After I posted my last blog I took a trip to North Georgia to spend time with my mentor. I had been planning this trip for a few weeks and had a lot of things that I wanted to talk about with my mentor in person. I hadn’t seen him since Christmas and I was really looking forward to spending some quality time talking to him.
However, when I arrived at his home, there was a surprise waiting for me. Some other old friends of ours had come down from North Carolina at the last minute to spend the week with my mentor. I didn’t mind because I hadn’t seen some of them in years. They brought their children and wives. It was a lot like a big church gathering. I’m just glad that I remembered to take my nose ring out when I first arrived.
Later that night my mentor’s oldest daughter and her family showed up. Then his 90-year-old mother and 95-year-old uncle showed up. We ended up grilling out and sitting on a porch in my mentor’s backyard talking and enjoying the view of the Blue Ridge Mountains (hills to me). The topics ranged from memories to politics to worship. It was one big community of friends and family getting reacquainted and fellowshipping. The next morning as I sat in my mentor’s Sunday school class I smiled as he explained how quickly plans and our desires can change. He chuckled as he explained how a community of three grew to a group of 17 in a day.
The word community comes from the Latin root commūnitās,which means common or likeness. Now if you are Christian like me, you know and believe in the Trinity of God. It’s a community and that was always God’s plan for us, His creation; God, Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:26 – 27).. That was His plan, but Adam and Eve had plans of their own, didn’t they? Don’t we? We want what we want right here, right now.
And from then on everything went wrong. And we keep trying to fix things. We keep trying to make things right, because we know things really aren’t right. We know things aren’t as good as we’d like them to be. All because two people wanted something that they weren’t ready for. Like selfish children, they cried, “GIMMIE that.” Moses says the fruit was pleasing to the eye (Genesis 3:6). And they took it because they didn’t listen to God.
In his book Sex God Rob Bell explains, “In the first chapter of Genesis, when God creates the first people, he blesses them. God’s blessing is the peace of God resting on people. The story begins with humans in right relationship-and healthy, life-giving connection-with their maker. All of their other relationships flow from this health of this one central relationship-people and God. They’re connected with the earth, with each other. They’re naked and feel no shame. And then everything goes south. They choose another way. And they become disconnected... Disconnected from each other. Disconnected from the earth. The woman is told that there’s going to be conflict between her and the man. The man is told there is going be conflict between him and the soil.”
Life isn’t going to be easy anymore. Everything is going to take some form of work; whether eating, finding shelter or the relationship between Adam and Eve, the man and woman are going to have to WORK IT OUT to make this community work (sorry for the pun). This is appropriate seeing how we will celebrate Labor Day tomorrow. For Adam and Eve it seemed as though Paradise was lost.
Rob Bell continues, “And this is where you and I come in. We are born into a world, into a condition, of disconnection… We’re severed and cut off and disconnected in a thousand ways, and we know it, we feel it, we’re aware of it every day. It’s an ache in our bones that won’t go away. And so from an early age we have this awareness of the state of disconnection we were born into, and we have a longing to reconnect.” HOPE IS WHAT WE CRAVE. This is why we want to be loved, to be HELD, to be heard.
This is where community comes back into the picture. This is where marriage comes into the picture. It’s why the gospel writers use the analogy of marriage to that of God and the church. God loves us, His greatest creation too much to let us go. And so the LOVE PURSUIT began in THE GARDEN and it blossomed into the divine romance of God calling out to His creation, at times through creation. In his recent simulcast David Platt shared, “There are eight million people living in northern Yemen, there are only 20 or 30 believers. The rest are ‘Unreached people.’ That’s people who have never heard the gospel message.”
Evangelism is communication. Communication is essential to community; in fact the word communication comes from the same Latin root word as community, commūnitās. As Joshua Harris explains in his book Boy Meets Girl, “The most important thing your lips can do right now (while dating) isn’t kissing (dang!); It’s communicating."
