This last Sunday my pastor, Kevin Hall, preached a sermon on adultery. He is going through a series on the Ten Commandments, so this week happened to be on adultery. As I was listening to his points on how it is important to be completely honest with ourselves: as to what our society has taught us, that we ought to take our sexual fantasies to their logical conclusion, that we ought to look at the myths surrounding our sexuality, and how all of these affect our community with one another; how it is necessary to nip any possibility of sexual immorality in the bud; resist these temptations with the Holy spirit; and understand our created sexuality; I could not help but think, these are all good things. However they seem very legalistic. Okay, well what is wrong with legalistic? Throughout this series, Kevin has consistently asserted that the commandments are given to set us free. This is good, and true, so I wanted to give my reasoning behind why I choose to follow certain “moral” guidelines. It is not because I feel like I have to, because as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:12, “’Everything is permissible for me’-but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’-but I will not be mastered by anything.” I can do whatever I want, but I choose not to, because I understand aspects of my relationship with God. I haven’t always followed these until I properly understood these things.
God has done amazing things. He created us out of absolutely nothing. He gave us intelligence, compassion, reason, emotion, love. Basically he gave us his image. Yes, we are made in the image of the all powerful creator. He modeled us after perfection. But we are missing something. As a male, I feel the need to have companionship with a female. Why is this? God made me after his own image, why should I feel this need to companion with someone if I am made like God? God also made woman after himself. This is where things get tricky. If God is perfect, and man is made in God’s image, why is woman necessary? “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” Genesis 2:18. Why isn’t it good for man to be alone? We are made in God’s image. God is plural. The Hebrew for this is Elohim it is the name for God used in Genesis here, but it is plural. God is three in one. This is difficult for humans to wrap their mind around. How can God (assumed to be singular) be more than one, but one at the same time? This is a discussion for later, but it is suitable to illustrate that in order for us to properly fill our likeness of God, we must also be plural. God modeled men after certain aspects of himself, and certain aspects to women. So in order for me to feel complete, I must be in communion with God, which requires two to tango. Why should we feel the need to complete the image of God? Because God has invited humanity into the Trinity. He has brought us into himself. We feel this desire to be in communion with God, and to do this we must leave our fathers and mothers and cleave to a spouse.
If I am to complete God’s image, I don’t want to pervert it. So I do everything possible to keep God’s image Holy. This means abstaining from sexual activity outside of marriage. God has placed these boundaries on sex because he wishes to keep us free. Marriage is a covenant relationship. It keeps us from walking out on God’s other half, so to speak. Sex is a way to become one with somebody. It is a way to complete God’s image. Having a relationship with a woman (or a man) within marriage is completion of our image in God. Does this make sense? I think this will have a sequel, because I can’t concentrate enough to finish this right now. It is difficult to transcribe a lot of these concepts into words, so bear with me please. Thank you for taking time to read this… I hope you don’t think I’m a heretic now, lol. Enjoy and leave comments telling me what you think!
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