Time To Write about Sex

I'm sure that in some spheres, a number of the things I'll write here could be offensive.  But for the three of you who occasionally read this blog, I'm not too concerned about that.

When I see a public representation of sexuality that is at odds with truth, it makes me very upset.  The often unspoken messages fly at us from many directions and are unavoidable. What bothers me so much is not simply that they make what is wrong look good, but that in doing so, they make what is good and wonderful seem bad by association.  I am upset by the attack on pure and superior pleasure through an inundation of pitiful substitutes.  Let me elaborate.

God designed sex to be a means of saying to another person, "All that I am and all that I have I give completely and only to you for the rest of my life."  He never intended for the full disclosure and sharing of the body to be separated from the full disclosure and sharing of every other aspect of life.  This design is beautiful, profound, and satisfying.  Ripping sex from its intended context is debasing and wasting a gift that has glorious meaning and potential.  According to the Bible, dissecting sex from exclusive relationship and personal love is not just wrong, but stupid: it is settling for a pitiful substitute for the beauty and pleasure God had in mind when He created it.

When I was trying to clarify the attitude behind lust to a group of students, I used this illustration:
"Once upon a time a wealthy prince lived in a vast kingdom.  He would spend the day riding his steed through his domain, enjoying the sights and sounds.  One day, as he was on one of these excursions, he observed a peasant maid in the field, sowing seed.  He noted her gorgeous long blonde hair, and was intrigued.  Upon arriving back home at the palace that evening, he told his servant of the experience.  "Her hair was a golden in the sun.  I love it.  I want it.  Get it for me."  So the next day the servant obeyed and did what was needed, cutting off and bringing back the long blonde hair for the prince.  As the prince rode his steed the next day he noticed another maiden, sewing a tunic as she sat beside a well.  He noticed her smooth, soft, white hands, and was impressed.  Upon returning to his palace he relayed what he had seen to his servant and expressed his desire.  "Those beautiful hands...I love them.  Get them for me..." 

And so the story could go on, in a quick and hideous downward spiral.  The point?  Not unlike the perverted fascination of the prince, lust is the dissecting of another's body from her person.  In all its powerful passion, in isolating body from soul, and sexual desire from whole relationship, lust utterly demeans both sex and the personhood of another human being.

There is no question that pleasure can be had through using sex as we please without reference to God's will as revealed in the Bible. What most people don't understand is that God never prohibits us from any pleasure but for the sake of guarding and giving us a greater one.  God hates our missing out on His design through our misguided pursuits after pitiful inferior pleasures.

Sexual pleasure outside of a covenant relationship is like someone looking at a postcard of the Grand Canyon and supposing that he has experienced the real thing.

Or, sexual pleasure outside of a covenant relationship is like eating through a box of twinkies, differing from each other only in the color of their wrappers.  Sex according to God's design is like sitting down to a sumptuous, multi-course, gourmet feast.

Before I say a word more I must quickly clarify that I in no way intend to imply that being married guarantees a good love life.  There are plenty of marriages with miserable sex-lives.  I am simply stating that the potential within any marriage for truly great sex is exponentially greater than the very best experiences outside of these oft-resented confines.  (I cannot go deeply into how to bridge the gap between sexual potential and reality in marriage, but I would recommend such excellent books as When Two Become One by Christopher & Rachel McCluskey and The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy & Kathy Keller.)

If I ever wrote a wildly successful book or did something that somehow got me in front of a wide-audience interviewer, I would love to casually say theses words:

"You know, you've never really experienced sex until you've been married to the same person five or ten years, know each other better than ever, have been through some trials and difficulty together, still love each other more than anyone, and in that context give yourselves to one another passionately and completely."

Admittedly there is some hyperbole there, but I hope you follow the point.  Immorality is common, natural, predictable, easy and shallow.  Loving sex in marriage is uncommon, rare, undeserved; hard to come by, supernatural, wondrous.

TV, movies, and books alike frequently portray "free sex" as desirable and consequence-free.  Besides the many glaring misrepresentations I would like to also stress that it is actually pitiable.  It's pitiable that so many people have their capacities for experiencing and giving true intimate pleasure so decimated by the counterfeits.  It is pitiable that people mistake false and superficial intimacy for the real thing.  For all that the counterfeits promise, what they actually do is steal our capacity for giving and receiving genuine love.

What are some differences between sexual lust and love?  Between God's design and almost everything you can see portrayed through media?  Here are a few of the contrasts:
--Lust makes sex a performance, instead of an unaffected and innocent expression of love.
--Lust expresses impersonal passion instead of being a singular and personal expression of love that exists for only one other.
--Lust leads to the superficial fulfillment of a shallow desire, while sex is meant to express the profound: "All that I am I give to you alone for all my life."  Marriage is the only place this is possible.
--Lust expresses shallow passion in a mere consummation of chemicals versus the radical passion of true covenant love that God designed sex to consummate.
--Lust leaves you damaged in soul and body while love leaves you enriched in soul and body.

The contrast is great. Do you want your passion to be more like a drug-high, or like the brilliant climax of a painstakingly composed masterpiece of music?  The music is worth the sacrifice.

