Last week I talked about the state of casual sex. I’m going to continue the dialogue and speak about our future relationship with God if we are not married and sexually active.
If you have been, or are sexually active, in your quiet time with God tell him how you feel—he already knows. We call it confession. Hebrews 10:22 says: “Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.” Ask for his forgiveness and his help and guidance.
God loves you so much. He will forgive you and heal you. Once he forgives you—you are clean and pure in his eyes. Psalm 51:7 says: God swill wash us whiter than snow.
But it doesn’t mean he will wipe out the consequences. One example is King David. He
committed adultery which led to murder and set into motion consequences that were irreversible.
David asked God to forgive him. God forgave David’s sin and restored their relationship, but he did not wipe out the consequences. That’s part of life! We must never take on the attitude that, “I can do this—get drunk, try marijuana, have premarital sex—because if I tell God I’m sorry, he’ll forgive me.” If we choose to live this way we must remember that we may set into motion events with irreversible consequences. God will forgive you but you may get a DUI charge and jail time, a pregnancy or STD, the loss of a college scholarship, loss of good friends. That happened to me. I know!
The clincher is, despite what David did, God still used David. Despite what I did—God is using me today in a powerful way. In fact, David was found to be worthy enough in God’s eyes to generate from his seed Jesus Christ. We will all, at one time or other, fall into temptation because we are human beings with a sin nature. Everyone, including Mom and Dad and Pastors and youth leaders blows it. With God, forgiveness means more than a second chance; it means a fresh start. It’s like getting an F on a test and the F gets erased as if it never happened. COOL!
We don’t have to be embarrassed or be afraid of what God thinks about us. We are fully forgiven and totally loved by him—no matter what we have done! But he expects us to follow his commands to keep us healthy and safe. The psalmist asked God: “How can a young man [woman] keep his [her] way pure? Answer: By living according to your word” (Psalms 119:9). This is the key: the only way we can know what God wants from us and what is healthy and safe and good for us is by learning and following God’s Word—doing bible study.
God wants us to be sexually pure way we do that is by maintaining our virginity.
If you are not a virgin you can still make a commitment to God to remain pure until you get married. He will honor that commitment.
Teens today live in a more dangerous, sexualized, oppressive, and media-saturated world. They face more pressures and are coerced into imitating celebrities, starving themselves, undergoing unnecessary plastic surgery procedures, hooking up, and using substances, issues addressed in this blog.
Showing posts with label teen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teen. Show all posts
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Teens and Casual Sex
When the teens were told that I’d be speaking to them on “casual sex,” as you can imagine, every eye lit up. I began by stating that whether they were aware of it or not hooking up—having friends with benefits—having premarital sex-- is out of control today.
I shared with them my story of promiscuity. I finally learned it was a way to fill my deepest need to feel loved and feel that I belonged to someone [even if it was only for a minute]. I was so needy that I took whatever I could get. The wounds of shame, humiliation, and abandonment deepened. I could not stop the cycle. I believed this is where my worth lay—that I “owed” sex to men. The tragedy is I was sexually assaulted numerous times. The profound sense of powerlessness was compounded by self guilt for putting myself in those dangerous situations by partying and drinking. Psychologically, I tucked it all away because I could not bear to believe there was something inherently wrong with me and it was somehow my fault. Because of the promiscuity I got pregnant and chose to have an abortion. Then I had another demon to deal with.
God said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Being a child of God means every one of us has the image of God in us. What hooking up and premarital sex does is distort that image and alters God’s divine plan for our lives. I go into a great amount of detail about this in my book Torn Between Two Masters.
God’s intention is that in a marriage commitment--a man and woman become one flesh—that’s a word description of that powerful bonding process. When it is abused—either by your choice to hook up, or in the case of sexual abuse, because it is so powerful—it wounds us DEEPLY. God has set boundaries around the good things he has given us and sex is one of those things because he knows when we abuse his good things we get hurt. The bottom line is: Hooking up and sex outside of marriage twists God’s definition of “one flesh.” It does not come without cost—comes with a BIG cost.
Teens today express the intense peer pressure to have sex. What I say to them is, “Which would you rather? Be talked about for being a ‘slut’ or ‘skank’ or being different? I was called a slut—those labels wound deeply. I also like to point out to them celebrity virgins. As of today it appears the following are:
• Selena Gomez
• Idol winners Carrie Underwood, Guy Sebastian, Dean Geyer, Jordin Sparks
• Taylor Swift is questionable
• The Jonas Brothers wear purity rings.
• Miley Cyrus says she's holding out until marriage.
