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Nowadays, if you listen to popular music, watch popular television shows, or scroll through your social media, it will only take a few minutes before you find sexual references. As Christians, we should follow God’s principles for sex and not just worldly desires and opinions. In 1st Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul tells us that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and whom we have received from God. Therefore, why don’t you honor God with your body?
Sexual purity is typically the way we honor Christ with our bodies. It should not be about how far you go with your boyfriend/girlfriend, but rather, ” How much do you want to honor God with your body?” that’s what sexual purity is. Several times in the Bible, King Solomon, in the book Songs of Solomon challenges us to wait until the perfect time to stir up our sexual desires. We all know that Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, and so undoubtedly, he knew what he was talking about. Solomon was involved in multiple marriages with many concubines. We believe he came to understand one important truth: sexual intercourse within marriage is a beautiful, magical experience, but when taken out of its intended boundaries, you can find yourself in huge problems with unintended consequences.
No matter your marital status, God calls us to be sexually pure in our thoughts and actions. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 7 summarizes the subject of sexual purity: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you knows how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.” … “For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.”
Sex joins two lives in the act of unmatched closeness. According to 1 Corinthians 6:15-16, it engages and expresses your whole personality in a unique mode of self-disclosure. Therefore, when sex is committed outside of marriage, it loses its value, and its covenant-making power for you is eroded. Ironically, sex outside marriage eventually works against you, making you less committed and unable to trust one another. Fornication is precisely loved that has been reduced to sex. If this is the case, sex has then been depersonalized for just mere consumption, and whatever your initial pleasures and experiences were, they finally degrade, turns ugly, and destroys intimacy.”
Sexual sin can be very damning. As a Christian, it is good to know that an unrelenting commitment to fornication will automatically exclude you from heaven. 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 tells us that neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites nor homosexuals will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Right now, there are people in hell who thought that they could play religion by valuing extramarital sex more than the powerful word of God. The good thing is that fornication is a pardonable sin, and God is ready to forgive you if you seek His forgiveness, 1 Corinthians 6: 11.
I was brought up in a Christian family, and my parents were fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus saved me when I was in the sixth grade before starting the seventh grade. I was now a changed kid, and I wanted other kids around me to experience the love and power of God. However, I had a huge battle with sexual temptation over the next couple of years since I was now in my adolescent stage.
I struggled with lust, and let’s call it a struggle because I knew that the behavior was wrong. Guilt was eating me up because I knew I was thinking and living outside the will of God.
I was gazing lustfully at girls admiring every bit of their body as if they were objects of pressure instead of souls to love. I started watching pornography whenever I had a chance. Although my parents did not have pornography films in the house, we all know how easy it is to access pornography online regardless of your age. I was entertaining my sexual thoughts and fantasies. I was even masturbating. God was too good to me; He kept me from dating relationships because hell would have broken loose, and the desire to have sex would have been even greater.
As much as I loved Jesus, the desire to have sex hit me so hard like a tsunami. The worst part is that I did not disclose this to anyone because I was feeling so embarrassed. I believed that something was wrong with me. I even considered myself a sex freak. Since no one knew what I was struggling with, I could not get any help. On the outside, I seemed fine, but deep down in my heart, I was really struggling.
By God’s grace, I never quit stopping this habit. I was always fighting and praying for God’s intervention. This is a true biblical sign of real salvation. After all the cravings and sinful behavior, I would end up feeling remorse and run to God in repentance and determined to change, but it would still happen again. This happened over and over again throughout my adolescence, leaving me in endless shame. I hated my sins so much. I even got angry with God because I failed to understand why He didn’t do something to redeem me from this sin of my life and wondered why He allowed me to struggle even after I kept asking for His strength to win this battle.
Luckily, God was listening, and He answered my prayers, although it was not immediately. During my first year in college, God revealed to me how I would win this battle against sexual sin once and for all. It involved two techniques: defeat the sin in your mind and then defeat sin with your eyes. God revealed to me that all sexual sins begin with sexual fantasies, then a strong desire for sex which results in a physical action such as masturbation and watching pornography. If you refrain from sexual fantasies, then you have already won 99% of this battle. But, how do you get rid of or avoid sexual thoughts? Although it might be hard to prevent sexual temptations from crossing your mind, you can avoid what happens next. You can flush out these minds by thinking about something else or even reading a bible verse.
Make sure that you are part of a church that helps you win against fornication. A church that engages sex biblically. Although sex is good, sexual sins make us Christians lawbreakers and thus the need for redemption. A good church will provide hope for all sinners. 1 Corinthians 2:2, Matthew 11:28-29 tells us that we should not expect adulterers, fornicators, and homosexuals to convert to Christ if we do not accept them with the grace of the gospel. We Christians should be prepared to respond with sympathetic love and prayer to those courageous enough to confess their sexual sin, Galatians 62.
Originally posted 2021-10-19 09:08:00.
