* Heads up. This is pretty long. Don’t feel like you need to read it in one sitting. Take your time. Read it at your own pace, and be sure to read all the Bible verses that I’ve referenced. Let’s get started.
The Title
I had a hard time deciding on the title for this post. It more accurately should have been Christians Don’t Talk Sex. It’s a problem for Christians, in general, having sex talks. It’s something you will not hear talked or preached (maybe you have, but I have never) about in church. Unless it’s about not doing it.
I often wonder why that is. Sex is in the top four needs that drive us as humans (water, food, survival & sex; in that order), and churches aren’t discussing it at all. Yet, the world is discussing sex; even dish detergent sells its brand using sexual insinuations.
Sex is #2 (59.6%), in the top #3 reasons people divorce, Christians included; lack of commitment being #1 (75%) and too much arguing and conflict being #3 (57.7%). So it seems like if we got sex right, #1 & #3 would disappear. When couples are busy loving, caring for, considering each other, and having regular sex (with each other), there is no time left to be uncommitted or fussing and fighting. Could it be that the thing we aren’t discussing is defeating us?
Churches may not be discussing sex, but the Bible is full of things to say about it. The fact that God had so much to say about sex indicates that He wants us to talk about it, and because we aren’t, it is tearing us apart. Thus, the title choice…We need to be talking about it.
Some Clarity Between Author (me) & You (reader)
I’ve said this before in a previous post, but I will say it again and again. When I take my questions to Jesus alone, then I know without a doubt that my understanding is coming from Him. Isn’t being followers of Jesus what Christianity is all about? As Christians, we should be more concerned with following what The Almighty (God/Jesus/Holy Spirit) has to say than we are with what religious leaders (Sadducees; Pharisees) are saying.
I said all that to say this; I do not claim to have the answers you are seeking; I am only pointing you in the direction of the One who does. As Christians, we sometimes need to be reminded that we still need the “leading to” when it comes to Jesus. We ask everyone we know what they think about something, but we never ask Jesus. So if there be anything in your life that needs clarity, truth, or understanding, ask God. I’ve found He always answers, but it’s not usually an immediate response. It’s more like; I ask; He puts His arm around my shoulder and says, ‘Let’s walk while we talk.’ It’s about journies with Jesus, and they’re never dull.
He wants you to ask Him questions, even about sex, because He wants you to understand His love for you genuinely. One can never honestly know love until understanding God’s love for oneself first.
God Is Love
I want to clarify before I go further to make clear the viewpoint from which I write. DearFellowChistians is the title of my website; Christian Straight Talk is the site tag, so I write, always, from the viewpoint of a Christian, a follower of Christ. So to the point of this article, ‘sex’ refers to any sexual act that you (a fellow Christian) are a participant in. Whether you are married, single, straight, homosexual, whatever. As Christians, we should be very concerned if sex, and in some cases, the lack of it in our lives is an offense to God. And the only way to know for sure is to ask Him.
What is God? HE IS LOVE (1 John 4:6,8,16).
1 John 4:7: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God: and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Love One Another
Are Christians doing an excellent job of loving one another? Do we understand what loving one another even is? The Bible has a lot to teach us about what it should look like, and I highly recommend you go through a personal journey with God and your Bible only to gain a proper understanding of how love should look, feel and be. Ask God to guide your heart, mind, and soul to understanding. You will never be put to shame for following Jesus.
The Bible tells us what love should look like in 1 Cor. 13: 4-8: Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
Based on that verse alone, we clearly see that true, pure love only comes from God. Even the best human relationships often fail, if not daily, when held to these standards. Humans are capable of a love that lasts, but we must work at it and strive for it because we’re human. God is Love, a love that never fails.
Born of God
What is being born of God? The Bible tells us in 1 John 5:1: Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.
