The Christian and Sexual Fantasy

For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. -Jesus

Have you ever heard of a Christian couple that seemed like they had it all together and then out of left field news of an affair comes out and divorce may soon follow? Their family, friends, and church are shocked. Their children are blind-sided. And everyone says they had no idea.

This scenario has impacted my world far too many times. I have mourned homes broken, wounded kids, fractured churches, and souls lost over the sin of adultery. In the wake of these tragedies, everyone asks the same question, “When did it start?”

I don’t know a lot, but I am confident of one thing, it started well before the first touch, before the first kiss, and definitely before sex happened. It started with those thoughts Jesus was talking about in Matthew 15:19. It all started with a fantasy.

It started with a discontent wife fantasizing about being with a sexier man, a teen-age boy, or another woman. It started with a husband fantasizing about being with multiple women, a young girl, or someone else forbidden. It started in the heart, produced evil thoughts and culminated in sin.

Here’s another thing I know, married people aren’t the only ones with sexual fantasies. Single and divorced Christians are struggling with what to do with their lust for sex outside of marriage, homosexual desires, bondage fantasies, and thoughts of pedophilia.

Maybe you find yourself struggling alone with these thoughts and your guilt is overwhelming you. You feel dirty for things you fantasize about. Or maybe your fantasies have dominated you and you have indulged in sexual sin and can’t get out.

If you feel alone, I want you to know you are not. In our small work, my husband and I have heard the confessions of numerous Christians and even ministers of things they never told anyone. They have been enslaved by child pornography, sex with minors, multiple sex partners, prostitution and sexual addictions of all kinds.

Here’s another thing I know, we can’t throw a bible verse at these things and make them disappear. Satan has woven a deep cord through the hearts and minds of many Christ followers. He has created a false reality and warped their sense of truth. Eph. 5:11 tells us to expose his darkness with truth. That is often an arduous journey of peeling back layer after layer of scars and wounds to find real emotional, psychological and spiritual healing.

Shannon Ethridge, in her latest release, The Fantasy Fallacy, approaches this topic in a way that exposes darkness and points us in the direction of the God-centered sexual freedom that we were created for.

I want to give Shannon a personal plug here. Several years ago when my husband and I were facing our own battle against sexual fallacies in our marriage, Shannon and Greg Ethridge took a call from Daniel that changed the course of our marriage and our ministry forever. We were at a crossroads that was likely to end in divorce and the end of our work in the kingdom of God. But God placed these servants in our path at just the right time. We were rerouted toward heaven, Satan’s lies were exposed and healing for us began.