Inordinate Affections and Lust

That girl was me.

I loved him so much I was afraid to lose him. I didn’t think I was worthy, and I lived in fear that one day he would discover this and leave me. I loved him so much that he began to take the place of other things in my life. I was willing to defy my friends and family, go against their wishes, I put their needs and events on hold because HE came first. I rationalized I could make it up to them after, because I had their love and this was the love I had to work for.

An inordinate affection is an unhealthy and obsessive attachment to a person or thing that manifests through uncontrollable “love”. I’m going to deal with two biblical reference points: Colossians 3:5 and Ezekiel 23. The first is a call to make a commitment to go against our earthly nature, and lists this as sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. In the King James Version, the word that is used synonymously with evil desire and lust is “inordinate affection”. The word inordinate implies excessive, unnatural without limitation.

I was changing to meet his needs. I was accommodating his bad behaviour, and rationalizing it in my head. I didn’t see his selfishness, instead I looked for signs that lined up with I wanted to see, and that was ultimately, that I was desirable. In my mind, I never expected him to take the place of God, but it happened so quickly I didn’t even realize I had constructed an idol in my heart.

This--- is abnormal. We may be tempted to say it is acceptable, because we all have friends who drop us the moment they meet someone- but there is a point where it develops into something else. An inordinate affection promotes isolation and secrecy. People may even say to you that the way you love that person is scary. We tend to rationalize things away (i.e., no one understands) but that is a piece of feedback that could provide the clue that something is forming in your relationship that is not okay. The more you sacrifice to be with this person, to keep him happy and with you, the less honest you can be to yourself about those sacrifices. We also tend to make up excuses for bad behaviour to explain it away, or worse, we cover it up. All of this moves us further away from our families and deeper into an abyss of desire that can never be met.

Here’s the thing about desire- it is always en route, and it never arrives. The end of desire is satisfaction. The clutch of desire is that the more you want to be wanted, the more you are willing to change and give up. But this kind of desire is never satisfied, only delayed. The moment you start to relax, something happens to throw the relationship in jeopardy again. And when your end game is something so elusive, desire ends up eating and consuming you. It wins because it gets you to continue to make yourself low with the promise that your value to the beloved is increasing.

The second Biblical reference is a controversial can of worms, but I am going to go there anyway. The book of Ezekiel is a prophetic book, and contains parables and figurative language. Chapter 23 is certainly a parable, that tells the plight of two sisters (who are later defined as Samaria and Jerusalem). The sisters engage in prostitution; the older sets the example, and the younger becomes even more depraved. Although it’s clear that she saw how her sister’s actions led to her death, the younger sister is not deterred from the destructive path she is on. The judgement that is meted out for her is her “sister’s cup”, illustrating again that the punishment given to the older sister will transfer to the younger who is under her influence. This passage of scripture is not to be taken literally. When Ezekiel speaks of prostitution, he is really speaking to idolatry in the hearts of the children of God. Their infidelities so to speak are the times they wander into and appropriate the culture of surrounding people. These transgressions feel like adultery to God, their Partner. When a person or a thing takes the place of God in your heart, it has won control of you. Inordinate affections are spirits that are putting your love and adoration in the wrong place.

Have you ever known someone who grieves the loss of a short relationship as though it were something more? It could be an inordinate affection from an unresolved relationship from the past is motivating this person to feel pain and torture that are not directly related to the circumstances at hand.

All of your relationships should be tempered by your love for God. When you place Him first in your life, everything else falls into place. It is possible looking back on your past, that you realize there were relationships where you replaced him with your beloved. I want to encourage you today to pray about these situations.

STEPS TO BREAKING INORDINATE AFFECTIONS

1)      Ask God to forgive you for allowing your love for_____ (insert person or thing) to replace Him, have influence over you, and or caused you to abandon your dignity in pursuit of him or it.

2)      Say, “ In the name of Jesus, I break every inordinate affection between _____ (name) and me.”

3)      Ask the Holy Spirit to remove any emotional trauma from you.

4)      Request prayer from your pastor / church elder (as explained in the previous post)