In Jesus’ own words from John 3:5-8: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
With these words, Jesus makes a clear distinction between the earthly and the spiritual realm. We are born into this earthly world of the flesh, but we will never be born spiritually until we confess Him as the One True God and that He IS God. To love the Father, we must love the child born of Him. To be born again is a spiritual ordeal; it can not be seen, but it can be felt and heard like the wind. It’s extremely simple, and in His response to Nicodemus’ next question in John 3:9, He says as much. With that simple choice, to believe or not, we determine our spiritual destiny for eternity.
Testing The Spirits
Everyone says, “I love you.” But does that mean everyone is born of God or knows God? I believe not because when I read 1 John 4:1-6, I understand that love itself is a Spirit of God, and when we believe in Him, His Spirit lives in us and through us.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this, you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that is coming, and now it is already in the world.
Jesus says, in John 3:20-21, For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
Jesus is the light He speaks of in these verses. Some Christians tend to stack sin according to their belief of its level of offensiveness to God and place certain sex acts as the most severe. Jesus tells us if we are searching for truth, we should come to Him, The Light, so we can clearly see whether our works are pleasing or offending, and this includes our sex lives.
When two believers, whose bodies contain the Spirit of God, have consensual, adult/adult sex, God is present. Every time. There is nothing more spiritual than God Himself. I believe sex can be one of the most Spiritual acts participated in by humans. A miracle of complete oneness. As Christians and knowing the Spirit of God Himself lives in us, shouldn’t we be confident that the sex we’re having and by proxy involving Him isn’t something He finds offensive?
Two Spirits
The spirit of the antichrist also exists in this world, and it’s the spirit of Satan himself. We know that the antichrist doesn’t expose himself for who he truly is but mimics and portrays christlike behavior throughout the Bible. So when someone says to us, “I love you,” we are to test that spirit to see whether they are from God. And we can know the answer for which spirit lives in a person. It depends, whether they confess Jesus is God come in the flesh, or deny Him and hold to the spirit of the antichrist, which is already in the world and has been since the Garden of Eden. With each passing year, his spirit grows stronger.
Knowing Satan’s tactics of mimicking Jesus, we know that someone can say they are a follower of Christ when they genuinely are not. Therefore, as Christians, our first and most important criteria for choosing a mate should be they share our faith and strive to exhibit their belief in their daily lives.
Sex unites us but also divides us; it empowers us and brings us to our knees; it’s pleasurable and yet unbearable. God created us and everything about us, even our sexuality. Sex itself is spiritual, an act of love, or an act of the spirit of the antichrist, which is hate.
The Bible alone is the Word of God; it alone is inspired and inerrant. Therefore, testing the spirits is taking what others teach us and searching Scripture to make sure it aligns with what God says. Discerning Christians examine the Scriptures rather than accept every teaching. The Bible is the standard by which we must judge all things.
Sexual Healing Is A Journey
Since I published The Story of My Healing, several people, who read it, have approached me, and they’ve all asked, in different ways, how I healed sexually. Quite honestly, I was a little startled by their boldness, and simply because they were asking. I don’t think I gave my best answer to any of them. Their question, however, stirred in me a need to know my best answer for myself. How had I healed, sexually?
Some of you may have balked a little when I used the word journey in connection with sex. For you, sex is one way, and there is no journey about it, but for others, myself included, it has been a journey and one I had to traverse with God because, without His guidance, I would have never been able to arrive.
Our brains are our biggest sex organ. That’s where our thoughts and feelings about sex begin. If the natural order of things gets disturbed at a young age, or even as an adult, figuring sex out can be a journey that can sometimes last a lifetime.
I looked up some statistics on sexual abuse, and given these facts, it’s no wonder that so many of us have such trouble with our sexuality.
