Pure

You all get the first look at my article for Women of the Word. Let me know what you think! :)

Everything that God created in life has a purpose. Sex is not excluded from this. God designed it to be a special and yes even a beautiful act when put in its rightful place. Giving of yourself to another in such a way creates a special bond that God intended to be righteous and without blame. He intended it to be pure. God created us to be intimate people by nature. Song of Solomon is a great example of the intimacy that God created in us. We would not be able to attain the kind of deep intimacy that God had planned when we are sharing of ourselves with more then one person. He intended it to be between one man and one woman for life in marriage. Like everything in life, we find that when we don't do things God's way we end up harming ourselves or others. You run the possibility of getting a sexually transmitted disease that you will have for the rest of your life, or until it kills you. What we call “safe sex” today should rightly be called “reduced risk” sex. The only way that you can be sure you will not acquire an STD or an unwanted pregnancy is by saving yourself for marriage. When not done according to God's plan it becomes “high risk” sex that could have eternal consequences.

As girls we are created as emotional beings. We are constantly looking for emotional connections to others. Those are the relationships that we cherish the most in life. We are often willing to go too far to gain that connection. There are a few problems with this though. The best emotional connections are made when you both respected each other and God enough to wait for marriage. You draw closer to God and to each other when both are working together to overcome the daily temptations and exercising self-control.
When a spouse comes into a marriage having already had sexual relationships, you run into problems of comparison and jealously. Often times, there is also a lack of trust. It is hard to have the intimacy and dependency that God had planned from the beginning in a marriage relationship.

“But we are in love” This is a common statement made in the defense of sex before marriage. I wonder if we understand what love really is. When I was younger my Aunt had me memorize 1 Corinthians 13. We call it the “Love Chapter”. I didn't really understand it at the time, but since then I have come to appreciate its definition of love. “Love is patient.” True love can wait until you are in the God given setting. True love is sacrificial. I heard it said that having sex before marriage is like “wanting to get”, and inside marriage its like “wanting to give”. You can never really understand love without first knowing God and His love for us. “God is love” we are told, and fornication is not a characteristic of love. In doing so, we “sin against our own body.” Paul tells us to run from fornication in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20. These verses also tell us we do not belong to ourselves, but to God. He bought us.

There are two examples used in the Bible when it comes to staying pure. One was a man by the name of Joseph. He was sold into slavery by his brothers as a young man. While as a slave he came to live in Potipher’s house and was favored by him. He was put over Potiphar’s entire household. When Potiphar was away, his wife would try and seduce Joseph into coming and lying with her. Joseph responded with the famous line of “How can I do this wicked thing and sin against God.” When it came down to it, after Potiphar's wife pressed and pressed Joseph, even to the point of grabbing onto his clothing, Joseph fled temptation leaving his clothes with her. The outcome of doing so brought unpleasant consequences for Joseph, but he still followed God and in the end God blessed him.

The second example that we have in the Bible is David. He was “a man after God's own heart”, and yet even David with all of his strength fell to the temptation of sexuality. He went up on his roof and saw a beautiful woman by the name of Bathsheba bathing. He did not turn away from the sight, he chose to stay and watch and covet something that was not his own. You see, Bathsheba was married and her husband Uriah was in David's army. While Uriah was out fighting for David one day, David had Bathsheba brought to him and he laid with her. David, “a man after God's own heart,” gave into the sin of adultery! The story doesn't stop there though. Bathsheba became pregnant with David's child and David in an attempt to cover it up tried to get Uriah to go home to his wife. Well, Uriah would not go. David ended up having Uriah put on the front lines in the heat of a battle in order for him to be killed. Being impure in our sexual life often spreads to our daily life as well. 1 Corinthians 5:6 says, “...a little leaven leavens the whole lump.” Just a little bit of sin will corrupt a whole soul. God can have no part with sin. Because of his actions, David had to suffer the consequences. His son by Bathsheba died soon after birth. He was heart broken, yet after it was over David moved on and took responsibility for his actions.

Being pure is not just a matter of saving yourself for marriage. God calls us to be pure in our entire lifestyle. In the way we talk to others, in the way that we dress and in our daily activities that we are involved in. It is a choice that we make to live for God. I once heard it said that the outward appearance reflects the inward heart of a person. If we have corrupt thoughts then that is going to show in our lifestyle. It is impossible to have the kind of pure heart that God wants us to have and dress immodestly. The Bible says, “Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

We are as I stated before an emotional people. Our impulse is to respond to every problem from our emotions. God knew that we would do this. He created us. That is why He tells us to guard our hearts and not let it become corrupt with the things of the world. He tells us in Philippians 4:8 the kinds of things we should let dwell in our hearts. “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things.” Love and intimacy are not wrong when we stick to God's plan and make the choice to live a pure life, purely for Him.