Sex, The Great American Pastime

So here it is, it took me awhile, but the topic of sex before marriage is a big issue and one that has been brought up to me quite a bit at work due to the fact that I am no longer sexually active and am trying to save anything else for marriage.  So to start, I will tell you all some of my history without going into the gory details.  I am not a virgin I lost that at the age of 19, I wanted to save myself for marriage, but when I got into college I fell away from my beliefs for a couple crazy years and was far to active during that time.  So in no way shape or for am I trying to judge any non christians who are sexually active, my only goal for those who do not claim Christ as their personal savior is to preach Christ and Christ crucified.  What this is, is what the Bible teaches on sex before marriage, and the reasons, as Christians we should wait till we are married.  I am not going to use the conventional, oh its what God wants, we need to obey God.  I am going to explain our relationship with God a little more and why, if we have that relationship, we should have a desire to wait for marriage.  The other precursor is that sex is a beautiful gift God has given us, and in the right context should be practiced, and should be practiced quite often as a why to deepen the relationship with the person God has given us to spend our life with.  SO!  With that said, here goes!

God offers us an intensely personal relationship with Him, He offers us comfort, safety, true happiness.  He created us and thus knows what makes us happy, how to make us happy, and that is being satisfied in Him, in our relationship with Him.  He does not need us, but we need Him.  Without Him we have a hole in our lives that cannot be filled.  You see this all the time, wether its a christian who has strayed from our relationship with God or a non believer who is trying to find something to make this life worth living.  I will give you an example of a friend I have who, before he welcomed Jesus into his life couldn't find anything to fill that hole, he had no friends, he was an outcast to society, he had tried to fill the void in his life with just about everything but couldn't.  He had reached a level of total and complete dispair in which he could find no reason to go on living.  He tried to end his life several times, once he even put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.  The bullet was in the wrong tube, God had a reason for him to go on living.  He started going to this church youth group, though he hated it and everyone there, he kept going because for some reason, the people there seemed happy, seemed like the hole was filled in their life and he wanted to know why.  Well when he was there one night, God moved in him, saved him and there has been such a huge change in his life, he is now the most bubbly, joyful person you would ever meet, you would not  dream that he was diagnost as having a chemical imbalance that would always make him that way, unhappy and depressed.  God filled the void in his life, gave him something to live for, made him happy.  His life isn't easy, no ones life is, but a personal relationship with God makes it worth living, shows us what we are made for, we no longer have to fill the void with things that don't last, sex, drugs, drinking and whatever other functional savior someone might have.  So then, here is it:

IF your a Christian, then sex is something that gets in the way of your relationship with God.  It is like any relationship you have here on earth, think of the best, most intimate relationship you have with a human, if you do something directly against what they tell you to do, they aren't going to be pleased, and there will be a wedge in the intimacy you have with that person, the relationship will be damaged.  God tells us for many very good reasons not to have sex until we are married.  If we disobey Him and become sexually active, there is a huge wedge put in our relationship with God.  The relationship is badly damaged and we do feel this.  When I was sexually active I was at a spiritual low, I was still a christian, but my relationship with God was greatly damaged as sex was a huge wedge inbetween us.  I no longer had the comfort and joy that relationship offered and started looking for other things to get that joy and comfort.  I tried a lot of things and they made me happen in the moment, but always brought emptiness after, I had to go to the next thing, or do something again and again to keep the happiness, because it was empty.  When God brought me back to Him, I stopped having sex, I turned my life back over to Him and began to experience that intimacy, comfort and joy He offers.  And I have come to a clear knowledge of how much greater that relationship with God is then sex, or any other thing that gets in my way of having intimacy with Him, of having Him fill that void in my life that only He can fill.  Now again, in marriage, where He created sex for, it is a great thing that He has given us and does not put a wedge between us at all, if anything, it gives us a greater appreciation for all the things He has given us.  

So, if Jesus has saved you, and you are not expierencing that intimate, personal relationship He offers, maybe it is time to look at your life, what are you doing that is getting in the way, putting a wedge between you and Him?  Even if it isn't sex, what is it?  It is not worth not being close to Him, being held in His arms, feeling the joy and comfort He offers, so guys, lets get back to God!  Lets break down the things in our life that are getting in the way of God!

Tim