A few facts about child sexual abuse:
There are more than 42 million survivors of sexual abuse in America alone. (National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse)
1 in 3 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18. (The Advocacy Center)
1 in 5 boys is sexually abused before the age of 18. (The Advocacy Center)
1 in 5 children is solicited sexually while on the Internet before the age of 18. (National Children’s Alliance: Nationwide Child Abuse Statistics)
Nearly 70% of all reported sexual assaults occur to children age 17 and under. (Children’s Advocacy Center)
90% of child sexual abuse victims know the perpetrator in some way. (U.S. Department of Justice)
Approximately 20% of the victims of sexual abuse are under the age of eight. (Broward County)
95% of sexual abuse is preventable through education. (Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute)
38% of the sexual abusers of boys are female. (Broward County)
There is worse lasting emotional damage when a child’s sexual abuse starts before age six and lasts for several years. Among child and teen victims of sexual abuse, there is a 42% increased chance of suicidal thoughts during adolescence. (American Counseling Association)
A typical pedophile will commit 117 sexual crimes in a lifetime. (National Sex Offenders Registry)
Child sexual abuse can happen anywhere, in any neighborhood, religion or church group, racial or ethnic groups and among the rich, the poor, and everywhere in between. (Child Sex Abuse Prevention and Protection Center)
There is No sex offender profile. Abusers can be anyone: Family members, neighbors, friends, doctors, coaches, youth leaders, or clergy members. Many times these ‘respected abusers remain undetected. (Child Sex Abuse Prevention and Protection Center)
More than 90% of sexual abuse is committed by someone the victim knows, loves, or trusts. (U.S. Department of Justice)
The FBI estimates that a sex offender is living in every square mile in the U.S. (National Sex Offenders Registry)
30% of sexual abuse is never reported. (Child Sex Abuse Prevention and Protection Center)
Sexual assault doesn’t just happen to children.
1 in 33 American men has experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. 1 out of every ten rape victims is male. 90% of adult rape victims are female. (Rainn.org)
Given these statistics, it’s safe to say humans have taken one of the most precious gifts God gave us and have given it over to the spirit of the antichrist.
What God Says About Sex
In the first book of the Bible, in the first chapter, we read: So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Gen. 1:27.
Genesis 2:18: The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited for him.”
Genesis 2:23-25: The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 4:1: Adam lay with his wife Eve and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.
Song of Solomon
Allegorically, Song of Solomon pictures Israel as God’s espoused bride (Is. 54:5; Jer. 2:2; Ezek. 16:8-14; Hosea 2:16-20), and the church as the bride of Christ (2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:23-25; Rev. 19:7-9 & 21:9). As human life finds its highest fulfillment in the love of man and woman, spiritual life finds its highest fulfillment in the love of God for His people and Christ for His church.
The Song of Solomon, also known as the Song of Songs, is a love song written by Solomon and abounding in metaphors and imagery. Historically, it depicts King Solomon’s wooing and wedding of a shepherdess and the joys and heartaches of marital love. The various scenes in the book exalt the joys of love in courtship and marriage and teach that physical beauty and sexuality in marriage should not be despised as base or unspiritual.
I advise and counsel everyone who is not yet rid of vexations of the flesh and blood, and has not ceased to feel the passions of this bodily nature, to refrain from reading the book and the things that will be said about it.
Origen (c. 185-c. 254)
Origen castrated himself when he was a young man. So when I read this bit of information about him, my first thought was, ‘awful things must have happened to him as a child.’ My second thought was, ‘he was not someone anyone should be taking sexual advice from.’
Sex is part of God’s creation with its related desires and pleasures, and it is reasonable that He would provide us with a guide to a sexual relationship between a husband and wife.
The union of the two sexes was initially intended to illustrate the Oneness of the Godhead (Gen. 1:27 & 2:24; 1 Cor. 6:16-20). Song of Solomon is a bold and positive endorsement by God of marital love in all its emotional and physical beauty and simultaneously illustrates God’s love for His covenant people and anticipates Christ’s love for His people the church.
However, I did have a problem regarding a man with a harem of 140 women during the book’s written period (6:8), who could highly praise his love for the shepherdess as though she were his only bride. His harem, at its fullest, reached 700 queens and 300 concubines! That’s A LOT.
