| Living Beyond and Above the Sex Trap
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the Flesh. The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh: and these are contrary the one the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Galatians 5:16-18
The end of all our struggles will come when we walk in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit all the time will not only place us not above our sexual struggles alone but all our struggles.
Christ did not leave us without help, He left us with the Holy Spirit, the comforter to guide, teach and even reveal the person of Jesus to us. John14:18-26 We will become the perfect person we want to be if we decide to walk in the Spirit always. We will have the perfect relationship we want when both parties in a relationship (of any kind) decide to walk in the Spirit all the time.
Easy to say but how do I get to practice it? First you need to build a relationship with the God, that’s when you will be able to tell when the Spirit is speaking. Just the way you are able to identify your mum’s voice because of time spent together over time, you will be able to tell when the Spirit is speaking. The more time we spend with God the better we get.
And how do you build a relationship with God? Firstly, accept the death and resurrection of Jesus as the sacrifice for your sins and the only way to your salvation; Believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord. Desire to have a relationship with God and continuously follow Him Read the Bible and Pray Regularly. Surround yourself with the right set of people who share your passion for God. Identify good teachers of God’s word and listen to them. It is very important to feed our mind fat with God’s Word, so that out of the abundance of the word in your mind you are led. You need to be able to say personally, ‘Your word have I hid in my heart that I may not sin against thee’.
Become a Living Sacrifice! A Living Sacrifice is like a live goat tied to the place of sacrifice and set on fire, it feels the pain and the heat of the fire, yet it cannot leave the spot because it has been tied to the place. And when you bring more fire close to it, it has little or no effect on it because it already is on fire.
I believe this is a good place to start from as we begin the New Year. My prayer this year for you and myself is that we all become Living Sacrifices hot and burning for the Lord Jesus.
Have a Great Year ahead!
Omolola |
Living Above the Sex Trap
Now that we have accepted the fact that we all share same challenges and our challenges are tied to our past decisions.
What is the way forward? How do we get out of here? How do we live above this challenge?
Sometime ago I tried to personally answer these questions. While meditating on how best to tackle the issue God took me to a level of understanding of what it means for me to have sex outside the confines of marriage. This understanding led me to experience a level of self realization that led to a turn around. I believe we all need a level of self realization that comes from this understanding. Remember Bible says by understanding a house is established.
Long time ago there were several prophecies, some of the prophecies were that David would never lack a son on the throne, there would be a seed of David ……., a virgin shall be with child.
At a point in time in life there was a girl who decided to keep herself chaste and when the time was right chose to marry a young man named Joseph who belonged to the lineage of David. Her choice to remain chaste before and after she met Joseph positioned both of them in God’s plan and purpose for Eternity. It qualified her to be the channel through which the saviour would come. Imagine if it happened that for some reason before she met Joseph she made a mistake by giving in to the charm of some guy she had met when she was young and foolish (as we often describe it). What would have been the effect of her action on her life and even Joseph’s? Would they have ever known the joy of being the saviour’s earthly parent? Would their story be told every Christmas? To think that Mary’s action before ever meeting Joseph could have an effect on Joseph’s future is something that makes me shiver and brings me to think about what effect the life I lived before meeting my husband is having on him now.
Another thing I find interesting is that Mary in her wildest imagination did not think she was keeping herself to be the Mother of Jesus. All she wanted to do was keep herself for the Master.
The understanding that my five minutes of pleasure can change the story of my life and others, helped me a lot. What about you? Do you realize that your decision to keep yourself from any sexual immorality, positions you for God’s purpose for your life and could also rewrite the story of your life and that of others?
There was this widower in the Bible who had not lost his wife for too long. He missed the company and warmth of his wife. Mourning was over; it was time for life to continue. He was on a business trip to a neighbouring town when he met this harlot along the way. His desire for a woman was renewed. He did not have money to pay as he was on his way for business, so he promised to send a kid goat. She was not going to be fooled as she was not there without a purpose, so she asked for his Rod (his work tool), bracelet, Signet (his symbol of authority). This man dropped all these before a stranger in order to satisfy his flesh. He dropped his identity. Like Esau, he exaggerated his press for sex and in his heart said it was worth dropping all for. He enjoyed himself, only to discover later that what he fell into was a trap. A trap set because his daughter in-law who knew his tendencies, just the way the devil knows ours. Months later his acts that were done secretly were exposed.
When I first read this story I asked myself, is sex worth this much? Do we need to lay who we are down for sex? Judah was later identified by the things he dropped. He paid much more later because of the shame that followed his act.
For a full gist of the story you can read Genesis 38.
Christ finished the work of Salvation on the cross, His last word before giving up the ghost was “it is finished!” Therefore we can say God has completed all that concerns our survival in the Christian race.
In Joshua1:8 God told Joshua (and He tells us today), this book shall not depart from thy mouth, you will meditate on it day and night and you will observe to do all that is in it… and you shall make your way prosperous…..
From this passage we can see God telling us that prosperity depends on us in this passage.
In one of the comments, a reader quoted the words of David in Psalm 119 “Thy word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against thee”. Truly this is a good scripture to remember always but this words need to become our words too. We need to feed our minds fat with God’s word.
An underlying fact we must always bear in mind even while taking responsibility is that it not by power or might, but by His spirit. There is grace to live above sin first and not just grace to rise up from sin.
God help us all as we decide to remain standing despite all odds. And as the festive season approaches, remember to walk in the Spirit so that you don’t fulfill the desires of the flesh.
