So attraction and desire - its not like you choose that stuff right? It starts as you grow up… it’s part of us, but why does the Bible call lust a sin?
It’s biological, and I get that being consumed by it is bad; everyone agrees on that, even outside the church.
But a passing thought or a quick feeling. Where does that actually become spiritually wrong? Like if no one’s being harmed by it
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The Greek word used in the New Testament is ‘epithumia’ which really just means ‘desire.’ Paul uses the same word positively when talking about a man desiring to become an elder (1 Tim 3:1). So the word itself isn’t inherently bad. It becomes sinful depending on what it’s directed toward and how you respond to it.
What Jesus teaches in Matthew 5:28 about committing adultery ‘in the heart’ - that’s about lustful intent.
A chosen gaze and a chosen inner direction. There’s a difference between noticing that someone is attractive vs. deliberately entertaining those thoughts like a guest you want to keep around. James 1:14-15 gives a helpful progression here: ‘each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin.’
So there’s desire, then temptation, then sin. They’re distinct. The people who get mad about this stuff in social media haven’t read the Bible and they don’t really understand why they’re angrily typing with their caps lock on.
The Bible frames it around what’s happening to you spiritually. Lust ‘wages war against your soul’ as Peter puts it (1 Peter 2:11). The root issue is whether you’re regarding God in your desires or saying ‘I am god of this area of my life.’ Noticing attraction or having a fleeting thought isn’t the same as choosing to dwell there.
Jesus Himself was tempted in every way we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). So if being tempted was automatically sin, that verse wouldn’t make sense. Temptation is the knock at the door, sin is when you open it and invite it in. You can’t always stop a thought from showing up. What you do with it is what matters.
Having sexual thoughts isn’t the same as committing lust. When we dwell on those thoughts to develop what he called ‘an illicit sexual buzz,’ that’s when we’ve actually sinned. Same with anger - we all face situations that provoke us, but dwelling on it turns into rage or bitterness. Think of lust as taking sexual desire, which God created and called good, and stripping it away from honor toward a person and honor toward God. What’s left when you remove those two things IS lust. So it’s less about the desire existing and more about what you’ve done with it.
Going too hard on yourself for every passing thought means carrying guilt you’re not meant to carry. But being too casual means slowly making peace with something that’s pulling you away from God. The fight is about what your heart welcomes, not just what pops into your head.
This is honestly a question a lot of people are afraid to ask because they think it makes them look bad. So good on you for bringing it up.
There’s actually a theological term for this - ‘concupiscence’ - which describes desires that incline toward sin. Theologians have debated for a long time whether having those inclinations is itself sin or whether sin only happens when you act on them. Different traditions answer this differently.
But here’s what I think is helpful from Scripture: we can experience meaningful temptations to sin while still being blameless from that sin. The example that gets used a lot is David and Bathsheba. Assuming he was just on his roof minding his business, noticing she was beautiful wasn’t the sin. The problem was that he then sent an inquiry about the woman. That’s desire giving way to temptation, on the way to sin.
The Bible acknowledges our bodies have desires. Those desires for food, sex, etc… were created by God even in Adam and Eve before the fall. They’re produced by chemicals and physiological factors in the body. The issue is that gratifying those desires would mean disobedience to God’s will. Thessalonians 4:5 talks about ‘the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.’
This connects lust to not regarding God, not holding him as important in your life. The root issue is whether God is being regarded in your sexual desires or set aside.
Physical attraction and reducing someone to just a body are different things, and that distinction matters. The real question is whether we’re treating intimacy as something set apart for marriage or just another appetite to satisfy.
When I’m honest with myself, I see how easily attraction becomes something I gorge on rather than just experience.
Lust is the gluttony of attraction.
Try tracking where your thoughts go for just one day. You’ll notice how ‘just a quick look’ at something becomes replaying it mentally, which becomes seeking it out again.
Scripture warns against lust because it’s like feeding an animal. It doesn’t stay small. We see it constantly in this community - someone starts with something mild and ends up in places they never imagined going. The sin is in what you do with that initial feeling next.