Have you ever noticed that after talking to some people for just a few moments that you feel a connection? Sometimes the more you talk to them it seems like you’ve known each other all your life. That’s the beauty of taking time to get to know someone. And this is an area that a lot of people skip in relationships. I often hear older couples talk about how they are married to their best friend. These days many young women don’t believe in this.
They marry hoping the guy will become their best friend instead of taking the time getting to know them while dating. They hope IN TIME the physical pleasure of sex will bring them closer instead of taking the time to talk to each other. Instead of slowing down in the dating process many RUSH like some guys do in physical sex and they end up on an emotional ROLLER COASTER. I’ll never forget listening to Jhan Moskowitz at Promise Keepers in 2003, “Make sure your wife wakes up with a smile on her face from time to time. Don’t finish when she is just getting started.” Take it slow and get to know each other by talking first. Comedian Steve Martin once sarcastically smirked, “Don’t have sex man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to start talking to them.” Yes! Ernest Hemingway once said, “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
Honestly, this is my favorite part of dating or getting to know a woman, talking and listening to her. It takes more than some PRETTY ROCK GIRL to turn me on. I enjoy learning what drives her and what she is passionate about. There’s nothing like looking into a woman’s eyes as she talks about her dreams. Better yet there’s nothing like seeing the spark in her eyes when she says, “I LOVE YOU” to your face. I’m not talking about a casual utterance like when she says she loves chocolate or a certain outfit or an uncompassionate word over the phone. I’m talking about a heartfelt genuine confession face-to-face.
This is why we should always talk to the person directly, not their friends or best friends, not even their family. If you’re in your 20s or 30s and still doing that, grow up! Irish poet Brandon Francis Behan once noted, “A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.”
Everybody has a different perspective and opinion on what is going on. If you can’t learn to talk to somebody directly while you’re single or dating, you won’t be able to communicate with them effectively in marriage. You won’t be able to handle the difficulties of marriage. As Jhan Moskowitz said at Promise Keepers, “You must learn how to fight fair.” Girls get used to it and start talking to your man. Men learn how to listen to your Wives. Church, we need to learn how to listen to God, especially when praying. We can’t listen to God if we’re always talking, sometimes we need to shut up and listen.
This is another reason why I hate cell phones and I am so thankful that my brain injury keeps me from having one. Ironically, cell phones are meant to help people stay connected, while they do the opposite. It’s a cheap imitation of connection and it robs us of really getting to know each other. Texting is even worse, sure there are words, but there is no connection, that’s why we now have problems with sexting. People are still trying to connect through pleasure. But if you really listen to those words, you can see what the person is about, selfish and temporary pleasure; which is not very lady-like. Unlike the Holy word, there is no life in these words.
Those of you who know me know that one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone doesn’t reply to my phone calls or emails. To me it’s being disrespectful and rude by not replying or returning a phone call, after all SILENCE SPEAKS A THOUSAND WORDS. Besides, my primary love language is words of affirmation, followed by quality time (not quantitative) it doesn’t take much time of listening to someone to get clarity about what’s important to them or what they want.
The relentless lover of the church is constantly talking to her (guys take note) and whispering sweet nothings to her (this is romance), if she would only LISTEN. God’s people have always heard Him, but have had a hard time of listening to Him (Isaiah 6:9, Ezekiel 12:2, Matthew 13:14). So you may hear God, but do you listen to Him? Or do you listen to someone else?
That was the problem the apostle Paul had (Romans 7:15- 20). Let me explain the difference, hearing is passive and involves no action, while listening is active by resulting in a response to what we hear. Paul would later pen that faith comes by hearing the word (Romans 10:17). What we do after hearing it shows if we’re listening. Believing is a verb, Love is a verb and listening is a verb. This is what Jesus’ half-brother James tried to explain to the church (James 1:22). Growing up with an Army Sargent as a father, I learned early in my childhood the difference between hearing and listening, hoo.
