Help!

You might be thinking because this Sunday was the last week in our series "GodLoveSex" then you could finally take a breath, and release all that awkward tension; however, there is still one thing I'd like to reinforce to you: Get Help! As has been explained on Sunday morning through the services and discussion in group, as well as through the blog posts online, you cannot fight sexual temptation on your own. Sexual immorality is not something to play around with, you should flee from it, and tell someone about your struggle. Do not be fooled, sexual temptation will beat you if you leave it hidden within your secrets or if you try to "man up" and fight it. The best possible way to take a stand against sexual sin, is to run for your life!

Make the choice to be proactive. Instead of waiting for sexual temptation to find you, let somebody know what it is that you struggle with, so that when the time comes to run you'll have someone to help you. God never intended us to do life alone, and through church you can find someone who will listen, support, and love you while you defeat temptation together. Together you can decide on boundaries to set up for yourself, maybe it's removing your computer from your bedroom or never being alone with your boyfriend/girlfriend. The best person to reveal your struggle to is an older, more mature Christian (such as a parent or your small group leader), because they know what it's like to be in your shoes, and they can help you find the way out. Don't wait until it's too late, don't wait until your faced with temptation. If you wait until the moment temptation comes to make a decision, you have already lost. Trust that God will provide you with someone who has been where you are now, and knows the way to get to the place you want to be. As I finish out this sex series I want to leave you with a story of hope, so that you might be compelled to reveal your struggle against temptation to an older Christian so that, through confession and prayer, you can be healed (James 5:16).

This guy’s walking down a street, when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep, he can’t get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up, "Hey you! Can you help me out?" The doctor writes him a prescription, throws it down the hole, and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up, "Father, I’m down in this hole! Can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a friend walks by. "Hey Joe, it’s me, can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole! Our guy says, "Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here!" And the friend says, "Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out."

Explore
In order to be entered into the contest to win a prize: Click Here.

Pray
That God will reveal someone, in whom you can trust your secret to, and that you will have the courage to speak.

Breaking the Habit

This is poison! Your secrets keep you sick!

We are broken, on more than one level, but especially in our sexuality, we are broken. Our addictions leave us bleeding out through an open wound, and it's starting to scab over. All of our secrets and schemes to hide our sin are nothing more than band-aids covering a gunshot wound; we're losing more ground than we're gaining. What addiction, what sin could be so serious that I would compare it to a gunshot wound? The answer is pornography, and ultimately lust. You might think that a gunshot wound is an extreme metaphor for something like lust and pornography, but it was Jesus who stated that if your eye caused you to sin (sexually, as it were), then you should gouge it out (Matthew 18:9). If the God of the universe considers lust something severe enough to compare gauging out one's eye to the kind of precautions we should take, then maybe it would be prudent to examine the effects of pornography and lust in our lives.

When dealing with pornography it serves one to remember: pornography is an addiction. This is not a habit, like biting your nails or twirling your hair, which can just be stopped through repetition. Pornography is an addiction; therefore, in order to fight this, we need to think like a reformed alcoholic or drug addict. Since you wouldn't tell an alcoholic in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to go sit in a bar or buy lots of liquor and just stare at it, why do we think we can saturate ourselves in sexually stimulating environments, and not be led into temptation? If pornography is any images, videos, or stories that stimulate sexual excitement, then it's not just the hardcore pornography that we tend to think of, but also certain movies, TV shows, magazines, chat rooms, or even things like sending nude pictures through text messages or the internet. Your addiction to pornography isn't harmless; it will eventually lead to the entire corruption of your sexuality. God wants you to experience a fulfilling sexual life, but on His terms (refer to last week's blog post). Pornography is a downward spiral that begins with an image, movie, or story, and ends with an addiction that no amount of sexual stimulation can quench.

