ESSAY CONTEST

The essay contest is now closed. Read the winning essay below!

Purity is more than saving sex until marriage. Purity is not just not kissing people. Purity is a state of mind, a guarding of your heart, an every day decision to keep yourself for one and only one person; your future spouse.

Would you try jumping out of an airplane flying 1,000 feet above the ground with no parachute? How about going out into the middle of the ocean, then stepping off the boat to walk on water? Why can’t we? Because God has set up laws, the law of gravity, the law that our body mass weighs more than water.

In the same way, God has set up moral laws that we must obey, or there are consequences that will affect the rest of our lives. Not just physical things, because if it only affects us physically, then those obstacles are easy to dodge. No, purity is linked not just to our physical body, but to our mind, our emotions. Every time you give more of your heart to someone, you become more deeply involved with them, and it becomes harder to disentangle yourself.

Proverbs 4:23 – Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

The wellspring of life. Wellspring means source, basis. Your heart is more than just feelings, it’s the very basis of your being. Every time you give your heart to someone, you are literally giving yourself away, you are offering up every part of you to their discretion.

Why are we not so in awe of God that we are willing to do anything to be holy before Him? He despises those practices that we laugh at, perhaps even practice ourselves; fornication (which is having sex with anyone that you’re not married to), homosexuality, pornography, movies with very sexual overtones.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 – Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

If God truly lives within us, then we do not belong to ourselves. He bought us, with the life of His own, His only, son Jesus. We aren’t just defiling ourselves when we commit sexual immorality, we’re defiling God himself, for we are His temple.

Purity isn’t a side issue with God. “Oh, I’ll be pure until I feel like I’m old enough to have sex.” “Everyone’s doing it!” “Almost nobody’s pure, it’s impossible to do, anyway.” God doesn’t care about what’s ‘convenient’ for us. No matter how mature, how much pressure we get from friends, how much we want to, Godís Word should always come first.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 – 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: 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.

God doesn’t take impurity lightly. “Oh, John Doe slipped up.. Ah, well, a little bandage, all better, you’re forgiven.” No. God isn’t like some half blind and deaf, rich grandfather who only sees what you have him see. God is all-knowing, all-powerful. He knows every thought, every motive, every sinful intention.

Matthew 5:28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Whoever even looks in lust! This isnít just talking about guys, but girls too. You might think that that’s impossible—not even to look at someone with lust? Jesus did not sin, not once. Looking lustfully is a sin, and we are required to not do it.

“Okay, so purity is good for me—in an ‘eat your Brussels sprouts’ kinda way?” No! With the measure of punishment for sin, there is also reward for doing what’s right.

Proverbs 2:6-8 – For the LORD holds victory in store for the upright, He is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for He guards the course of the just and protects the way of His faithful ones.

God isn’t all about discipline and ‘thou shalt not’, He is a God of justice, yes, but He is also the God of love, of happiness, of goodness. However, we have to be following Him before He will guide and shield us. We must surrender to Him, our will, our desires, our life.

Being pure isn’t just about avoiding bad things, like STDs, punishment, pregnancy. It’s about gaining everything good that is just waiting for us to snatch it. Freedom. Maybe you think being able to do what you want is freedom. No, John 8:34 – Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”

Romans 6:22 – But now that you have been set free from sin [talking to Christians here] and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

We have two choices, be slaves to sin, or be slaves to God. Now, you might think being God’s slave sounds very unlike what Christianity should be, but it’s not at all what you might imagine. God doesnít make us his slaves, He doesn’t force us to do His will.

Being a slave to God’s will is something we put upon ourselves. Being God’s slave is basically the same as saying we surrender everything to him, even our own will. Maybe that’s a scary thought, how can we trust that He won’t say “Okay, now go move to New Mexico, wear floor-length gray dresses and never leave your house unless absolutely necessary.”?

God put laws in place to keep us safe. Every law He placed that has something to do with our sexuality is to keep us safe. One man, one woman, for life. We shouldnít just keep our bodies pure, but our minds, our hearts.

Romans 2:16 – All these things will happen on the day when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge people’s secret thoughts. The Good News that I preach says this.

Imagine this: You are standing before the Lord on Judgment Day. You see playing before you not just the outward sins like lying or stealing, but every wrong thought, every sinful intention. As they play, you see tears rolling down Jesus’ face, every single one of them bringing pain to Him, your own dear friend and comforter. On His back you see the scars, one for every one of those thoughts.

Itís not ‘just a thought’, the same as it’s not ‘just a kiss’, not ‘just sex’. It’s all sin, it’s all wrong, even the thoughts that nobody sees but you and God.

2 Corinthians 10:5b – and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.