Tag Archives: sex

Jul 5 2013

The High Cost of Pre/Extramarital Sex

The diagram and the following are statistics compiled by the American Sexual Health Organization

  • More than half of all people will have an STD/STI (sexually transmitted disease/infection) at some point in their lifetime
  • There are 19.7 million new STIs every year in the US
  • Each year, one in four teens contracts an STD/STI in the US
  • It is estimated that as many as one in five Americans have genital herpes, a lifelong (but manageable) infection
  • With more than 50 million adults in the US with genital herpes and up to 776,000 new infections each year, some estimates suggest that by 2025 up to 40% of all men and half of all women could be infected
  • HPV infection is the cause of cervical cancer in vast majority of cervical cancer cases

These are sobering statistics.  

STDs are hidden and they can lead to life-long suffering, infertility, cancer and death. 

We can see that in addition to spiritual implications there are severe physical consequences of sexual immorality.  The Word of God defines sexual immorality as any sexual behavior outside of marriage, physical AND non-physical.  Not only does God want us to have eternal life by being obedient to this Word, but He is looking out for our well-being in this earthly life as well.

Consider the following stern warning by apostle Paul:

1 Corinthians 6:18 “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”

Apr 12 2013

How to Overcome Lustful Temptations

The primordial sin of the flesh according to apostle Paul in Galatians 5 is lust and the sexual sins associated with it.

It is the number one struggle of young men and women, and it is magnified in the information age when they are bombarded by all sort of immoral digital data.

After a long and admired pastoral career, John Piper offers relief for young believers who struggle with this problem in an interview transcribed by the Christian Post.

“Why does lust, I’m thinking mainly men but not just men, why does seeing have such a force to draw us to click on pornography or linger over some bathing suit issue of Sports Illustrated or to linger over some ad for a movie. What is it about us?” asked Piper.

“And my answer? It’s like drunkenness,” he said.

“In the same way drunks need designated drivers to help them out when they are too inebriated to function, Christians should have friends in their life whom they can count on to help them through lustful addictions.”

“My question is, is there something like that that we should do for each other? If ‘psycho-erotic euphoria’ is as powerful as drunkenness and I think it is, then we need people in our lives who will break our arm. Paul says I pummel my own body; you should pummel me,” said Piper.

“Look, if you’re drunk and you’re about to kill yourself, you better be glad there is somebody in your life to throw you in the backseat of the car,” says Piper.

“But this lust thing is much more like drunkenness than it is like anything else and so we may need this kind of personal accountability.”

Piper endorses accountability partners and relationships within a very close circle of friends (2-3 people) who can keep each other accountable by close monitoring from many aspects.  This is a physical and emotional approach.

To this I would add that fighting lust and its derivatives (such as pornography) must be done “BY THE SPIRIT” as commanded in Romans 8:13

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

BY THE SPIRIT means by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life:

  • The believer must allow the Holy Spirit to continually point him to Christ and to the cross when temptation comes.  Looking at the precious sacrifice of Christ will help the believer realize the suffering that Christ endured for him and for his sin.  Such an approach will make the believer realize the importance avoiding the trap of sin, and ask “will I crucify my Savior willingly again by indulging in sin?”
  • The believer must allow the Holy Spirit to remind him of Scripture.  Just like Jesus fought the devil using Scripture while tempted in the desert, so must the believer fight using “It is written” Luke 4:8
  • The believer must be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to receive power for witnessing to the world (Acts 1:8) which will inherently shift focus away from lust and unto the Kingdom of God.

image credit: TGC

Apr 5 2013

The Media Loves the Lukewarm Church

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I  rarely watch TV, but for the first time in a long time I flipped through TV channels recently.

An interesting title caught my attention on Lifetime: “The Preacher’s Daughters.”

Being a PK myself (for those who are not familiar with Christian slang, PK stands for pastor’s kid) I immediately asked if this show will present the good, the bad or the ugly.

I was stunned by what I saw.

The short story is that the show tells the juicy reality drama of teenage daughters of pastors. Some of these are young women who attend their father’s churches, who put on a nice face at church, who lead worship, but who ARE NOT born-again Christians.

They crave the things of the world, mainly the sexual immorality and the acceptance of their worldly friends. As a consequence they are unhappy with the struggle resulting from the preaching they hear at church and what they want to do in their life.

They are ashamed to be seen in public with their church group, and some keep their church friends and “other” friends separate. The show highlights disobedience, issues of premarital sex, drugs, teenage pregnancy, peer pressure, etc… all the things that make reality TV trash.

Some of the girls come from divorced parents and mixed marriages (yes, divorced pastors) and some have sisters who themselves have struggled with sexual immorality.

I cannot help but ask if this is an accurate portrait of the lukewarm church at large. I pray and I hope that it is not. But it is important to realize that the media is quick to point out the bad apples in order to mock Christians and our backwards biblical beliefs about marriage and sexual abstinence.

The main problem I see in the behavior of teenagers in the show (and in general) is parental disobedience. Circumventing parental controls becomes an elaborate scheme, and it shows the rebellious nature within children and their need for Jesus.

Watching the show for 10 minutes answered my the original question: it was the bad and the ugly, without the good…

But hope is not lost.

These kids attend church where they hear the Gospel, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will do His work on them and regenerate them.

image credit: ichoosegospel