Lust is an infection caused by a wound we suffered at some point. At one point in your life you stopped thinking of the opposite sex as gross, and eventually you were introduced to sexual stimuli. It could have been a magazine, a movie, a website, or maybe just something you heard someone talking about, either way at some point you suffered an injury that altered your mindset about sex. After this, lust began to infect that wound, and you began to think of the other gender and sex in general, in a totally different light. Lust corrupts our hearts, minds, and a drive for intimacy that God has given us. We start to view the opposite sex as nothing more than objects to get sexual pleasure out of. As the infection progresses, sexual fantasies and images flood our thoughts, and we feel completely helpless. Sometimes we view lust as a misdirected sex drive, which can be focused into something healthy. Our mindset is that once we get married we can focus our sexual desire on our spouse, and that sexual temptation and lust will cease to exist; however, ask any married person, they will tell you that lust doesn't stop the moment you say "I do". This is how we know that lust is an infection and not just misdirected sexual desire, because we can't end sexual temptation by focusing our desires on our spouse.

So, how do we fight against pornography and lust? You run for your life! You have no chance in a fight against sexual immorality, the Bible tells us to run from it (1st Corinthians 6:18). The moment you wonder if you should sin sexually, you start losing ground. You need to understand that you don't even have the right to sin, because your body was bought at a price (1st Corinthians 6:20). The first way to evade your sexual desires is to starve your addiction, by removing any kind of sexual stimulation from your life. Maybe that means that you have to get a computer out of your room or maybe you need to stop chatting or text messaging certain people or maybe you have to stop watching a certain TV show or movie. Whatever it is you have to get it out of your life, because this pornography is a path that leads to destruction. Second you have to clean your infection, and the only way to do that is by telling someone. You can't do this on your own; your secrets are the poison that keeps you sick. Tell a parent or an adult that you trust or one of the leaders in our student ministry about your struggle with lust and/or pornography. The longer you struggle alone, the more difficult it will be to stop. Lust and pornography harden your heart and mind to the kind of sexual life that your heavenly Father wants you to have, stop covering the gunshot wound of your sexuality with the band-aid of your secrets, you're losing too much blood.


Explore
In order to be entered into a contest to win one of our weekly prizes: Click Here

Pray
That God will give you the courage to speak to someone about your struggle with lust and/or pornography.

Let's Talk About Sex

Sex is only for one man and one woman who are married to each other. Sex is not for the engaged. It's not for adults. It's not for people "in love". It's not for the "mature". It's not for those who are "ready". It's not for those who are "responsible". It's not for those who are "safe". It's not for those who think it's just casual. It's not for two men, it's not for two women, and it's not for you privately. Sex is exclusive to one man and one woman who are married to each other.

Sex is the most intimate connection which two human beings can experience together. No matter how much you try to convince yourself, it cannot be casual or meaningless. God intended sex to be for a man and a woman who have sacrificed all other relationships and everything else to be completely devoted to each other in marriage; just as Christ sacrificed everything and was completely devoted to us. When you force intimacy through pre-marital sex, whether it be with one or multiple partners, you are trying to take an intimacy that only God can give. Unfortunately, just as we do with everything else, the human race, through our sinful nature, has corrupted sex, and tried to make it something it's not. Sex is not a sales pitch. It's not a punchline. Sex is not the images in your head. It's not the fantasies you play out in your head. It's not the "next step" for you and your boyfriend/girlfriend. It's not the thing that makes you cool with your friends. Sex is the most intimate moment two human beings can experience, and it's intended for a man and a woman completely devoted to each other.

Honestly, pre-marital sex is not the only form of sexual immorality in which we need to flee from (refer to the contest or 1st Corinthians 6:18). Paul, the guy who wrote the majority of the Bible's New Testament, explains that sexual sin is the only sin that affects the body. This is because the God who created us understands how we work emotionally, physically, and psychologically. The emotions, images, and memories that you experience sexually stick with you forever, and cause harm towards yourself and your relationships in the future, including your relationship with God. God wants to protect us from harm, so He put limits on our sexuality, but these limits are not exclusive to just sexual intercourse. Paul states that "sexual immorality" is what harms us, and the Greek word used here is "porneia" (which I'm guessing you can find out what word we get from that). This word literally means any illicit sexual behavior, such as: adultery, fornication, homosexuality, and so on... Jesus explains that if you even look at a woman (or man) lustfully it is the same as committing adultery, so, obviously, God sets the standard a little higher than just intercourse.

