February 7, 2015

"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." I Corinthians 6:18-20

Our culture has a way of luring you to the edge of immorality and then ridiculing you if you cross the line.

Next week leads up to Valentine's Day and in this week the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues will come out as well as the erotic movie, "50 Shades of Grey". Both are produced for the purpose stirring up lust.

In sharp contrast to those sensual productions, God's Word calls followers of Christ to "flee from sexual immorality". What does that mean? It means to run as fast and as far as you can away from the source of the temptation.

Seriously? How realistic is that demand?

How can we be expected to do that?

What is the wise thing for a Christ-follower to do?

Discipline yourself to stay close to God so you can stay far from the edge of immorality. Paul gives you several compelling reasons for "honoring God with your body".

First, when you give into sexual immorality you are sinning against your own body. That reference is not to just the physical body but the soul, the psyche and the spirit. Those are scars not easily healed.

Second, when you involve your body in sexual immorality you are desecrating the Holy Spirit since He dwells in you. I don't think that is something you really want to do.

Third, you are reminded that, as a Christian, your body is not your own. When you committed yourself to faith in Christ you gave Him your all. When Jesus died on the cross to redeem you from sin He purchased you body, soul, mind and spirit. You are His!

In addition to disciplining yourself, determine in advance where you will draw the line. Write a script of what you will do and what you won't do in a moment when you are not under the pressure of temptation and the fog of emotions.

Finally, decide to honor God with your body! That means if you are married you honor God when you enjoy sexual relations with your spouse. It is His gift given to you to celebrate your oneness in Him!

It also means if you are not married then you honor God by abstaining from sex and saving yourself for marriage.

So, honoring God with your body as His Word requires will take the strength and power that only He can give you through His Holy Spirit.

Don't flirt, flee!

February 6, 2015

"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you are bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."  I Corinthians 6:18-20

To get the full impact of the advice Paul is giving these new believers who are commanded to stand apart from their perverted pagan culture, you should read verses 12 through 17 and then the first section of Chapter seven.

I believe when you read this section in its full context it will become clear that God is not motivated by prohibiting you from sexual expression but rather, He is protecting you from perverting it and depreciating it.

God, through Paul, is telling these Christ-followers, "don't employ sex in this way so you can fully enjoy sex this way"!

There is much to be said here but I want to focus on the concept of discipline because if there is a place where discipline is necessary it is in this area of your sexuality.

Discipline is a much despised and neglected concept in our 21st century culture much as it was in the 1st century Corinthian culture. Like then, we want our pleasure when we want it, and how we want it and we don't like anyone telling us we can't do that!

Let me give you a definition of discipline that could change your attitude toward it. Discipline is saying "NO!" to one thing in order to say "YES!" to a better thing!

No one can have it all and if you want better than what you have say "NO!" to what you have to get something better!

God's Holy Spirit is saying, through Paul, if you want better sex say "NO!" to your ideas of sexual expression and say "YES" to His.

What if you believed God, Who created you and who invented sex, desires for you to enjoy His gift to its fullest extent, would that change how you interpret this Scripture? Would that help you have a more positive attitude toward His Biblical standards?

I think it is pretty obvious that if these Corinthian Christians were enjoying amazingly fulfilling sex lives Paul would not have had to write these directives. So, isn't it safe to assume they weren't?

And doesn't it make sense when something is not working well for you should choose a better way of doing it?

So, if you want to choose a better way of expressing your sexuality doesn't it require you to stop expressing it the way you are now?

That my friend, is discipline!

If you can discipline yourself into a sexuality that honors God but you choose not to, what does that say about you?

February 5, 2015

"Flee from sexual immorality." I Corinthians 6:18

You live in a culture that is constantly pushing you and pulling you and luring you to the edge of immorality. And the power of the external stimuli coupled with the internal desires virtually guarantees that if you have not built sufficient margins away from that edge you will get drawn to it. Then, more often than not, when you allow yourself to get drawn to the edge of immorality you will step off the edge.

See if you agree with this, tragic moral choices are generally preceded by a series of unwise decisions.

Most people don't go running to the edge of immorality, the creep to it one unwise decision at a time. Right?

The chief accomplice in this gradual decent to disaster is this seemingly valid statement, "There's nothing wrong with it!"

"There's nothing wrong with having lunch with him/her. Everyone has lunch!"

"There's nothing wrong with having dinner together, After all, we both work late and we have a deadline on this project!"

"There's nothing wrong with confiding in him/her. He/she is such a good listener and he/she understands me."

"There's nothing wrong with listening. He/she needs someone to talk to."

"There's nothing wrong with just dropping by."

"There's nothing wrong with a hug."

And you know what? Probably in certain individual circumstances  each of those statements can be true. But together as a continuum, they each bring you a step closer to the edge of immorality. And once you arrive there it isn't likely to end well.

If you have regrets that center around a moral failure, I am pretty sure you can trace a similar path that led you there.

And if you based your decisions on the "there's nothing wrong with it statement", how did that work out for you?

Since you already have the regret and you can look back with more objectivity, did you really believe the "there's nothing wrong with it" explanation or were you rationalizing something you knew to be wrong?

Are you still making that statement to justify unwise decisions?

What do you think would be a wiser standard for measuring decisions if you are a follower of Christ?

February 4, 2015

"Flee from sexual immorality." I Corinthians 6:18

Would you rather fly with a pilot who buzzed the tower, used up all the run way, flew faster than he should and dangerously close to other planes or, a pilot who was super conservative and conscientious?

I'm not sure about you but I would take the conscientious pilot in a heartbeat!

It's good to build margins of safety in your life.

You try to build financial margins by having a savings account and using a budget.

You use your seat belt and leave safe margins between your car and the cars around you.

