How would you feel? What would you do? Would you be ok with it and just let it happen? I don’t think so!

     Ok maybe your kids are out of the house so… grandchildren in school? Or maybe you’re a student yourself so… your younger brother or sister?

     What if it was legal? Would you still be ok with it?

A few decades ago we started educating our kids about drugs. “Just say NO!” We started asking real questions about the terrible long term effects of drug addiction and turning over the rocks to see the nasty stuff underneath. It wasn’t pretty but we did it.

     Boil the drug trade down to one lie: “Try this, it will make you feel good!” True in a way… in a very partial way. Instant gratification! Just take the pain away for a little while! Sadly, the pain always comes back later and greater. Also, the addiction brings a massive amount of pain with it too, so “feeling good” isn’t the whole story. But we educated ourselves and went after the drug trade…

Sex!

     (Now that I have your attention…)

We treat our sexuality like we’re school children being offered drugs who’ve never heard about drugs before. Who doesn’t want to feel good? Everyone’s doing it, so we might as well too!

     The lie the sex industry is selling us is this: “Sex is just physical!“

     “It was Spring Break and we’d had too much to drink….” “All my girlfriends were doing it so…” “Just have fun! No baby and no STDs…no harm no foul!” A few are profiting from our addictions with one major difference between the drug and sex industries: a smart drug dealer doesn’t get addicted to what he’s selling. Why would he throw his life away with what surely follows?

     I can imagine the pushback you’re giving right now. I was actually trying to get you upset just a little. “How dare you tell me how to live out my sexuality? You’re comparing it to drugs? I’ll do what I want with my body! It’s only physical!” Whoops…

     Is it though? The Apostle Paul wrote to a church in a city called Corinth about it. He got pushback too.

     Corinthian society was interestingly similar to how we are thinking about our sexuality right now. People were coming into the Way (this movement begun by Jesus) fresh out of their culture. “Hungry? Grab a hamburger. “Sexry”? Have sex. Doesn’t matter with whom. No harm no foul!” (I will demand credit if the word I just made up finds its way into the dictionary). Marital fidelity was unheard of. It so upset Paul that he risked their displeasure because of the danger and pain they were heading towards.

     “Sex outside of marriage is not what you think” was his message. Why? It was simply not what you were designed for by God. “It’s not merely skin on skin”. It’s not just physical! “The two shall become one.”

     We’re doing so much coupling and uncoupling these days it’s an absolute wonder that so few of us are looking at the 20 year projection and getting worried. Why on earth would our main sources of information be the ones who are directly profiting from our naïveté? “Try it, it’ll make you feel good! It’s only just physical! Everyone is doing it…”

     Paul had the guts to go against popular society and say No! You don’t understand what you’re doing! You were created a certain way! One plus one equals ONE! “He who joins himself to a woman….” (1 Corinthians 6) That word joins literally means cemented. Scrambled eggs. Glued.

     Ask a carpenter what happens when you attempt to pull plywood apart that has been wood-glued to another piece of the same? He’ll tell you that the glue is actually a stronger bond than the wood itself. It’ll tear the top layer off and leave a piece of itself firmly attached to the other piece. That’s what sex does. It was meant to be part of a much greater connection. Two people actually becoming one. Connection on every level. You leave a piece of yourself with them with every sexual act. Your real self, not just your physical self. Your soul.

     We have pieces of ourselves all over the place don’t we? We bought a lie that has brought us into a terrifying reality: we can no longer connect with another. Our layers are fragmented and divided and what was once whole is whole no longer. That’s why you can’t connect with him the way you want to. It wasn’t sex you wanted (I realize I’m a guy saying this to guys so the irony is not lost on me), it was connection. Exclusivity. You wanted to be IT for her. For him. You wanted to belong to them.

All is not lost.

     There is forgiveness in the matchless Jesus. He knows all about it. He died so we could live. He suffered for our sins, especially for the sins we’ve done to ourselves! Do you know that though there are obvious consequences you may have to live with, He can still wipe your slate clean? Take the red out of your ledger?

     He loves you just the way you are but He loves you too much to leave you that way:)