All throughout Francine River’s Redeeming Love we see God talking to both Michael Hosea and his unfaithful wife Angel. We see the fight; we’ve experienced this fight ourselves. Angel really had a hard time listening, “Each Sunday following the sermon, the pastor gave an invitation to anyone wanting to receive Christ as their Savior and Lord. Each time he gave the opportunity to come forward, Angel felt her nerves tighten. The still, quiet voice beckoned tenderly. ‘Come to me, Beloved. Stand and come to me.”
There’s no need to ask, how do I know the will of God? Pope Paul VI wisely said, “Of all human activities, man’s listening to God is the supreme act of his reasoning and will.” God has always talked to us, first through His creation, then His Spirit, the prophets of old, communities and finally the vital lens of His Holy word. Everything and everyone that God talks through cannot contradict His Holy word, any of it. It’s His love LETTER TO YOU.
The Holy Spirit, a true prophet and a faith community should never contradict the Bible, none of it. If we are really serious about RECONNECTING to God, then we can’t neglect the word. Or else we will remain cut off. If what that little voice we hear says or a so-called prophet says and even our church families says doesn’t line up with the word of God then we can’t walk in God’s will. We are cut off and that is THE SINFULNESS SIN OF SIN. A lady knows her lover’s voice and she won’t listen to another’s, but run from it. Jesus said something similar about His followers (John 10:14-17).
This is why the apostle Paul tells us that Jesus cleans His lady through the Bible (Ephesians 5:25 – 26). Likewise husbands should clean their wives by the transforming power of the word like He cleans us (26, John 17:17). It is by the word made flesh (Jesus) that we are reconnected to God. This communication is what connects a husband to a wife and them to God. Not just some simple physical pleasure that we call sex. Perhaps like me you learned that pleasure doesn’t last and always leaves you YEARNING for more, while love satisfies and enriches us. It requires a lifelong commitment.
As Francine Rivers writes, “How Duke would laugh. ‘Love is a trap, Angel. Stick to pleasure. It doesn’t require any great commitment.” It’s ironic that we feel safest when there is no true commitment and we’re free to walk away and be eternally disconnected.
Bell continues, “Scholars believe that the word sex is related to the Latin word secare, which means “to sever, to amputate, or to disconnect from the whole... Our sexuality, then, has two dimensions. First, our sexuality is our awareness of how profoundly we’re severed and cut off and disconnected. Second our sexuality is all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect.” Love connects; sex is a weak attempt at love. I didn’t know this when I was younger. Or maybe I did, maybe like Angel I was just afraid of the commitment. Perhaps I ran from it like Jonah did when he heard what God was telling him to do (Jonah 1:1-2).
Sometimes we like what God is saying and sometimes we don’t. Contrary to popular belief God doesn’t always say what we want to hear or give us what we want. I can remember two years ago while driving back home from Columbia, South Carolina after going jamskating with some friends of mine and hoping to see another friend that I care about and miss. Heartbroken and disappointed from not seeing her, I remember feeling overcome as I cried and drove.
Then suddenly as I saw the city lights of Augusta, Georgia shining through the night, I sensed God say, “Don’t you worry child.” And immediately I had peace as God began to COMFORT ME. The downpour of the Holy Spirit was so strong, it was like God was in the car with me and I wasn’t alone. Isn’t that what God promised us? To be honest there is no one I'd rather be with or NO PLACE I’D RATHER BE. THE SAINTS of the Bible aren't the only ones who are in the presence of God. It was that night that I learned the difference between being alone and feeling lonely. Being single, I constantly get the, “Not good to be” lecture from well-meaning friends. It’s like I’m the elephant in the room, oh he’s single and is missing out on so much. Actually, I’m really not missing out.
