t!His Youth Group Blog

(cont’d from: The “S” word | Part 2: Gettin’ down and dirty… )

The ‘God talk’ part

You know that I’m a Christian and a youth leader, so I’m sure you expected me to talk about this from a Christian perspective too. If not…well…SURPRISE!!! I want to be clear that even though this is sub-titled “God Talk”, it’s not God talking! It’s me…but I’m talking from the perspective of a Christian and from knowledge of the Bible.

I am not an ordained minister or anything. I’m just a volunteer and don’t have a lot (but I do have some) specialized training in ministry. I DO have something that’s much more important than that though—I have a personal relationship with God. Because I have accepted the love and mercy and grace and forgiveness that was made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus and that God has offered all who accept it, I have God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in me.

In my ministry to teens, I meet teens where they are at and treat them with respect. I understand failure because I have failed plenty. I understand guilt because I have had to deal with my share of guilt in my own life. I don’t try to force God on teens, but I do try to help them see and understand the awesome power of God’s love for them. Unconditional love is exactly that—unconditional! God loves us—you and me—because we are His. We don’t need to earn His love. In fact, we can’t earn His love. He loves us no matter what we have done and no matter who we are or who we have become. He wants to be our friend and be there in our darkest times and well as when things are great. He wants to lead us into a life that is infinitely better than we can have without experiencing His love.

Because I have God’s Holy Spirit dwelling in me and because I have experienced God’s amazing love and forgiveness, I won’t begin a discussion about sin until I talk about grace. Grace simply means receiving something we don’t deserve. Even though we don’t deserve it, God loves us. God loves you! Jesus actually said, “The thief (Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they (those who love God) may have life, and have it to the full.” I hadn’t intended to quote more than one Bible passage, but that’s from John 10:10.

The point is that God loves us enough that He sent Jesus to give us life—life to the full—by living a perfect life and then taking on our sins and failures and dying as the penalty for those sins and then conquering death and giving us eternal life by rising from the dead. He did this more than 2000 years ago. He did it knowing that we would be sinning and failing today. But He did it because He loves us so dearly. And because Jesus took on our sins, we are able to take on His perfection and holiness and come back into relationship with God. We don’t suddenly become perfect on our own. We still sin—Paul talks a lot about this in the book of Romans—but God’s forgiveness and love is infinite. We can choose to let sin separate us from God, but sin does not have the power to do that on its own. Because Jesus defeated the power of sin, we are able to be forgiven for our sins and put them behind us and continue to grow in our relationship with God and to live the full life He wants us to live.

This is important because I have listened to so many teens tell me that God cannot possibly love them because of what they are or what they have done. That is simply not true! God’s love and forgiveness and grace is what keeps us in relationship with Him. If our relationship with God depended on our ability to be perfect, none of us would have any hope!

Just as Paul points out in his writings, though, I also want to point out that this doesn’t mean we should just go off doing whatever we feel like doing and not caring if it’s what God wants for us or not. Sin still has consequences for us. Even though we no longer have to pay the penalty for sin if we are in Christ, we still have to deal with the consequences of our failures. And those can be awful…

Enough about grace. Now we’ll get to the part you’ve been waiting for…

I’m going to keep it short though and look at one main point, which is this: Why wouldn’t God want us to have sex whenever and with whomever we want? Is he just trying to take all the fun out of our lives or what???

Remember that Bible passage I quoted way back at the beginning? Here it is again:

One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”

The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”    Luke 10:25-28 (NLT)

I believe that God made us to be in a relationship with Him. The kind of relationship He wants with us is intimate. The Bible often uses the metaphor of marriage to symbolize our relationship with God. That’s how intimate He wants to be with us!

I believe He gave us marriage and sex not just to recreate (yes, that’s an intentional pun!) but also to show us how to relate to Him. He wants us to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind.

Sex is more than just a physical activity. Think about it. Sex involves every aspect of our being. Our Heart (emotion), our Soul (spiritual), our Strength (physical) and our Mind (thought). Hmmm…sounds a little familiar doesn’t it?

