It seems quite obvious from Ephesians 5 that true beauty in all its fullness has not yet been encountered in this fallen world. We have breathtaking beauty in all its forms, nature and humanity, objects, actions and intentions, yet none of these beauties we encounter are characterised by their final, mature, unspeakably arresting form to be encountered in Christ’s eternal kingdom. As you, as a man, are tempted to lust after female beauty, consider that beauty which God has made, but go beyond that beauty. Refuse to continue to pervert the use of God’s sample beauties and utilise that mad longing for beauty in your heart to hanker after the true beauty of God! In that moment of passion, cry out to God and confess that your heart is completely taken by this beautiful creature He has made—that is idolatry. Call out to God to overwhelm you with a new perception of His true, consuming, arresting, final, limitless beauty. Ask Him to give you an appreciation for the eternal pleasures, the eternal beauties and eternal devouring joy in His presence. Go on to discover something of God’s beauty in His word, as I have been doing in this series of articles.
I must just add this note lest some misunderstand my intention here. I am not saying that the way in which the women of pornography, strip-clubs, orgies, swinging etc are behaving themselves in a beautiful way. I’m saying that they are using the female beauty God has given them in a perverted way. They are using the allurement of the intentions of their mind in a sinful way to captivate men (Proverbs 6:25) who lust after their God-given beauty in a wrong construction. In a pure marriage relationship, it is a most wonderful thing for a man to completely enjoy the physical and mental female beauty of his wife. There is a deep romance that develops over the years that involves a vast field of alluring emotional and mental intercourse, of which sexual intimacy is only a part. I would like to write more on this, but at another time lest I wander from my point here.
The same is true for women who so desire to be nestled under the protection of a man who is a good provider and who will pour out self-sacrificing adoration on her. She desires this security and comfort to such a degree that she will use her feminine beauty and charm in order to gain what she desires. Her heart is not with him personally but with the environment he can provide for her to live in. She will do everything in her power to manage him into the corner where he most conveniently serves her purposes. She will satisfy his desires for intimacy, emotional, mental and sexual so long as it in advantageous to her position. In this way she will drive him to where she wants him. This too is idolatry. It is to look at a sample provider God has made and to so manipulate him that he satisfies your desires (I nearly wrote needs. But you will realise, if you are guilty of such sin, what you are fulfilling is not needs but desires or lusts). God’s design is for you to consider the urgency with which you yearn for the security and comfort for which you drive the man in your life, and realise that that man can’t provide what you so desperately want. Confess that you have placed him in the position of God who does and will completely satisfy the needs of all of His people forever!
Older
Top
