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Silver Ring Thing - creating a culture shift
The f-word
So if you really want to live in a way that’s 180 degrees different than the rest of the world, how do you walk this our in your relationships? How do you honour God while keeping your heart and hormones in check?
How do you not only think differently about sex and attract the opposite sex differently – how do you also relate to the opposite sex differently?
Silver Ring Thing - creating a culture shift
Hear that? It’s the sound of people’s souls rumbling – they’re starving for relationships. It’s how we’re wired. Whether we want to admit it or not, we want to connect with another person in some kind of relationship – a friend, a date, a spouse. We want to meet someone who understands us and cares. Why do you think we go to chick flicks (and yes, guys even tolerate a few of them)? We love the stories. We love the connection. We want to see two people together happily ever after (or at least till the end of the movie). Why? Because we don’t want to be alone.
We all want to do relationships right. We all want the dream of finding someone to be ‘the love of our life.’ But just walk around at your school and see the drama unfold as people use people and then get discarded to the side – the way we’re doing it now isn’t working.
You want more than that. You want to do relationships right, in a way that’s 180 degrees different than the way most people in the movies, in music, and on your school grounds are relating to one another. You want to find a way to get to know someone that’s in line with the 180 God’s doing in your life. You want to bring what God’s done in your heart into what happens when you’re with someone of the opposite sex – a way that keeps your heart and mind in check.
But before you can live out this 180, you have to grasp an important element of sex: sex is selfless. What you think about sex and how you live it out isn’t just about you. That’s a real 180 from the way the rest of our culture does sex. In movies, music, TV shows or just the couples or hookups you see in your school, it’s all about what another person can do for you – how they can make you feel or what they can do to bring you pleasure.
There’s a better way to do relationships than the fairy tales the rest of the world is trying to live out. But sex isn’t just a personal issue or a personal choice – it’s not that simple. How you view sex and sexuality impacts others. It’s not just your body and your decision. When you start interacting with someone else, you’re responsible for both your actions and theirs.
First Thessalonians 4: 3 – 7 says:
It 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 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.
Reread verse 6: ‘No one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.’ Even if the other person is a willing participant in a sexual act, there’s some part of it that both people have to own up to. For example if you know someone’s weakness and take advantage of it, you’re arousing desires in that person solely for your own personal gain. Guys use it to get girls to give them oral sex. They see a girl who’s insecure and is afraid of losing the relationship, so they figure if they can’t pressure her to go all the way, they can at least make sure they get something from her.
Girls work it too – getting their needs met by taking advantage of how guys are wired visually by dressing in ways that make sure they are not only noticed but desired.
Wouldn’t you like to live in a way that’s 180 degrees different than the rest of the world, how do you walk this out in your relationships. Spent time pondering the words in 1 Thessalonians 4: 3 – 7, make the quality decision to live and do relationships God’s way.
In the next edition we will look at how we can honour God in our dating relationships, while keeping our hearts and hormones in check!
Taken from Sex 180, by Tim Walker and Chip Ingram. [ISBN 0-8010-4529-0]
Silver Ring Thing needs to hear from you on how your walk has gone since your commitment to abstinence. Be it positive or negative, your story may very well be just the encouragement somebody else needs to hear.
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