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Sexual Desires

“Why did God give us sexual desire if it's a bad thing? Even if you only lust over your spouse, you would most likely have felt lust for them before you married. After all, lust plays a big part in our choice of marriage partner. So why did God set us up to fail?”

You seem to be confusing lust and sexual desire. God did give us sexual desire and it’s not a bad thing. In fact it’s a good thing. How else would we be attracted to a prospective spouse, and why would we even procreate if there was no “desire”?

So, what then is the difference between sexual attraction and lust? One dictionary says that “lust” is “uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness.” Or to put it another way, lust is pornography of the mind.

How then do we know the difference between "looking" and lusting? The answer is to listen to your God-given conscience. It will tell you . . . if you have a mind to listen. There's nothing wrong with simply seeing someone and having the automatic thought that she's attractive. But that's different from then formulating sexual thoughts about that person to lust for her. In case you're having trouble hearing from your conscience, here's another clue to help you: How would you feel if your spouse were doing that behavior? Would you mind it if she was entertaining lustful thoughts for other men, having sexual fantasies about someone other than you? We often have a hard time seeing wrong behavior in ourselves, but have no trouble seeing it in others.

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The True Sabbath

I've run across a few people in the last few months that practice a true seventh day sabbath. That is, Saturday is and always has been the day that God intended for us to set aside for him. This has caused me to think about the concept and put in a few hours of studying. Here is what I've come up with:


First of all, I could only find one passage in the New Testament that talks about a day that the early church met. Acts 20:7 tells us that they met on the first day of the week. This may very well be a special circumstance or a one time ting, but the fact remains that it is the only New Testament example I have to go off of.


To the best of my knowledge, the New Testament never commands us to obey the Sabbath. In fact Colossians 2:16-17 seems to teach us that we are NOT bound by the Sabbath anymore. The Sabbath was "a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." That is to say that now that Christ (the Substance,) is here, the Sabbath (the shadow) is no longer needed.

Furthermore, I could find nowhere in the Old Testament where God commands the Gentile nations to observe the Sabbath. If it were meant to be observed until the end of time, it seems that God would institute it from the get go.

The part that troubles me most is that we do not, in fact, set aside the true sabbath as the Lords day. The 9th Commandment clearly tells us to do so, but we do not. I do buy into the common belief among evangelical Christianity that we are no longer bound by the sabbath, but I'm not sure that my argument, (or the arguments that I've studied,) is a convincing one. I'm interested in my readers thoughts.