So I’m sitting here watching “A social history of Virginity” on MTV which is kind of funny because today the devotion is about how your sex life is. Paul says in this passage to be pure and holy in your sex life, and most people who are honest with themselves will tell you that this is not easy.
Q: Paul’s first nitty-gritty instructions to his friends probe their sex lives, inviting them to “live in holiness and honor – not in lustful passion as the pagans do, in their ignorance of God and his ways” (4:4-5). How is God speaking to you right now about purity of heart and mind? How can we help on another as believers to live “in holiness and honor”?
A: God tells me to get my crap together all the time. I need to pull it together and improve my mindsets. I had a discussion the other day about admiring woman for their beauty. The question was can a Christian man look at a woman and admire the beauty that God gave her without lusting after her. I had a two part answer to this. First, yes you can look at her and admire her beauty, but it is better in a lot of ways not to. For me and a lot of other guys you can look around admiring people with the best intentions but it inevitably leads to lusting, there is almost no way to avoid that unless you have the best iron will. I think this is an area that requires accountability for a lot of people. As Christians we have to provide encouragement when people are doing well and advice on how to avoid the pitfalls of lust. If I had any good on how to live in “holiness and honor” I would be better at it myself, but this is an area that I believe requires lots of will power and lots of prayer for strength and endurance. So with this I will stop because this topic is touchy for most everyone, and I’m not immune to that and I don’t really like writing about it.