AMH series // Time for the Sex Talk

I grew up believing sex was bad.

No one ever actually said it that bluntly, and I doubt I would have ever verbalized it that way (because let’s be honest, I never would have said that word out loud). But as I sat through church service after church service that encouraged saving sex for marriage, that’s the conclusion I drew.

My youthful “solution” = Do not desire sex at all.

The problem with my “solution” = A fear of that which God designed for His glory.

The danger of fearing God’s design

Let me explain it with an example, and I promise I’m not trying to sound like a redneck or take a political position, but I’d equate the fear of sex to how a lot of us view guns. They can certainly be used for evil, but they can also be used for a world of good – hunting, protection, etc. If we overhear enough people talk about guns, and we begin to understand that they are dangerous and start to completely fear them, we miss out on all the good guns can do.

In pioneer days, if I viewed guns like I viewed sex, my family would have most certainly died of starvation.

Can sex be used out of context of how God created it and can it cause harm? Most certainly! We see broken hearts, STDs, abortion, depression, and a lot of confusion associated with sex. But the other side of the coin is the reality that God actually designed sex.

“‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate (Mark 10:7-9).”

Think about that for a moment, God is the one who literally came up with the idea for sex! If thinking of that feels odd and maybe even makes you feel kind of dirty for associating God with it, that tells me that even if you have never had sex in your life, you may still be thinking about sex from a viewpoint which is neither holy nor righteous. If you’re anything like I was, you may be in fear.

A good to be protected not avoided

I love the phrase Ashley Giovannucci (from our AMH team) so often brings up, “Sex is a good to be protected, not an evil to be avoided.”

God designed sex to be life giving through the creation of children and loving as a bond between husband and wife. It was meant to be pure and holy not dirty and hurtful.

“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. (Hebrews 13:4).”

What does it mean to keep the marriage bed pure? It means to glorify God with our love for Him and love for each other. It means to keep it free of sexual sin and free from sexual perversion. 

No matter which way we tend to swing on the pendulum – deep in sexual sin or deep in the fear of sex – the important part is to realize where we are at, receive God’s grace for our sin, and run with all of our hearts after Him. What we think about sex matters because it can pervert our view of God and His design.

Even a small lie about who God is corrupts our view of Him. But I can promise you, He is so good. God is so worth knowing in His entirety. When we think of sex as dirty, we don’t understand the beauty of God’s creation. He is so worth us pushing through the awkwardness of the way we have always viewed sex and surrendering our definition of it to Him. It is not gross and perverted when it is as He designed it (within marriage), and it is also not evil when it is how He designed it either.

Awkwardness and all

So please, when you finish reading this article, take a moment to consider how you think about sex.  Do your definitions line up with what God says about it? Or do you align more with what culture has impressed upon you? Does your view of sex make God seem gross or good? Take a moment to let God define Himself to you. I promise He’s worth it, awkwardness and all.

Curious to learn more about our sexuality and why God calls it holy? We’ll be covering objectification, temptation, and God’s holistic design for purity. Follow the blog or join us on facebook and instagram for the month long conversation.