Singleness isn’t a curse; it’s an opportunity to listen even more. It’s a chance to grow closer to God and listen to His heart, HEAVEN’S HEART. This is what the apostle Paul tried to explain to the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 7:8-9). The apostle Paul knew that sex was meant for reconnecting to God. Have you ever heard someone say, “That sex was so good, it was a spiritual experience?”
Rob Bell continues, “If we take this understanding of our natural state seriously, we have to rethink what sexuality is. For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure. But that’s only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other and with God... Some of the most sexual people I know are celibate. They sleep alone. They have chosen to give themselves to lots of people, to serve and give and connect their lives with beautiful worthy causes.”
Years ago my mentor warned me to think twice about praying for marriage and a wife. He knows how much I enjoy spending time alone with God and reading the Bible. He told me “Once you’re married, your priorities and focus would shift to one person, your wife. Bell concludes, “You can be having sex with many and yet you’re alone. And the more sex you have, the more alone you are. And it’s possible to be sleeping alone, and celibate, and to be very sexually connected with many.”
That brings me back to my trip to North Georgia and the unexpected reunion. Honestly, in a lot of ways it was much better than I had planned and hoped for. You see not only am I single; I come from a pretty dysfunctional family background. It was great hearing the perspectives of others and hearing about their ministries. Countless little children running around made me long for some of my own. But that will require being married and having sex. So that is what this remixed blog will be about, the power of sex and sexual healing. Go ahead and blush. Now let’s talk about sex. When my mentor and I finally sat down to talk one-on-one he shared with me, “There are three things that will cause a man to fall every time; position, power and sex.”
THE POWER OF SEX (REMIXED AND REPOSTED?)
A few years ago I had a neighbor who was obsessed with sex and pornography. Sometimes he would go into detail about what he liked sexually when he’d come over to my place to visit. This guy would stay up all hours of the night and look at porn on his computer. He once told me that he wouldn’t even go out with a woman unless SHE’S A FREAK. He let the world’s definition of sex define what sex to him would be. To be completely honest, most of the stories he shared disgusted me. I didn’t want to hear about what can GLOW IN THE DARK. Besides I like to keep the LIGHTS ON, so open your eyes. French poet once said, “When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.”
My neighbor’s stories reminded me of the first time I ever saw pornography in Italy when I was four years old. My father was stationed in Italy at the time. We lived off-base and the bus stop was located at the end of block not far from the trash pick-up area. One morning I arrived at the bus stop a little early with my older sister and found some of the other boys huddled in the back corner of the bus stop tearing pages out of a dirty discarded Italian magazine.
Apparently some poor soldier’s wife had found her husband’s stash and had thrown it out with the trash. The young boys’ curiosity got the best of them; actually, the best of us, I had my page tucked into my Superman lunchbox as well. The school buses in Vicenza, Italy were contracted out to charter buses which were too long and big for the bus driver to notice all of the boys amassing in the middle of the bus. What a memory, right?
Don’t forget that I am a T.B.I. survivor and I’m missing 30% of my brain with half of my frontal lobe cut out. Yet, I can still remember that childhood incident and every other sexual act that I’ve experienced up to just before my accident when I wasn’t even 22! This isn’t a testament about me, but about the power of sex, it can be a curse or a gift. Ironically, Marilyn Monroe once said, “A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.”
Kyle Idleman explains in his book Gods at War, “When something good becomes a god, the pleasure it brings dies in the process. Pleasure has this unique trait: the more intensely you chase it. The less likely you are to catch it... When the gift replaces the giver as the object of our worship, something surprising happens. When we begin to worship this god of pleasure instead of the God who gave it to us, we discover that the pleasure is lost. We discover the devastating paradox that when we pursue pleasure as a God, pleasure disappears.”
God knew from the beginning how powerful sex is, that’s why He put boundaries in place that it should only happen in a marriage between one husband and one wife. God knew that outside of those boundaries it can ruin everything in its path (Proverbs 6:27 -28), even a pure love.
