When we want something bad enough, we fixate many times on that item, whether it be materialistic, or an imagination of the mind, that thing will consume us if we let it, to the detriment of nearly everything else.
How many men have lost loving families because of the woman whose steps lead to hell, how many have lost their lives because of the strong drink or drugs, and how many find the strength to admit their own failure in these areas.
To forget about that item we may fixate on is nearly impossible, you have only two choices, you can pursue it to the loss of much else in your life, or you can live a life filled with despondency, one that realizes what you want you will never have. “And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.” (Acts 7:58)
Two men, both serving God, one shown the truth that He was worth dying for, the other fixated on serving Him with a zeal few may have ever known. He could not get to the One those who followed the way worshipped, He was dead and gone, but he could not suffer those who served Him as their new God, Saul would not, could not allow that in the land of the children of Israel. He was fixated.
I will presume here that you know the account of this man whose name was changed by the Lord to Paul, and so I will not burden you with it in this short poorly written letter, but I will bring up this fact, Paul knew that he was indeed serving God, there was no doubt about this in his mind, the Christians needed to die, they were an enemy within the gates.
“Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” (1 Tim. 1:13)
Ask any man, or woman if you care to what it was once like to be addicted to pornography, to alcohol, to drugs, to any of the lust of the flesh and you will hear accounts of men in prison. Not behind bars of steel, but of the mind, a grip so tight on them that it cannot be denied, no matter many times how far away they are from it. Fixating on an item is being addicted to it, and nearly always to our detriment.
The world has decided in many ways that these sins, which is indeed what they are, are to be accepted, judging another is in fact frowned upon and even illegal in many places today, covetousness is not just a personal right, but is actually encouraged by a world that knows full well that most will never obtain that which they desire. But that is of little matter, they do not need to obtain it, as long as they are seeking for that item, they are not looking to Christ.
“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:19) Born-again believers do not fixate on their needs, they know, because He who has promised is faithful will provide those daily needs, but in respect to those items and pleasures the world offers, we are little different from the brute beast, save in one respect, one sees those desires of the world as sinful in the eyes of God, they are of the world and we are to “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15)
The battle of the flesh for the wicked is to find a way to get those things they desire, for those who serve Jesus Christ it is a battle to deny themselves of them.
This is not to say that at times or seasons of our lives that we do not fixate upon them. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8) And at times we may even fall into those traps laid by Satan, but we have been blessed in ways that those still in the world cannot comprehend, we do not serve ourselves, our first priority is not even to serve others, it is to be obedient to the Most High.
We will fall, “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” (Romans 7:19) And we have been blessed with 1 John 1:9 when we do, but before that temptation arrives, we know the truth of where it comes from, and by His mercy we know they are out there. The temptations will arrive, have no doubt about this truth, what you begin to fixate upon in that moment will show you who you serve.
