The Cyber Affair

The number of ministers who have fallen due to sexual indiscretion is tragic.  On almost a monthly basis, another name surfaces, and as God weeps, and the church cringes, and fellow ministers mourn, and the watching world shakes its head in disgust, the Kingdom luster increasingly fades.

Many of us who have managed to keep our names from that list are relieved to have escaped, but may be wrestling with an affair just as deadly.  Because of the invasiveness of technology, too many ministers/men/women/whoever are able to have private affairs which may never surface in this life.  And they are just as deadly.  Perhaps more so as they remain hidden and slowly drain the Spirit's power from those who are web adulterers.

If you think about it, this tactic of Satan is ingenious.  Move the realm of sexual indiscretions to a battleground that can devastate far more victims because of the lure of perceived secrecy and immunity.  Of course, Jesus cut this off at the pass with His clarification of the issue in Matthew 5:27-30, but most of us seem to miss the point and still slip behind the veil to indulge our lusts.  In years previous, to live a Solomon lifestyle (a plurality of mistresses and wives), one had to be fairly public about it.  It was pretty tough to hide.  Now we have the illusion of privacy.

Culture has not only bought the lie from the view of the web adulterer, but from the view of the non-offender.  The reasoning goes:

What a person does in the privacy of his/her own home is his/her own business.  Just keep it out of view and do it on your own time.

Don't miss this:  No sin is committed in a vacuum.  Those who think their private dalliances are truly private are sadly mislead.  Every thought that is nurtured or corrupted works its way out in our behavior.  The private web adulterer begins to assess each woman/man as to her/his sexual potential and looses a healthy perspective on her/his soul.  That begins to trickle down to those he/she influences.

The brokenness of individual lives, families and society as a whole is a symptom largely, I believe, of this perceived isolation of private sin from public impact.  Individual choices made in countless moments through times pile upon one another as snowflakes on a mountainside.  Eventually the mass reaches a critical point, the stirring begins, there is a ripple of energy and in moments the avalanche begins.

It is no respecter of persons.  Those near and far are caught up in its rush - some to a deadly degree, some merely dusted on the edges, others watching across a valley, but none are left unchanged by the destruction.

Spend long enough in Matthew 5-7 and you begin to discover the Kingdom of God.  "The kingdom of God," as one of my college professors so rightly stated, "is the reign of God in the hearts of men."  Christ reveals that God rules in us when He has captured our heart.  We may not become sinless, but we are rescued from the oppressive reign of sin.  We are not content to simply love the lovely; we love those who hate us.  We resist not only revenge; we relish humble charity toward those who mistreat us.  We go beyond allegiance to our commitments; we become people of such sterling integrity that "I promise..." becomes irrelevant.  We are sexually pure in body - and in mind.  We not only keep our hands free from blood; we renounce anger in favor of reconciliation.

Christ followers walk with him from the inside-out.  Cyber affairs are as detestable as fornication in the town square.

And this is just the beginning, for being a disciple of the Son of God is not only about what He purges from your life, but what He embeds into your soul. . .