purity: How far is too far

Add caption

 “How far is too far?”

This was a question asked by a high school kid to my youth pastor during a high school mission we had attended.

 As a 3 weeks old baby Christian, my heart literally jumped when I heard him read it aloud (quite sarcastically by the way). Completely surprised by his reaction, I wondered why he was agitated by such an honest question.

He thought that this was a Christian who knew better but was testing the limits on God’s grace. Yet here I was new in Christianity and clueless on what purity meant. I wanted to know just like the person who had asked that question.

So am compelled to write this to the young person who didn’t grow up in church (like me) and everything they know about sex and purity has been what the world has taught them.

Incidentally, he never did explain. However, God knew my heart and was sure to direct me to people who could actually explain to me the biblical meaning of purity.

What is purity?   “ to be untainted or uncontaminated.”

Therefore, to be sexually pure is to be untainted or uncontaminated by sexual immorality.

Here are some things I have learnt about purity;

1. Purity is both a heart issue and a body issue

Is being a virgin the same as being pure? This was a question I kept asking myself and I honestly believed because I was a virgin, I was also pure and I connected the two together. However, I believe you can be a virgin and not be pure at the same time.

 Purity is more than abstaining from sexual intercourse it’s also being uncontaminated in your mind and heart

                                            My story

I got born again at 22 years of age. Before  this, when I was in high school I had made a decision to wait till  am married to have sex (yeah I was those weird types that believed in the ONE) I held to it, fought for it and still am.

My friends mocked, ridiculed and envied me at the same time. They thought it was crazy, some even thought I was having sex on the down low and pretending to wait. I couldn’t blame them, it was so hard. I experienced culture shock when I stepped in campus; the party scene was the in thing, there was a party every other night and with this came the drugs and sex.

Nobody was waiting for nobody.

I dated crappy guy after crappy guy, to be honest it felt like looking for a needle in a haystack kind of thing.

I wondered who am I waiting for? These guys who are busy sleeping with everything in a skirt?

 At some point, it all looked hopeless.

When I became a Christian, I met some great Christian men who were not sleeping around but were honoring God with their lives. I felt relief just to know there actually was a guy out there for me who will love that I actually waited for him.

However, as much as I was all up and waiting, I struggled with masturbation and lust (I blogged about it here).

 Whoever looks at a woman (or man) with lust has committed adultery (or fornication) in his heart. (Matthew 5:28) Emphasis mine.

Jesus was expounding on the sin of adultery but I think it can apply to purity because the people he was teaching believed it was only sin when you slept with a woman but Jesus says when you as much as look at a woman with lust God sees it as adultery .

Purity is not an outward issue it is a heart issue.

 From the outside looking in, I looked all-pure, in the sense that I wasn’t sleeping around.  Yet even though I was not having sex with the guys I dated, I was flirting, kissing, and letting them touch me in a way only my husband should. My heart was a long way from being pure.

2. My body is God’s temple.

Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives within you? Whom you have received from God? You are not your own (1 Corinthians 6:19)

My body a temple of God?  You mean God (creator of the universe) wants to live in me? Whew! This was huge for me.

Purity became bigger than my wedding night.  

Before this I was waiting for a guy but now my purity was coming from a place of knowing that God has made my body His sanctuary and for him to live in there I couldn’t keep polluting it.

when you come to an understanding that your body is no longer yours to do with as you please because it’s God’s temple.   Questions like “how far is too far?” will never come up again, or the even more outdated game (that we Christian people love to play) called, “can you tell me how much I can get away with and still be a Christian?”

 I am yet to attend a church that is dirty, unkempt and neglected.  we go to great lengths to keep them nice, clean and spotless.  If we start viewing our bodies as God’s temple then we will be careful to keep them uncontaminated and unpolluted.

3. Intimacy with God

God has not only made my body His temple, He also wants to be intimate (entrusted with secrets) with me, and sexual impurity hinders this.

I wanted to know God more. I wanted all His secrets.  Therefore, everything that was making me impure had to go.

The movies that were full of sexual scenes, the music that was full of lust, the magazines ,the novels I loved to read ( yes even Christian ones ) the guys that were in my life that continually caused  me to lust had to go. It was such a small price to pay to know and to be known by God.

James 4:8 says, “Come close to God and He will come close to you.”

This verse tells me for intimacy to happen, it’s not only God who draws near, and I also had to take the initiative to draw near to Him too. He meets us half way.

Here is my question, how bad do you want to know God? Do you want Him more than the kissing,  holding hands, the flirting, the movies, the music, the porn, even more than your little feelings? You cannot have it both ways. It is one or the other.

4. A pure bride presented to her groom

My purity doesn’t come from me or from anything I do. It’s a gift from God.  When you know it’s a gift then there’s no ground for boasting.

My greatest joy on waiting till am married to have sex is that, on our wedding night I will be able to stand before my bridegroom and say, “ as hard as it was here I am with no regrets and with no shame am all yours and yours alone .”

He never has to worry if there’s any man out there who knows me as intimately as he knows me, and for me this is worth all the waiting.

That’s not to say that for the ones who didn’t wait there’s no hope, there is hope because the only way you and I are pure is through the blood of Jesus. By His perfect sacrifice he has made us all pure and without blemish before God.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, Behold, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Jesus is the one who sanctifies me, He is the one who cleanses and purifies me with His word.

Jesus is the one who presents me to my husband as a pure bride without a spot or a blemish. Not me and my little efforts (Ephesians 5:26-27)

Its only by grace that I will stand before my husband purified. it’s by grace that am still a virgin and I know ,he will not only be glad that I waited(through God’s amazing Grace)  but He will also know it’s by Grace that this gift has found its way to Him.

 This is God’s grace; it always goes to the least deserving.

In the world we live in, it may not be the most popular thing to do. You may be ridiculed and mocked for it but to live a life of purity is to live a life that glorifies God.

Let's show the world it’s possible and let’s show them how to do it.

I choose to be pure. I choose God’s way.