God bless you,
Omolola
| Christians and the Sex Trap
….A man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. James 1:14 How did we get here? Every time a person falls without taking a second look to find out why he/she falls, there is a risk of having the same fall happen again. Why? Because he/she never knew why he fell and does not know what to look out for to avoid a second fall. This is why I want us to answer this question first, How did we get here? How did we get into a situation where our flesh seeks the most to do those things that our spirit hates? It’s time we forgot for a second the story about Adam and Eve, and how man fell and sin was passed to all men. If we have been accepted Jesus as our saviour then we can claim to be new creature, for whom old things have passed away and all things have become new. If so how come we that have been born of incorruptible seed have corruptible tendencies? Let’s do some reasoning together and draw the picture of an average believer.
Lets call this believer Billy; Billy loved to read as a child and read a lot of books while growing up, from various authors ranging from Enid Blyton’s classics, Pacesetters, Hardley Chase, Harlequin, Mills and Booms, Jackie Collins, Harold Robins, Sydney Sheldon, Dennis Robins, Barbra Taylor and the likes. When it came to music, Billy listened to and sang every genre of music uncensored, from various artists like Boys II Men, R Kelly, Tupac, Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Janet Jackson, Maria Carey, Toni Braxton, Madonna, Aron Hall, Withney Houston, Bob Marley, etc Billy watched enough movies without proper guidance; Billy saw it all on TV, kissing, smooching, sex and all. At school Billy talked and fantasized about sex with friends who were either practicing with their housemaids or neighbours, or dreaming about it. The neighbourhood also exposed Billy to adults who abused Billy.
All these formed Billy’s attitude toward sex. Then came Billy’s first relationship which lasted for years. Soon Billy began experimenting, and soon it became a way of having fun for Billy.
Then something happened and Billy accepted Christ. Billy became a new creature but did not suffer a memory loss. A major source of problem with staying in faith for Billy was the knowledge acquired years before knowing Christ. Billy’s mind had been well cultivated in those years by the media, Billy’s environment and experiences.
This is a brief summary of Billy’s life. Any sincere person reading this piece will agree with me that Billy paints the picture an average Christian’s life. A major issue everyone of us had (or still have) after giving our lives to Christ was the life we lived before knowing him. For me I lived in the nightmare of the life I lived before knowing Christ. Not that my life before knowing Christ was as colourful as Billy’s but my life before knowing Christ disturbed my prayer life, worship and thought process. For me I had to stop reading any literature that was not Bible based, (I even avoided Christian Romance) and listening to the radio so as to avoid anything not godly going inside of me.
Bible says don’t conform to the world but be transformed by the renewing your mind. My beloved in the Lord you will agree with me that the situation we have today is this;
And then expect to live a holy life because we are new creatures.
We did not suffer a memory loss, the pleasure of sex outside and inside Christ is the same, the only difference is that now you are in Christ you have a conscience that gives you a guilty feeling after. Jesus Christ said, the things that defile a man are not the things that go into a man but the things that come out of a man. Why? Because you can decide to make something positive or negative of what goes into you. We have taken in all the multi media jargons and it has produced fruits of ungodliness, so much that now we are in Christ we are still who we were before knowing Christ, the only difference is that we feel guilty after and ask for forgiveness.
Imagine if Billy became born again after he was 20, almost ripe for marriage, so some years after conversion Billy takes on the first relationship without this renewal of mind the Bible requires of us, what do you think will happen? You can be sure that Billy might not know the first thing two children of God in a relationship should be doing. And some Christians in church will meet Billy (burning and active for the Lord because of the fresh fire) and would be taken to her. From there a relationship begins.
So based on all this assumption a relationship begins, by the time either of them know what is happening, the quality of their foundation is revealed.
After giving our lives to Christ we need a complete overhauling. Someone reading this might say yes, but this happens over time, I do agree with that, nevertheless I believe a level of renewal of mind must take place. Roman12:1-3 says I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto the God, which is your reasonable service. And be not be conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
The things we have consumed in form of books, videos, music, words before knowing Christ have formed our philosophies and made us who we were before Christ. So we did not get here just because man fell in the garden, we got here by virtue of the decisions we made before knowing Christ. We need to take some responsibility. And now we need to begin to prepare again the soil of our heart for God. Go back to the word of God for direction. Remember How shall a young person live a clean life? By carefully reading the map of your word. Ps119:9 (MSG)
For some others this is not the story, it is that they have lived so much of a holy life that they don’t know what it feels like, what they carry is their curiosity, without any knowledge they fall victims at a time when they let down their guard. Remember He that breaks the edge, the serpent bites.
Bible says let no man thinks he stands lest he falls, this is one rule everyone must appreciate. No one has immunity from falling a victim, so even now I don’t see myself as attained. I do not speak because I am an authority, I speak because I am one who shares in this struggle. Some married person reading this might regard all this as information for the single but I say no it is not, that is why I referred to the scripture, Let no man think He stands. A married man/woman is more exposed than the single, times come when for some reasons spouses cannot come together sexually because either of the two is indisposed for one reason or the other. Then other party needs to go back to all the lessons he/she learnt as a single and then it usually becomes a little more difficult. No matter you status, No one is beyond being tempted sexually.
How then shall we escape?
Please your Comments will be well appreciated and stories of how you’ve been able to stay above will be well appreciated. You might be saving a soul.
See you soon. Omolola |
