A Quick Theology of Sexual Desire for Single Dudes

Tim Challies answers the following question in his blog:

“How am I to react to sexual desire? As a teenager, unmarried and with marriage in the distant future rather than the near future, … how [would God] have [me] understand sexual arousal.”

Here’s how he answers it:

1. Sexual Arousal Motivates Marriage. Arousal points you to the fact that God wants you to marry. The fact that you feel sexual desire is a good and God-given thing—he uses it to point you toward marriage. Sexual desire is a part of how God has wired men so that they will pursue a bride. So in that way, see it as something that is not inherently evil. Arousal is evil only if it is improperly acted upon or if it leads to sin.

2. Sexual Arousal Preaches Imperfection. The very fact that you feel sexual desire tells you that you are incomplete—incomplete without a wife with whom you can find satisfaction and fulfillment of that desire. And I think this kind of incompletion can point you to the wider reality that we live in an incomplete world marred by the realities of sin. There may be a deeper lesson in unfulfilled sexual desire.

3. Sexual Arousal Teaches Self-Control. Young men who continually give in to sexual desire by acting out on it through masturbation train themselves—their minds and bodies—that they need and deserve sexual release whenever they feel desire. And yet that is not how life works. Even married men with loving wives and great sex lives deal with a great deal of unfulfilled sexual desire. So this is an opportunity to train yourself, while still young, that sexual desire can and must be controlled if it is to be something that is properly stewarded to the glory of God.

In the end, if you trust the Lord, you can know that there is no temptation that must cause you to sin. The Holy Spirit gives you the ability, the power, to stand strong in the face of even the most difficult torment. So in those moments when desire is aroused and when it feels like torture, you need to plead the cross, you need to preach the gospel to yourself. In those moments you need to know that Christ died to forgive sin and he rose to overcome the power of sin and death. So you can remain unstained by sexual sin.

Click here to see the original post.

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Sex as God, Gross, or Gift

Mark Driscoll, in an editorial section of The Washington Post, gives a very succinct historical overview of how today’s culture came to such divergent views of sex.  The following are the three views that he identifies:

1. Sex as God.
2. Sex as Gross.
3. Sex as Gift.

For those in Ekklesia521, take this opportunity to read through the whole article and see where you land in one of these three categories currently.  And then prayerfully, with a spirit of repentance, consider where it is that God wants you to be.

Again, click here for the entire article.

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Cool Video

It is amazing what people can do with multimedia these days.

[HT: Vitamin Z]

P.S. – the Song of Solomon Conference today was amazing.  Linda and I had some good conversations afterwards.

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Free E-Book: Sexual Detox by Tim Challies

Just wanted to share this amazing resource with you guys.  Tim Challies recently offered a free e-book titled, Sexual Detox, based off of his blog posts on the subject.  Here’s a quick excerpt about the book from Challies:

Last week’s series on Sexual Detox was quite an experience for me. I figured it would garner a little bit of interest simply because it dealt with an universal issue (sex) and because it included several important peripheral issues (pornography, addiction, and so on). But even then the response surprised me, both in terms of the number of visitors who showed up to read the articles and the outpouring of comments and emails in response to it. All of this showed me that I had tapped into an important issue.

Here’s the link to the post (http://www.challies.com/archives/christian-living/sexual-detox-the-e-book.php).  He even made two versions of the book: one for single dudes and the other for married dudes.  I pray that this aids your quest to bring all areas of life under rule of Christ in light of what He has done on the cross.

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