The Bible uses many metaphors to describe our relationship with God (both as individuals and as all of God’s people together—The Church). These include The Good Shepherd Caring for His Sheep, Father and Children, The Vine and Branches, and many others. One of the most intimate metaphors used to describe God’s relationship with us is Husband and Wife or Bride and Groom. Some scholars have argued that the entire sexually explicit Old Testament book of the Bible, The Song of Solomon (also known as The Song of Songs) uses marriage and sex as a metaphor to describe the intimacy of the relationship God wants to have with us.

It makes sense when you think about it. God knows us inside and out. He loves us with perfect, unconditional love—even to the point of suffering and dying to re-establish our relationship with Him.

He gave us marriage and sex so that we could experience or at least think about that relationship and be able to better comprehend how close and special He wants our relationship with Him to be.

But like so many other good things, marriage and sex have been twisted and distorted into something other than what God intended them to be.

Instead of marriage reflecting the perfect relationship God wants with us, we have turned it into something that is often all too temporary or something that is destructive when we fail to treat each other with the love and respect that God wants in marriage.

And sex, intended by God to be the ultimate expression of marriage, with partners loving each other with all their heart, strength, soul and mind, has instead become little more than an entertaining activity for people selfishly seeking their own pleasure without regard for anyone else.

These distortions are nothing new. People have been engaging in sexual activity that is selfish and destructive since…well, since sin entered the world. The sexual activity that is going on today isn’t any different form what’s been going on throughout history. There’s only so much that can be done and it’s pretty much all been done.

But just because it’s been going on for a long time, and just becomes it seems like nearly everyone is doing it and doesn’t care, and just because it seems like you are driven to do it, doesn’t make it healthy or good.

Even though God created sex as a good thing, it can cause a lot of damage when used selfishly and out of the context God designed it to be enjoyed in.

I’ve seen a lot of people—teens and adults—who have been damaged by “enjoying” sex out of the context for which it was intended. I’ll be honest that I too failed in this area when I was a teenager and have experienced the damage firsthand.

I have talked to many teens in the past few years who feel like they are trapped in activities that are slowly (or quickly) destroying them. I have talked with teens who have come to believe that they are no longer good for anything other than to be used as a sexual object by others.

I’ve prayed with girls who have given themselves up in hope that by having sex they could keep their boyfriend only to loose him (which is often what happens). I’ve heard girls identify themselves as “sluts” because their self-esteem has been brought down to the point that they have come to believe that sex is all they are good for anymore.

I have seen guys who no longer enjoy dating because they just want to get to the sex—and they don’t even care much for the girl as long as she puts out. I’ve prayed with guys who have come to realize that they’ve pretty much lost control of their own thoughts and actions because their own sexual urges and desires have taken over. I’ve seen guys who have so little respect for women that I wonder how they will ever become a good husband or a decent father.

I’ve talked with many teens who hurt so bad inside that they will do anything to get rid the pain—whether it’s drugs or alcohol or more sex or self injury—only to realize that nothing they try brings relief.

But I can tell you there is hope. There is relief. There is healing.

Even though we may have screwed up our lives to the point where we think they are beyond repair, God offers us something even better than ‘repair’. He offers us new life. He offers us transformed minds and hearts. He offers us a better life—a life to the fullest—right here and now.

I’m not just talking about eternal life. I’m talking about God giving us hope today and every day. Hope that He can give us back control over our urges. Hope that He can transform us so that we can become good wives and husbands, good mothers and fathers despite what we’ve done. Hope that He can give us back our own true identities instead of the identities we have adopted. Hope that we can overcome our pain through His love. And hope that we can begin to see others not as sexual objects but as people loved dearly by God Himself.

If you want to know more about the hope that God offers or want to know how to receive that hope for yourself, get in touch with me!

There’s so much more to say about all of this!

But I don’t want this post to get too long…So the rest can be said in the comments section. Don’t forget that you can make comments anonymously if you choose.

What do you think about what I’ve said? Do you agree with any of it? Disagree? Have you had some of these struggles in your life? Or are you struggling with sexual activity outside of God’s context right now and need help or advice? I’d like to hear what you have to say.