Sex, drugs & rock and roll
Sex, drugs & rock and roll may be a good title for the next couple of verses written by Paul. Paul does not beat about the bush and calls a spade a spade. In this instance you can’t softly and with hidden agendas try to lead people in the right direction. No, let’s grab the bull by the horns and say what we mean.
The biggest and easiest things that trip people up is sex. Probably because it’s most enjoyable. For one reason or another the brakes don’t work that well here and before you know it you’ve slipped and next morning you wake up with major feelings of guilt. We’re tackled head on: 3 Don’t allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed.
You belong to God, don’t you? You are his possession. You’ve given your heart to Him and you call yourself a child of God. Ok? Well, then there are places that you and your eyes and the rest of your body shouldn’t even consider going. Don’t even think about watching that TV program.
One Thursday evening I was watching TV, waiting for my wife and children to come home from Michael W Smith’s show in Cape Town. The movie had finished and I was flipping through he channels to see if there was something else to watch. I was astounded to see how people were messing about. We used to talk about blue movies, but it was not generally available. Today it’s there for all to see on TV. It takes self-discipline not to be caught in that web.
While doing Bible study, I decided to do a test: I copied the first six words of the piece and pasted them in Google. I clicked on the images. There was enough pornography to take your thoughts on far and bad roads. I made a quick choice and clicked the x block to close the page.
Pornography is available on cell phones, tablets, lap tops and computers with the click of a button. For young and old, for man and woman. Any time. Any place. And the satisfaction it gives users makes them return again and again. They are drawn deeper and deeper into a dark hole from which they can barely escape. And the net effect is that they mess about more and more with God’s gift to mankind.
God gave the sex act to mankind for their enjoyment and its purpose is to make people one within marriage. Its purpose is to strengthen the relationship. Pornography draws a line through that. Pornography puts images in your head that dilutes sex. Sex no longer ties people together, but becomes the excuse why things are not working.
I always wonder how we can pray for God to save our marriages, but we allow pornography and wrong sexual practices to tempt us. Obviously, images will remain in your head. It will affect the way you look at your spouse. Naturally, it will affect your expectations of your partner and it can make your partner uncomfortable.
One of the easiest places to catch a person (men and women!) is around sex. People are tempted to enjoy it in the wrong way so that they do not actually want to see it as a sin.
God gave sex to mankind to enjoy within marriage. Making a point of using it in the right way, because if we use it correctly within marriage, it will build up, and not break down, our relationships.
Reflection
What is your opinion about pornography?
Is pornography part of your life?
Does it build up or break down?
Prayer
Father, you made us so very beautiful. You made us to long for one another. You gave sex to us to enjoy. Please help us not to mess it up. Please help us not allow dirty pictures to take root in our minds. Please help us to us sex inside our marriages to come closer and tie us together. Amen
