(Choosing the Road to Sexual Purity)
Today's Scripture
Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 1 Corinthians 6:18 NLT
Thoughts for Today
Let’s all be real about a few things when it comes to sin. The fact that when it is in our power to
change a situation that will likely cause us to sin and we choose not to act to change it, we are guilty of the sin of proximity—sometimes called the sin before the sin.The sin before the sin involves the little decisions we make that set us up for temptation and sin. If we are to overcome the strongholds in our lives that constantly pull us in the wrong direction, we have to come to a place of radical obedience and do everything possible to eliminate those occasions for sin that are in our control.
Failing to take appropriate actions to eliminate the stumbling blocks that lead us to sin is a serious issue for many of us. Sexual temptation has presented itself to most of us at some time in our lives. Today’s scripture advises us to run from sexual sin.
Consider this…
With sexual sin, the longer we are in the presence of temptation the less likely we are to escape without sinning. It is so much better to avoid the sin before the sin. To run from the sin of proximity.
Stay in fellowship with Jesus. Turn to him for the strength you need. With him you can do all things.
Prayer
Lord, help me to run from all temptation to be involved in sexual sin. Help me to run from the sin and run to you. In Jesus’ name …
Benefits of Abstinence
Source (http://www.premaritalsex.info/)
1. Clear conscience with God.
2. Peace of mind in your life and future relationships, and marriage.
3. More self-respect and more respect for each other1 and respected by other people.
4. Always remember, in a healthy relationship, respect precedes love.2 And premarital sex only throws away your self respect and your partner's.
5. You enter marriage with a more positive outlook and without carrying emotional baggage.
6. Personal freedom for both of you and your (future) marriage partner.
7. Significantly better chance in having more satisfying and more stable marriage.
8. Longer lasting relationship. Premarital sex surprisingly breaks up more dating couples than any other factor.
9. No comparing or being compared sexually in marriage. It also means "being free to enjoy maximum sex, maximum leisure, maximum satisfaction, and maximum liberty, in the way God intended" that is in the covenant of marriage.
10. No worries about pregnancy and STDs.
11. Less worries about bad reputation.
12. It's a fact that persons and couples who have premarital sex are more likely to have extramarital affairs as well.
13. Premarital sex often fools a person into marrying someone who really isn't right for them.
14. You don't have to put yourself under someone else's mercy not to reject you. It's still a fact, that the more "experienced" guys and girls are generally less desirable and less respected as dating or marriage partners.
15. Realize there is a 98 percent chance you will never marry the person you date in high school3, so it is always better to keep yourself pure for the right person, that is your future wife or husband.
Strategies and Guidelines
Source (http://www.premaritalsex.info/)
The best intention and goal will not work without actual strategies. Too many guys and girls failed to guard their purity until marriage just because they did not have concrete strategy to face the challenge. We just have to know in this life, when we fail to plan, then we plan to fail.
Provided below are some guidelines from various authors and experiences from others that may be useful to equip you:4
1. Establish your standard. Write it down. Try to anticipate things that could and would happen when you date, and be prepared and make decision as soon as possible. You should know what you would say. Don't decide later when you're in the dark on a backseat of a car, because it would be extremely difficult to think clearly then.
2. Share your standard with someone who really cares about you, and ask the person to hold you accountable to your goal. It's more difficult to be a single fighter and it's not encouraged that you fight the battle alone. Even the feeling of loneliness can negatively affect your commitment.
3. Select good friends to hang out with. You are who you're with. "Bad company corrupts good morals" (1 Corinthians 15:33). This is particularly true for girls, their friends' attitude influence their stance about premarital sex.5
4. Stay a million miles away from drugs and alcohol. Alcohol and drugs are cruel masters that control you. They get to your head and make you do things you never would have considered doing.
5. Be careful with music, TV, movies and magazines. If you see it or think about it enough, eventually it gets in your blood. Garbage in, garbage out; Don't flirt with temptation.
6. Do NOT go alone to the house or room of anyone of the opposite sex. Most sexual intercourse between teenage boys and girls takes place in the home of one or the other while the parents are away. Date rape, seduction, and mere rumor leave countless victims with tattered reputations every day.
7. Become an expert at saying "no" and mean it. When someone asks you to drink, tell 'em you don't look good in a lampshade (and smile). When someone tries to force sex, tell 'em your dad is a Green Beret and trains Dobermans for a living.
8. Build a friendship, NOT a sexual partnership. If someone isn't interested in you without the physical, you can be assured that he or she does not after love but sex and is not worth gambling your reputation on.
9. What goes around, comes around. Protect your date's reputation and he or she will be more likely to protect yours. And who knows-you may start a positive trend at your school!
10. Only date people who share and respect your views, you need them to work WITH you, NOT AGAINST you. This one is ENORMOUSLY important, a definite key to abstinence.6
11. Stick to your guns at all circumstances. Respect from a guy also come to a girl who can be consistent with what she believes. It is too common for guys to say "I respect your view about sex" when the girls mentioned it, but deep down in their hearts they don't care about it and think if they waited a bit longer they surely could bring the girls to bed without any problem. Sadly, often enough that's what happened.
12. Abstain from any activity that sexually arouses you, even at the lightest activity (i.e., light kiss, holding hands, back rubs, etc.). If that activity arouses you to have sex, then you are actually closer to the sexual intercourse itself. Beware, there is no clear line between no intercourse and intercourse, everything is happening gradually from white-light gray-gray-dark gray-black. One small thing will lead to bigger things and it is much easier to cool down small fire. Even much easier if you didn't start the fire in the first place.
Sex Drive Thermometer
It happens gradually!
13. Love is a decision, not a feeling. The most loving decision you can make when your mind tells you it wants sex is to say no.
14. Always keep in mind that whoever you're with right now might not be your future husband or wife. Just as you do not want other people to defile your future husband or wife, do the same to others, do not steal someone else's future husband or wife by defiling your girlfriend or boyfriend (Matthew 7:12).
Guys: Keep an image of your future bride dressed in white and walking down the aisle of the church. To look at her and know that she is unstained by you or others is the greatest feeling in the world. Do not violate your dream or the dream some other guy could have had with your girl (in case you do not marry her).
Girls: Hold tight to the goal of having a clean conscience when you walk down the aisle dressed in white. Look forward to the day when you can walk down that aisle, look into the eyes of your future lifetime husband, and know that he will be yours alone.
15. Lastly but one of the utmost importance is to pray for strength from Him [God]. You will not be able to "go it alone" without His help, and He is willing to help. The only thing that you need is ask.
