“Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!” (Matthew 6:22-23 NLT)
Reading a Family Life devotional, I came across a reference to something that I’d seen many times when I lived near I-75. Ed Uszynsk writes: “Driving on I-75 near Exit 141 in Caryville, Tennessee, you’ll see a 101-foot cross greeting you from a distance, a massive silver structure that fills your windshield as you get closer. Arriving at its base, you’ll also see a huge ranch house structure with a sign on the front saying ‘Adult World.’
The cross rises up out of the ground right at the edge of a massive parking lot surrounding the long-standing porn store. It’s a bizarre juxtaposition, a stand-off in place since 2003 when a local preacher put the cross there. Fitting, because the metaphor it represents is a preacher’s gold mine: The cross is much bigger than our worst sins. The only answer to the darkest parts of our mind is the cross. Bring your personal evil and lay it at the foot of the cross.”
As I pondered these powerful words it caused me to realize that we have a “Porn Store” between our ears and our eyes are the windows. I’ve never visited a “Porn Store,” whether a literal structure or a site on my computer, but I’ve nonetheless wrestled with thoughts I’d never want anyone to know about.
The irony is, these thoughts are common to mankind, but everyone seems to believe we’re the only one who wrestles with inappropriate thoughts. A recent survey indicates that as many as two-thirds of professing Christian men have or do view porn. Is that shocking to you? It was to me. Why? Because “The cross is much bigger than our worst sins. The only answer to the darkest parts of our mind is the cross. Bring your personal evil and lay it at the foot of the cross.” There’s a cure for sin, why don’t Christian men, of all men, have the courage to pursue it?
Porn is as old as mankind. Remember Adam’s words once he and Eve had tasted the fruit of the tree of good and evil, when the Lord found them with their “fig leaves” on? “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” (Genesis 3:10) The troubling part of, not only porn, but any obsessive, God-devoid activity, is that we think no one should know. Duh! God knows, and truth be told, others very likely know as well.
We can’t hide our sin and trying to keep it secret only magnifies the harmful effect it has on us and others. I appreciate and admire what Ed Uszynsk wrote: “Because I hate the garbage dump that hides inside me. It’s not unlike that windowless store: Embarrassing stuff. Relationship-killing stuff. Broken stuff that stays hidden most of the time. But when the darkest parts of me make their way to the surface, I need Amy’s (his wife) help to get to the cross. When her darkest sins rear their head, part of my stewardship in her life is to help her get to the cross.
If something evil like pornography or any kind of deviance has come to light, don’t turn against each other. Instead, turn to the cross together. Believing the cross is truly our only answer for sins like pornography can sometimes seem—well, scandalous. But it’s not. Because only the cross can disarm and absorb the power of real sin. Only the cross can bring the healing you both need. So don’t turn on each other. Help each other get to it.”
Food for thought!
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 