Key Bible Verse: And even when you do ask … your whole motive is wrong—you only want what will give you pleasure (James 4:3). Bonus Reading: James 4:1-10

Tom, a 35-year-old single, sincerely came to Christ when he was 15. At about the same time, his 20-year struggle with sexual lust began. He was deeply discouraged about his recurring lapses into pornography and masturbation. After he came to me for help, I asked when he was tempted.

"Only on Friday nights."

"What's with that?" I asked.

"I go out and buy Playboy magazine as my temper tantrum at God," Tom explained. "I come back from work to the apartment. I'm all alone. I imagine that my single friends are out on dates, and my married friends are spending time with their wives. I build up a head of steam of self-pity. By nine or ten o'clock, I think, God has cheated me. If only I had a girlfriend or a wife. I can't stand how I feel. Why not feel good for a while? Then I hop in the car, head to 7-11, and fall into sin."

Tom had turned his whole relationship with God into flimsy scaffolding. If he managed to avoid lust for a stretch, he believed that God should come through by getting him a wife. Though Tom professed a sound faith, in daily practice he'd reduced God to, in Bob Dylan's words, the "errand boy to satisfy [his] wandering desires."

—David Powlison in Sex and the Supremacy of Christ

My Response: How have I rationalized succumbing to sexual temptation?

Adapted from Sex and the Supremacy of Christ (Crossway, 2004) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

I've tried, Lord, to shut out sinful compulsions, but what I really need is an intense hunger for You that will crowd all that out.

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