How Can I Overcome Lust? - Cultivating Biblical Godliness Series (McGraw)

Description

In How Can I Overcome Lust?, Ryan M. McGraw highlights the seriousness of sexual lust and gives readers hope for overcoming it. He considers the foundational principles of overcoming lust in general, identifies the nature of sexual lust in particular, and applies biblical principles for finding a path through it.

As McGraw shows, overcoming sexual lust is made possible by union with Christ as the Spirit makes us like Him through God-given means. He also encourages us to meditate on appropriate truths of Scripture so that our affections can be reordered in a God-honoring way.

Contents

Foundation: Overcoming ‘Lust’ and Lust in Christ

What Lust Is and How It Works

Uprooting and Replacing Lust

          Seek

          Kill

          Replace

          Repeat

Focus: Identifying Sexual Lust

          How Not to Kill Lust

          What Lust Is

Forward: The Path to Victory over Lust

Nine Rules for Mortifying Lust

          Consider the Dangerous Symptoms of Unmortified Sin

          Develop a Clear Sense of the Guilt, Danger, and Evil of Your Sin

          Load Your Conscience with the Guilt of the Sin

          Long Vigorously and Constantly to Be Delivered from the Sin

          Consider Your Natural Distempers

          Prevent the Occasions and the Advantages of the Sin in Question

          Oppose Vigorously the First Acts of Sin

          Develop Low Thoughts of Yourself in Light of High Thoughts of God in Christ

          We Must Accept Peace of Conscience Only from God

Series Description

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said that what the church needs to do most all is “to begin herself to live the Christian life. If she did that, men and women would be crowding into our buildings. They would say, ‘What is the secret of this?’” As Christians, one of our greatest needs is for the Spirit of God to cultivate biblical godliness in us in order to put the beauty of Christ on display through us, all to the glory of the triune God. With this goal in mind, this series of booklets treats matters vital to Christian experience at a basic level. Each booklet addresses a specific question in order to inform the mind, warm the affections, and transform the whole person by the Spirit’s grace, so that the church may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.

Endorsement

“Although it appears we are in the midst of a deluge of sexual immorality inciting the unwary heart to all types of sexual lust and perversion, lust has been regnant in the human heart ever since the fall of Adam and Eve. And the Bible has much to say about it: how to fight it and how, in the words of the fourth membership vow in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, to “put to death your sinful deeds and desires.” Ryan McGraw helpfully shows us the biblical wisdom regarding lust in general and sexual lust in particular. He also draws from one of the most important treatises on how to kill sin penned by the great Puritan physician of the heart, John Owen, who originally preached it to teenagers at Oxford University. Pithy and piquant, may this booklet do much good in encouraging holy living.” — Michael A. G. Haykin, professor of church history and biblical spirituality, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

About the Author

Ryan M. McGraw is associate professor of systematic theology, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.