It was the moment I was most in love with You… that my heart was rivaled. Another lover. Another enchantment.

I had an affair. With a man like God. He never touched me but he did in my dreams. He never kissed me but he did in my fantasies. And before I knew it he was more than God to me. Body and soul heightening from the ecstasy. This isn’t what I was created to do. Not who I was meant to be. I didn’t sleep with him. But my heart did.

Some might say you’re being hard on yourself. But I don’t think I am.

Jesus said “if you so much as look at a woman lustfully you have committed adultery with her in your heart.”  Matthew 5:28

So if I look at a man lustfully I have committed adultery with him in my heart.

Adultery.

Of the heart.

That’s where is starts… 

isn’t it?

This… I didn’t see coming.

I had been reading about the transfiguration and how Jesus appeared to the 3 disciples on the mountain top. And the sermon on the mount, where Jesus said “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5. It’s true. Purity is a portal to seeing God… and I’ve seen Him so often in my life. Dreams, visions, encounters, a soft gentle whisper from His voice speaking to me… 

Then I saw him… 

Felt him…

Talked to him…

Connected with him…

Was it an angel… or was it Jesus… an appearance like one of the Son of Man as the scriptures describe. I had a powerful encounter where the Lord gave a gift of seeing Him more tangibly through the lens of another. I met a man and he was gloriously like Jesus more than anyone I had felt in a long time. It was an immediate connection. And for me, that’s near impossible. Good-looking men never attracted me. Because I could see their heart wasn’t pure. Charming men never enchanted me, because I could see through the tactics enough to know it wasn’t God’s voice speaking. But he was different. And I knew God had given me an encounter of seeing Him through this man.

But then I dwelled on it…

This is where my mind went off into the deep ends of the stratosphere in how I felt about him.

I remember the days following, how I wrestled in my mind over the fact I was thinking about him more than God. I need to see your face, God… I told him. Because I knew I was envisioning the man’s face more than God’s. And I didn’t like that. But my flesh did… and my flesh wanted more…

Why did you let me meet Him, Lord if I would only gain an intense attraction for him?

I felt torn on the inside.

Jesus has always been my love.

And now I see that my feelings for this man have now elevated to the way I feel about God, so that he was occupying my mind and my thoughts. My dreams and my fantasies.

I had an affair. In the shadows of my thoughts. In the bedroom of my mind.

That’s where is starts…

isn’t it?

One look… one thought… one idea… that we keep dwelling on and imagining over and over until it dovetails into a fantasy that likes to be fed.

I fed my fantasy… day after day.

And he touched me… dream after dream.

In the middle of it, I thought God had let me meet this man because of the fact I am a single woman who has been waiting so long to meet a godly man. And he is one. And I never found one. I relinquished my desires. Moved away from my stable life to do ministry work in a city that is diametrically opposed to God and I knew I wouldn’t meet anyone where nor did it matter to me. I wasn’t needing a husband. Ever since I was a little girl, God has really been a love to me that has been a real, consistent love force in my life and He was enough for me. I experience too much in the spiritual realm with Him to give Him up for anyone that would undermine that spiritual life with Him. But deep down, there was a seed of a woman’s heart of desire still lingering… and this man was one who awakened it out of nowhere.

I never saw it coming.

That’s why I thought it was meant to be.

God gives us gifts from Him to showcase His glory. But it’s when we start to fall in love with that gift that we derail off course.

But didn’t you know I would go off course by loving him too much, Lord? Yes, I knew it. He says. Then why let it happen? Beacuse I want us to deal with this in your heart… and I wanted you to know I would give anything for you… just to see me one more time. Even if it led you to this point, I still wanted you to see Me more… and I will use this for good.

My heart is getting excavated in this experience.

I feel grimey… dirty… laden with tar and ash from the forest fire this has ignited in my mind and in my heart, and I just want it cleansed. I want to be pure again. To let God be my King again.

It feels awful to know I was cheating on God with lustful thoughts for another man. A married man. But what I know is that adultery doesn’t ever start with the immediate act of sex. It starts with an emotional connection that slowly manifests itself more and more to where two people jump the gun and react in a way that wouldn’t have at the beginning.

