Sex Is Not the Problem

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As we continue this week on the topic of adultery, I wanted to share another concept with you.  One of the best ways to avoid adultery is to focus on your spouse.  Here goes:

Many people think that the Bible is boring and so the equate God to be boring. Our culture envisions God as a fuddy-duddy in the sky who doesn’t want his children to have any fun or enjoy anything in this life. People have a concept of God that if something is enjoyable, he probably wouldn’t want us to partake of it.

Those people have never read Proverbs 5.

Prov 5:15-21
15 Drink water from your own cistern,
water flowing from your own well.
16 Should your springs flow in the streets,
streams of water in the public squares?
17 They should be for you alone
and not for you [to share] with strangers.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and take pleasure in the wife of your youth.
19 A loving doe, a graceful fawn—
let her breasts always satisfy you;
be lost in her love forever.
20 Why, my son, would you be infatuated
with a forbidden woman
or embrace the breast of a stranger?
21 For a man’s ways are before the LORD’s eyes,
and He considers all his paths.

In this passage, God reminds his people that “everything given and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father” (James 1:17). Sex is a gift from God. He wants his children to enjoy it, but he wants them to enjoy it in the proper way.  He tells the people to drink water, just make sure you drink it from your own cistern.

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In Joshua Harris’ book, Sex Isn’t the Problem (Lust Is), he lays out a common misconception about sexual desires. Our sexual desires at their core are not bad, they are actually given by God. He just wants us to satisfy our sexual desires in a healthy way – that is why he makes marriage such a big deal.

If a man loves the beauty of women, than let him enjoy his wife’s beauty. If a woman loves the attractive nature of men, then let her indulge in her husband’s handsomeness. The greatest way to avoid sexual temptation is to be fulfilled in God’s gift to you through a spouse.  Sex is not the problem, sex with someone other than your spouse is the problem.

-Taken from “I (Still) Do” Life Truths Curriculum written for LifeWay, Coming Out May 2010