Lust Leads to Adultery

Covenant with God

Called into Covenant with God

Obeying God's Law 

Matthew 5:27-32 The Message

Adultery and Divorce

27-28 “You know the next commandment pretty well, too: ‘Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.’ But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.
29-30 “Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.
31-32 “Remember the Scripture that says, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights’? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’ Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you’re responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you’re automatically an adulterer yourself. You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure.

For Reflection Pray

As I write this Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood producer, is reaping the seeds of uncontrolled lust that he sowed during his highly acclaimed career.  How often have we seen a highly successful person be consumed by a fatal amoral flaw?  The Scriptural passage encourages a moral life, a life rooted in the Holy Spirit, a righteous life. One can mask moral failure for a short time, but that failure will eventually become public and the sin will topple the sinner.  It is not a God delivered punishment but rather the natural outcome of spiritual failure.

The good news is that even if one sins, one can repent.  One never loses the promise in God's covenant, that salvation is always there for the asking.

Pray
Pray for the sinner to humble himself or herself and repent.  Pray that you will remember that your God will always welcome you back like the prodigal son with joy and celebration.  Pray that you will accept the reconciled into the household as God has.  Pray that you will find the courage to welcome the sinner as God has welcomed you, who is also a sinner.