Peaches & Cream

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;

HAPPY MAY to you that's reading this post. The weather here in Chicago where I am is finally feeling like its trying to live up to it's designated season; Spring. This week so far has produced some beautiful days if I must say so myself. But I don't know what it is about the warm weather, it tends to arouse the lustful beasts in people especially those who do not practice self control. As someone who's been actively practicing abstinence for 5 years and some change, I can still attest to my own beastly nature. It never died. It's just been subdued and under heavy surveillance. 

I wasn't always chaste. As a matter of fact, if I be honest, I would go long stretches without engaging in any sexual activity until I no longer desired wrestling with my beast.

I lost my virginity at the age of 19 and felt like a dirty used rag afterwards which would fund all of my moves while out in the world. You see I'd always daydreamed about being a wife and I always thought that I was supposed to lose my virginity to my husband so since I didn't, I figured it was a wrap for me. That I in fact was disqualified. Yet deep down I was looking for that kind of love that only a divine covenant would garner. Ultimately, assuming in my immaturity that giving my body away would introduce me to this love. Boy was I wrong. 

Needless to say, when I gave my life to God, I didn't give Him my body. I was still frantically looking for love in all the wrong places. I forced a couple of relationships that God wrecked of course. Then I just stopped looking and rebuked my pining heart by making my exit out of the last relationship I would find myself entertaining, five years ago. This sparked my oath to be committed to a life of abstinence. 

It would be nice to actually wrap this post up with a few cute motivational sentences and maybe throw in a relevant scripture, but I could only do this if my carrying out this oath of abstinence was 100% without blemishes. I could really end it here if I got my walk in purity right. 

NOPE!

The first few years I was going about it so wrong! I placed so much value on my peach that my walk in abstinence was solely operating on the desires for marriage and not the desire to be close to God. I used my living in "purity" as a subsidy for my low self esteem and low self-worth. It was like I created a beautiful porcelain mask out of my chastity to keep from dealing with myself. I would pridefully boast in my purity. I would brow beat others who hadn't taken the same plight. Not even realizing that I wasn't even completely pure because I was still engaging in self-gratification! 

This leads me here,  

Psalm 119:9

How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.

That's a very simple and straight forward scripture. Don't you think?  In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God, says John 1:1. You see you're really not gong to want to partake in a walk of purity, sincere purity at that, if you don't believe in the word of God. If you have no faith in the word of God and who God is, you will not have a desire to be close to Him.  As a result you will frolic with loose boundaries and various superficial forms of purity. If at all!

Show me a virgin believer with a foul mouth, nasty habits and crumbling relational skills. I'll show you their smudged heart where their virginity has been placed on a pedestal and where God has been succinctly scratched out of their relationship. You can't possibly be close to God without your language and relational skills constantly going through upgrades and without Him dieting your habits. On the flip side, show me a fornicating believer. I'll take you to the areas of their heart where the word of God has not been inscribed. A heart engraved with the word of God tends to be convicted when participating in even the smallest fleshly action.  

Living in purity all boils down to the degree to which you're willing to give up something that pleases your flesh in order to get closer to God. Contrary to an erroneous popular belief, living pure has nothing to do with marriage! #Sidebar, Celibacy involves a person who willingly chooses to forgo sex period and indefinitely. Abstinence involves a person giving 
up sex until marriage. Living pure is subduing all natures of your fleshly appetite including sex to develop a stronger more receptive bond with God. 

A lot of single believers are just abstinent. They're not living or walking in purity. Don't get me wrong, walking in purity does not look like perfection. It simply encompasses someone taking their relationship with God just a little more serious to the point that the probability of them bartering their peaches and cream for the earthly affections of man, is slim to none. 

If you've become familiar with me by now through reading my posts, you'll know I like to propose challenges to my readers. So here's my challenge to you, first it's time to determine if you want to be a chimney or a fireplace. Chimney's exhaust smoke and fumes but the fireplace holds the fire. Are you comfortable with blowing smoke and releasing fumes? Or do you really want to be on fire for God? Because look here, your refusal to walk in purity is slowly pulling you into the associations of the lukewarm. And we know that God hates the lukewarm. 

What are YOU going to do? Are you going to keep hosting engagements between your flesh and someone else's because for some reason you've considered yourself exempt from living a lifestyle in purity? How long are you going to keep tip-toeing around the subject, expecting to be granted again the opportunities that keeps slipping through your fingers? I have to tell you that your hands are slippery with the residue of nights in sin mixed with particles of halfhearted requests for forgiveness you've lifted the mornings after.  I'm talking to somebody! You're not slick! God sees all! It's time to tighten it up and make a decision. That's it! That's all!