Sexual purity provides a powerful protection from unhealthy, damaging, and abusive dating relationships. However, as fantastic a safeguard purity is for protecting our hearts and bodies from the effects of unhealthy romance, every relationship we have, other than marital, is designed to be non-sexual. So what value does purity hold in our acquaintances, friendships, work relationships, etc.?
Pleasure. Good pleasure. What comes to your mind as you think of “good pleasure?” Is good pleasure something to avoid, or temper? Or is it something that you seek—on your quest to find fulfillment? Let us look at what God say about good pleasure so that we have a reference point for experiencing pleasure in our lives.
Love is the foundation and standard for everything. This is why the enemy so attacks love. He despises it. He’s afraid of it. The enemy of our soul will do anything he can to keep us from true love.
This is one reason why sexual purity is so important. Purity protects our love. It fosters and develops it. Impurity, on the other hand, hinders relationship. It actually sullies them and gives people a clouded picture of understanding God’s love for them and one another. Sex outside of marriage gives people to taste of intimacy it cannot fulfill. It offers a promise it cannot deliver.
How do love and sexual purity connect? God’s love, true love—described in 1 Corinthians 13—is really the only thing that will override a person’s desire to have sex.[1] It is vital to understand that it is only through God’s powerful love that it is possible to successfully commit to purity. Roger explains this brilliantly in our book as he gives very practical examples about how he moved from sexual bondage to a lifestyle of purity. And, purity, as we will see, teaches us how to love.
