Saving Yourself For the One

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 says:

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.”

As an unbelieving teen, this scripture would have read like complete nonsense to me, because all I wanted to do was get next to some flesh of the opposite sex. After all, every music video, song on the radio, movie on the big screen and all of my peers seemed to drive home the very idea of sexual promiscuity. “If you’re not getting any, or trying to get it, something must be wrong with you,” is what the culture told me.

So, I set my sights on one of the world’s greatest prizes and biggest lies: immoral sexual conquest. See, that’s the lie the world teaches young men, generation after generation. But the world doesn’t prepare young men for the reality and responsibility of those choices. Satan is a master at convincing people that sin is awesome. Once he has you hooked, you never see the price tag slowly approaching. And believe me, young man, every sin has a price attached.

Because of my poor choices, my wife and I started a family long before I was responsible enough to cherish them; long before we were ever married; long before home ownership; long before coming to Christ. In some respects, we still have to deal with the consequences of those choices, 20 years later. But God took what Satan meant for bad, and turned it into something precious.

Today, we try to teach each of our five children the value of remaining pure, and keeping close to God. The culture is saturated and infatuated with promiscuity, more so than it was in my teen years. God knew how tenacious Satan would be at attempting to destroy purity. So, He addressed the issue in the bible. One moment’s decision for short term pleasure can have lifelong and lasting consequences; the kind of consequences you might not be prepared to deal with. We need only look at the escalating rate of fatherless homes and broken families for proof.

Promiscuity is not a requirement of the teen years. You don’t have to get intimately involved to find your mate. Be holy. Stay close to God, and save yourself for that one special person the Lord has designed for you. Your perfect mate will be worth the wait.