Purity and Sexual Purity

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality…that each of you knows how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor” 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4

The world will tell you sex without commitment is liberating and you’ll start to believe that and tell yourself that when it’s anything but in the wrong context. Sex was designed for marriage, between a husband and a wife. Sex is powerful and attaches your soul to the one you’re linking yourself to or worse enslaves you to the act itself. The world will tell you to try all the flavors, experiment, and live recklessly, to live for pleasure because you only live once right? The world will convince you that you can have casual sex with no consequence or at no cost. But what a cheap lie to buy because what you do with this life matters and the quality of life depends on how you view sex and sexuality.  I was awakened with these words stirring in my heart one morning around 3 am. I grabbed my phone, opened my notes section, and started typing. I don’t even remember half of what I wrote but believe it was the Holy Spirit prompting me as this message is one that’s so close to my heart.

These words come from a place in my heart that wants to offer a piece of my story so that it could be the words to lead them to freedom in Christ or a warning to someone who thinks the way they are living is right in God’s eyes. He takes sex very seriously and has rules around it because boundaries = love. God’s Word speaks plainly about sexual immorality and indulging in sexual desires. Look these verses up and read them in context: 1 Corinthians 6:18; 1 Corinthians 6:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Corinthians 10:8; Galatians 5:19; Jude 1:7; Revelation 9:21; Matthew 5:32; Revelation 2:21; Mark 7:21; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Ephesians 4:19; 1 Peter 4:2; Romans 13:13.

To preface this, I am not perfect in this area nor ever will be but I have tasted purity and God has worked a new mindset and new desires within me through the Holy Spirit’s power. Areas of trauma in my life inflicted by past sexual promiscuity and indulgences are being healed. It’s taken the last several years to physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually bring restoration to the sick parts of my soul. I see the blessing of being obedient to God in this way and wish I knew this or had someone share this with me years ago. I never knew a different way, offering my body repeatedly for the sake of “love” was the norm. But God has taught me through His life-giving Word that there is another way.  There is a way, through His Spirit’s aid, to live in purity, freedom, and self-control in this area of your life. It is not easy but it is worth it. I may have lived one way for far too long but God’s grace and forgiveness are evident and felt. He does not condemn me for past behavior, nor would He condemn me if I am to fall in this area in my life again. It’s about our heart’s posture and the genuine repentance over behavior that breaks His heart is what pleases Him and brings honor to His name. When we repent of sin, He is faithful to forgive (1 John 1:9). If something like promiscuous sex breaks God’s heart, why do we think it won’t break us?

I’m writing from a place of being exposed to a lot. Most of us have been exposed to a lot of overt sexualization because we live in a culture that is overly sexualized. Once your eyes have seen or ears have heard things with sexual innuendoes they are hard to get out of your head. Especially if that thing you see or hear is repeated and frequently. It’s in our movies, shows, and music, and what is repeated in sight and sound is later repeated in behavior. I had become desensitized to all things sex, which in turn desensitizes you to violent things, crude things, or profanities.

The heartbreaking thing is our bodies aren’t meant to be used simply for sex. We’re more than a primal, instinctual creature. We’re more than clickbait. This in-your-face overly sexualized agenda in our society is pushing itself on today’s youth. It simply is not okay and giving them a harder start to be anything but overly sexualized beings which demotes us to animalistic type impulses at best. 

Sex is an act against one’s own self, one’s own body, and is the degradation of one’s own soul if used improperly, disproportionately or out of context (marriage). To say we need sex like food or oxygen isn’t giving ourselves much chance at a life ruled outside our inhibitions, and desires which are largely shaped by the mainstream media and entertainment. So why are they giving young adults and youth sexualized images to feast on? It’s because they have no moral compass, do not live by God’s standards, and those without a guide will be left to their own devices and are susceptible to an attack from the enemy, who knows the damage of sin against one’s own body.

“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18

What exactly is moral and immoral? Read this from Bible Study Tools, “Because of the gross promiscuity of surrounding nations, whose behavior the Israelites are warned periodically to avoid, the covenant Lord reveals through Moses a collection of strict regulations that are to govern Israelite sexuality and morality. If these directives are followed, the individual and the community alike can expect blessing. But if the Israelites lapse into the immoral ways of nations such as Egypt and Canaan, they will be punished. God's keen interest in the sexuality of his chosen people has two objectives: to exhibit Israel to the world as a people fulfilling his standards of holiness, and to ensure that, in the process, they enjoy physical, mental, and moral health. The pronouncements on sexuality given to Moses while the Israelites are encamped at Mount Sinai occur in two separate places in Leviticus ( 18:6-23 ; 20:10-21 )” (https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/immorality-sexual).

I can attest to the moral pitfalls and complete devastation sexual sin ravishes on an individual life. The more you consume, the more neutralized you become, and the more you’ll be more vulnerable to disease, shame, trauma to name a few. Or you will make light of a very serious, very sacred thing such as sex. Want to see the trajectory of a society’s future? Look at how they treat and uphold sex. It’s a scary thing when the idol worship is sex. That’s what our country has come to. 