Adultery begins in the heart.

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:27-28

Additionally, if a woman looks at a man with lust she has committed adultery.

It is not just a man problem, it’s a woman problem too.

Adultery begins in the heart.

And it’s not just about the physical appearance, it’s about the overall attracting agent of your heart to and with another person.

How do you “look” at another person? That is your attracting agent. I look at people through a spiritual lens. I looked at this man seeing God… and because I love God so much, I started to fall in love with him. Until I wanted him… craved him… and loved him more than God. How does that happen? Indulgence. When we indulge in something, we take more of it than was intended.

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” 1 Peter 2:11

Passion is not bad.

Passion is meant for God.

What I know about passion is that it does something to you that’s extremely powerful: Passion makes you consistent. It makes you faithful. It makes you affectionate. It makes you enthusiastic and very generous. Passion makes you dedicated to the object of your passion without relenting.

We need to check what we are passionate about.

Because our passion for that object will determine the trajectory of our soul.

God did not give you sexual organs in order to feel numb by them nor overcome by them. But we also cannot let sexuality override our decision making and value system of morality. There is a godly way to experience our sexuality and we must go to Him with our whole hearts in intimacy with Jesus so that we can have healthy passions the way God designed and not unhealthy passions.

Peter literally says passions “wage war” against the soul. That means there are 2 sides on the battlefield, the good side and the bad side. Two kinds of passion. One pure and one impure.

Be aware of what kind of passions you are flaming.

Passion for fleshly desires will kill your soul. If I have passion for my fantasy then I will zealously keep fanning that flame because of that passion. 

Passion for God will enliven your soul. If you have passion for God, you will experience the heights of spiritual ecstasy with him I guarantee it. Much more than any sexual encounter. As I remember this, I think… Lord You are so worthy of all my heart. And I don’t want to indulge in my passion for my love affair anymore. I really don’t. I want to feel clean and whole. I want to feel pure and righteous. And I am… because of Jesus. But Jesus asks me to “go and sin no more” just like he told the woman in John 8. And I want to…

I want to go and sin no more, Lord. 

I want to.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalm 51:17

I’m finding cleansing and so much peace in the confession of my heart before the Lord. It’s been a continual state of taking it to Him as I’ve noticed this taking territory in my heart. But there comes a breaking point where we have to decide are we going to lay this down or not… I’ve wrestled with doing that if I’m honest. How do I lay it down Lord? How does anybody? So I talked to the Lord about it and poured out my heart.

That is they only way by the way.

Going to God.

This is why we need Jesus to generate purity inside of our hearts.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10

He is the One who imparts purity to us. And it’s a lifelong journey of purifying more and more, so that we can see Him more. I find that as God purifies me as He has done over my life, He will gain victory for me and then He will target these other areas of our hearts that have not yet been cleansed. So that I can be made more pure, just as the Gardener is always pruning the vines so it can be more fruitful as John 15 says.

God prunes our hearts so we can be more pure.

I believe God was pruning my heart in this. Because otherwise, my heart was not even feeling sexual at all. I was pretty numb in my feelings about love and about sexuality. So the fact it got awakened out of nowhere tells me that it was time for God to address some underlying things that He thought would be good at this time in my life. Making me more pure in an area of my life that was pretty much dormant. Once it got triggered, all these flesh desires got awakened that I didn’t know was still there. And that is how God has been able to deal with it head on. I’m glad he has… as I am seeing the fruit of how my heart feels now. It went from feeling disguisting and broken, to feeling purged and cleansed. Refreshed. New again.

There is no other method for heart cleasning without the heart Cleanser: Jesus Christ. 

If I want to be healed, then I need the healer to tell me what I need to do about this. And to give me the courage to do it once He’s told me.

I knew the Lord was leading me to take some steps. Painful steps. Real steps. Sometimes God will ask you to do bizarre things but are we willing to get healing and deliverance? I was, and so I did what I had to in order to help this close. 

