S10E12 - What Is The Real Battle?

PURITY IN HONOR AND SURVIVAL AND VICTORY IN LIFE
WARNING - THIS IS A LONG AND INVOLVED CONVERSATION
- BUT WORTH YOUR TIME!

"I am in my early 70's. Much has changed in the realm of what is pure and what is impure during my lifetime. But then, of course, information has exploded (Daniel 12:4).

We struggle like never before when it comes to our sexuality, our intimacy, and our oneness as a man and a woman. You know this. Those with open eyes understand. There are several anchors in God's Word which are able to help deliver us from being consumed by impurity and lust. This is tricky. But take the time to reason through this for your own welfare - and for those you love.

While this can look different for a man or a woman, we are both offered the opportunity to honor God and one another through our purity choices. This has little to do with being religious and much more with being spiritually free.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 contains the most focused discussion of honor for God through purity - though the subject is woven throughout the God Story. From it we learn that:

√   It is God's heart for us to be "set apart" in our purity (sanctified)
√   Our purity is not merely an issue of body but involves our mind, conscience, heart, and soul. We are apparently "called to this." (intergenerational apology?)
√   Sexual purity means we will "possess our vessels" in honor and choose to abstain from immorality. It is not difficult in the Biblical corpus to define purity vs immorality. (open any book of the Bible)
√   Setting aside "lustful passions" we are to subject this part of us to honor - both to God and our choices not to "transgress or defraud others." We are "hijacked to this"
√   The Holy Spirit given to us when we believe in Jesus allows us to "go over and above" what has become our most natural entrapment.

This is neither a man problem or a woman problem. Let's take a look at the uphill challenge we face. 

#1 The Roots of Human Destruction  "If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it." - Genesis 4:7 There are relatively very few people at this point in the world. Cain and Abel have much to reveal to us about the new trajectory of man and womankind.

Several textual questions:
- What is our countenance?
- What does it mean for it to be lifted up?
- What does it mean to "do well?"
- What does crouching at the door imply/look like?
- Why does sin desire me?
- How do I "master" it?

#2 The Reality of God's Plan for Purity  So here is a mind blower. As you read do not make the mistake I have before where I have thought this is only directed toward a male. Not so. It is for us both. "Drink water from your own cistern and fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain (digging flow) be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving life encounter and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be exhilarated always with her love. For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress and embrace the bosom of a "calamitous one" not belonging to you?

For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the LORD, and He watches all his paths. His own iniquities will capture the wicked, and he will be held with the cords of his sin. He will die for lack of instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray." Proverbs 5:15-23

Several textual questions:

- What fountain is being discussed here?
- What does exhilaration look like over a day? A year? A decade? Into your 70's and beyond?
- What makes a man or woman invite the calamity of adultery into our lives, and what is the scope of this upon a heart, mind, and conscious?
- How much importance/focus does God place upon our purity and why? What is His goal for us?

#3 The Partnership of Intimacy  Burnadette and I have been partners for over 50 years. We married selfish, but because we have mutually submitted to Jesus we have found oneness. It is a choice, according to Paul - the unmarried one - which belongs to us both. Here is one of the trickiest passages about intimacy. "The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop  depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devo