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
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