When the mind cannot reroute itself out of a mental fantasy, we need a supernatural hurricane to flood it and flush out the system so we can think clearly again. Romans 12:2 says that we can “be transformed by the renewing of our minds.” So there is a real way we can find help. God is the answer we are looking for and it may take time as He does His own process of healing but I promise you, if you go to God about it… He will do what needs to be done and help you do the same.

Temptation is not just an external reality of how we interact with the variables in the world around us. Temptation is a battle in the mind. This is why we need mind cleansing. Romans 8:6 says, “the mind set on the spirit is life and peace, but the mind set on the flesh is death.” What is my mind set on? I must ask myself. But it was set on God wasn’t it… that was the whole reason I was tempted with him to begin with. I would have never been attracted to a man who didn’t radiate God’s goodness. So how do I make sense of temptation from this aspect, where godliness is the actual temptation for me to another?

I’ve had to learn that seeing goodness in another and liking it, is not temptation. But falling in love with them more than God is.

God never intended to tempt me with this man.

God let me meet this man because it was a gift from God to show me an encounter of Him.

It was a direct response from the Holy Spirit to what I had been studying in my Bible about encounters of Jesus. And he was one.mGod gives good gifts to His people and that is they kind of God I have come to know my entire life. I’ve seen Him do so many miracle and bless my in crazy lavish ways.

This was another good and perfect gift.

But I took that good and perfect gift and I wanted to eat it everyday.

“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” James 1:13-14

My own desires ruined the purity of what God meant for me to enjoy as He intended.

When I decided to indulge in the gift more than I was suppossed to, that’s where I started to get off course. And in my mind, I was wrapped up in him. And I felt like I had 2 lovers, both him and God. 

Love God more than what He gives you… that is what I am reminding myself once again.

For me, I have to say Lord I loved that I got to meet such an amazing man but if he is not mine to have then he is not mine to indulge in. I have to let it go… and be content with the life God gave me. As a single woman, it feels harder now to be single because before I didn’t need a man and didn’t think there were any who truly could provoke my heart with God’s love. And now I feel like a got a taste of something that was so good. Like it was a teaser. That I can’t even have. But yet… I’m starting to have peace about this. Only because I know my God. I know my Jesus. And He doesn’t give anything to tease. He doesn’t do anything to hurt me. He never has. There has to be a reason he let this happen to me, and it’s more than me. I believe it was meant to help the other person too. God is always doing a million things at once and we cannot always fully see it. So I give into that mysteriously, divinely providential orchestration of the Lord to do something to me that He is using. I believe this is an experience that can help many of you.

I also see that this is really good heart cleansing for me to do, so that I won’t get myself into a bad situation in the future. For all I know, this mind and heart affair could be saving me from committing a future affair. I want to be the one who says no and because I’ve experienced this nasty feeling of what this is in my heart, I know I don’t want to ever trangress in this area. 

I’m finding myself being much more tender-hearted towards people whom I know who have committed affairs. And to people in general. Because now it happened to my own heart when I least expected it. I’ve had to ask myself, if I were given the chance to sleep with him… would I have? I don’t know. And the fact I can’t answer that startles me. I’ve always said I would never be that kind of person. Shouldn’t I be able to give a definitive No… it seems I’m not that different from everyone else. At least in my base, human heart. But when I say, No Lord I am Your daughter given a new heart of flesh and not a heart of stone, I live for You! And I see that I’m already held in perfect intimacy… by the God who loves me and cherishes me… then I am the woman who says no. And I flee it. No matter how much my body craves it, I choose to crave You more. And I want to clease this part of my heart so that I never have to question what I would do and I know who I choose to be.

You have to choose what kind of man and woman you want to be…

One of purity… 

Or of compromise…

You need to know now before the temptation comes. Because the heart will deceive us if it’s not regenerated with purity from Jesus. He is the one who cleanses the heart. For that is where purity exists. Not in our actions, but in the heart. Deep within…

Adultery and affairs can be so common in the world today and even in the Christian sphere because of how vulnerable the heart of a human is…

I want to be mindful of my heart.

Do you?

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23

What is in yours?

We need to know the answer to that question.

We need to ask ourselves what is really going on in our hearts.