Take Sodom and Gomorrah. Where the word sodomy comes from. We see a society with a very liberal, very depraved attitude toward sex and sexuality. What becomes of this city? It burns to the ground. And then God, in His holiness who will not tolerate such sin and immorality, is blamed of “wrath, being angry, unloving.” The very sickness caused by promiscuous, unnatural sex infected an entire city. What was being done in the dark started to come to light as what once satisfied men in this town no longer satisfied. Their sin wanted to sink deeper and could no longer be satisfied with the natural perversions of their exposure to over-sexualization. It manifested in rape, orgies, homosexuality, bestiality. Read the whole story in Genesis 19.

I never thought I’d say this, but in today’s world we are starting to see the sins done in the dark leaking into the light, and society and the agenda are now coming after our youth. What if young girls, men, women, boys were taught from a young age how abstinence and living life in purity will protect them from years of hurt, disease, consequence, and unwanted pregnancy. What if the music was sung to protect young ears from knowing anything about sex, sexuality and didn’t have the most popular singers of the day teaching them the language of sex and the gyrations and movements to accompany the harmful lyrics. We’re a product of all of this and the more depraved the man behind the industries (the high up) the more depraved the society. Those perverted, high ups make money off of these lyrics and care nothing about today’s youth.

Meanwhile, we have young boys and girls acting like these entertainers, being trained on how to use their bodies for sex which should be the last thing on their young impressionable minds. Exposure to sex and desensitization to it can cause violence. Mass shooters and killers have been linked to pornography viewing. It’s degrading and making an object of a human being with a soul. These adult film actors are worth far more than what their bodies can produce and sell for the consumption of another’s lusts. Why do you think the saying “sex sells” even exists? Because they’ve preyed upon the innate desire within us for intimacy that God created for marriage with the ultimate expression of that commitment being sex and giving one’s body to one you trust and respect. God is the Creator of every good thing and in true devil-like fashion, Satan comes in twists, perverts, and counterfeits everything God creates…even sex. Especially sex because He knows how weak and sin-filled we really are.

Our bodies are temples to be dwelling places where Christ reigns and lives. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own..” 1 Corinthians 6:19. A life of purity without having sex outside of marriage is possible and one God desires for us. Coming from a place of using my body sensually for many years took a lot of unlearning, and a renewal of the mind. I had what I call “phantom flashbacks”. I had been so accustomed to letting my body be looked at and treated as an object that it was hard to relearn and discover the sacredness of it. It took a lot of time to rewire my mind from believing or thinking my body was only good for one thing and that I had to have sex to feel anything. What an absolute lie and pawn move of a very demented and sick enemy of our souls. He chooses sex and wields it as a weapon because he knows just how damaging sex used in the wrong way is to a soul. 

I wish I could tell the 13-year-old Alysha, there is so much more to life than sex, boys, and feeling desired. There’s more to life than putting yourself in a category demanding the very least, most primal type of lifestyle for yourself. I’d tell her to turn off the music and sit outside with her Bible and talk to your Creator God about her desires because He loves her. I’d tell her that movies and tv shows are good in healthy increments but to be mindful of what she allows in and to not take them or their messages at face value. I’d tell her to look and listen for their hidden agenda and its cost is one soul, and that one soul is mine. I’d tell her it does matter what you read and listen to. It affects everything. Our thought life is so important and the more trash you sit around, the more trash is going to lose its odor. 

You do not have to be a slave to your sexuality. Quit buying what they’re selling. Turn off the media, and hear the sound of God’s voice beckoning you home.

A voice that actually loves you and demonstrated it in a radical way which was Jesus, the sinless Son of God, dying on a cross for every sin you ever committed or will commit). A voice that wants you to know you’re worth more than what you’re body can produce, or how it can please another human person. You are more than a body part and you were created for more than making mud pies in a pin. You don’t have to do that any longer. You can be washed with the cleansing of Christ’s blood and washed by the Word daily. His Word will renew and refresh and restore and renew your thoughts. It will tell you how much you’re worth and how much it cost God to tell you He loves you and how far He went to pardon you from all the things your flesh lured you to. It will ensure that you are on safe shores and will be a blanket to cover up the raw wounds accrued from a very dark, very tempestuous spot you’ve been in. 

I write this all to say you are more than a one-night-stand. You are more than a dollar sign, you are more than what your boyfriend or girlfriend expect from you every night. You’re more than getting high, and drunk and performing those acts and waking up feeling dazed and empty. You’re more than that sensual hair flip, that twerk, more than the licking of lips, you’re more than any song lyric attempts at defining you as. You are a soul Christ died to save and He wants you to know there’s a life beyond the life you’re living right now, a life beyond the nights spent awake performing acts done under the cover of darkness. You’re more than what the media tells you you’re worth or the message you’ve been subscribed to for far too long.

Turn it all off and turn around. Come home. It’s time to come home. He’s been waiting to wrap you up in His pure, loving, warm, safe arms. ❤️