Do You Know What I'm Saying?

I want to quickly define two words you will be hearing a lot during the next two weeks. I hope that it helps you better understand where I am coming.

-PURITY: This word is defined by my MacBook dictionary as “freedom from contamination; freedom from immorality, especially of a sexual nature. Similar words that can be uses are clarity, freshness, healthiness, safety, virtue, goodness, honor, and integrity." I like this definition! It totally gets where I am coming from. Read it again and soak it in. NOTE: When you look at your heart can you say that it is truly pure? What about your interactions with others, would your friends or boyfriend say that you are a person who acts with purity? Most importantly, ask God what he thinks. We may all be surprised by his answer.

-SEXUAL IMMORALITY: An immoral person is one who commits acts that violate society’s moral norms. In context of what I will be discussing, I would define sexual immorality as the act of violating (or rebelling against) the standards that God established, through the Bible, for things of a sexual orientation. For example, in Exodus 20:14, God says “you shall not commit adultery” if a person has sexual relations with or sexual thoughts (aka lust) towards another person (Matt 5:27) besides their spouse this person would be considered to have engaged in a sexually immoral act. In the Bible, God has given us several direct instructions/standards to up hold as Christians that I will share in a future email. NOTE: Adhering to God’s standards for sex does not bring you salvation, Jesus brought you salvation through his work on the cross (more to come on that) there is nothing we can do or not do to earn God’s favor. With that said, we should strive to meet God’s standards out of our love for him. Just like we may give a gift to a friend or go out of our way to help them; in the same way, because of our love for God we want to go out of our way to remain pure and respect the body he has given us.

ONE LAST IMPORTANT NOTE: Sex within marriage (between one man and one woman) is totally NOT immoral. In fact, it was God who created sex and if you look on the second page in your Bible you will read that God actually tells humans to have sex and lots of it ;-) How else could we have filled the whole earth?!?