Anti-Nexus: To Legitamize Something, Illegitamize Something Else

The way sex and relationships are viewed in our culture may be Satan's greatest accomplishment. I mean besides getting Eve to eat that darn fruit, this is probably his highest achievement. I say this because more and more Christians are beginning to accept these as culture defines them and put no thought into the ways that they are buying into his schemes.

See, culture continues to tell us that we NEED a relationship in order to be successful. If you want to have the best jobs, the best friends, the best life, the best of anything, you NEED to be in a relationship. Culture repeatedly and through different avenues inundates us with a message that those that do not have a relationship must be doing something wrong and in no way can be considered successful. Culture sells the idea that you cannot be complete and content in your self if you aren't in a relationship or pursuing a relationship. If you don't find a mate to be with now and forever, you will never find peace in your life and you will constantly be unstable and imbalanced. This continues to be a repetitive message that comes out of cultures constant attack on a person's mind and ultimately their heart.

We see this through the ads we see on TV or in print, the TV shows we watch or the movies we take in. When was the last sitcom you saw that didn't involve the single guy or gal of the show trying desperately to find someone to be in a relationship with and when they didn't find it that week they would be devastated. Sound familiar? I mean come on, Friends aired for ten years! Some that come to mind now: Glee, Outsourced, Community, The Good Wife, many more.

So what we have done in response to this blitz of messages is to do something that we can hardly control unless we identify it and control it. In response to all of this, we have legitimized our relationship with another to the point that it has led to the illegitimacy of our relationship with God. That's not to say that we have abandoned our relationship with God completely. But it is quite clear that we have placed a high enough priority on our relationships with people that we have had to reduce the priority of our relationship with Christ. And that seems very counter-productive.

The thing about this is that given the right context, amount and motive, it can be healthy. Example here is marriage. But we're doing this well before marriage and it is leading to much more than just divorce. There is an undercurrent that exists in the attitude that we have begun to take in reference to dating. Dating has become much more than just a relationship to determine compatibility and possible future desires. It has become something so much more and has upped the ante when it comes to the dating relationship. This and more will be coming up in this series.

The bottom line is this, Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." He has called us to love Him with everything. Our devotion to Christ should pale in comparison to our love and devotion to another person. When we begin to see this in our own lives we will begin to see much more.

What do you think?
How do you relate to this one?

GC

Sex is Good. And, yes, even I can KNOW that.

We are currently in the midst of our relationship series and we have asked students to text in questions to be able to get some feedback on what they think and give them some opportunity to participate in the messages. One of the topics is sex. Of the 34 questions we have received, 8 have asked if sex is good. Couple those questions with the one question, "How does Geoff know" and I am presented with a conundrum. A bit of a predicament it seems.

As it has been made clear, I am 24 year-old, single, virgin, talking about sex and relationships. Ironic, huh? Not really. But what is really ironic is that relationships and sex are two things that I am actually really passionate about (and not because I am desperate for either) both because they have been so misconstrued in so many ways for way too long.

See, I grew up understanding sex as something that was bad. I will accept personal responsibility as long as I can declare a few variables that I feel were influential in this mentality.

1) School told me so.
As much as schools seem to be taking a different approach to this, the school at its core was trying to tell me not to have sex. And if not having sex is "good," then having sex is "bad," therefore making sex, categorically bad.
2) Parents told me so.
In all reality, my parents never said, "Sex is bad." But they never really said that it was good. As a matter of fact, by telling me never to get near it, they were telling me that it was something to avoid. If you should avoid something, it usually means that it is bad. Ergo, sex was a bad thing.
3) Church told me so.
Again, the only thing that I ever heard the church saying, at the time, was that it was all bad. Clearly, this is easy to do as you are trying to help guide high schoolers in the path of doing right and wrong. And, of course, it's not God's plan that high schoolers have sex. So to say that, made sense. But it still meant that sex was bad.

I'm convinced that sex isn't bad. Sex is good. It is very good. As a matter of fact, the whole act of sex could be considered the ultimate in the best example of Christ's love. Genesis 2 shows us that sex is good. God was pleased. It was God's plan that we have sex inside marriage. God made it so that we would leave our father and mother and be joined to someone of the opposite sex to become one. Not only emotionally and spiritually, but physically. That means sex, boys and girls. And it was all good!

It brings me to the point: If we continue to color all sex as evil and bad, we don't allow students to understand how sex can enhance the marriage relationship. So, what are we going to say about sex? How are we going to help students understand it?


GC