It will benefit you… I promise. It’s your heart not anyone elses and you want it to be healthy because it affects your whole person, mind, body, soul and spirit. Not everyone wants to be honest about their hearts. But to neglect the reality of what goes on in there is to set ourselves up for problems. Problems that will only build upon each other. We need to know what goes on inside our hearts and we need to address the root desires causing us to go to anything but God to complete us. I felt this man completing me in how I lusted after him but it never could fully give me what I desired… because I was not meant to have an affair with a lover in my mind. I was not meant to long for someone who does not belong to me. I was not meant to be made whole by anyone other that God. My heart is learning how to deflect what shouldn’t belong there.

What if we were to be crucially mindful of our hearts? So that we never allowed evils to manifest? Lust will ruin a person and their family if they let it go unchecked. Because eventually that penned up desire will unleash and respond to what it finds desirable when the opportunity presents itself, and you never know when that might happen. I didn’t know I would meet this man and then before I knew it, I was attached to him in lust.

We need to prepare our hearts before the temptation ever comes our way.

We need to know who we are and how we want to live before seducation ever comes knocking on the door.

We need to know what we stand for and what kind of man or woman we want to be before we have to choose on the fly.

Because it’s not about what you say you are when no temptation comes. The test is in the real life experiences of temptation coming toward you… that is where you prove who you really are.

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13

You have a way out… it’s through encountering Jesus in intimate relationship. That is where purity of heart is generated. That is where purity wins the battle. You have to be connected to Him if you want to overcome. And become someone who won’t be shaken by it.

The next time I encounter a handsome man of God or an opportunity for lust, I want to react with a pure heart. Actually, I want to be at a point where I don’t even have a lustful thought because I have already been conditioned to see him as a brother in Christ. I dont’ always have to fight a battle with lust. Once it’s done and Jesus’ cleanses me, I can be pure and new just like He said I can be. It’s possible to not let temptations overtake us. We are so much stronger in the spirit that we think. 

I am already having to take these questions and virtues to the Lord to be the woman He asks me to be, so that when the storm comes I will react instinctively with a pure heart and not a heart of lust. Because I won’t have time to figure it out when it happens. I have to know NOW. I have to be a woman of purity in the way I live right now and the way I think right now so that I will be from now onward.

I love this verse in Colossians. Paul says,

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 3:2

This verse is so powerful for me because again, my mind is a powerful weapon for either good or bad. And when I set my mind on things above… I think of Jesus… and He is my love, just like He always has been. This life is so short and I don’t want to get sidetracked with desires that I don’t need to be sidetracked by. “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” as Philippians 1:21 says and I want to mean this. The Lord knows I do. I try to do this with all I am. He is my life… and I don’t need anything else but what He has for me. This experience has only reaffirmed that love with me and the Lord and He is better than anything else.

James 1:12 says “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” 

A love untested is a love unproven.

Real love proves itself when tested.

Thank you Lord… for caring about my heart this much for cleanse me before it ever got worse.

God was cleansing me.

I believe this was a test for me, and in the future I always want to pass the test. The test of purity. The test of character. The test of virtue and following the Lord no matter what it costs. Because there is a cost… to doing the right thing. And there is a dying of the self… choosing God over pleasure. But it gives back… a spiritually vibrant life that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Marriage cannot satisfy me like God can. Sex cannot satisfy me like God can. God gives us good gifts but He is the ultimate gift. The supreme Love. The only Love I want to give my heart to… because He satisfies my heart when I need it… and He is kind enough to me to clease it, albeit painful, so I can be free…

So I ask you…

What is in your heart?

May your affair be a love affair with the Lover of your soul. God Himself. Jesus Christ. 

You didn’t seduce me

to leave me in the shadows

wondering where You are

You didn’t call me

to woo me into the bedroom

giving You a song

that plays when love is made

You are the Love

where I was made

engraved in the palm of Your hands

You ran to me

when I was running towards him

You held me

when I was holding onto him

You held us

and never let go

Your hands 

they reminded me of the King

I always knew

and that my love

is only You

my Love is only You

 

I love You Lord

please forgive me

 

for loving him more than You

forever I give my life to You 

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1