God wants us to flee from sexual immorality. Ultimately, we don't even have the right to sin against our bodies because they're not ours. The Bible explains that our bodies our temples of the Holy Spirit, and that we were bought at a price (6:19-20). It's not even your choice, you're just renting this body, and God has commanded you to stop using it for sexual immorality. You were bought at a price. The images, videos, and/or stories that you read or watch are not in God's plan for sex, and they will cause you harm. When you take it too far with your boyfriend/girlfriend, you're not following God's plan for sex. When you chat online too explicitly with somebody or text nude pictures to someone, you are not following God's plan for sex. All of these things will cause you harm, and lead you further away from God's plan. God wants us to experience sex, but under His terms. However, if you have messed up, let me say that God doesn't hate you, and it's not the end of the world for you. God loves you, and through His help He can make you holy, so that you can live a fulfilling and righteous life under His terms. Sex is awesome and God loves it, but you have to stop forcing intimacy and start living according to God's plan.

Explore
In order to be entered into a contest to win a prize: Click Here.

Pray
For God's forgiveness when you stray from His plan, and pray for His love and support as you try to get back to His plan.

The Compromise

There is a word that gets thrown around in our society so much that people have begun to view it as the best option, in any conflict of opinions. Whenever there are two parties who cannot agree on the best way to handle a situation, this one word has become the "be all, end all" solution: Compromise. Now, there are situations where it would be desirable to compromise, and actually might be the Godliest approach to the situation. However, I believe that this word has begun to take an ultimate positive connotation, meaning, that when people hear the word "compromise" they don't think of someone giving something up, they think of both people gaining things. Compromise (in the form, we're looking at) is ultimately an agreement that two parties meet, for each (or maybe just one) to give up part (or all) of their demands, so, that both parties benefit. As I stated earlier, there are situations where the right approach is to compromise, but those situations only arise when the values at stake are debatable. For example: If my wife and I find that we can spend equal amounts of money going out to eat as we could staying home and cooking, and one of us wants to go out 6 nights a week and the other would like to stay in 6 nights out of the week, it would be best to compromise in that situation. Because, the values at stake (whether we prefer a home-cooked meal or professionally prepared food) are debatable, neither one of us can prove, based solely on taste and preference, that one is better than the other, and both of us can benefit from the compromise made.

Unfortunately, the attitude that we have in dealing with the right-kind of compromises, leads us to compromise in a relationship which has no room for it, our relationship with God. You have to understand that compromise has further consequences, which is to weaken or to lessen or to dilute your original values. The problem is that the values of God are not debatable. When it comes to our relationship with God, we are aware that there are certain areas of God's will, in which there are shortcuts to getting where He wants us to be. Due to our impatience or the difficulty of the task that God has given us, we are often tempted to compromise His values in order to accomplish His will. For instance, we know that God wants us to honor our parents, and they explain that they expect good grades out of you. So, in order to get good grades, you choose to cheat on the final in your history class, does it make it acceptable for you to cheat, because your parents will be happy that you made an A? Of course not, because their value was for you to learn the material and to do your best. God has asked us to reach those unconnected to Him, and teach them about His Son; however, do you think that it's right for you to gossip along with your friends, so that they will think that you're cool, that way you'll have a better chance at reaching them? We all know that the answer is, no, because God told us that such things were sins. Therefore, just because something good comes out of a situation, does not make the things you did to get that outcome, righteous.

You can never get the benefits of God by abandoning the principles or values of God. God intends for us to have an intimate and righteous sexual relationship with our future spouse, but He does not intend for us to force intimacy through pre-marital sex. God promises that we can experience true and fulfilling community, but He expects us to uphold His values, instead of compromising because it's easier. God promises us many things, but He expects us to trust Him to provide them, in His timing. Don't let your impatience shortcut Gods values, so that you can gain benefits that are temporary and hollow. Because there is one more meaning of compromise that I want to bring to your attention: to expose to danger. When we compromise, we open holes in our relationship with God, which expose us to danger. Not just physical danger, but we are in danger of losing our faith in God. Even the wisest man ever, Solomon, could not escape the effects of compromise (refer to the contest). So, as we close out this series of Hostage, let's choose not to compromise our relationship with God, His values, or the following statement: Temptation you will not steal my future, you will not steal my family, and you will not steal my faith.

Explore
In ordered to be entered into the contest to win this week's prize: Click Here.

Pray
That God can help you become the kind of person, who refuses to compromise His values to gain false benefits.