But do you build safe margins from sexual temptation?

Paul counsels the Christians in Corinthian to "flee" from immoral sexual situations. In other words, build safe moral margins in your life. "Flee" means to get away from it as fast and as far as you can!

Obviously, you are to flee physically and put as much distance as you can from the moral temptation. But you should flee mentally by taking control of your lustful thoughts and moving to more wholesome thoughts. You should also flee emotionally by not allowing yourself to become infatuated with the wrong person.

Wisely put distance between sexually immoral thoughts, actions and flirtations. Do it each time and every time you are tempted.

Flee don't flirt!

Are you building safe margins in your thought life?

Are you building margins around your emotions?

What safeguards have you built into your personal behavior?

February 3, 2015

"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside they body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body." I Corinthians 6:18

This  portion of Scripture has some significant and profound things to say about sin. It is worth of consideration.

Generally, the Bible doesn't discriminate between sins but here Paul does that. That should catch your attention. Sexual sins are a special category of sins because of the consequences these sins have at deep levels of the human psyche.

Let me illustrate this way. As I have been calling you to recall some of the regrets from your past (those areas where if you could go back and ask "what is the wise thing to do" you would have made a better decision) how many of those regrets involve sexual sins?

Do you see my point?

I am not saying sexual sins cannot be forgiven because they can! In fact, Jesus was the first and ONLY person to offer forgiveness to the woman caught in the sexual sin of adultery.

I am not saying sexual sins are regarded by God as worse than other sins.

I am saying that because of how God designed sex and the purpose He has for it, sexual sins have deeper and more devastating consequences than other sins.

Obviously, that is what Paul is referring to when he states "but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body."

Your own issues bear witness to that.

God didn't build boundaries around His most precious gift beside salvation and life itself, in order to deprive you of the joy of sex but to protect it and enhance it within the marriage relationship.

Sex is so powerful because its purpose is so personal and precious. Add that to the power of emotions, which we previously established, and you understand how vulnerable you are to the lure of sexual sins.

You live in a culture that understands the power of sex and exploits it for marketing purposes. Our culture seeks to bring you right up to the line of committing sexual sin with the implication you are missing out if you deprive yourself of enjoying it.

These things being true, what is the wise thing for you to do in this area?

Paul's word of wisdom is, "Don't flirt with the line of sexual sin but FLEE it!" 

What are you doing to build wise margins in your life that far from the line of sexual sin?

February 2, 2015

“Your kingdom come. Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray and when you ask Jesus a question you will always get more that you asked for. After all, He IS the Answer!

Jesus did not just give them a prayer but He gave them a pattern for HOW to pray and a paradigm for how to think about God!

Yesterday I spoke about verse nine that I summarized as God desiring to make your life a living prayer that glorifies Him.

This week I invite you examine verse 10 with me and I believe that once again you will discover He has given us a lot to think about.

At first glance you notice that God has a kingdom. Why is that important? For a couple of reasons:

1)       To have a kingdom He must be the King – He is!

A King is sovereign. He isn’t elected or appointed. All authority rests in Him. He answers to no one.

2)       Since He IS the King He has a kingdom not a democracy.

In God’s kingdom you don’t vote on the rules. He makes all the rules because He is the Ruler. You either obey His laws or you break them. If you break them you will discover God is also the judge and jury and jailer!

3)       His Kingdom WILL come!

God’s earthly kingdom was wrestled away from Adam when he disobeyed God in the Garden. Therefore, Satan became the ruler of this world. But His rule is limited.

Jesus came to defeat Satan and win back the kingdom on earth by His death and resurrection. Once Jesus had come back to life and gone back to His Father He ushered in God’s Kingdom on earth through His people the Church.

God’s kingdom comes through you and through me as we make Him the King of our lives.

How do we make Him King of our lives? By serving Him. By Obeying Him. By surrendering your heart and your will to His and proclaiming Him as King of your life His kingdom comes to you. By helping to promote righteousness and to defeat evil on earth you bring His kingdom.

God is the King.

God has a kingdom.

That kingdom WILL come and no one or nothing can stop it.

Is He your King? Have you allowed His kingdom come to your heart?

February 1, 2015

"As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods,and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command. So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates." I King 11:4-11

If you have any doubts about the wisdom of listening to the advise of wise people, consider Solomon. He inherited the Kingdom of Israel when it was at its wealthiest, its highest point of influence, its most spiritually healthy and its greatest military strength. His father, David had trained him well and set him up for success. And when he came to the throne God offered to give him anything he wanted and he chose wisdom. That request pleased God and so Solomon was given great wisdom.

How great was Solomon's wisdom? It was so superior to any other wisdom that Kings and Queens came from all over the world to seek his advice. You could say that for a season of his life, Solomon's wisdom ruled the world.

But, tragically, Solomon did not end well. The verses above describe how badly it ended and all the really stupid decisions he made.

Why?

What happened to this man who was wise enough to choose wisdom when he could have chosen anything?

He made the unwise conclusion that he was so wise that he didn't need to listen to anyone else. In short, he became proud.

His pride and his arrogance brought him down. 

It was foolish enough for him to stop listening to wise people but he compounded the foolishness by listening to unwise and ungodly people. He married pagan women and they got into his ear and started giving him terrible advice. Not only did he stop listening to unwise people, start listening to unwise people but he stopped listening to God! The Bible tells us he built shrines and altars to pagan gods.

Who saw that coming?

Here's the point. If the wisest man in the world can become a fool, so can you.

Learn from Solomon. Don't let his regrets become your regrets. 

Don't become too proud to listen to wise counsel.

Don't be so unwise as to listen to ungodly people.

Don't become so foolish as to stop listening to God.

You will regret it.