Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take of advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
Character Check How can I begin cultivating proper attitudes about sex?
In Business Terms When I was involved in pornography, I experienced sex in its “disconnected” form, as a voyeur of other people’s bodies, apart from relationship. My healing process will surely involve reconnecting that sexual power and energy with the growth toward intimacy it was designed to accompany.
British journalist G. K. Chesterton once likened this world to the desert island site of a shipwreck. A sailor awakes from a deep sleep and discovers treasure strewn about, relics from a civilization he can barely remember. One by one he picks up the relics-gold coins, a compass, fine clothing-and tries to discern their meaning. According to Chesterton, fallen humanity is in such a state. Good things on earth still bear traces of their original purpose, but each is also subject to misinterpretation or abuse because of fallen, “amnesiac” human nature.
Sexual desire, one of the world’s most powerful “relics,” invites obsession. When we experience sexual desires, it seems only right to follow where they lead. As the modern song puts it, “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right.”
The problem is that we are the problem. The good things on earth-food, drink, sex, recognition, power, wealth-are not spoiled; we are. They are relics of Eden. But our amnesia affects our ability to determine their proper use.
—Anonymous writer
Something to Think About There is no getting away from it: the old Christian rule is “Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.” Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. – C.S. Lewis