I know from experience because it cost me my high school sweetheart, the only lover of mine. And yes. I can still remember holding her in my arms. Her blue eyes haunt me to this day and I haven’t been able to date another woman with blue eyes since. I have to try and catch my breath just thinking about her. Even now, it’s getting HOT IN HERE. We were truly best friends. We had talked for over a year getting to know each other before dating and didn't even kiss for two months. Her eyes were as rich as the Colorado sky. Christian author Timothy Randolph stated, “Celibacy is not just a matter of not having sex. It is a way of admire a person for their humanity, maybe even for their beauty.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t mature enough or strong enough to control myself and three months after that first kiss we had sex. I knew then that was the beginning of the end because we had nothing special to look forward to. The communication shifted from talking to sex (physical). I bought her a ring and we were engaged, I hoped that it would give us something to look forward to.
However, when her family learned of our secret, they insisted that we part ways and we did, we snuck around in private for nearly a year. Eventually, even the sex didn’t hold us together and we went separate ways. As I look back, I wish we would’ve kept on talking and waited to have sex (pleasure).
Francine Rivers had it right, “Michael drew back. He wasn’t going to allow his desire to become rampant. He wasn’t going to embrace sex and lose sight of love, no matter how much more comfortable she would be with that. ‘My way, not yours. Remember?’ He stood up. Angel watched him in confusion. ‘What do you know about it?’ ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’ ‘Why do you make things difficult for yourself? It all comes down to the same thing. It won’t be my way or your way. It’ll just be the way it is.’ A sexual act was what she meant, and he didn’t know how to show her it was meant to be a celebration of love.”
In Redeeming Love Angel knew all too well about sex (pleasure), but nothing about love. In her heart she longed for more, but she didn’t know what it was. Like most of us she didn’t know that it was worth waiting for.
WAIT 2.0?
If you’ve ever met me, you’ve seen the TRUE LOVE WAITS puzzle ring my wedding finger. I wear it because God’s given me a second chance to get this love thing right and I’m committed to it at all costs. I look at it as a gift. One I want to share with the lady of my heart one day. That’s ALL I REALLY WANT, to share the gift of love and not just sex with the lady who will cherish it. If she’s a freak, she’ll be a Jesus Freak! As Francine Rivers explains in Redeeming Love, “Love is the way back into Eden. It is the way back to life.” That’s God’s gift to us.
Idleman continues, “Think through this with me. When we worship sex as a god, we find that it leads to the exact opposite of its divine design as a gift. As a gift it brings connection; as a god it causes loneliness. As a gift it brings pleasure; as a god it leads to emptiness. As a gift it brings satisfaction; but as a god it demands slavery. As a gift it brings intimacy; as a god, separation. As a gift it brings unity; as a god it often causes divorce. It’s a beautiful gift and a tyrant of a god.”
I look at it as a gift for many reasons personally: first it’s a gift that’s been given to me, it’s an OUTRAGEOUS GRACE. Next it’s a gift because I can give it to someone else someday. Don’t forget, the best gifts are the ones that surprise us. Finally it’s a gift because gifts are best when we wait for them.
BEST 3.0?
For believers, what is the best gift God can give us? Think about the analogy between God and His lady to a husband and wife. Again, the best God can give us is Himself; this is a divine love and a model of the SACRED LOVE between a husband and wife. God is His own best gift to us. David Platt concluded his latest simulcast by stating, “If you can trust Him (God) to save you, you can trust Him to lead you. You can trust Him to satisfy you.” That’s why He is the CHRIST OF HOPE, WE BELONG TO JESUS, HOLD ON TO JESUS, not the world. This is why there is nothing in this world worth chasing. This was God’s promise through the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 29:11.
