Sex.
I don’t think we’re talking about it enough.
Sure, our culture is saturated with it. Our computer screens are pumped full of it. Our televisions ooze it. Our radios scream about it. Magazines and books and apps and social media outlets stream it down our throats.
Lust, body ideals, pleasure, foreplay, porn, adultery. We’re obsessed with it. We’re fixated on it. We’re entertained by it. We think we’re deeply all-informed about it. We boast in the freedom we have to do what we want with our bodies. We tally the number of partners we’ve had. We’re convinced it’s necessary in a normal dating relationship. We’re numb to the random hookups and one-night stands. We want to experience it, tease it, taste it, flaunt it, worship it…
But we’re not willing to really sit down and talk about it.
While society twists, perverts, cheapens, and idolizes it, we—the church—are relatively silent about it. Awkwardly stumbling around it. Running from it. Building desperate rule lists of dos and don’ts. And, as a result, allowing the sanctity of God to be stolen by the insatiable lust of the lost.
Somewhere along the way we’ve allowed ourselves to be drowned out of the conversation. In a halfhearted attempt to stay relevant and relatable, we’ve caved in to the narrative that sex—the most prominent and overwhelming focus of our entire society—isn’t for us to really talk about.
Right? Wrong.
It’s our responsibility to talk about it. It is our calling, as the body of believers, to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ—and every version of the Holy Scriptures I’ve ever read talks openly and candidly about sex. It is a topic fiercely close to God’s heart, a topic that flows from the pages of His Word. A topic laced with affirmation, guidance, and reproof. God, after all, is the inventor of sex. We were made, by Him, as sexual beings. So if it’s a topic fiercely close to His heart, it must become a topic fiercely close to ours.
I choose to speak up. Not as a preacher but as a pilgrim. A pilgrim who learned every hard lesson, every hard way. Who sinned time and time and time again in search of a pleasure I just couldn’t find. Who has a mess of a testimony that was nurtured and redeemed by a King who makes our hopeless things holy.
I’ll speak up for every person whose family thought their church was having certain conversations with them. The ones whose church thought their family was having certain conversations with them. The same ones who were then force-fed more than they needed to see and know by a shameless culture that couldn’t have cared less about them.
I’ll speak up for the teen who is tangled in the bondage of pornography. For the girlfriend feeling pressured to go further and “give it up” in order to show her boyfriend how much she loves him. For the college-aged coed who can’t escape the constant temptation and stimulation on every app, website, and show. For the woman who saved herself for marriage and couldn’t figure out why she felt so ashamed on her wedding night. For the wife and husband who, at times, feel like disconnected strangers between their own sheets. For the person who can so casually watch sex play out on TV and movie screens and still can’t figure out why they’re dissatisfied with the real thing. And for every person in between.
I’ll speak up.
I’ll speak up with a voice that’s unashamed to stand up to a crazed and confused world and redefine sex by its God-designed meaning. A voice that’s not afraid to bear my battle wounds if they help point anyone back to God’s redeeming truth. A voice that’s sick and tired of the world pressuring us to ride its ever-changing tide; one that’s found its firm foundation in God’s unchanging truth.
Reclaiming sex as the act of holy worship God always intended it to be isn’t taboo or embarrassing—it’s eternity-shifting. And eternity matters to me.
It’s time to begin reclaiming sex for the glory of God. It’s time to invite Jesus back into the bedroom. It’s time to start the conversations that the church forgot. And to stand up, boldly, as a body of believers, and defend the most intimate act of worship and praise we’re free to know. It’s time to equip our minds and hearts with the truth of our value, our self-control, our bodies, and our relationships. It’s time to start to understand and lean into the roots of why God cares so deeply about sex and be reminded that sex begins with the condition of our own hearts.
At the end of the day, in a suffocating world, the Word of God breathes boldly true. Whether you listen now, learn it the hard way later, or forever try your hardest to repress the truth, one day you will stand before the Lord and He will search your heart and know your truth. But in the meantime, you have the opportunity to encounter His shame-destroying grace, have your heart perspective reframed, and find freedom in His loving reproof.
So this book is for you. I don’t have all the answers. And I don’t have space in these pages to address all of the different types of sexual sin struggles that are manifesting in our world and, possibly, have collided with your life too. The things I’ve personally experienced are all I really have any authority to speak into. I only have my testimony. But I know God uses our vulnerability for His glory, so I trust He will use these words in diverse and wonderful ways—with more intention than I could ever hope to. Please hang with me through these pages; I know there is a piece of this book for you.
If you are the weary wanderer navigating how your sexual identity and your faith become married at the cross, I hope you’ll see this book through. If your perspective on sex has been shaped by the world rather than the Word for long enough, I hope my reckless and redeemed testimony will connect with you. If you’re finally ready to replace perversion with purpose and pain with purity, this book, my friend, is written for you. I pray God meets you through these words, collects the pieces of your fractured story, and resurrects in your heart the beautiful reminder that He, alone, can make all things new.
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