It could be that Solomon’s relationship with the Shulamite was the only true love and romance he had ever experienced. The bulk of his marriages were political arrangements. Significantly, she was a vineyard keeper of no excellent means. Also, Solomon wrote this book before he plunged into gross immorality and idolatry.
Did Solomon Go To Heaven?
Solomon lived in and under the time of the Old Testament covenant. Therefore, he did not experience being “born again” or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. For that was not possible before Christ’s ascension and the church’s birth (John 16:7). God was their God, and the Israelites were His people.
God used Solomon in many ways. He wrote three books of the Bible: Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. He received riches and wisdom from God. God chose him to build a temple, and God’s presence dwelt there.
In 1 Chronicles 28:6, God said of Solomon, “…For I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his Father.” Thus, Solomon was a believer in the coming Messiah because he was a child of God.
In 2 Chronicles 1:6-12, God tells Solomon to ask Him for whatever he desires; Solomon asks for wisdom and knowledge. But, because Solomon didn’t ask for wealth, riches, or honor, death of his enemies, or long life for himself, God gave him wisdom and knowledge and wealth, such as no king who was before him or after him.
We should remember something else God said about Solomon in 1 Chronicles 28:7: I will establish his kingdom forever if he is unswerving in carrying out my commands and laws, as is being done at this time. It’s essential because Solomon did swerve and did not continue carrying out God’s commands and laws.
1 Kings 11:4: For it was when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father, David. God had warned Solomon not to marry foreign wives because they would turn away his heart after their gods (11:2), but Solomon disobeyed and had 700 wives and 300 concubines; they turned his heart away (11:3). He worshipped their false gods and built worship centers for the people of Israel to worship them as well (11:7-8).
Because of this, God became angry with Solomon. He warned him two times concerning this thing (11:9-11). As a result of Solomon’s idolatry, God took away his son’s kingdom except for one tribe for the sake of David, his father (11:11-13). God disciplined him because of his sin (11:14-40), and Solomon died as an idolater (11:41-43).
To answer the question, is Solomon in heaven? Some believe he is not because they think all true believers persevere in faith until the end of their lives. Others teach that Solomon was a believer but lost his salvation because he participated in idolatry. Let’s see what the Bible says.
We already know Solomon was a child of God (1 Chron. 28:6). The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. John 1:12-13: Yet to ALL who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
1John 5:1: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves His child well.
Even though he died an idolater, he authored three books of the Bible. 2Peter 1:21 says that human authors of the Bible were “holy men of God” who “spoke as the Holy Spirit moved them.” How can that be true? He is “holy” in God’s eyes because he was set apart from his sin and shame by his faith in the coming Messiah who would die for all of his sins-including the sin of idolatry.
For more confirmation, the only requirement God makes for entering the Kingdom of God is belief in His Son, Jesus Christ; read these verses: John 3:15-19 & John 6:28-29; Luke 12:8-9; Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5.
Everlasting
Our salvation is everlasting (John 3:15-16); nothing can take it from us.
Paul wrote in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. “
In John 10: 28-30, Jesus says, “And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.”
Solomon was a child of God, and nothing could snatch him away. Therefore, King Solomon is in heaven.
Bringing All This Together
Some of you may be wondering about now where I’m going with all this. What does love (God’s and ours for each other), two spirits and testing the spirits, being born of God, sexual abuse statistics, or Solomon have to do with sexual healing? Well, I’m about to tell you.
I’ve always believed in God. I felt Him enter my heart when I was seven. It’s unclear why this memory would stand out in my mind so many years later, but I see myself as a little girl on the school bus making a mental list of all the things I would never do. I was digging all the rules for following Jesus. Then shortly after that, naive innocence was taken from me, not by God, by humans. Humans that said they were Christian.
That is the story for so many of us. Look at the statistics. Sexual abuse not only harms our bodies, but it also harms our minds and spirits. The most damaging thing it does is hinder our journey with our Savior. And here I am all these years later, having done everything my tiny mind could imagine and so many more that I believed would cause my Jesus to stop loving me, and yet He loves me still.
