SCRIPTURE: Job 31
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
For lust is a shameful sin, a crime that should be punished. It is a fire that burns all the way to hell. It would wipe out everything I own. [Job 31:11-12]
In this chapter Job is agreeing with God’s perspective about sin – that it is evil and ought to be punished.
Job’s complaint with God is not that he should be forgiven, or that sin should be overlooked, but that he agrees with God about the seriousness of sin and did everything humanly possible to resist it – and still he suffers.
As far as he knew, he did not minimize sin, or tolerate indiscretion or indecency; he was a self-disciplined, devout follower of God and of good.
Today I will not reflect on Job’s innocence, nor on his complaint, but on his view of sin, and in particular sexual sin.

But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye—even your good eye —causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. [Matthew 5:28-29]
Jesus, like Job, takes sexual sin (and all sin) very seriously.
It is a fire that burns all the way to hell, and many have been burned on this path.
How many great leaders throughout history have had sexual sin as their downfall?
Consider how common sexual crimes are in history, and how many victims of sexual abuse and rape there are!
How many marriages and families have been ruined by adultery!
How many children have suffered the cruelty and horror of sexual exploitation.

Job made a covenant with his eyes, but the problem goes deeper into our hearts.
It is not just the looking with the eyes, but the lusting with the heart.
To lust is to be driven by unhealthy sexual desire (as opposed to healthy sexual desire) in inappropriate ways – for someone other than our covenant partner.
Lust is the perversion of God-designed love; sin have distorted healthy sexual desires into selfish desire.
It treats the other person as an object, not a person, and uses them for sexual satisfaction then discards them.
The goal of the experience is not a close, intimate relationship but an impersonal encounter or experience.
It results in the use and abuse of the people involved, and instead of fulfilling us, it damages and drains us.

Someone has said that money, sex and power are the three greatest pitfalls for humanity, the cause of most suffering.
Behind these three are the empty human heart, alienated from God and anxious without Him, grasping for money or sex or power – or anything – to satisfy the desperate longing within.
As long as our hearts remain separated from God, as long as we are empty within, we will continue to reach for other things to fill the void.
And this is what hell ultimately is – eternity without God and a resulting hunger and thirst that will never be satisfied.

Both Job and Jesus are urging us to consider our hearts, and our desires, to see whether we are satisfying our soul in Him or in something else – in this case sexual desire.
This is a serious matter, because if we are looking to anything but God, it will only lead to ultimate misery.

PRAYER:
Lord, I may not be guilty of the kinds of sins that others are guilty of, but I have my own issues that are real to me. Just as much as the next person, I am guilty of seeking to satisfy the desires of my heart in things other than You. Help me to see this for the hell that it is, and to seek You first with ALL of my heart!