Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Determine Your Story

Determine Your Story

Dear Champions,


The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is Philippians 3:13-14 But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!


If you are single determine the story that you want to tell your future spouse now and then live in such a way so that you can tell that story.  Everybody has a story to tell, and many people lie. They lie because they don't like their story that they wrote, and they were afraid that they would lose their partner and opportunity if they told their true story.  The true story eventually comes out, so decide now what kind of story that you want to tell.  


One story could be that when I first heard truthfully what God designed for sex, from that point forward, I was waiting for you and wanted to honor God with my body specifically in the area of my sexuality.  As I have learned to honor God with my body before I say I do to you, I am ready to honor God with my body once we say I do.  As I learned to practice self-control before I said I do to you, I am ready to practice self-control after I say I do.  I have been from that moment preparing for you.  That's a good story, and let me tell you what I know about you.  That's the story that you want to hear, isn't it?  Choose a good story, and live it out.


You're going to have to decide ahead of time what honoring God with your body looks like.  What will I do and not do with my body when it comes to relationships.  You need to pre-decide, and when the temptations come along, you say that I have already decided that I don't do that.  I don't spend the night, I don't sleep over, I pre-decided.  When you pre-decide, you're pre-deciding something about your future.  As big as a sacrifice as that may feel like now, giving up something now for something better later is not a sacrifice.  It is an investment.  When you decide to set sexual and moral standards, every time you apply those standards you are investing in a future relationship.  Every time you say No you are saying Yes, and you are making an investment into your future.


God loves you so much that He has spoken into the area of sexuality.  He is waiting for you to run into His direction and make some difficult decisions and then to trust Him.


Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Friday, February 22, 2013

Exclusivity

Exclusivity


Dear Champions,


The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your bodies are temples 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 bodies.


A myth about sex is that practice makes perfect.  Some of you have thought, "I need to know something about this and get pretty good at it so that I don't look stupid.  It's not like learning to play the violin.  If you want to learn how to play the violin you have to practice.  Did you know that you will be able to figure out sex without a single lesson or without a single practice session?"  


Romance in marriage is fueled by a sense of exclusivity, not a skill that you have developed.  Exclusivity is, "I have waited for you; and you have waited for me, and we will figure this out together."  It says that I only have eyes for you.  I have been praying for you and waiting for you before I had a face or a name to associate with you.  I am able to give all of me to all of you.  That fuels romance in marriage and not a skill set, practice or experience. 


Practice makes perfect is just a lie, and it gives you and your partner something to compare each other to, and on the other side of I do that is not an advantage. Romance is fueled when your husband goes on a business trip, and you don't worry.  You know his history before he married you, and you are assuming that it's a continuation after he married you.  It's when your wife is out with her girlfriends; and she does not call, and you don't worry.  You know her history before she married you, and you are assuming that it's a continuation after she married you.  It's that exclusivity that builds and fuels romance in a marriage.


If that's true, then what would you expect God to say to you about sex?  Have as much as you can and then when you get married flip a magic switch and suddenly be committed to one person.  Is that even possible?  Is it no wonder that so many people are so unfulfilled sexually in their marriage when they have messed with the intimacy factor of their sexuality before they said I do.


Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Friday, February 8, 2013

Intimacy

Intimacy


Dear Champions,


The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is 1 Corinthians 6:16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh."


Intimacy is to know and to be fully known.  When God created sexuality it was not simply about creating more humans.  It was to be the ultimate expression of intimacy-full on, passionate, fearless, know me as I am, no fear of comparisons and no fear of criticism.  It is fragile and powerful, and God gave it to the human race as a gift. As powerful and as fragile as it is, it can be broken.


Single people, you know married people who broke and abused this. You know married women that are numb to the intimacy that was designed to go with sex.  You know married men who because of their habits, now that they are married they can't find intimacy in sex and wonder what's wrong with them and what's wrong with their partner.  They are both looking outside of their marriage wondering if they married the wrong person.  The real issue is that when they were single and were dating they thought that sex was just physical and they could do whatever they wanted to do with their body.  Someday they assumed that they could meet the person that they wanted to spend the rest of their life with and that magically everything was just going to be fine. They were wrong, and hurt themselves.


When you have sex with a person there is a sense of permanence, and you become one with that person.  God designed it for you to become one with one.  When you continue to become one with person after person you damage your intimacy factor and your ability to experience what God intended for you to experience.  You disconnected sex from what it was intended to be for.


Champions, have a great week!-David Vining


P.S.  Remember that  Jesus dealt with sexual sin very compassionately, and the sin that He dealt with most harshly was the sin of self-righteousness and pride.  When we put our trust in Him, we are getting to heaven only on His perfect record of righteousness.  Jesus lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died.