Being a Lover is based on two assumptions. You might try to apply the principles in Being a Lover outside of these assumptions and you may even have some fun but for full sexual satisfaction and purity, you will need to understand the basics.
Firstly, sex is for heterosexuals only. You are created with either an ‘innie’ or and ‘outie’. One is designed to fit into the other. Two ‘innies’ or two ‘outies’ are not meant to fit into each other – you can try but you were not designed to enjoy sex by perverting God’s design. Just think of an electrical plug, when you connect a male plug to a female socket you get electricity. Try to connect two male plugs to each other you get nothing! Try and stick things other than a plug into a female socket and you will get an electrical shock. Just accept things the way they are. God designed certain things in a certain way and when things are used in the way they were designed they will always work best.
Sex is made for one man and one woman who are married to each other. Genesis makes this very clear to us in chapter 2 verse 24 - “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Marriage was God’s idea too. All sexual activity outside of marriage cannot be blessed by God. Another indication that God’s design for marriage was exclusively a heterosexual union is in His design for procreation, which can be found in Genesis 1:28 when God blessed Adam and Eve’s union and told them to “be fruitful and multiply”.
The Bible calls all sexual activity outside of marriage sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is not God's perfect plan. Choosing to do things your way and not God’s way will have consequences to bear. Too many people believe that God wants to keep them from having fun. Thinking this way is only as immature as a child thinking it is not fair to eat cake and sweets right before dinner time. Some things just work better when done in the right time.
God is a loving father who gave us the pleasure of sex as long as it is done in the right context. It's not that we should judge anyone who has decided to live a different lifestyle, it is completely their choice and I am friends with many people who lead all sorts of alternative lifestyles. My homosexual friends and unmarried sexually active friends, all of whom I love dearly, can vouch for my sincere love for them. Most of the people I know are involved in some form of sexual immorality but our place as Christians is to love people and help them find Jesus. Judging people will only turn them away from God unless they are already believers!
An immoral believer is a different category and they should be judged as it says in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 - “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.” (bold emphasis mine)
Sexual immorality is serious to God and he expects us not to tolerate it amongst ourselves if we call ourselves Christian. We judge this, and the other offences listed, amongst ourselves. We should take it very seriously. However, God will judge those who are ‘outside’, we are called to love the lost. A sinner will sin. We were all once sinners and were trapped in sin which is why we needed Jesus to save us and clean us up. For those of us that call ourselves a Christian, let’s take sexual purity seriously. Being a Lover assumes that when we refer to sex we are building on the foundation of heterosexual married couples only. You cannot ask God to bless your sin. Sex outside of Biblical guidelines is sin.
Find out more about Being a Lover here or get in touch to host your own Girl's Night.
* Note: We are in support of the EA's affirmations on the subject of homosexuality.
* Note: We are in support of the EA's affirmations on the subject of homosexuality.
Hi, God has been speaking to me powerfully in the last 18 years but particularly in the last few days regarding the love of God and the LGBT community and whilst it's great to see an article at least addressing some of the issues I am a little concerned.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I agree that sex is designed by God to take place within a loving marriage between a man and woman, I am really disappointed at the way the article that is written above, is written, as what comes across rather than love is judgement. There is a small paragraph on the love of God to all but it's midway through and comes across as an afterthought rather than a starting point. The God I worship is first interested in relationship with His people, which should start with love.
God loves everyone. Everyone has areas of imperfection. God came to redeem everyone. I am fed up with the church's message to the LGBT community being one of judgement and condemnation first and love second. This is highlighted in your article above.
Can't we as those that love God, reflect his love first and concentrate on discipleship second. Articles like that above do not help draw those who find themselves as members of the LGBT community towards Christ, but send them away as they show no understanding nor compassion nor insight into the issues that are involved for the LGBT community.
God's promise is that He will never leave nor forsake us, that He loves us and that He is for us not against us. Until this comes first and foremost in messages regarding the issues of sexuality and sexual purity, which I agree are really important, these messages will do more harm than good. Please consider re-writing the article above and perhaps removing it until it is founded in more insight and with more love and understanding.
Fay,
DeleteThank you for your feedback and I am truly sorry if you felt anything in this post was judgmental. My only intention is to set a foundation for the Being a Lover series. I highlighted three areas that are important to consider when having sex. 1) It is for one male and one female, 2) It is for marriage and 3) Christians involved in sexual immorality are to be judged by other Christians as immorality within the church is unacceptable.
However, I do understand that all Christian struggle with some form of sin and so we try to help each other with our struggles, it is only those that sin out of choice and refuse to give it up that we need to discipline.
