|
Is
Flirting and Looking The Same As Cheating? 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. |