Thoughts: "Not even a hint of sexual immorality" is our goal. Don't even put yourself in a position so that your actions hurt your witness as a Christian. Impurity, greed, sexual immorality, obscenity, coarse joking are the kinds of immorality spoken against here. Basically it is a lack of self-control and animal-like behavior. Paul says that someone who does these things is an idolater. How can this be? Idolatry is putting something or someone in the place of God. Greed puts out selfishness in the place of listening to God's command to have self-control and to be generous. Sexual immorality and obscenity are putting our sexual desires ahead of God.
Some in the church do not know that fornication and adultery- sex outside of marriage is forbidden in the Bible. They cannot even define sexual immorality- unless they have watered it down to say if you don't "love" someone. Today the statistic from The National Center for Health Statistics said that 58% of non-marital births were to cohabiting relationships. Over half of new partner relationships are cohabiting and not marriage. The way of upholding sexual purity is going away, as if it is evil. But the wounded bodies and hearts of others testify to the truth of the better ideal of one lifetime partner. The grace of God is not to say that sin doesn't exist but to offer a way out of sin. The grace of God is the way of forgiveness and getting past the hurt and harm of our own failed deeds. Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery- but He did command her to go and sin no more. God offers us, while we live, a second chance. Let us take it- and strive to be as pure as we can be this moment forward.
Prayer: Lord, take all of me. Take my desires, my excesses, my wrongs and make them right.
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