Over the last four years, I’ve become a high school basketball coach. What began as a way to spend more time with my son has grown into a true passion. I love working with young men at this level because it’s about far more than teaching X’s and O’s — it’s about relational mentorship.

I believe sports provide one of the best classrooms for teaching young men how to live — how to respond to adversity, how to handle failure, and how to grow through both.

This three-part blog series is the fruit of a three-part talk I gave to our basketball team, equipping them with practical tools to fight what I believe is a lifelong battle against lust.

This is a general observation rather than a scientific conclusion, but from examining my own heart, pastoring men, and walking in deep friendships with brothers in Christ, I believe the two sins men most often struggle with are lust and anger.

Scripture affirms this reality. Even King David — a man after God’s own heart — fell to his passions. When we see a mighty warrior brought low, along with many other godly men overcome by their desires, we’re reminded that this is a lifelong battle.

In war, there is both strategy and outcome. At the Battle of Normandy, the Allied forces had several possible locations from which they could have launched their assault to retake Europe from the Nazis. To mislead the enemy, they deployed inflatable tanks at one potential landing site. That was strategy.

Strategy is the plan you bring into battle; outcome is the result that reveals whether your strategy is working.

Satan has strategies he uses to ensnare us in lust. When we find ourselves losing the battle, we must change our strategy. Trying harder or simply deciding that pornography will no longer be part of your life is not enough. As Christians, we must rely on God’s grace to strengthen us in overcoming the sin of lust.

While we often view lust, pornography, and masturbation as primarily male struggles, this is ultimately a human sin problem — one that affects both men and women. Deepak Reju documents this clearly in Rescue Plan: Charting a Course to Restore Prisoners of Pornography.

We must also recognize that the problem with pornography runs deeper than simply viewing sinful images on a phone or computer. If we are to kill the devastating fruits of pornography, we must first address — and put to death — the lust within our own hearts.

We all know how pervasive this problem is, and unfortunately, the church has not always handled it well.

I recently saw a video from the late Charlie Kirk in which he spoke about his own journey away from pornography. At one point, he said something to the effect of, “If you’re 30 or under and claim you’ve never struggled with porn, I don’t believe you.” While that’s certainly a sweeping statement, it reflects a sobering reality: the majority of men are struggling, or have struggled, with pornography.

So what do we do?

I am convinced the church has often failed its people in this area. We have preached hard on the subject without consistently coming alongside individuals and walking with them through their struggle. At the same time, we have also failed by treating people as though they are merely victims of their lust, when in reality they are enslaved to it — and in need of loving rebuke.

There is a dual path we must walk: compassion and correction, love and holiness.

Here are twelve points we need to consider as we address the topic of lust. These are not twelve steps in a formula that, if followed, guarantee a specific outcome. Rather, they are truths that fall along the spectrum of strategy and outcome in this battle. As we reflect on them, each one becomes a means by which God’s grace strengthens us as we seek Christ in repentance.

First, we must acknowledge that lust is wrong. Proverbs 6:25 says, “Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.” The word lust literally means desire. Like many good gifts, sex is a gift from God, given for our enjoyment. But God has established clear boundaries for its expression. Sex is reserved for the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. Anything outside of that design steps outside of God’s created order.

Lust is the desire for sexual intimacy with someone to whom you are not married, or looking at another person with sexual desire for your own pleasure. From the outset, we must be clear: this is sin.

While that may be simple to understand, it is far more difficult to live out. We cannot always control what passes before our eyes or the initial thoughts that enter our minds. But as the old adage says, “You can’t keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep it from building a nest in your hair.”

We struggle with lust because our hearts are sinful. Too often, we are not satisfied with what God has given us — whether before marriage or even within it. The first step in overcoming lust is to acknowledge plainly and honestly that it is sin.

The second thing we must understand is that lust will destroy you. Proverbs 6:26–28 says:

“For the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread,
but a married woman hunts down a precious life.
Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned?
Or can one walk on hot coals
and his feet not be scorched?”

While this passage speaks specifically in the context of prostitution, the principle extends to all sexual sin. Sin always burns. It always scorches. And it always costs more than we think.

Verse 26 says that one who gives himself over to sexual sin will be reduced to “a loaf of bread.” What does that mean?

What is the purpose of bread? It is baked so that it can be consumed. Every Thanksgiving, we have Hawaiian rolls — and without fail, they’re devoured. To devour something means to consume it completely, to make it disappear.