To know that kind of love is indescribable; I can’t find the words to express it. We follow a God that will take us into His kingdom just for believing and confessing His name; even if we were to build worship centers for false gods for other Christians to worship in, nothing will snatch us from His hands.
Does this mean we can live however we please and do anything we want? Like Solomon, in God’s eyes, we are holy because we have been set apart from our sin and shame due solely to our faith in the return of the Messiah-including our sexual immorality.
As Christians, we know when we are doing something that isn’t pleasing to God. But, also like Solomon, when we do them anyway, God will let us know. It’s up to us to listen and then do the right thing or stop doing the wrong. Our faith and salvation do not protect us from discipline or consequences.
Solomon lost authority and privileges as a king for misleading the nation to worship other gods, but in the spiritual realm, he will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is because there’s a difference between entering the kingdom and inheriting the kingdom. We enter the kingdom of God by faith in Christ alone, but we inherit the kingdom through sacrificial service and suffering for Him (Matt. 18-3; John 3:5 & 15; Matt. 19:27-29; Rom. 8:17; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:3-5; Col. 3:23-24; Heb 1:2, 5, 9, 13-14; 6:12,17; 9:15).
1 Corinthians 9-10: Do you not know the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor the idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
*A little sidenote: The original Greek word used for ‘homosexual’ was arsenokoitai; it shows up in two different verses in the Bible, this one & 1 Tim. 1:9-10. Also, the word was initially translated as ‘boy molesters’ and was not translated to mean homosexual until 1946. But, this is another topic entirely; I recommend doing some research for yourself.
In my journey to sexual healing, the first and most crucial step was believing and accepting Jesus as my Saviour. The second step was understanding the depth of His love, and that nothing can separate me from Him, it’s everlasting. Third, I had to learn what true love means and how to love others as Jesus loves me, and that sex, in and of itself, is not wicked. Fourth, like Solomon, David, Moses, Noah, and so many more Biblical characters, I am an errant, grievous sinner, but God still loves me and can still use me. Then finally, I needed to learn what sexual sin actually is.
Sexual Sin
1 Cor. 6:12: “Everything is permissible for me” – but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me” – but I will not be mastered by anything.
1 Cor. 6:18-20: Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a 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 body.
1Cor. 7:3-5: The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
EVERYTHING IS PERMISSIBLE. NOT EVERYTHING IS BENEFICIAL.
I am not using this verse out of context; the context of this verse is sex. Although it’s not about sexual acts forced upon us (His little ones), the offenders of such actions will be dealt with by a special kind of punishment (Matt. 18:6-7).
Every voluntary sexual act is permissible; by this verse, we know that nothing is off-limits (meaning it will not keep us from entering heaven) but is every sexual activity we participate in beneficial? The short answer is no. So how can we know if it’s beneficial or not? God has provided the answer.
As Christians, when we practice sin, God will let us know it’s wrong and help us change it. Whether the sin is gluttony, gossiping, meddling, greed, lying, theft, murder, adultery, envy, pride, idolatry, drunkenness, fits of anger, orgies, evil thoughts, sexual immorality, or just plain foolishness. (Mark 7:21-23; 1st Cor. 6:9-10; 1 Tim. 1:8-11; 2 Tim. 3:1-5; Gal. 5:19-21; 1 John 3:4; Matt. 5:28; Rom. 1:29-31; Rev.21:8; Col. 3:4-10; Paslm 59:12; EEcclesiastes7:20)
In my life’s experience and journey with God, I’ve learned that beneficial and not beneficial change with my growth as a Christian. Even my sex life. When I’ve been found guilty in God’s eyes, He says to me, “Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall” Ezekiel 18:30. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you, Deut. 8:5.
When I failed to hear and do what He said, my life has suffered because of it. Relationships continued to collapse or were wrought with anger and strife. This principle does not just work concerning our sexual sin but with all of our sins. For example, when we continuously eat poorly and do not take care of ourselves, our bodies will be our downfall caused by that sin. Or, when we spend our money foolishly, we will suffer financially due to that sin. The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty, Proverbs 27:12.
