The predominant conversation every February is around the demonstration of love. As we near February 14th, all manner of conversations go around the media and social circles. The frenzy is higher each year as the emphasis targets outdoing the previous achievements.
Danger lurks because a thief has crept in the sheep-pen (our hearts) and in a voice different from the Shepherd’s, tried to create rumbles of discontentment. Like at the garden of Eden, the goodness of God can be veiled and His incomparable attributes suppressed as we exchange His truths for a LIE (Rom 1:18-24). The word in the streets is that if it feels good, it definitely is good. That’s the trap that presents so cheaply a degradation of sexual purity as God intended of it. These streets have overwhelmed us with casually promoting immorality even in the most innocent circumstances. Like in Romans 1:24, the applauds of dishonoring our bodies are as loud as the condemnations of chastity. The running theme has idolized bodies and lustful gratification.
The narratives have served to force veils on the eyes of society. Today’s world rationalizes how it pursues lustful passions. An unguarded heart accepts the wave of attraction towards whatever hypes up the endorphins and oxytocins (the fuzzy hormones). The snippets of explicit scenes in films, flash fantasies in the mind, texts hidden behind multiple passwords, all the way to masturbation, pornography and illicit sex show the darkness in the heart of man. Young adults, save for the help of the Lord, are subscribing to notions of self-ownership and self-serving love that has so far knocked out any boundaries around sexuality. The very horrifying pit can only get worse with the passing on of the decay to the generations after.
For these things was Christ crucified, that we would not be passions’-serving, lust-fanning and darkness-loving. Christ shines so brightly to the heart of men that even when we are in the darkest darkness, there His light shines (Psalm 139:11-12). But since the thief in the sheep-pen would rather have us doubt the truth of an omnipresent Lord, He has offered an extra trap in hiding lust. For a moment one is convinced that they’d not be served public shame as David in Matthew 1:6. A false security is embraced and a comfort that nobody is likely to know what transpired. Oh, how our bones waste away in the silence (Psalm 32:3)! In the fatigue of the heart that doesn’t pursue the Lord’s forgiveness, is the hideous deception to normalize the brokenness.
Perhaps if those who know the Shepherd would beckon to the sheep vulnerable to the enemy’s noise, there would be more refrain. Maybe what we need to do as the salt of the earth is get out of the salt shakers where lies the comfort of being salt among salt, a cohort of like-minded believers. The conversation on chastity, the sum of the convictions we have gathered needs to go beyond our Christian accountability circles to the ears that have been trapped into sexual sin. We need to be salt to the veiled, the naive and vulnerable, the hardened in heart, and the secretive sinners. The voice of truth needs to be amplified above the noises of deception.
For the believer, the unobstructed city on a hill, the house on the firm foundation, the sheep with a Shepherd; we must resolve in our hearts to honor God with our sexuality and set an example in radical living. Gentle outreaches of our firm grounding should be done throughout; in and out of Valentine’s week. We should seek on our knees the preservation of those we know and the rescue of those around us. We must hold firm to the goodness of the Lord who ordains every season and time, keeping ourselves pure. For the fruit that is visible is more attractive than the one that bears the promise of ever fruiting. Our first influence is living above reproach then raising our voices in hope of the redemption of our brothers and sisters in the world!
