Choose Life Australia

 
Filed on 20 January 2005 in Food For Thought category. Print This Page

The Illusion
It can’t be wrong when it feels so right. If it feels good, do it.
Casual sex never hurts.
I can have fun now without it affecting the rest of my life.
I don’t need to think about it beforehand – when the time comes I’ll do the right thing.
Casual sex is OK as long as I don’t get ‘romantic’ or, if I only get a little bit romantic it won’t hurt me emotionally.
Living together is necessary before getting married.
You can’t get pregnant the ‘first time’.
Pornography helps sexual adjustment.

The Reality
Falling in love is truly mystical and wonderful – the stuff of which real dreams are made – and when sex is experienced with commitment in marriage it is absolutely, definitely worth waiting for.
Sex is so much more than just a recreational activity, it involves the whole person and creates an intangible spiritual connection between two people – the Bible talks about one flesh. However much it is tried to keep sex casual a connection always occurs. For this reason separation always costs; it is always painful.
Indiscriminate sex trivializes and contaminates this connection making it more difficult to attain in future.
Nevertheless, recovery of innocence and the magic of sex is possible with time and commitment.
Sex outside of God’s plan always damages resulting in anger, jealousy, guilt, hate, hurt, physical harm, medical problems, disease, despair, and problems with subsequent sexual adjustment.
Exposure to pornography also costs something; it trivialises the magic and wonder of sex and it also entraps, is addictive.

What pressures might make you forget what you know to be right?
Feeding your mind with the wrong thoughts and fantasies and giving into temptation in your mind – remember we reap what we sow.
Allowing just a ‘little’ ground.
Peer pressure – to be ‘normal’, to ‘perform’ – with the implication that you’re abnormal or homosexual or inadequate if you don’t.
Accepting alcohol or drugs that lower inhibitions and distort perspective.
Feeling tired or rejected or a failure and seeking ‘meaning’ in living – in females sometimes a subconscious desire to get pregnant to find meaning.
Sharing at a very deep emotional level ‘how can it be wrong when it feels so right’.
Feeling ‘high’ at the end of a special event (e.g. camp, musical experience) in which deep sharing has occurred increases the intensity of the bond that makes sex seem almost inevitable – but it also destroys the magic of what has occurred in the sharing of the activity. Even shared danger or shared grief can result in this distorted perspective.

What will you do when facing those pressures?
Deep inside we all know the rules for right living – they are also to be found in God’s word.
Remember the dangers.
Avoid tempting situations e.g. being alone with the person for whom the temptation is present; parties where alcohol or drugs will be present or no parental control – like Joseph we must flee from temptation (Genesis 39:5-11)
Be clear minded 1 Pet 4:7; 5:8; 1:3
Avoid tempting material – suggestive literature, media, films, video, internet
Sow good thoughts and not bad ones – Phil 4:8
Practice self-discipline 2 Tim 1:7; 1 Thess 4:3-8; Col 3:5
Be confident in your own normality. Don’t be persuaded by others trying to suggest that you’re not normal if you ‘don’t do it’.

Lachlan Dunjey Nov 2005.