But when I hear and change what God tells me to change, I am blessed for it. Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty, Job 5:17. My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent His rebuke because the Lord disciplines those He loves, even as a father the son he delights in, Proverbs 3:11-12. God loves us, His children. He delights in us. “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent, Rev. 3:19.” When He corrects us, it’s not because He doesn’t want us to eat, drink and be merry; it’s because He doesn’t want to see us suffer from doing what is not suitable for our lives.
If everything in our life is pleasant, joyful, peaceful, totally lacking any trouble or strife, should that be taken as “we must be living a sinless life”? It’s not possible to live a sinless life. If anyone sins and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, even though they do not know it, they are guilty and will be held responsible, Lev. 5:17. Also read, 1 John 1:8-10; Rom. 7:20-25.
No man knows how bad he is until he has tried to be good.
C.S. Lewis
No man was ever kept out of God’s kingdom for his confessed badness; many are for their supposed goodness.
Trapp
As Christians, we should care that we are not offending God, even in ways we don’t think should offend Him. We should always ask Him if He finds anything in our lives offensive, then make the necessary changes when He tells us, especially as we mature in our faith. We are not meant to stay babies in Christ. Our sanctification (growth as a Christian) is not complete until we are glorified, having the new bodies of our resurrection.
Honestly, I believe, when it comes to sexual sin, we know if it’s wrong because our minds, bodies, emotions, and feelings tell us immediately. Sex should never make us feel shame, hurt, scared, abused, used, or in any negative way. We should never feel the need to hide our sex from God. …and they felt no shame (Gen. 2:25). Shall not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart (Psalm 44:21).
A good indicator as to whether you’re being honest or not with yourself about your sex life is if you can’t talk to God about it. I’m not here to tell you if your sex life is an offense to God. That is for you and God to work out. I believe our sex lives should only be between our spouses and God and for single people, between you and God. Some of us care so much about what other people think of our sex, but we don’t stop to find out what God thinks.
For those of us who have been sexually abused, we tend to equate sex and sin equal. As a result, there is a sense of shame where there should be none. If you have never sought counseling for the abuse, I recommend you do so; that’s my advice for anyone who has experienced any trauma, whether it was a single incident or repeated and prolonged or complex (multiple kinds of trauma). As a Christian, be sure to include God in the process.
Sins Against Our Own Bodies
I’ve been pondering why Paul would say that All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but any sexual sin he commits is a sin against his own body. To me, it seems logical that anything we do to harm our bodies would be considered a sin against our bodies. But Paul says they aren’t the same.
Gen. 2:24; Matthew 19:5; Mark 10:8; Ephesians 5:31: …and the two will become one flesh. The Bible is talking about more than just our physical bodies (skin and bone). Paul is speaking about our whole selves, who we are, our identity. Becoming one flesh doesn’t mean the simple act of meshing our flesh with another; it means our whole self is involved. Sex is not just a physical act. God designed sex as a way to give our total selves to another. When we have sex, we fuse everything we are (body, mind, spirit, soul) with another person. Sex is never just sex.
In 1 Cor. 6:16, Paul uses the word ‘unites,’ which means “to join, combine, or incorporate to form a single whole; to cause to adhere or glue.” When any two things are glued together, with the strongest bonder, then pulled apart, it’s not the glue that breaks but the two bonded objects. For this reason, I feel Paul said sexual immorality is a sin against oneself because when we give ourselves to sex that is not in the context of a life-long commitment, it profoundly messes with us and will result in deep pain.
Because God designed us and our sexuality, He knows everything about how it all works. He understands the passion, the joy, the happiness, and the love. Jesus also understands the hurt, the betrayal, the pain, the jealousy, and the unfaithfulness. So when He tells us not to commit sexual immorality, it’s not because He doesn’t want us to ‘have any fun’ or because ‘sex is bad’; it’s because He loves us and doesn’t like to see us suffer from our stupidity. Sex is a powerful, miraculous, wonderful, precious life-changing gift from God; we should not enter into it lightly without a life-long commitment to the one we give ourselves.
