Lust Is Not the Problem. Memory Is. Love Is Not a Feeling. It’s a Discipline.

There are moments when you feel like love is pouring out of you. You’re thinking about everyone you care for, maybe even crying, and your body responds with….arousal. That sudden switch from affection to desire has confused many. But here’s the deeper truth:

When we associate love only with feelings, we aren’t engaging with the true spirit of love. Love is not a bodily sensation or a hormonal experience. Love is a spirit. It is a holy discipline, the only one that consistently nourishes life. Everything else, no matter how well-packaged, risks robbing life if it doesn’t flow from that discipline.

Lust, by contrast, is the spirit of consumption. It pretends to be love but originates from a completely different place. Lust does not create it, it takes. It mimics love, hijacks the body’s chemistry, and calls it connection. But what’s happening is the body replaying charged emotional memories. These are experiences you’ve labeled as pleasurable or familiar. The body fires them off again whenever something reminds you of them.

We don’t know how to express love. We haven’t been shown the right paths for affection, intimacy, and connection. As a result, the body scrambles. It defaults to the most intense template it has: lust. But lust is not here. It’s possession. Its consumption, endless consuming, a hunger without end.

Lust Is Memory, Not Moment

Lust doesn’t live in the now, it lives in the archive.

When you’re with someone and suddenly feel overcome with desire, it’s often not even about them. It’s about what your body remembers from movies, music, moods, and old stories. Those memories get triggered and reanimated, and now you’re trying to reenact a moment, not create one.

Lust draws from the past, not the current. It pulls emotions from prior scenes and projects them onto whoever is in front of you. This is why lust is always unsatisfying: you weren’t really there. You weren’t really with the person. You were with a memory that felt safe, exciting, or validating.

But love? Love is the now. It’s that sacred moment where nothing else exists. You’re not projecting. You’re perceiving. You’re fully there. People describe it as, “It’s like the first time every time.” Not because the body is surprised, but because the spirit is fully awake.

That’s what’s being stolen by lust. Not just purity, not just clarity, but your presence. And when you’re not there, your spirit can’t rule.

The Spiritual Possession of Lust

Lust isn’t just a habit. It’s a host. It takes over. It consumes. In spiritual language, it’s possession, not always demonic in the movie sense, but energetic possession. You’re no longer driving. Something else is.

Ancient texts knew this. The Testament of Solomon identifies specific spirits of lust and how they overtake the mind and body. The Book of Enoch describes how fallen angels taught humanity sexual corruption. Even Plato warned that misdirected desire enslaves the soul. And St. Augustine wept in Confessions over how lust controlled his life until the Holy Spirit set him free.

Lust opens spiritual doors. It allows old regrets, false beliefs, and even unseen forces to access you. And in a world designed to maximize pleasure and reduce presence, it’s no wonder so many feel fragmented.

How Societies Use Lust for Control

Here’s where it gets more sobering.

Entire kingdoms and industries have been built on the manipulation of lust. Why? Because lust disables discernment. It lowers attention span. It prioritizes stimulation over wisdom. And when you’re guided by desire, you’re not guided by truth.

Societies, from Babylon to Hollywood, have learned something important. If you can keep people in a loop of emotional charge, you can steer them anywhere. Memory-based cravings enhance this control. That’s not a conspiracy, it’s psychology. It’s also spiritual warfare.

Carl Jung described anima possession as the phenomenon where an internal image of womanhood overtakes a man. This image distorts his perception of real women. This happens in reverse, too. We stop seeing people for who they are. Instead, we see them as containers for our fantasies.

Hyper sexuality isn’t a want. It’s regret dressed up as a wish. It’s your body speaking. It asks, “Please let me feel what I didn’t feel back then.” It wants to get it right this time. But the now can’t fix the past. Only presence can heal what memory distorts.

Healing Lust Begins With Truth

Here’s what I’ve seen: If you were healed, truly healed, you wouldn’t be capable of lust. Not in the way you’ve known it. You would see the person in front of you for who they are now. You wouldn’t be looking through old windows or grasping for lost feelings. You would be there, with them, and God would be there too.

Even if you still felt desire, it wouldn’t be distorted. It would be born from love, not lack. From discipline, not desperation.

And yes, you can discipline lust. You don’t starve it—you reorient it. Consider this question: Is this thought from the now? Or is this from what I once felt, saw, or craved?

If it’s not from now, let it go.

Intelligence Doesn’t Save You, Presence Does

One final thing: society’s architects have believed that increasing intelligence through sensual experience and stimulation will raise human intellect. They believe this will lead to a higher form of humanity. But that’s a lie. God does not rank your value by your intellect. It’s not the clever, the educated, or even the highly spiritual who are elevated in eternity. It’s the meek. The present. The surrendered.

The person with a disability outranks every genius in heaven. Because God doesn’t measure your mind, he measures your heart.

So no matter how advanced your thoughts, your theology, or your temptations. If you’re not present with love, you’re not present with God.

References for Further Study

1. The Testament of Solomon – Ancient Christian text naming specific spirits of lust

2. Book of Enoch – Describes fallen angels corrupting mankind with sexual sin

3. Plato’s Phaedrus & Symposium – On love’s power to elevate or enslave the soul

4. St. Augustine’s Confessions – Personal journey through lust and spiritual liberation

5. Dr. Gabor Maté – In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts – On addiction and trauma

6. C.S. Lewis – The Four Loves – Breakdown of affection, friendship, eros, and agape

7. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk – The Body Keeps the Score – On how trauma lives in the body

8. Carl Jung – Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious – On possession by emotional archetypes

9. Watchman Nee – The Spiritual Man – On body, soul, and spirit

10. Andrew Murray – Absolute Surrender – Teaching on spiritual submission and holiness

Lust is not the enemy. Disconnection is.

And when you return to presence, you return to love. When you return to love, you return to God.