My son, as you head into puberty, the hideous face of your old man will start to become more evident, and the rages that it has against your new man will intensify- this is my encouragement to you.
Try this simple experiment. Think of the No. 8. Have you visualized it? If so, exercise your willpower and stop thinking of the No. 8 right now. Don't think about it. Get it out of your head! Can you do it?
Of course not. At least, I'm still thinking about that number. Can we, by sheer willpower, stop thinking about the number eight? By no means. Trying to push it out of our minds actually causes us to focus our attention on it.
What a picture of us when we try to overcome sin. We may get on our knees and ask God to take the desire away; we then determine not to think those lurid and greedy thoughts, but there they are again. We resist them once more, trying desperately to push them out of our minds. But we are trapped. Try as we might, we just can't get them to budge.
Can we really be free? Yes, we can control those thoughts, but not by trying to stop thinking about them! To simply resist evil is to make it grow stronger. Our determination not to think lustful thoughts only reinforces them in our thought patterns.
How, then can we be free? Let's return to our experience once more and think of the number 8. Although we can't stop thinking about it by sheer resistance, we can push that number out of our minds quite easily. Here's how: Think of the number 5. Focus on it. Keep doing that and you'll forget about the number 8!
Paraphrased from How to Say No to a Stubborn Habit (Lutzer) Pg 80
"Since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him--" Col 3:9b-10
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