Man Up....Sexual PurityIt is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8)
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body....You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18, 20)
Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished. (Proverbs 6:27-29)
Early this morning I was reading through the Book of Acts and as I was getting ready for work, I found this article on Flipboard: "British Prime Minister David Cameron today will announce an aggressive plan to crack down on online pornography, as part of an ongoing campaign to protect children from its "corroding" influence. Under Cameron's plan, online porn will be blocked by default for all new UK household internet connections, meaning consumers will have to tell their internet service providers (ISPs) whether they want to disable the filters. The plan will also make it a crime to possess "extreme pornography," such as images or video of simulated rape, the Daily Mail reports. "By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account the settings to install family friendly filters will be automatically selected," Cameron will say in a speech to the child protection group NSPCC on Monday. "If you just click 'next' or 'enter', then the filters are automatically on." "YOU HAVE A DUTY TO ACT ON THIS — AND IT IS A MORAL DUTY."
Cameron is taking aim at violent and illegal child pornography, in particular, and will call upon major search engines to do their part to prevent "sick" people from accessing such content. Under the initiative, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) will draft a blacklist of objectionable search terms, while a UK-US joint task force will be established to help combat obscene websites."
I find it interesting that the Prime Minister of England realizes that devastation that sexual immorality is having on our children. The moral decay of society can be attributed to those who turned away from Biblical principles and instead turned to worldly cultural norms. It's almost as if he has been reading the Bible?
Out of all countries, the United States is the top producer of both pornographic websites and pornographic videos. In fact, the United States has produced 89% (244,661,900) of the pornographic web pages in the entire world. The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11. (http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html)
350 members of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the nation’s top 1,600 divorce attorneys, met in 2002 for an annual conference. Almost two thirds of these lawyers said that the Internet had played a significant role in divorces they had handled during the last year. The problems most cited by the attorneys were:1) Met new love interest over the Internet - 68 percent2) Obsessive interest in pornographic sites - 56 percent3) Excessive time on computer - 47 percent4) Excessive time communicating in chat rooms - 33 percent(accessed on 9/21/10 from the original press release from American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers) <More to this article click on headline>
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There is so many reasons why purity is so important to our walk as Disciples of Christ. As I have been reading through the Bible, you cannot help but realize what idolatry (sexual vices and so much more) did to the Jewish people. It caused them to turn from God and then a whole heap of problems occurred thereafter. If you think you can serve and walk with God, yet have unrepentant sin in your life, you and I are truly kidding ourselves. Our very nature will turn us from God and turn us back toward our old flesh.
Even the Apostle Paul talked about his old sin nature and his new body and said that which he knew he should do he doesn't and that to which he shouldn't do he does. Our bodies are at war with ourselves. Our walks as disciples (legacy dads) puts us at odds with the evil one. If we, turning toward idolatry (even sexual impurity), doesn't throw us in to a world of hurt, you can expect spiritual attack to ensue thereafter.
When we play with fire, we can risk getting burned. When we play with sin we can risk our walk with God. When we have sin in our lives and we do not repent then we are putting ourselves "the us" before "Him".
Colossians 3 & Romans 12 and Job 31:1 are a place to start if you are serious about turning from old self to new self.
Why put this off any longer?
Who would you rather entertain? Jesus or our old sin nature?
Thoughts?
Dante