You just need to keep yourself busy, keep your mind occupied, don’t let it wander too much, if it does, reign it in. A few mistakes here and there, a little further down that particular path than perhaps you should have gone, totally expected, after all we are human, and God forgives.
That is the way the world thinks, actions are worse than thoughts, some actions are much worse than others, it is why we have laws, but thoughts, your thoughts, are your own, figments of our imagination that hold no true value, and therefore are not punishable.
We who have been hid in Christ do not have that option, or freedom.
“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” (2nd Cor. 10:5)
Out of the hundreds of billions of people who have lived and died on this planet, only one man was able to adhere to this commandment, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He had an advantage that not one of us has had. He is God. He came from heaven, He has witnessed the throne room of the Almighty, He had abilities that we will never possess.
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:15)
We are tempted and sin, it is unavoidable. If you will, contemplate this statement, and consider if it is a truth or not.
Are our thoughts sin? And if so, how long does it take for them to become sin? The inevitable thoughts, the imaginations of our heart, how long is required for us to follow them for them to become a sin against the Most High, a few seconds? Several minutes?
Contemplate this as well, what is nailed to the cross you carry?
Being tempted, whether it be from our adversary in some external form, or from the construct of our own imagination, is not a sin, our Savior was tempted but never sinned. In this truth he could control His thoughts perfectly. Temptations create thought patterns, no matter in what form they appear, they must have a beginning, the Lord Jesus Christ was able to quench them immediately, there was no contemplation of the almost innumerable possibilities with any temptation placed in front of Him.
We do not possess that advantage because we are not God, He is.
“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28)
For how long? How long must that look last? How long does it take before covetousness breeds in the heart, how long do we need to think about something before it becomes a sin?
Those thoughts that inadvertently appear in our imagination, and these my friends, over the course of a lifetime, although modified in nature, altered in form, which if you are truthful with yourself you know to be a truth, how long do we need to dwell on them before they become a sin?
You just need to keep yourself busy, you just need to keep your mind occupied.
But that does not work, does it?
You can go through all the verses you have memorized; you can set your affections on things above, you can think on those things mentioned in Philippians 4:8, you can in love obey everything our Savior said. And your thoughts will still wander where you know they should not go.
“Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” (James 1:15)
How long?
If the Almighty has blessed you to the point where your actions of sin externally have been reduced so much that they have become rare, still present occasionally, but nowhere near who you used to be, and now it is your thoughts, your imaginations that you struggle with, you fully understand this short letter today.
The path of the imagination, how long before it becomes sin?
