Godly Dating 101 Discovering the Truth About Relationships in a World That Constantly LiesSample

The Truth About Sex

I remember growing up and not knowing much about how to navigate a sex-driven world. I wanted to honor God, but sin was both permissible and celebrated. Almost every TV show is hypersexualized, presenting things to us that make perversion seem normal. Most of what I learned about sex came from my surrounding culture. I always heard the guys say they were trying to get a girl for the night. Marriage wasn’t celebrated in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, many of them bought the lie that sex was an activity, not something holy, that we should value. God always intended us to view sex as a gift for married couples, but society has trained us to think that it is something we do with whoever we are dating or whoever we meet on an app. So many of us think sex is something we do because we are “grown,” and for the person who complimented us without commitment, but we ignore that God designed it for the marriage bed.

The body of Christ hasn’t always done a great job approaching this topic with the younger generation. I believe a major problem the church has wrestled with is how to properly address sex in a healthy and realistic manner. We can’t yell, “No sex!” in someone’s ear for years, then see them after their honeymoon and assume they felt okay embracing the sexuality God gave them. We must adopt a more godly approach to this. Sex outside of marriage is ravaging our churches, especially our young adults. Many marriages in the church have failed due to infidelity. Many young people have turned away from Jesus because of sex outside marriage. Let’s keep it real for a moment: many dating relationships should have ended ages ago, but people stay and hope for the best simply because the sex is great. Sex is impacting our world more than we may want to admit.

I have realized over the years that to learn a subject properly, we need to have the right teachers. When we allow our unsaved friends at school or work to be our guides for sex, we end up in bed with people we never committed to or simply having sex with because “everyone else is doing it.” Obviously, the world is very opinionated, but cultural opinions have become the “truth” for today’s generation. Most of what our youth learn isn’t coming from the Bible or solid, biblical leadership. We must become proactive as believers in changing that narrative because who we allow teaching our children will either point them toward Christ or toward another relationship that leaves them feeling empty. It’s time for the church to speak up and shed light on what the Word of God says.

Genesis 1:28 says, “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (KJV). God decided to create humanity and immediately tell them to reproduce. Sex isn’t something the Enemy formulated to give to us, but God was the One who, in His wisdom, decided to allow us to enjoy that experience. Sex was never our issue, but what we learned about it has taken us in the wrong direction. Since God is the Creator of sex, it is good, like everything He created. Our world, and the church, too, may have an ungodly view of sex, but it is a beautiful thing in His eyes. God has always had a good intention for sex: to physically, emotionally, and spiritually join man and wife together.

When God created sex, He wanted us to experience unity in its deepest form. God said the “two shall become one” when He spoke of sex (Mark 10:8 ESV). In the Bible, a marriage became validated once it was consummated through sex. God recognizes a spiritual covenant once there is sex. I know the idea of the soul-tie isn’t necessarily a biblical concept, but we must process that when God created sex, He intended it to tie your soul together with your spouse’s. We must be careful not to “become one” with someone we aren’t married to. You may break up, but God still recognizes the “marriage” you created.

When Paul spoke of being “united” to our spouse in Ephesians 5:31–32, he meant more than living together. God’s plan for marriage was for the married couple to adhere to one another like glue. The holy act of sex would consummate their union and bond them in a way that should only be separated by death. There is no point at which we are closer to an individual than when having sex. To think that we can separate sex from the covenant is not only unwise but impossible. Sex will connect us on a deeper level, and when we take a casual approach to it, we miss out on the blessings God desires us to have. This is why we see the Enemy attacking so many marriages.

When we are wondering how to navigate sex, the best place to look is to understand what the Creator of it says—check the “manual” for what the Word of God says so we won’t harm ourselves or others. Just like a fire can do more harm than good, sex outside God’s marriage design will do more harm than good, but when done correctly, it is pleasurable to the Creator and the married couple.

Respond

How has your concept of the purpose of sex changed from your teen years?

Describe your concept of the marriage bed today.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, You created man and woman and created our bodies for your glory! As the world has changed, so has culture’s understanding of the marriage bed. Please, help me keep the marriage relationship sacred and love my spouse with the love You created. Help us live together as one honoring You in our lives. Teach me to hold to a godly perspective of sex no matter what society does. In Jesus’ name.