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Wednesday, October 18 2006

"In the first place our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so 'natural', so 'healthy', and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them.  Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour.  Now this association is a lie.  Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth--the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is 'normal' and 'healthy', and all the rest of it.  The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal.  Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense.  Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness.  For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing."  Mere Christianity

In this passage Lewis makes three important and true points:

  1. There is a great deal of contemporary propaganda for lust.  This propaganda has increased since Lewis's time, and is increasing exponentially every day.  If you doubt the truth of this statement try an experiment.  Disconnect your cable or satellite TV for several months, or even a year.  Then, at the end of that time, take a peak at television programming again and see if you are not shocked by many of the portrayals of human sexuality.  My family and I have lived without television for almost two years.  When I do catch a glimpse of some of the shows offered on TV I never cease to be amazed at the degeneration which has taken place.  However, I imagine that the "frogs in the kettle", those who are constantly exposed to television, are scarcely aware that the heat is being turned up.
  2. Sex in and of itself, as originally created by God, is normal and healthy.  This gift of God was designed for pleasure, the communication of intimacy and the propagation of the human race.  It is to be enjoyed by one man and one woman together within the protective environment of life-long marriage.
  3. Due to the Fall, not every sexual act to which we are tempted at any given moment is necessarily healthy and normal.  If we are going to fully enjoy sex as God intended then we need to have guard-rails in our sexual lives.  God is not a cosmic kill-joy.  He invented sex.  He knows how it can best be enjoyed.  So it might just be to our benefit to listen to him.

"Flee from sexual immorality.  All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.  Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your body"  (1 Corinthians 6:18-20).

Dear Father, as with every other area of my life, help me to surrender my sexuality to you.  You have made this part of me, as you have created every other part.  You want to redeem my sexuality as you have redeemed every other aspect of my humanity in your Son Jesus Christ.  Take control of my sexual being by your Holy Spirit, that I might live a life of sexual holiness, purity and joy in your presence, my Triune God.  Amen.

Posted by: Will Vaus AT 08:23 am   |  Permalink   |  Email

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