That is the warning of Proverbs. Sexual sin does not merely wound you; it consumes you. It reduces you. It devours you.

Verses 27 and 28 offer a graphic illustration: walking on hot coals or placing a burning log against your chest. If you were to do either, you would be burned. The old adage applies here — if you play with fire, you will get burned.

Fire, when used in its proper context, can warm your home or cook your food. But outside of those boundaries, it deforms and destroys. When skin is burned, the damage is often permanent and irreparable.

The third thing we must understand about lust is that we need to see people as God sees them; otherwise, they will become objects of sexual desire.

In this battle, we must learn to view others vertically before we view them horizontally. What does that mean? A horizontal view sees only the body — and when we see only the body, we are stirred toward lust. This is what happened to David when he saw Bathsheba bathing in 2 Samuel 11.

When we look at people this way, they become objects — something to be consumed for personal pleasure, like a painting or sculpture admired in a museum. If there were no God, and human beings were nothing more than flesh and blood, this might seem natural.

But a vertical view begins with what God has said about a person. Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. Their value is not earned; it is given by their Creator. They possess intellect, creativity, moral awareness, and the capacity to plan and build — all gifts from God. When we understand that people bear God’s image and have worth beyond the physical, it transforms the way we see them.

Likewise, as Paul teaches Timothy in the New Testament, within the body of Christ, we are to treat older men and women as parents, and younger men and women as brothers and sisters. That framework reshapes how we relate to one another.

I will close with the fourth point in this initial blog post, and continue with the next four points in the second part of this series. 

A fourth thing to understand about lust is that we must avoid places where it is inflamed. We cannot prevent every lustful thought from entering our minds or every inappropriate image from passing before our eyes. But we can — and must — intentionally remove sources that provoke and feed those desires.

In the age of smartphones and unrestricted private internet access, this temptation is everywhere. Pornography is especially dangerous because it is a largely private sin — something one can indulge in without others immediately knowing. But if we are pursuing Christ, we must put this sin to death for His glory and honor.

This is the principle Jesus taught when He said that if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off, and if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. In other words, remove whatever leads you into sin. Get rid of the magazines. Cancel the cable or internet. Delete the apps. Downgrade the phone. Whatever it takes, we must strip away the sinful allurements that draw our hearts from Christ.

We must be able to say with Job, “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1).

Fifth, lust is never satisfied. The older I get, the more I realize that some things are never satisfied. I have been a coffee drinker since early adulthood. I have been a coffee drinker since early adulthood. I drink more coffee now than I ever have and have no intention of stopping. Yet one thing I have learned is that no cup of coffee is ever quite big enough. I always want one more. It is the nature of the palate and the stomach to never be completely satisfied. Sinful lust works the same way. Like a wood stove, sexual lust burns within the heart, consuming everything in its path. Giving in to it is much like scratching a poison ivy rash. It brings momentary relief but leaves you in greater misery. Lust also functions much like drugs or alcohol. It creates a dependency that convinces us we need it. You feel like you need it to survive. Yet after giving in, we quickly realize the pleasure lasts only as long as the moment itself. Scripture reminds us that there is pleasure in sin — but only “for a season.”

Sixth, in the war against lust, we must read our Bibles and pray every day. There is an old children’s song many of us sang growing up: “Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll grow, grow, grow.” While it may be simple — perhaps even a little annoying — it is profoundly true. And the second verse is just as true: “Neglect your Bible and forget to pray, and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink.” A helpful rhythm for daily Christian discipline might be this: read your Bible, journal what you read, and then pray through what you journaled. As we read Scripture, we begin to see God for who He truly is. Our hearts and affections are stirred toward Him, which naturally leads us to worship. Even when our emotions feel dull, we must still learn to worship God in prayer, whether we feel like it or not.

I recently heard John Piper give an illustration about fighting sin that I shared with my basketball team. I asked the students, ranging from seventh to twelfth grade, who was good at math. A few reluctantly raised their hands. I asked what the highest level of math they had taken was, and they mentioned classes like Geometry, Algebra II, and Calculus. Then I asked them to imagine a university professor walking in and writing a graduate-level math problem on the board. Would they be able to solve it? They all quickly said no. I told them that this is often how we try to fight sin. We have a high-school-level understanding of God, His Word, and spiritual warfare, while Satan operates with far greater experience and strategy. When we devote little time to Scripture, how can we expect to recognize Satan’s schemes or understand the victory Christ has secured for us?

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week. 

Soli Deo Gloria