Each of us needs and wants to belong—to something, and ultimately to someone. It is natural and good to want to love and be loved by someone special with whom we can share the joys and sorrows of life. Whether we profess a belief in God or not, we all want to experience lasting love.

Contrary to popular sentiment, sex is not love. Yes, sex can be a wonderful part of marriage. But sex alone, sex for itself, sex divorced from the life-giving powers of God’s creation, is empty and destructive. True sexual love always embraces the other with reverence and faithfulness. It affirms the meaning of life and accepts the responsibilities along with the pleasures. True love, and therefore true sex, commits for life.

This is why sex outside the commitment of marriage between one man and one woman, is so damaging—both to body and soul. Sex for sheer pleasure is nothing other than selfishness. It’s a cop-out from the responsibility of caring for the other and for the possibility of new life. It is an affront to the basic God-given purpose of sexual union: to become so united that the miracle of new life can be born, nurtured, and cherished. Sex by itself, for its own sake, is a denial of the fruitful and joyful life God wants to give to us.

Each of us has been given the “birthright” of our human sexuality. When we use that birthright in a promiscuous or unnatural way, we are selling our birthright for a “pot of stew,” just as Esau did. He sold his birthright to his younger brother Jacob just to satisfy his immediate hunger, without considering the future unhappy consequences of his action. (Gen. 25: 27-33)

No matter how consensual and tender and “loving” sex may be, without commitment it is self-centered and self-destructive. The body may get some satisfaction, but not the soul. Pain and disappointment invariably result. And worst of all, reverence for the other disappears.

Expressions such as “doing it,” “fucking,” even “making love,” ultimately betray a total disrespect for the beauty of sex. This is a terrible commentary on our modern godless materialistic society. Instead of being wonderful and sacred, sex has become dirty, casual, addictive, and animalistic. It is no wonder why sex today has become such a curse for so many.

Sexual promiscuity and sexual perversion—heterosexual, homosexual, or otherwise—may titillate the senses, but they cheapen and deaden us nonetheless. They undermine what we most deeply want and need: to love and be loved. There is great pleasure in sex, but loosed from the moral demands of love sex never leads to happiness.

Today’s sexual freedom is little more than a way of using someone else to satisfy oneself. We have become objects, to be manipulated and dominated. Instead of expressing and deepening love, sex has become a form of power and self-pleasure. What we need today is a new “sexual revolution”—one that embraces the spiritual, not just the physical, side of our nature. The so-called sexual revolution of fifty years ago was a step backward, not forward. We have become more animal-like, giving into our impulses and urges, not more human, where we take control of ourselves and exercise self-restraint and self-giving.

In the name of personal rights, what we have embraced is not freedom but a prison of our own making. In the area of human sexuality, “rights” alone cannot bring freedom. Granted, we have the right to choose our partner in marriage. But outside of marriage the right to choose when and how and with whom to have sex is actually rebellion against God and slavery to one’s own appetites.

Healthy sex, sex that is genuine and significant, must take place in the total context of the meaning of life itself. Such meaning is found in the kind of love God shows us through Christ. That love is what the apostle Paul described as being patient, kind, humble, considerate, pure, forgiving, protecting, trusting, and faithful (1 Corinthians 13).

Commitment to this kind of love is hard on the flesh, but it also liberates us toward true fulfillment and happiness. When sex is enveloped by and nurtured within God and his will, it not only becomes a joyful gift to be shared and cherished but a deeply uniting experience that strengthens the love we are ultimately created for.

5 responses below

 

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Your Turn. Tell us what you thought about this article:

Responses

This is an especially good article. It is "to the point". I am forwarding your blog to all the young adults in my family. The first article on Jewish History and Forgiveness is very good. I am sure the young adults will find it very "eye opening".

Sincerely,

Magdalen Mauldin
Littleton, Co

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THANK YOU! I share your ideas. I think it is very important to share them especially with the youth, tha often is mislead by advertising and the media. To learn to LOVE is the art we learn directly from God who is LOVE! I also believe it is important to share our experiences in trying to live in this way. And if it may happen to fail it is very important to remember that God is merciful. "To start again" this is the path to travel along in life in our holy journey. God want us to be happy and joyful always.

Grazia Villani
Rome, Italy

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Wonderful presentation, naturally sex has lost it value. We talk sex for a joke and play with peoples wife and husband without taken into consideration the outcome of it. GOD BLESS YOU. Keep it up.

Samuel Nii Ayi Otoo
Ghana

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Yes yes! it is very true that sex has become a self pleasure. recently,me and my friends have talking about this,not exalty but more the same. In the city that i live in,its like sex has became the main part of a relationship.that spirit of dating geting to know each other having fun in other ways, does not exist anymore.what is thought about is sex sex sex! its like if a guy dates you for too long and he does not talk aout sex,they will say he is gay.and if you are a girl and a guy dates you and you dont want to have sex,they say you are childish.Sex is not LOVE,its just part of it!

bongi, SA

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The article is truly timely especially at a season like this, where youths all over the world and adults as well have debased the true essence of sex.

It is good that such messages like this be proclaimed that all may come to the knowledge of God's desire and purpose for sex and marriage alike.

Ndifreke
Lagos, Nigeria

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Very great.

justina Okolo
Plateau State, Nigeria