With regards to those that are not Christian, we only love them. No matter what they do or say, our responsibility is to love the lost - judgement is God's alone. I have deep compassion for people in the LGBT community as I realise it is a genuine struggle. Please understand that the aim of this post is to point people who want to join us in the Being a Lover series to what the Biblical foundations for being a lover are. I cannot guarantee satisfying sex outside of these boundaries.
I value your comment Fay, and I pray that God would show you that King's Daughters and myself are not against anyone in the LGBT community but we are actually for them and would very much like to be given the opportunity to share God's love with them. We were all sinners and we are only saved by grace - not one of us are better than any sinner who hasn't yet found Jesus.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the worst. I wrote about my struggles with sexual purity in my book Passion & Purity which you can take a look at here: http://kingsdaughters21.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/passion-purity.html
Lots of Love
Angela
xxx
Dear Angela,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your response - I'm sorry, upon re-reading my message I realise that it does come across as rather cross and I should have perhaps thought better on some of my phrasing myself! (I think there may have been a speck/log in my eye - apologies!).
I hope that we can show God's love to everyone we meet, whether believer or non believer, and help one another to grow closer to God and His plans for our lives - whatever sexual orientation we do or do not have. He loves all of us and all of us have identity issues that don't fit the perfect model. But fortunately He loves all of us broken jars of clay. All I can say is that I know many beautiful treasures within those jars.
With love
Fay
Yes I agree Fay, the most important thing is to show God's love.
DeleteHave a wonderful weekend.
Love
Angela
xxx
Hello :) I have a few points that I would like to bring up:
ReplyDeleteYou say 'Sex is made for one man and one woman who are married to each other. Genesis makes this very clear to us in chapter 2 verse 24 - “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”'
Was Lot was married to his daughters when he became so drunk they had sex with him (Genesis 19:34-36)? Or when Moses instructed his army to 'kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man' (Numbers 31:15-19), did he plan on insisting there was a marriage ceremony before the soliders were allowed to have sex with their (undoubtedly very young) prisoners? How about King David and his many concubines in 2 Samuel 5:13? 'And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David'? These were all righteous men in the eyes of God, and yet were going directly against the verse you cite in Genesis, engaging in or endorsing sexual acts that were not within a marriage.
You use the argument that 'Another indication that God’s design for marriage was exclusively a heterosexual union is in His design for procreation...' I feel this is a dangerous argument to use, as it is obvious that many heterosexual couples are incapable of having children, whether that be due to illness, infertility or practical issues. Are they then denied marriage because it will not result in procreation?
We then move into the New Testament, and the famous verse used in 1 Corinthians 6 to suggest gay people will not inherit the Kingdom of heaven. The people included in this verse also includes adulterers. Jesus says in Mark 10: 11-12 that re-marrying is considered to be adultery. Why is it then, that adulterers and divorcees are allowed to get married (depending on the individual church) but gay people are not? Surely it cannot be one rule for them and another for gay people?
You cite 1 Corinthians 5: 9-13 and say immoral believers should be judged. If you take heed to this, I would imagine you also take heed to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, 'Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.' Do you speak in your Church building? (If you go to one, of course.) Paul also imstructs women in 1 Corinthians 11:4-8 to cover their heads when praying or prophesying; do you adhere to this?
Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:1 'All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.' Seeing as we are supposed to follow the teachings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 5: 9-13, does this not mean we should also follow this teaching, and at most be in favour of slavery or at least indifferent to its existence?
My point is, you say Paul instructs believers to judge other immoral believers, but he also tells believers to prevent their women from speaking in church and for slaves to obey their masters. It is impossible to pluck one verse from Paul's writings without paying attention to the (less culturally acceptable) other verses.
I hope this doesn't come across as confrontational because I definitely don't mean it that way, I just felt I needed to respond.
Hi Rose,
DeleteI have spend quite some time seeking God about this issue and have decided to respond to the points you raised that are relevant to this post as follows:
1) There is no biblical model for a homosexual or any other kind of relationship other than the one man married to one woman model.
2) Anything outside of this model is sin.
3) We are all sinners and church is a place where sinners are most definitely welcome or it would be empty. Homosexuality is sin just as over eating is sin. All sinners are welcome and should not be judged at church. If we couldn't come to church until we were sinless then none of us could attend a church. As Christians, we are called to love God and love people - that is the new commandment we are given by Jesus. If our dealing with a sinner is motivated by anything other than love then we are wrong. Love is our guide.
4) Here is a brilliant article on how we have misunderstood the divorce/remarriage scriptures. http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/on-divorce-remarriage-in-the-event-of-adultery
I hope that helps.
Love
Angela
xxx
I am really looking forward to the next installment of this series. I'm even getting my husband to read it as well. Thanks so much for your ensight - much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI am so pleased you are enjoying it! xx
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