There’s a difference in being sexually attracted to a whole person and treating them as an object. That’s lust.
The gluttony of attraction - that’s what lust actually is. Lewis nailed it. The natural pull toward someone isn’t the problem. The problem is when that desire becomes a consuming force that wages war against the soul.
The battlefield isn’t in the initial thought. It’s in whether we feed it until it devours us.
That’s the key distinction. Lust isn’t just attraction or desire-it’s wanting to take something that was never meant to be yours.
People created in God’s image deserve to be seen as whole persons. That’s what gets lost when lust reduces someone to just a body or a feeling.
How we see others matters to Him.
Right? Sin doesn’t happen in a vacuum though. You start justifying one thing, everyone starts indulging themselves, and then people find ways to justify progressively worse stuff.
Learning to control those impulses matters because of where unchecked desire actually leads.
The difference comes down to this one thing: are you receiving or giving?
Lust makes the other person into a vending machine for your satisfaction instead of someone you’re actually giving yourself to. Spiritually, you’re treating a gift exchange like a heist.
Lord, give us clean hearts.
When I bring these struggles honestly to God in prayer, He doesn’t condemn me for experiencing the temptation. He helps me redirect my focus. Psalm 51 has been my companion here. David didn’t pray for feelings to disappear but for a renewed spirit.
I’ve been thinking the sin is in where we fix our gaze, not in that initial pull.
Different Christian traditions draw the line at different points. Some stress that Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 5 was targeting the religious leaders who thought they were righteous because they hadn’t acted on lust - His point being that the internal disposition matters too. Every fleeting thought isn’t necessarily equally sinful.
The Sermon on the Mount seems more about revealing our need for grace than creating a new legalism around thought-policing.
I’m thankful you brought this up.
When a lustful thought tries to sneak in, I turn it into a praise moment. I might thank Jesus out loud for something - maybe a beautiful sunrise or a good friend - and even softly sing a worship line. His joy rushes in and that urge just fades. His love covers all, and focusing on His goodness helps with the guilt and shame. Praise really does chase sin away.
Lust can make it harder to enjoy real intimacy later, even in marriage. If my mind gets used to quick, secret fantasy, a real person with real flaws can start to feel disappointing, and that can quietly poison a relationship.
That’s part of why I think God is trying to protect our capacity for deep, faithful love.
The gift of intimacy between husband and wife was designed both for connection and for continuing life. Our fallen nature twists it into something harmful - that’s where the line gets crossed.
Hey!
I’ll answer this in Parts. Be sure to read till the ending.
Part 1
Understand, anything that is not from The Lord God is sin. Sin is opposition to Gods Will.
1 John 2:16: “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”
1John 4:16: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
From the Above Verses, God the Father will never give Lust because its not from him; but he will always give Love because it is from him.
Therefore, even if one lives a lustful life without harming others, they are not living in God, but are living far from Him: and, where God is not, life is not. Only Death abides where God is not.
Part 2
Lust falls under sin, and from Romans 6:23 ‘the wages of sin is death’. One persons lust may not harm the innocent; but, it will lead to death for the one who desires things through lust, or is attracted to things through lust.
Example:
If Person X has lust in their heart and keeps on lusting because they desire lust, or is attracted to lustful things, those around Person X who do not lust (who don’t live in sin) aren’t in danger, but Person X - being in lust will receive the wages of lust (sin) which is eventually death.
Part 3
God made it very clear that for those who keep living in Sin He will not listen to them, or hear them. But, if they live according to His will he will hear them.
John 9:31 “We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.”
Living in lust is living in Sin, and sin is not God’s will. So if that lustful person calls on the Lord in times of need, it’s very possible the Lord can ignore them; and, if the Lord who gives eternal life ignores someone, that means they are as good as dead to Him.
Just Remember: anything The Father advises against, hates, detests, and so on is Sin. Even if it doesn’t make sense to us, just know anything the Lord is against isn’t good, and that is sin.