Stars who held out until they got married are:
• Lisa Kudrow [actress, Friends]
• Matthew Morrison [Glee]
• Adrian lima [Victoria Secret model]
• Brooke Sheilds [child model & actress]
• Jessica Simpson [singer; reality]
• Celine Dion [superstar singer]
• AC Green [pro basketball player]
• Kathy Lee Gifford [previous talk show host]
The last thing I do is define for them what a real intimate relationship is: An intimate relationship is NOT SEXUAL, but one in which both persons know one another completely and love one another without any fear of rejection. Relationships that last and are most meaningful are those in which we know the other person intimately and we allow that other person to know us intimately. In this kind of relationship neither person feels they need to hold onto secrets, pretend or defend themselves, because they feel safe and free to be themselves. I tell them that they are in a relationship now and don’t feel this way then I wouldn’t call it an intimate relationship.
Next week I’ll talk about God’s amazing grace and forgiveness when we do blow it!
I shared with them my story of promiscuity. I finally learned it was a way to fill my deepest need to feel loved and feel that I belonged to someone [even if it was only for a minute]. I was so needy that I took whatever I could get. The wounds of shame, humiliation, and abandonment deepened. I could not stop the cycle. I believed this is where my worth lay—that I “owed” sex to men. The tragedy is I was sexually assaulted numerous times. The profound sense of powerlessness was compounded by self guilt for putting myself in those dangerous situations by partying and drinking. Psychologically, I tucked it all away because I could not bear to believe there was something inherently wrong with me and it was somehow my fault. Because of the promiscuity I got pregnant and chose to have an abortion. Then I had another demon to deal with.
God said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Being a child of God means every one of us has the image of God in us. What hooking up and premarital sex does is distort that image and alters God’s divine plan for our lives. I go into a great amount of detail about this in my book Torn Between Two Masters.
God’s intention is that in a marriage commitment--a man and woman become one flesh—that’s a word description of that powerful bonding process. When it is abused—either by your choice to hook up, or in the case of sexual abuse, because it is so powerful—it wounds us DEEPLY. God has set boundaries around the good things he has given us and sex is one of those things because he knows when we abuse his good things we get hurt. The bottom line is: Hooking up and sex outside of marriage twists God’s definition of “one flesh.” It does not come without cost—comes with a BIG cost.
Teens today express the intense peer pressure to have sex. What I say to them is, “Which would you rather? Be talked about for being a ‘slut’ or ‘skank’ or being different? I was called a slut—those labels wound deeply. I also like to point out to them celebrity virgins. As of today it appears the following are:
• Selena Gomez
• Idol winners Carrie Underwood, Guy Sebastian, Dean Geyer, Jordin Sparks
• Taylor Swift is questionable
• The Jonas Brothers wear purity rings.
• Miley Cyrus says she's holding out until marriage.
Stars who held out until they got married are:
• Lisa Kudrow [actress, Friends]
• Matthew Morrison [Glee]
• Adrian lima [Victoria Secret model]
• Brooke Sheilds [child model & actress]
• Jessica Simpson [singer; reality]
• Celine Dion [superstar singer]
• AC Green [pro basketball player]
• Kathy Lee Gifford [previous talk show host]
The last thing I do is define for them what a real intimate relationship is: An intimate relationship is NOT SEXUAL, but one in which both persons know one another completely and love one another without any fear of rejection. Relationships that last and are most meaningful are those in which we know the other person intimately and we allow that other person to know us intimately. In this kind of relationship neither person feels they need to hold onto secrets, pretend or defend themselves, because they feel safe and free to be themselves. I tell them that they are in a relationship now and don’t feel this way then I wouldn’t call it an intimate relationship.
Next week I’ll talk about God’s amazing grace and forgiveness when we do blow it!
Monday, June 6, 2011
Welcome!
Unable to reason with one of the teens, youth worker Jana suggested the parents have their daughter seen by her doctor. Mom called the next morning and said, "Doctor, please talk to and evaluate my 13-year-old girl."
He answered, "She's suffering from a transient psychosis with an intermittent rage disorder, punctuated by episodic radical mood swings, but her prognosis is good for full recovery."
Mom said, "How can you say all that without even meeting her?"
The doctor replied, "Didn't you say she was 13?"
Many physical, emotional, psychological and social changes are simultaneously occurring during adolescence. Some teens become severely depressed. Adolescence is an unsettling time and it is not always easy to come alongside a teen when heor she doesn't want you involved in his or her life.
My goal in this bog is to talk about what parents, youth leaders and mentors need to know to counteract the devastating influence that things like celebrity obsession are having on our youth.
[This material, although reworked, is an excerpt from the book Torn Between Two Masters]
He answered, "She's suffering from a transient psychosis with an intermittent rage disorder, punctuated by episodic radical mood swings, but her prognosis is good for full recovery."
Mom said, "How can you say all that without even meeting her?"
The doctor replied, "Didn't you say she was 13?"
Many physical, emotional, psychological and social changes are simultaneously occurring during adolescence. Some teens become severely depressed. Adolescence is an unsettling time and it is not always easy to come alongside a teen when heor she doesn't want you involved in his or her life.
My goal in this bog is to talk about what parents, youth leaders and mentors need to know to counteract the devastating influence that things like celebrity obsession are having on our youth.
[This material, although reworked, is an excerpt from the book Torn Between Two Masters]
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