Is Lust Always Bad?

Lust has always carried a negative connotation whenever I have heard it. It just sounds like a dirty word. Just say the word "lust" out loud to your friend at a coffee shop and see the people around you turn a crooked eye. Usually, it is for good measure that lust holds such a negative inference. The Bible warns against lusting after things of the flesh, lusting after women, etc. But I wonder if lust is ALWAYS a bad thing. Is there anything we should be lusting after? I think the answer is yes.

In Galatians 5:16&17 Paul writes, "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." I am not a Greek scholar, but I looked up the word "desires" in verse 17 in the Strong's Dictionary and found that word is the same as lust or to lust after or covet. So it seems that to battle the lusts of the flesh, which Paul outlines a couple verses later, we need to be lusting after something greater, which is Christ. So to walk by the Spirit seems to be a lusting after Christ and seeing him as supreme to the desires or lusts of the flesh. Once Christ is the supreme lust of our hearts, we will no longer gratify the lusts of the flesh because we will no longer be enticed by them. We will see them for what they are and be freed from desiring after inferior things. (Cf. Gal. 5:13).

So is lust always a bad thing? Usually it is, but I think we need to conquer our lusts of the flesh with a lust after Christ. Taking this back to 1 Cor. 10:31, I think God puts desires in our hearts. I desire to have a job so that I can support my wife in such a way that if/when we have children I can support our family on my income alone. I need to contemplate whether my desires are glorifying God, or glorifying something else.

Feel free to post your thoughts.