The One About Sex

We all have different preferences in this life. I dislike fruit, spinning amusement park rides, slow drivers and the Yankees. These are things I have opinions on for personal reasons, yet there is no moral ground for such preferences. Such things make up our individual personalities and can be defined according to our choosing, and no one can judge us for those choices, as they are for us to decide. God does not care if my favorite color is green or black, nor does he care which of the Lord of the Rings movie is my favorite. Preferences make for interesting debates, but in the end, there is no wrong and no right.

Yet there are certain things I believe in, not because I necessarily prefer them, but because I truly believe it to be absolute, unquestionable truth. These are not preferences, but principles. I have made such decisions because God has decreed that certain behaviors are immoral, and certain lifestyles are sinful. These are decisions I have made based on truth and principle, not on preference.

The main example of this is sexual purity. In a world where people are becoming sexually experienced at younger and younger ages, God still wants us to remain pure. I decided quite young in life that I wanted to follow God’s teaching and not the world’s teasing. During my maturing years, when many of my classmates were likely losing their virginity, it was never even an option in my mind, for the choice had been made many years prior. This was due to principle, not due to preference, because while I know that God wants us to remain pure, I can guarantee you that my physical body did not have the same opinion. I can guarantee you that, if I had not made that decision years earlier, I would have lost my virginity at a much younger age. Instead, I started dating a girl when I was twenty years old, and we were married six days after my twenty-fourth birthday. It was made clear very early in our dating relationship that sex was not an option for us until marriage, and we stayed true to that. Once again, this was due to principle and not to preference. Now that we have been married over five years, I know it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. For I turned sex into a matter of principle and not preference, for God desires each of us to be pure.

Now that I have made it to marriage with my sexual purity intact, step two is to keep myself devoted to my wife. The same is true now as it was in my earlier life: it is my principles that keep me from straying. I love my wife more than she could know, and I would never do anything to hurt her or our relationship. God has made marriage a sacred bond that should never be desecrated with adultery. Yet I know that men and women cheat on their spouses every day. It seems almost commonplace, for most people know of someone whose marriage has fallen apart due to unfaithfulness. Hollywood marriages implode constantly due to such affairs. Why do we make such lifelong commitments, only to choose to break them? It is because, in today’s world, marriage is simply a current status and not a commitment, and staying in a marriage is seen as a preference. I choose to love you today, but tomorrow, I may choose to love someone else. This is not what God wants for our marriages. While it is certainly my preference to be with my wife and to stay faithful, the main driving force in that faithfulness is the principle of Godly marriage. It has never and will never be an option to break our marriage covenant, because the decision was made long ago to stay true to one another in our marriage, and to always love one another, even if we don’t always like one another. Adultery is the preference of the world, while marital faithfulness is the principle of God and his people.

The same can be true of sexual impurity of other kinds, as almost all of us, and likely all of us, are guilty of committing adultery in our hearts. I have never been to any sort of strip club, nor will I ever. (I admittedly went to a Hooters once in college, but that was for the purpose of getting free food, and I tried my very best to stare intently at the chicken wings the entire time.) When I have been asked in the past about strip clubs, and I have said that I had never been to one, people have asked it if it was because I was homosexual, as though that would be the only possible explanation for such a thing. Instead, it is due to principles that I have never gone to such a place. For, as a very heterosexual man, it is not due to a lack of desire to see naked woman that I do not go to strip clubs. No, it is due to the principle that God has placed within me. I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look upon a woman lustfully, as I wish to follow God’s principles and not the world’s preferences. While I have faltered on this covenant before, and more often than I would like to admit, with roaming eyes and struggles with pornography in my younger years, it is the principles of God that keep me from becoming just like the worldly man. I will have eyes only for my wife, because this is what God has decreed to be righteous.

We each have decisions to make in our lives, yet the question is this: what do we make those decisions based on? Do we decide things based on what we want? Are our choices driven by our preferences? Or are we making decisions based on the absolute truth of God? Are we living the way God wants us to live, or the way we want to live? If we live solely based on our own desires, we will go down dark paths that lead only to death. Instead, let us live our lives based on the principles of God’s word, for His wisdom far outshines our own. Let him guide you in this life, for there is no greater way to live than with God to light your path.

Burning of the Sins

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
- Romans 5:8

Every so often, I have the opportunity to participate in something called the Burning of the Sins. It involves taking some paper and writing your sins and shortcomings, pouring your heart out to God. You then take those sins and burn them in a fire at the foot of the cross, symbolizing the forgiveness of sins that came from the sacrifice of Calvary. It is quite a solemn event, full of self-reflection and thankfulness.

One such event, a few years back, I was in charge of creating the fire. Before the rest of the group came out, I had the fire going, and it was just me, and the fire, and the cross. I took the paper out of my pocket, on which I had written things I wish I had never done. I wrote things that I hated myself for, things I wish I could take back. I described parts of myself that felt beyond repair. I stood there and prayed for God’s forgiveness and His grace, though I knew I already had both. I then dropped the paper into the fire and watched in burn up, for that is what happens to our sins when we place them at Christ’s feet. It was truly a moment with just me and God, and one that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

At these events, immediately preceding the Burning of the Sins is the Stations of the Cross. We see the last few hours unfold before Jesus’ crucifixion. We see him struggle under the weight of the cross, and we hear the pounding of the nails into His hands. We know what is going to happen, yet it brings so many questions to mind. Why would God send his son to die for me? Why would Jesus endure such torment to save someone like me? Did He not know all the sins of my life, all the terrible crimes I’ve committed against Him? Surely He read that piece of paper before I burned it at His feet. He knows all that I have done, and yet He still chose to endure the agony of crucifixion? What would drive Him to do this?

The answer to these questions is both quite simple and immensely incomprehensible. The answer is love. He loved us, each and every one of us, so much, that He chose to give His own son as a sacrifice in our place. The blood of Christ on the cross paid the price for our sins. It covered each sin that each one of us has ever and will ever commit. As humans, we cannot fully understand that level of love. For He is God, and we are so small, as numerous as sand on the seashore. Yet He loves us more than we can know, for He is our creator, and He knew each of us by name before He breathed the world into being.

Thank you, Lord, for what you have done for me. Thank you for your love, and your grace, and your forgiveness. I know that when you look at me, you do not see those things that I wrote down, those terrible sins, for they are no more. They have been burned and covered with your blood. Thank you for salvation. Thank you for the eternal life that awaits me once this life is done. I can do nothing to earn back what you have done for me, but I give you all that I can, and all that I am. Thank you, Lord. I love you. Amen.