I said earlier that God never prohibits us any pleasure except to guard and give us a greater one.  It's true that sex in a loving covenant relationship has potential for much greater pleasure than the shallow counterfeits of lust.  But I would be amiss if I implied that sex in marriage is the greatest pleasure that God is trying to guard for us.  The fact is that, according to the Bible, oneness in marriage is only a parable, a reflection of something much greater.  It is a shadow of the Real Thing.  The Reality is the intimacy and ecstasy that we can have in knowing Christ Jesus, in union with Him by the Spirit.  He is the One whose delightfulness we were created to be truly overwhelmed by.  Our problem is that we can treat the wedding and marriage language of the Bible as metaphorical, when actually the best marriage ever on earth is a "metaphor" for the eternal, heavenly one.  By the Spirit, we can begin to experience this ultimate pleasure even now, through fellowship with Christ.  "In your presence is fullness of joy" (Psalm 16:11).  Even the foretaste that we can experience here on earth is better than the best temporal pleasure the world can give us.

The fact is that you cannot fully enjoy the representation that sex is meant to be if you don't know the ultimate reality that it is pointing to.  But you don't need to experience the reflection to know the Reality.  Jesus never experienced sex when He came, but He was the most whole and vibrant person to ever walk the earth, because He experienced the reality of intimate relationship with God more than anyone ever had.  

Don't settle for less than the pleasure that God created sex to point to.  Jesus sacrificed that pleasure on the cross so that He could give it to you--intimate and satisfying relationship with Him that only grows better with time (forever).  

And don't settle for the pathetic counterfeits that lust offers.  If you are married, aim to experience God's fullest design for sex.  If you are single, see through the pitiful counterfeits that are constantly hurled at you, and wait for the better pleasure that God intended in covenant relationship.  But married or single, persevere in pursuing the ultimate Pleasure, for which the best sex in the world is only a pale reflection.

"...and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory..."  1 Peter 1:8

"...I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but rubbish that I may gain Christ..." Philippians 3:8

The Unexpected Route

This is the imaginary soul-search of a weather-worn middle-aged man, sprung into thought by an unusual sight.

As he saw the elderly couple sitting side-by-side in the town square, Simon was thrown back into his familiar patterns of inner questioning.  Why were they so happy?  In love, so late in life? Had he missed something?  A mysterious key to lasting love beyond all the pathetic cliche's?  He knew their names, but he had never known them well enough or long enough to have a real conversation with them.  They were simply the tenderly loving, happy couple of the town, seemingly untouched by the harsh waves of time.  Always together, as long as he'd known.  Simon admitted that he could probably have learned a thing or two about conflict resolution throughout his history of disappointing relationships.  But his thoughts inevitably returned to the fact that he had always done decently until one woman after another had let him down.  He knew he wasn't perfect, but what could they expect?  He'd had good intentions, but he had his needs as well.  He was a man. Yes, he'd simply been unlucky...fell for the pretty face one too many times, only to be disappointed again when the first thrill wore off and she showed her true colors.  Did he have bad judgement?  But how could anyone know ahead of time? Lasting happiness in a relationship was a rare thing, and most people just simply weren't lucky enough to fall into it.

Still, seeing the elderly couple there, now looking into each others' eyes, younger than their years, freshly stirred his longing.  Did they know some secret, that had somehow simply eluded him? 

No, it couldn't be.  For any couple to end up this happy must mean that they were simply one of those very rare cases in which each was lucky enough to meet and marry the perfect person for them.  How else could it be?

The husband's name was Hosea, and his wife's name was Gomer.

There's a Difference in the Love

When as Christians we hear that God loves us, we are in danger of forming a conception of His love that is too much like natural love between humans.  Because God is "stuck" with being a infinite and perfect Being, the nature of His love is different than ours for each-other, or for Him.

We love God best when we delight in Him most.  God loves us best when He most delights our heart in Him.  We love God by saying, "You are everything to me."  God loves us by saying, "Let Me be everything for you."  God is the Giver.  We are the receivers.  God is the Sun.  We are the reflectors.  God is the Joy.  We are the enjoyers.  "For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever" (Romans 11:36).

Our love to God is a response of desire and delight toward an infinitely desirable Being.  God's love to us is His doing everything needed to enable our desire and delight toward Him.  For Him to value us above all would be unloving--it would be denying the truth of His ultimate value, and disabling our deepest happiness.  It would be like a rich man lavishly praising a beggar for the appearance of his clothing, while withholding all that he has to meet his need. 

The cross of Jesus is not a Divine compliment of our value, but the immeasurable cost of giving us access to His.  The cross is not God's assessment of our value, but the necessary price for giving us the all-surpassing value of knowing Him (Philippians 3:8).

God does value us, affirm us, and delight in us.  But in His love toward us, these are only means to a higher happiness.  Our heart's deepest need is not to be praised--that is a means to the highest end.  Our greatest need is to be lost in the overwhelming satisfaction of a Joy and Wonder too great to conceive.  Thus the order: "Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your master."  The ultimate gift of God's love is eternally increasing pleasure in the Person of infinite delight.  In other words, He is His own greatest gift.  Our praise of Him is meant to be a means of receiving, of enjoying Him.