It’s easier to know this truth than it is to live it because we’re human. Very few of us reach the age of eighteen without experiencing sexual immorality. Whether it’s from someone imposing their sexual sin upon us or whether by free will, most of us don’t reach adulthood without feeling the effect of sexual immorality. If we do not heal ourselves first, we carry the hurt, pain, betrayal, and abuse into future relationships. Sex is never just sex. It has life long impact and effect upon our psyche.
To my fellow single Christians, slow down. If you want a lifelong relationship, get to know someone before you have sex with them. First, become friends because if you indeed want to spend your entire life with another person and be happy doing it, you not only need to love them, you also need to like them. So don’t be in such a rush. But if you don’t desire a lifelong commitment, try to refrain from having sex with other people. I’m not telling you this because I think you’ll go to hell for it; I’m telling you because your life can become a living hell because of it. Remember, everything is permissible but is everything beneficial? Everything is permissible, but we must not be mastered by anything!
When sexual abuse occurs, or when our eyes see sexual images or acts being performed at an inappropriate age or in an unacceptable way, sex gets screwy in our brains. We have a hard time seeing something so vile, as a precious gift, from anyone but most of all from God.
Another thing that can happen is we become numb to the effect sexual immorality has on us, and we forget (or never learned in the first place) that sex is one of the most precious gifts God gave us, and we convince ourselves ‘it’s just sex.’ Our sex lives do not have to be forever affected by the sins of our past. Sex doesn’t have to be thought of as shameful or evil. We can have a sex life that’s beautiful, fun, passionate, profound, pleasurable, and plentiful the way God always intended.
Marital Sex
I realize that talking about sex can be challenging for many. Writing this has been challenging for me. But it can be incredibly discouraging for someone whose marriage is struggling sexually to hear how wonderful and fulfilling marital sex can be. It is not my intent to make you feel hopeless but to give you hope. You can have a fulfilling sex life, but first, it’s essential to understand the Biblical expectations of marital sex.
Marital sex is the only sex God gives His blessing. Maybe that’s why so many of us rush into marriage, so we don’t have to deal with the guilt we feel from our sexual immorality. But that is not God talking; that is how we’ve been taught; to cover up one sin by committing another. Instead, the Bible says, any time consensual sex occurs, a bond is created; the two become one. As a result, many of us Christians, who have had more than one sexual partner, have had more than one spouse in the Biblical sense.
Marriage in and of itself will not heal you. You will not become sexually healed spontaneously simply because you marry. The shame, guilt, hurt, insecurities, all of it unless you have dealt with the trauma, will still be with you. For example, I was married for twenty years, and for ten of those years, I was going through one form of counseling or another, yet sex was still a source of shame and guilt for me.
When I divorced and met my now-husband, I had come a long way in the healing process. I knew what love should look like and how it should feel. I knew I was a child of God and that nothing could snatch me from Him. I knew, without a doubt, the indescribable love He has for me. I understood sexual immorality and what sinning against my own body felt like, and what the consequences of my choices had done to me. And yet, sexually, the guilt and shame were still with me.
Christ and Sex
For many, the words God and sex in the same sentence seem inappropriate. Or even more inappropriate the words Christ and sex. We falsely believe the two should never interact. It’s hard to put our thoughts and views about sexuality and our thoughts and opinions about God together.
However, God has used the language and imagery of sex to speak to us and help us know Him and His love for us. Jesus wants to be Lord over every aspect of our lives, and He will talk to us in every part of our lives. Therefore, we do not have to separate ourselves from Him during sex.
The language and imagery of sexuality are the most graphic and most powerful that the Bible uses to describe the relationship between God and His people – both positively (when we are faithful) and negatively (when we are not).
