Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Importance of Purity Before Marriage

Image from www.twoorthreelittlebirds.com
Scripture:

Repentance & surrendering our lives to will of Jesus is the only solution. Only then will we be able to "inherit the kingdom of God".
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.

We are to use our bodies for God's glory, for God dwells IN us once we surrender our lives and our will to what He has designed for our lives. At that point, we belong to Him.
1 Corinthians 6:13b-20 - You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead.
15 Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

How does God expect me to avoid sexual temptation?
1 Corinthians 10:13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

God himself understands the struggles & difficulty of standing strong under temptation. He can empathize with us.
Hebrews 2:18 Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested.

What happens if I continue to sin after it has been brought to my attention? Until we confess that sin and repent (discontinue the sin and run completely from it), we are choosing to refuse Christ. The bible tells us that light (God) and darkness (sin) can not have fellowship. They can have nothing to do with one another. But true, heart-felt repentance fixes all of that, and fellowship is restored.
Hebrews 10:26 - Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins.

Hebrews 13:4 -
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Statistics/Quotes:

Living together before marriage presents moral and practical dilemmas. Below are some statistics on the complications that occur due to living together prior to marriage.

"Affairs happen twice as often with individuals who are living together [and unmarried] than with those who are married."
- Journal of Marriage & the Family 62 (February 2000): 48-60

"The rate of sexually transmitted diseases among couples living together is six times higher than among married couples."
- A Profile of American Women in the 20th Century, 2000

"Those who live together before marriage are still less sexually faithful after marriage than those who did not live together first."
- Journal of Marriage & the Family 58 (1996): 33-47

"Only 1/6th of couples who live together [prior to marriage] stay together for more than three years; and only one in ten survives five or more years."

"Couples who [live together prior to marriage] have almost a 50% higher rate of divorce than married couples who do not live together first."
- National Survey of Family Growth, Dept. of Health & Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, 2002

"A poor cohabiting teenager using the Pill has a failure rate of 48.4%. Over 70% of poor, cohabiting teenagers using condoms, will be pregnant within a year."
- Physicians for Life

Below is information/statistics on sexually transmitted diseases & infections, as well as unplanned pregnancies.

"An estimated half of all new HIV infections occur in people under age 25. Most young people are infected through sex."
- Center for Disease Control

"When you have sex with someone, you are having sex with everyone they have had sex with for the last 10 years, and everyone they and their partners have had sex with for the last 10 years."
- C. Everett Koop, M.D. (Former U.S. Surgeon General)

"Most young people have sex for the first time at about age 17, but they do not marry until their middle or late 20's. This means that young adults are at risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) for nearly a decade."
- Guttmacher Institute, Center for Disease Control

"Each year, 750,000 women aged 15-19 become pregnant, and eighty-two percent of teen pregnancies are unplanned."
- Guttmacher Institute, Center for Disease Control

Below is information, statistics and quotes on abstinence (refraining from sexual acts until marriage).

"The percentage of pregnancies that occur from abstinence is 0%."
- Physicians for Life

"Fornicating while single is an internship for adulterating in marriage. Singles, sleeping around before you marry is not a way to prepare for fidelity in marriage."
- Mars Hill Church, Pastor Mark Driscoll

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