NOTE: today’s post is taken from week 4 of our FROM
THIS DAY FORWARD series at The Community Fellowship.
No body gets married and
plans to divorce. No one getting married
and plans to have a physical or emotional affair. Statistics say that well over half or even up
to 75% of people will do one of those things in their married life. You might not plan to do those things that
destroy or damage your marriage. But the
majority of people do it.
If you don’t plan to succeed
or to stay pure, you probably won’t stay pure or even stay married. The old saying “if you fail to plan, you plan
to fail” is a fact in relationships, in business and in every area of
life. I believe that God gave us the
Bible and great Christian friends to help us succeed in life.
Give
honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral
and those who commit adultery.
Purity matters to God. Did
you read that right? Better yet did you
see what God said in that verse? Give
honor to marriage. Be faithful to one
another. He will judge those who are
immoral. God will honor what we honor,
and God will destroy what we let fall in to disrepair.
90% of Americans say that
adultery is wrong. More people than ever
are saying that it is wrong, but more people than ever are doing these things. A University in California did a study, and
here is what they found --- between 1998 and 2008 the percentage of people
committing adultery more than doubled.
Why is impurity increases in
marriage? There are more temptations
today than in the past. There are more
ways than ever to get in trouble. Many
people are meeting an old flame on Facebook or connecting online. This is happening all the time. There are websites that are devoted to
helping you secretly cheat.
Technology makes all kinds
of trash available all around us. You
can get anything you want in just a few clicks.
Your home computer or your mobile device, your phone can take you places
that you never even thought of just a few years ago. When I was young, you had too know someone who
had a stash of porn. Now you can get it
in seconds.
Another reason why wrong
relationships are rampant is because people are getting married later in
life. People are seeking a career
first. Lots of people are simply
changing their priorities. It is more
common than ever to find people who are living together before they get
married. By getting together and not
committing to each other in marriage we find couples playing like they are
married before they get married. It
starts with what seems innocent, and then you have a toothbrush at their place
or more.
We are bombarded by the
culture and by the media. We are being
taught that the lines are not the lines we used to have. What used to be black and white is now gray,
or 50 shades of gray if you know what I mean.
God has called us to be pure
and to seek Him above everything else. When
we love our mates, we will do things differently. But wait, love is different when defined by
God. It is unconditional. But the world tells us that love ought to be
conditional. The bible tells us that
love is selfless. The world tells us
that love really is about getting my needs met.
Here is the premise we will go from:
There
is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Guard your heart above all else, for it
determines the course of your life.
The issue at hand is not
what we do with our bodies or what we do with other people. The issue is our heart. Think about your heart. That verse says that the heart determines the
path of your life, of all your life.
But the
things that proceed out of the mouth
come from the heart, and those
defile the man.
The heart is seen in more
places than just inside our bodies. It
is seen in what we say and in what we do.
What we spend time with and what we spend our money on speaks volumes to
what holds our hearts, and that is why we have to guard our hearts.
For you
have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your
body.
Deal with anything that that
will cause you to sin. What are some
things you can do to help you stay pure?
Here are some ideas: don’t be alone with someone of the opposite sex who
is not your spouse; be accountable to people that care about you and will ask
me the hard questions.
When you are weak, do you
have the door to temptation closed and locked?
When we try in our best effort to outwardly be pure, we are going to
fail. We have to have extra help. With God we have a much better chance of
staying pure and of letting God set the standard.
I have tried hard to find you—don’t let me wander from your commands. I
have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. I
praise you, O Lord; teach me your decrees.
Let’s make this much more
personal. In those verses we find David
praying. I must go to the same place… God,
I want to seek you in your word and in prayer.
The more I seek God the more I am transformed. What used to attract me will now repulse
me. That is only true as God’s word, the
Bible, transforms our lives. Why would I
want anything that would delude my relationship with God or poison my life and
marriage?
We are being changed from
the inside out. The heart does
matter. The line of sin has been placed
in the wrong place. That is why we have
to rely on God heavily. There is no
replacement for God in our life. Our
flesh is weak. We can try to have
successful relationships and to stay pure, but we will fail without God’s help!
Let the power of Christ
transform our hearts through His word.
You can achieve a state of purity that you didn’t think was possible. Our culture is aggressive with getting our
attention or telling us that sex anywhere is good. So we ought to be aggressive in planning to
win with purity. Our marriages are worth
fighting for.
But if
we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all wickedness.
If we confess it, God forgives it.
Confession brings healing. Be honest.
God gives purity as we get honest with God. Plus you will help others see and get real
with God!
Create
in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a
loyal spirit within me.
(Thanks
again to Craig Groeschel and Lifechurch.tv for allowing our church and
others to use the FROM THIS DAY FORWARD series and much more.)
No comments:
Post a Comment