in my life some time ago, and I find it less tedious to control my thoughts since then. If we are putting impure images and words in, then impure thoughts are going to pop up for us in the most inappropriate places, such as in a worship service.

Switch friends. If we are hanging around people who are constantly having pre-marital sex or talking about sex, we need to dump them in lieu of Christian, godly friends. Join a Bible study or an age-appropriate group at our church. These are great places to meet new people who have their minds on God. Make sure they are the type of friends who will be accountability partners when we feel tempted. When we have a problem, we should be able to go to them and talk without feeling judged or criticized.

We need to take control of our thoughts. Every time we receive a thought that is contrary to the Word of God, we need to say, "That thought is just the devil talking." We should keep doing this with every negative thought that we have. Don't act on them. Instead challenge them with the Word of God. Counter every thought with what God says in His Word.

Redirect our focus. Every time we have one of those thoughts or feelings, we must redirect our attention to something more productive such as exercising, weight lifting, swimming, running. We need to do this at least fifteen minutes to divert our focus.

Stay away from any material--magazines, books, videos that involved unclothed people or talk about sex. These are sure ways to plant seeds in our minds. Those seeds will become feelings. Sex, according to the principles set forth by God in His Word, is beautiful thing, but when it is perverted by the world, it becomes a dangerous, even a deadly, thing.

We need to develop self-control and not act on every thought, every feeling, that comes into our lives. To do this, we have to stay away from things that will tempt us into falling into sexual temptation.

We have to do all we know to do, then we need to leave the problem in God's hands and let Him deal with the rest. The writer of Ephesians writes when we have done all we know to do, we need to stand (Ephesians 6:13)..

Stand on the promises of God to heal our spirits, souls, bodies and minds until the healing manifests.

About the Author

Annagail Lynes is the author of the Go To The Secret Place. Meet God. devotional. To learn more about her book and sign up for her free ezine, visit http://www.annagaillynes.net. Samples of ebooks available at http://www.lulu.com/visionhopemag