ODJ: covenant eyes
June 3, 2011
I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman (v.1).
READ: Job 31:1-4
A study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2006 revealed that children who watch media with high levels of sexual content tend to be more sexually promiscuous. Researchers studied 1,017 adolescents, ages 12 to 14, over a period of 2 years. During that time, the teenagers were tracked as they took in varying amounts of sexual content in movies, TV shows, music, and magazines.
The survey found that teens exposed to a high amount
of sexual content were 2.2 times more likely to have had intercourse between the ages of 14 and 16 than other teens with less exposure. This research confirms what Augustine said long ago: “By one’s gaze . . . lustful . . . desires arise.” I believe this is the reason Job made a covenant with his eyes not to go there.
Job believed that he was living before a holy God who numbered his steps and ordered his life. For him, this meant living a life of purity and the pursuit of personal holiness. He affirmed his moral purity by recalling a personal commitment that affirmed what he would and would not look at. In particular, he professed moral purity in guarding his eyes and avoiding sexual lust. Jesus taught this same principle in the New Testament (Matthew 5:28).
Because our eyes can be channels of sexual temptation and lust, like Job, we need to make a covenant with them. This means guarding our eyes against all kinds of evil (Psalm 101:3), living lives of discipline and self-control (1 Thessalonians 4:4-5), and submitting to the Holy Spirit for direction and empowerment (Galatians 5:16-21). It also includes living like “temporary residents and foreigners” who are waiting for our endtime inheritance (1 Peter 2:11), and fighting temptation and pursuing what is right in community with other committed believers in Jesus. —Marvin Williams
Why is it so important to guard our eyes against sexual temptation? What do you need to do to make a covenant with your eyes, so that you live a life of moral purity before our heavenly Father?
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