Unfortunately, many false teachers today use this verse as a promise of materialism and worldly prosperity, welcome to the city of dreams and don’t worry child; ask for whatever you want and it’s yours, sounds like the DEVILS BEEN TALKIN’. The Hebrew word used here for prosperity is shalom which also means peace and completeness. God is literally promising His people, His lady that He will free her from slavery in Babylon and restore her to Himself. We cannot ascribe anything or any other person the place of God in our lives, Christ died to set us FREE FROM IT ALL. This is what was happening while the Israelites were in exile. Founder of Mary Kay cosmetics, Mary Kay Ash once said, “There are two things people want more than sex and money … Recognition and praise.” We all want to BE SOMEBODY.
If you read the entire passage you will see that there were false prophets filling God’s people’s heads with lies and telling them to chase their dreams. God’s people were committing adultery in a sense and through Jeremiah God declared that He hasn’t spoken to these “prophets” and if they don’t listen to them, God is going to RESTORE His people to Himself. It was never God’s will for His lady to give another her heart. This is why the apostle Paul declared that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:28-38).
This is why it is never God’s will for a husband and wife to divorce, this connection isn’t supposed to be severed. The Pharisees and even Jesus’ own disciples struggled with this. Just after Jesus taught about forgiveness in Matthew 18 a group of Pharisees questioned Him about divorce in chapter 19 (how ironic). Jesus’ reply showed that the Pharisees’ hearts were hard as titanium (Matthew 19:1-11). Love always unites, sex doesn’t.
This is what Angel learned in Redeeming Love, all her life she had sex with men and never experienced a loving connection like she did with Michael Hosea who showed her the love of God by not using her for physical pleasure. It took three years of being away from him before she finally realized THIS IS LOVE and she finally woke up to God’s kind of love, “Warmth swept over her. This was the love she’d been waiting for all her life. Yet she could not move. Oh, Michael, if you are only here with me today.” Miles away from her husband and she still felt the warmth of his love; although she wasn’t a child of God, she still felt the power of God’s love.
This is why sex and pornography rob so many of the beauty and sacredness of love. XXXchurch.com. Reports that 40 million U.S. adults regularly visit pornographic websites, 47% of Christians say that pornography is a problem in their home, 20% of men admit to viewing pornography at work, 42.7% of internet users view porn, 10% of adults admit to sexual addiction. It’s no wonder the divorce rate is so high in America (even in the church), most people don’t know what commitment is.
If you’re a woman, don’t say amen just yet! XXXchurch.com. also reports “70% of women keep their cyber activities secret.17% of all women struggle with pornography addiction. Women favor chat rooms twice as much as men. 1 of 3 visitors to all adult web sites are women, 9.4 million women access adult web sites each month, 13% Women who admit to accessing pornography at work. Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.”
While men are more visual, women tend to be more emotional. Both are guilty of emotional adultery when their needs are met anywhere else other than the one they’re committed to. This is why communication is so important. You don’t need to go to family, friends or some false prophet to hear from God. As followers of Jesus we have a direct line to God. Oh, that’s right we don’t believe that anymore. That’s why we post things on Facebook and Twitter to God.
With that said, for the women reading this don’t expect your husbands/boyfriends to know what you’re thinking. I know it’s romantic to think that someone knows you so well that they just know what you want or are thinking; that it’s just being dumb, dumb. And it is not a sign of your destiny together. Don’t we believe that God made each of us different? Don’t make a relationship any harder than it already is and don’t put the extra pressure on your spouse/boyfriend. I know I’M ME and I’m trying to get to know you.
In his book Effective Magazine Writing: Let Your Words Reach the World my writing mentor Roger Palms explains, “No two people are alike. Since no one else has lived life exactly as you have lived it, others want to read what you know and have experienced. Your life has taken twists and turns that have taught you new ways to depend on God. You have had joy and pain and struggle. You are a unique person with a unique message.”
So how can you honestly expect another unique person to always agree with you? People don’t always say what we want them to say, either. Even the best marriages have “disagreements”, but it’s when they stick it out, that they grow closer and stronger. You see when a couple disagrees or argues, they are still communicating and getting to know each other. That’s why I often say if two people never disagree, then someone’s lying. Besides don’t we believe EVERYTHING WORKS TOGETHER for the good of those who love God (Romans 8:28)?
