Blog Every Day Feb: Day Twenty-four - Guest Post

Linking up with Bailey Jean for an exciting guest post! Side note: I've been using the Blogger app on my phone and it is sorta dumb in that it publishes posts to the date you started the post, not the date you hit publish. That's why these past few posts have been showing up in odd ways. If anyone knows how to remedy this, please help a sister out!

Guest post by my college roomie Catherine! Catherine is a wonderful friend, a talented writer, the queen of dry humor (as you'll see), an unashamed nerd, and an all-around cool person to know. She and I met for the first time moving into our teensy dorm room, and we had so much fun that we opted to do it all over again our second year :) Catherine is a gem, and I'm excited for you all to hear from her!

Loving the Command for Purity

Eph. 5: 1-3 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

Hi, I am Catherine and I'm nearly 29 years old and have never been on a date. No grand stance on my part, just no one has asked and life stuff took over. But by the grace of God I am saving myself for my future husband (who may or may not be the first person I date). The path of purity is a tough one, no mistake. We live in a sex saturated culture and someone who continues to save themselves for their future spouse is seen as an anomaly. They are responded to with disbelief and sometimes, awe. Kind of like Big Foot, and the older you get the more like Big Foot you become--in rarity, not in resemblance hopefully. 

At times the road of purity seems too difficult to walk and it's easy to believe that God is being cruel by telling you to live a chaste life. It's easy to believe that He is keeping something vital to your well being away from you. It sometimes seems that He is telling you not to be human because sexuality is part of our humanity. It's easy to believe all this because all the signals we get from the world tell us this--you are being denied something incredible. 

And yet we are given the command of purity.

But before we take a closer look at that command let's look at the greatest commandment--love God with all your heart, soul, and mind (Luke 10:27). When we fully understand and accept the gospel it is easy to love God just as the above verses say--He gave Himself up for us. We love God because He loved us when we didn't deserve it. Because we understand the gospel we can follow this command and even love it. When we love God we love His commandments because His commandments come from God Himself. The command to love Him gets that much easier. 

Now the command for purity can work the same way--we love God because He saved us and we can love purity because it came from God. He already gave us everything we need--Jesus--and loving God is for our benefit and we love purity because yet again, it is for our benefit. When we love God's commands it is so much easier to follow them. Instead of looking at the command for purity as a harsh yoke around the neck we can love it and see it as a precious gift. This gift can be given to your spouse or be kept for yourself and seen as something that keeps you from the pain that comes from indulging in sin. 

We can lift our head up, not in pride, but in total assurance that we can boldly approach the throne of God and say that we have loved Him.

If for whatever reason you have not kept the command of purity, KNOW that God is a God second chances (He has given me plenty) and His grace is ever flowing (and I live by it everyday). You can still love His command for purity--from here on out and by God's grace you can live a life of purity. Love God and then you can love the command--see how it changes the way you look at it? It is something precious instead of burdensome.