By: Shane James O’Neill
4 min read
Overnight Change
And just like that, it’s a new year! But purity doesn’t happen overnight: years of messing around and feasting on raw lust takes time to rework. The practices of lust we’ve allowed to shape us are only transformed by practices of purity.
Looking at people as (1) social, (2) physical, and (3) spiritual beings, here are three ways to help you pursue purity in 2019!
Social
The First Way
Join a Proven group. Proven groups meet with other guys in your church over the span of 12 weeks. (Or women, for Proven Women or Proven Wives.) It’s immersive and real freedom takes place in these groups.
The Value: Humans are deeply relational beings and people are not meant to be isolated. Men, this includes us. Most of our sin takes place in isolation, and if you want to break free from that spiraling issue, then break away from the isolation first.
There are literally hundreds of studies which show that humans are social beings and we fall apart when we’re not in active relationships of trust and vulnerability. To be vulnerable is to be human.
Life is meant to be lived in relationship and the gospel is meant to be known in community.
Get in a group and foster real relationships.
Physical
The Second Way
Exercise four times a week for at least 30 minutes each time. Anything from running to yoga to soccer to jiu-jitsu. Even walking (swiftly) for 30 minutes can make a huge difference.
The Value: There’s a reason that going to the gym is the stereotypical New Year’s Resolution. Humans are embodied souls and using our bodies well goes a long way in keeping our souls healthy. Conversely, when we don’t use our bodies well then our souls waste away. We end of up using our bodies for other, darker things.
At a biological level, when we practice lustful habits, we train our bodies to produce higher hormone levels, which in turn causes our bodies to need a release. It’s a gnarly loop: acting out increases our hormone levels, increased hormone levels pressure us to act out.
However, when we use our bodies in healthy exercise then our physical chemicals level out. When we give ourselves to nurturing our body then over time we have less to give to lust.
Often we sexually act out in order to relax, as a stress release. Yet, when we exercise our bodies are able to rest in ways that fight even anxiety and clinical-depression.
Get out and move!
Spiritual
And Here’s the Third Way
Scripture: Begin this year by looking at Jesus. The Gospel According to Matthew has 28 chapters; look at Jesus by reading 1 chapter each day. It won’t even require the entire month, though it will drastically change your month.
The Value: Often, we don’t read Scripture because we don’t feel like anything is happening. Really, we’re just addicted to stimulation and entertainment. When you read Scripture, it costs you something: your attention. This Scripture challenge will cost you five minutes every day. But as you do it, Jesus will be renovating your soul, taking out certain passions and giving others to you, re-shaping the landscape of your imagination, teaching you about grace and hope and faithfulness. All this will happen while you feel like nothing is happening. And the more you do it the more you’ll start realizing that Jesus is present.
Prayer: If you do the Scripture challenge in the morning, then spend a few minutes walking God through your day. Tell Him what’s ahead of you, what you’re scared of, what you’re excited about. Pray for the people you’ll be seeing and the work you need to do.
Close with the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray — the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13.
If you do the Scripture challenge at night, then spend a few minutes talking to God about the day you finished. Tell Him about the things that you enjoyed, your failures and successes, where you saw Him and where you didn’t.
Close with the prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray — the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13.
If you’re especially earnest to grow in the way of grace and truth, then read a chapter in the morning and a chapter at night and do both of these prayer forms, or double up and read 2 chapters in the morning or two chapters at night.
Bottom line: read Scripture and pray!
Real Change
Life is worth living. Lust demands a lot from you and the only way to become a fuller person (the real you) is by letting Jesus redeem your humanity. It’s actually a sweet journey, when grace and hope become greater than failure and disappointment.
Again, you are an embodied soul, designed to live in deep relationship. Life can’t even happen without relational intimacy. Lust violates our humanity by reducing us to animals without souls who abuse another for self-pleasure. Doesn’t sound so nice when it is stated as such, does it? These three life changes will go a long way in helping you to become the person you’ve always wanted to be.
One day at a time, know redemption in 2020.
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Shane James O’Neill is the Editorial Director for Proven Men Ministries. He is currently working on a graduate degree in apologetics at Liberty University’s Rawling School of Divinity.