Unfortunately, instead of talking some people try to use sex (physical pleasure) to cover the problem only to later have it all come up again. Perhaps this is why the apostle Paul warned us not to go to bed angry (Ephesians 4:26). Contrary to what some may think, this doesn’t lead to a healthy sex life. That isn’t the purpose of sex, no matter how many OHHS AND AHHS you hear. A bad sex life is when two people aren’t connecting; emotionally or spiritually, not just physically. If you’re a woman, don’t use (sex) physical pleasure to try to cover problems in your relationship, it’s not healthy. Besides men know when you’re faking it. Every man knows when the connection/chemistry isn’t there anymore.
While researching magazines for a seasonal article I was writing I came across an interesting article in Converge Magazine titled Why I Use Sex by Micah Kobayashi. She explains, “I was taught that sex is not any of the following: a weapon, Something to withhold, a tool used to control another, an instrument that can be manipulated to acquire my own wishes, a method of punishment, to use sex as such is to demolish its original purpose and to disobey, even scorn, its Creator.” As Francine Rivers beautifully states in Redeeming Love, “My love isn't a weapon, it's a lifeline, reach out and take hold, and DON’T LET GO!”
To be honest I’ve been guilty of using sex and emotions this way in my past. I can’t count how many times I would play the guitar and sing a good love song to a young woman to get what I wanted from her when I was younger. I could play a girl like a cello from day one. I never took the time to get to know them and probably didn’t want to, I admit I was pretty SHALLOW and I regret it to this day. Christian rapper Lacrae recently tweeted, “Everyone gets older, but only some mature.” There is wisdom in waiting.
In his classic Why True Love Waits Josh McDowell explains, “When young couples are truly in love and plan on getting married someday, what’s to stop them from having sex now? The problem is, most youth are working from a counterfeit standard of love — one that says love permits sex without boundaries, outside of God’s definition of love… In 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul gives a good description of what love does and does not do. ‘Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out’ (1 Corinthians 13:4 – 6, NLT)… With these verses and others as a guide, we can derive a concise statement defining love. Love is making the security, happiness, and welfare of another person as important as your own. It is really an imitation of God’s love, the kind of love that protects the loved one from harm and provides for his or her good. True love is giving and trusting, secure and safe, loyal and forever.”
This is a far cry from what society has to say about sex, GIVE IT TO ME and GO CRAZY. Now before you say amen to that or mention Miley Cyrus, GOODNESS GRACIOUS the church isn’t doing much better. We teach if a couple is BURNING UP its best for them to get married regardless if they are READY OR NOT. This is why divorce is so high in the church. Then, once we realize there is no real connection, it’s okay to divorce because WE ARE YOUNG and everyone makes mistakes. Marriage is never a mistake, it’s a commitment until death do us part. I know the one woman walks down the aisle with me will be a part of me and I must give her MY ALL. We need to start teaching couples HOW TO LOVE, not lust. Maybe then they’ll be some sexual healing.
The apostle Paul was more adamant about Christians learning how to control themselves sexually than he was about them getting married (1 Corinthians 7:2 7-9, 2 Timothy 2:22, 1 Thessalonians 4:4). The only difference between church and society is that we call it love; we are just feel-good love addicts! We like our LOVE IN THE OPEN.
If our lives are God’s great dance floor we’ve turned a beautiful venetian waltx into a nasty horizontal shuffle. True love, the best love is safe and sound, forever. This is what Jesus taught His disciples (Matthew 19:6). It is not some temporary physical EUPHORIA, it’s yours 4EVER. Sex is cheap, love will cost you something and it’s worth waiting for. Someone needs to teach these SCREWED UP KIDS the difference between the POWER OF LOVE and the power of sex!
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