Don’t tell me you have never looked? Don’t tell me you have never flirted? We’re so busy trying to find out if our spouse is cheating that we haven’t taken the time to even look at our own behavior? Perhaps we have rejected our spouse sexually over and over again. Or maybe we have treated them with disrespect and contempt. Or could it be we have cheated ourselves – if we are suspicious of our spouse, maybe it’s because we don’t trust ourselves.
It’s never good for marriage when a spouse cheats, but we must understand that flirting and looking is just about as bad as cheating! Have you flirted? Have you looked? These are learned behaviors brought on from our childhood and dating years. They are embedded within our mind, making us think it’s perfectly acceptable to flirt and to look. But looking and flirting eventually lead up to sexual intercourse almost every single time, which is cheating from the heart.
We have been taught a very good principle about flirting and looking. The Teacher of this great principle has taught us that to even look at another person with feelings of lust is cheating of the heart. Flirting is lustful thinking of the mind. If a married person has been conditioned into believing that flirting and looking is acceptable, eventually they will cave into sexual temptation and commit adultery not just from the heart but physically. The only real difference between the two is adultery of the heart is thoughts that have not been acted on yet.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman/man lustfully has already committed adultery with her/him in his/her heart”. Matthew 5:27-28
Essentially flirting is cheating with your clothes on. Looking and flirting is lustful feelings of the heart and mind. Flirting and looking could be constituted as going past the barriers of temptation because it is lustful thoughts making up our attitude. In other words, what we believe in our heart becomes our frame of mind. It’s all in our attitude and how we perceive the opposite sex or other people as sexual objects to use for our own selfish reasons.
Women should let males be the protective and masculine people that God created them to be. When a woman/wife respects her man in this way she is essentially allowing him to be the man that God created him to be. A man should feel free to love his woman without feeling like a little boy or surpassed by his feminist wife who treats him with contempt. Make your man feel good about who he is so he will drink water from his own cistern.
More importantly, let’s not give way to the God-given positions and roles that God created for the male and female genders to partake in. What is your position has a husband? What responsibilities do you have or should you have? What is your position as a wife? What responsibilities do you have or should you have? Are you being responsible for the role God has blessed you with or are you rebelling against it?
There will always be women and men who will flaunt themselves for the taking because of lack of self-respect and self-esteem, but that is not our problem, we need to stop falling for these kinds of traps and keep our marriage and relationships pure. Be the man and woman God created you to be – take charge of your life, be responsible and accountable to God and your spouse and above all respect all people as creations of God.
Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life… Ephesians 2:3-4
To remain faithful we need to shift our lustful thinking (disrespect) over to respect and honor of the opposite sex. Men ought to be preserving the sexual purity and honor of women. Wouldn’t you want that for your own daughter? Be friends FIRST with the person you marry and do not let desire and lust be the focal point of your relationship. Learn to respect the person you’re going to marry or are married to and you will be giving them the best kind of love there ever was.
It doesn’t matter how many times we promise our spouse that we won’t cheat again, it will happen again if we consume our thoughts with lust and if we continue observing people as sexual objects to use and abuse for our own sexual desires and needs. We can come out of this needy frame of mind and grow away from this selfishness and into loving people by choosing to do so.