Piper and Taylor, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ
Read Ezekiel 16 & 23. In these chapters, God talks about Israel’s betrayal through idol worship, and He uses the language of sexual betrayal and adultery. He uses physical, sexual words; genitals, breasts, emission. The pain we feel when the ones we love betray us is the pain God feels when we betray Him by choosing to worship something other than Him. He uses sexual language to help us understand and know Him, how He feels, and draw us near Him.
We’ve already seen how God used sexuality to speak to us in Song of Solomon, but there are many more examples to be found; one example is 1 Cor. 7:9: If they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. So here it is, the Bible says marry and have all the sex you want, and the people rush to marry, but all the sex doesn’t happen. Why?
I can only speak what I’ve lived and learned, and that being this; When we marry for any other reason than God’s approval, that marriage will not last with happiness. Meaning it can survive in time but not in happiness and joy. For this reason, it is crucial to test the spirits.
So I believe everything I’ve been through in my life thus far has not all been for naught because I have learned so much of who God is through the process but had I stayed where I was, I would never have fully known Him.
Being Known
John 10:14: I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
The Greek word gnosko (knows): to know first hand through personal experience; to learn, recognize, and perceive. The word used in this scripture verse describes the depth to which God and Jesus know each other and the word used to describe the depth of God’s knowledge of us and His desire for us to want and seek that depth of knowledge of Him.
God already knew everything about my sexuality, yet I had never thought to talk to Him about it. I had the two so separated in my mind that I never dared bring the two together. As foreign as the concept of including Christ in my sex was to me, and how so very wrong it felt to do, it was what Christ told me to do, so I did it. I invited Him into my marital bed, and I continued to do so until all the enemy’s lies became God’s truth in my mind, heart, spirit, and soul, and I will do so for the duration of my marriage. But this would have never happened for me if I were ‘united’ to the person God did not intend for me.
I am not saying in any form or fashion that my relationship with Jesus is sexual. That would be wrong (I am His child, He is my Father) and insanely weird. What I’m saying is that I had to invite Him into the deepest, darkest parts of me. Places in my heart I had hidden even from myself. I had to let Him see the whole me. And guess what? He loves me still.
That depth of intimate knowing is the depth of intimacy God intends for us to have in our marital sex. Coming to learn this truth changed my perception of sex and the importance of it within my marriage: The level of intimate knowledge that we can attain when we are ecstatically, intimately, and erotically bonded with our spouse during sexual intimacy and at orgasm is a taste of the depths and levels of the beautiful, intimate connection we will have with God for eternity. God uses the physical to express the spiritual so that we may KNOW Him. That’s powerful knowledge; the kind of knowledge that will sustain an intimate sexual marriage till death do they part.
My Best Answer
I somewhat apologize for the length of this text. I set out to give my best answer to you and myself in response to how I healed sexually. So have I now given my best response? I feel satisfied that I have. And even though there is so much more to say about how God intends for us to enjoy the sexual bond with our spouse, and what “fulfilling our marital duty” means, I will end it here because marital sex deserves a more lengthy and dedicated discussion, which I will do in another post.
My half-hearted apology is because I’m not entirely sorry for the length. I wish I could have done it in less time but I didn’t and for that I am sorry. But to get where I am today was a long, challenging journey that I could not tell with haste and for that, I am not sorry. Your walk with God will not be exact as mine. God knows you; I do not. But I do know where your journey should begin, and that is with Jesus. Ask Him your questions and allow Him to do the work in your heart, mind, spirit, and soul. Read His Word. Follow His instructions, even when they feel scary or hard. He already knows every intimate detail about you. Don’t be afraid of rejection; He never will disown you.
My prayer is that, within these words I’ve shared, you’ve glimpsed hope where you felt there was none. I pray that you have the strength to take the first step and ask for His guidance, and I pray for you to know your worth and follow His lead. I pray for the complete healing of your whole self.
1 Chronicles 28:9; …the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you forever.