Stay away from immoral behavior

Note:  The second most read meditation I've published is from Ephesians 5:3, warning about sexual immorality.  Below are two other passages with the same theme.

I Thessalonians. 4:3-5, 7 (NLT)

God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor—not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways….God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives.

I Corinthians 6:18-20 (NLT)

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.  Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. 

People ask all the time……what is God’s will for me?  Well, this passage from I Thessalonians is part of it.  You might be thinking, “God’s will must be more than this” and, in fact, it is.  However, this passage gives you a clear indication about how closely related God’s will is to holiness and how closely connected holiness is to sexual sin.  Let’s just list the problems from these two passages that succumbing to sexual sin produces

·  Being out of God’s will

·  Being separated from an intimate relationship with God

·  Becoming a pagan in God’s view

·  Serious harmful effects to your body

·  Polluting and defacing the temple of the Holy Spirit

·  Dishonoring God

When you stop and thinking about these six terrible problems that sexual sin produces, is it no wonder why God wants you to be holy and to be holy is to stay away from sexual sin? 

Note that in both Scriptural texts, the key to eliminating sexual sin from your life is to stay away from it and to run away from it.  You never should tempt yourself in the first place by watching TV or movies where sexual temptations are shown.  You should not read sexually-oriented literature or engage in internet pornography, you should stay away from this garbage.  Once you allow yourself to see or read sexual oriented materials, you are disobeying these two passages of Scripture for the Word of God emphasizes that you must not put yourself in this position in the first place.  If you see a woman with revealing clothing, what must you do?  Get away from her.  If you know that you are vulnerable to this kind of sin, stay away from beaches and pools and certainly from strip bars and any other place you know where this kind of temptation exists.  Stay away and run away, that is the biblical teaching against sexual sin. 

Both passages emphasize what your body means to God.  Despite what you may have been taught before, the body is not a sinful thing.  It is false teaching when someone tells you that God doesn’t care about your body.  Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Think about how badly you dishonor God when He considers your body a place where His Spirit resides and you use this place for sexually immoral purposes.  A shocking thought, isn’t it?  It is grossly inappropriate and wrong for you to use the temple of the Holy Spirit—your body—for unholy purposes. 

If you know that you have violated these teachings from I Thessalonians 4 and I Corinthians 6, if you feel guilty about what you have done (and maybe still doing), such guilt is a good sign that the Holy Spirit is still alive in you.  You need to confess your sins, repent (turn around completely) and begin following what you know that you are supposed to do—turning away/running away—from anything that will tempt you to be sexually sinful.

The Christian life should be lived without any hint of immoral behavior.  Think and pray about this……