What did Jesus get out of His sacrifice?  A people, a bride--us.  But why did He want us?

So that He could give Himself to us.  He gave Himself for us so that He could give Himself to us.

He gave Himself for you.  He gave Himself to you.  He desires you now.  He is giving Himself to you.  Will you receive?  There is no love like His.

A Believer's Core Identity

You cannot live how you were designed to without knowing who you are.

..."for in Christ you are all sons of God through faith..." Galatians 3:26

This was written in a culture in which the son 'got it all.'

I am a composer.  But more practically, I am a small business owner. But more importantly, I am a father.  But still more importantly I am a husband.  But most fundamentally, I am a son of God.

This identity makes me heir to the most valuable, most desirable, most beautiful, and satisfying inheritance in existence.  "In Your presence is fullness of joy."  It is GOD Himself.

How am I a son of God?  When Jesus left heaven and lived among us, He laid aside His privileges of Sonship.  When He said, "Not My will, but Yours be done," He was choosing the path of losing His rights and privileges of Sonship, rather than continuing to enjoy them without you.  The cry of Jesus, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" expressed the tormenting cost through which God could adopt us as His children, grant us the right to call Him "Father,"and hear Him say to us, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." 

Jesus took what you deserve, so that you could receive what only He deserves.

Don't live one day without accepting your core identity, and enjoying your Inheritance.  "The Lord is my portion...I have a beautiful inheritance." Psalm 16:5-6  "...I am...your exceeding great reward."  Genesis 15:1

The Non-existent Category

The modern idea of morality is that if an activity doesn’t hurt another and it is shared by mutual consent then it’s okay.  But there is no such thing. All immorality is a form of violence.  It is killing another person’s capacity for giving and receiving genuine love.  

But with God there is resurrection.

Early Spring

Love Your Wife

Recently I was thinking about what it means to “love your wife as Christ loved the church.”  This is the key to a good marriage, right?  But think about this:

If you love your wife with single-hearted devotion and consistent sacrificial service, then can you be sure--

That you’ll ensure the results you want when you want them? 

That you’ll guarantee the relationship of your dreams? 

If you treat her like a queen, will she treat you like a king?  Maybe, but not necessarily. Ask Hosea the prophet. (See the book of Hosea.) If you’re still not convinced, then ask Jesus.  He is the one and only perfect bridegroom, with a flawless record and ongoing perfect performance.  He has sought and is continually seeking the highest joy of His bride, but He is still often belittled, ignored, or refused.  Have you ever slighted or ignored the Lover of your soul?  If you have responded this way to perfect love, then you should never feel entitled to a correct response to your love.  We need to be wary of basing our love on the desired response to it.

Sometimes I’m afraid we subconsciously mix our American pragmatism in with the call of the gospel-pattern.  Even with teaching on the desired benefits of living according to the pattern Christ sets for husbands in marriage, we are in danger of subtly clinging to the natural desire of our heart to stay in control.  (The same holds true on Bible-teaching about parenting.)  The danger exists in any teaching on relationships that implies, “As long as you do A, you will ensure B.”  God will always satisfy the soul that seeks Him but He is the only one with whom right relationship has a sure result--and the necessity of right relationship with Him is losing control, by releasing it to Him.  In human relationships, there is no formula for obtaining the outcome we want when we want it—no matter how pure our desire, or healthy our means.  The path of love is not a guaranteed success formula.

The point of this post is not to discourage husbands or put down wives.  Nor is it a not-so-subtle complaint against my own wonderful wife!*  In fact, husbands likely have greater cumulative blame for poor marriages than wives do.  My point is that, for us to “love our wives like Christ loved the church,” we need to understand what that means.  One thing it does not mean is, “act in the way that will ensure the results you want when you want them.”  Jesus, the perfect Discipler, had deficient disciples.  Jesus, the perfect Lover, has an unreliable bride.  Removing the expectation of guaranteed results on our timetable necessitates having a motive for love that will last without it.  If the motive is not guaranteed results, then what is it?

The only way to love your spouse consistently and enduringly is by it being the overflow of Christ’s own sacrificial and satisfying love for you.  Your love must be the pursuit of her joy and transformation through that same satisfaction.  The consistency of your love will not depend on her responsiveness, but on His constancy.

Yes, this is the way that desirable effects will most likely take place, that your wife will be happy and become all that God made her to be.  It is the path for discovering the best possible marriage.  Christ’s bride will be radiant.  But remember the journey of Hosea, and remember that of Jesus.  To truly love another “as Christ loved” you means depending ultimately on His beauty, on His love for you. It means relishing the promise of the outcome that He has ensured through His sacrifice.  It means leaning on Him in your pursuit of her good.  And like Hosea, it means discovering the staggering mercy and sufficiency of the ultimate Bridegroom.  This beauty makes it all worth it.

“I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from them… O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols?  It is I who answer and look after you.  I am like a luxuriant cypress; from Me comes your fruit.” Hosea 14:4,8

*[This post is officially approved by my wife. :)]