It should also be considered that many men remain confused over the line at which attraction terminates and lust begins. There is nothing wrong with our God-given attraction to women and their features. The very "wow" that it creates ought to cause us to praise God for his creating us to experience such. Often, in our striving to exterminate lust, we end up condemning the very Godly desires and attractions that the creator put in man to begin with, along with condemning and stifling the natural beauty and attractiveness that God intended for women to have towards men. So, we men must be careful to not condemn the true stirrings of our desires towards a woman's features when we see them. Yet, we are not to purposefully stir the pot, so to speak, in order to inflame these desires into an inordinate sort of tumult or storm, for that is what lust is. And, women should not be ashamed if their natural, God-given features cause and entice a man to a moving and a stirring of his desires towards her beauty. For, God has so gifted them to have the ability to do so, for that is how it was meant to be. Yet, they are not to focus on leading men to having those desires become inflamed, so as to become inordinate and tumultuous, and improper and unbecoming. All of us must be cautious in drawing the proper distinction between a stirring of our desires, and a tumultuous and inflamed stirring of the same, for error in one direction is just as corrupt as error in the other.

So, blessings to you women for being beautiful and attractive, and blessings to God for creating men to gravitate towards such! And, what misery sin has created, in tending our desires to become inflamed and tumultuous beyond propriety! The solution is not found in diminishing and stifling the God-given desires into near non-existence, for this is the monk's solution. Rather, the solution is the gradual reign and dominion and sanctification of the Holy Spirit, which is brought about of his own doing. He will subdue our enemies; and he will place them under his feet. And, he will restrain the lust within us that we tend towards in all of our areas of desire.

Blessings!

__________________
Charles Plauger
Member/Grace Reformed Church
Oakland, MD