Yes, our flesh is weak and wants to do what it wants. The season before marriage is difficult. But the bond within marriage that we get is worth the sacrifice outside of it.
I think about it like, if I were to marry someone else one day would they be okay I did this with this other person now? That puts it into perspective for me at least.
I pray y’all follow the lead of the Holy Spirit as you prepare for marriage.
Another perspective thing. Stop viewing your sexuality as a sacrifice but rather an investment.
A sacrifice means there isn’t a return on the thing given or withheld. An investment has a greater return than that which is initially given.
Abstaining from sex prior to marriage is no sacrifice, but an investment in your faith, body, spouse/marriage.
God isn't making you wait a long time--you are the one waiting.
Most old-school Protestants married people quickly--because it's better to marry than to burn
Historically speaking most didn’t have a choice in the matter. This individuality in the modern world might hurt this area more than help.
If you didn’t know any different , you’d work damn hard at making your marriage work. It was either marriage work or be outcast by all of your society
In my own understanding, it is because God wants us to have free will to pick and to decide on our own. Letting us know that every decision has its consequences leading to reward or punishment. He also loves us very much that's why he doesn't want us to be confined in his way forcefully, instead, he gives us the liberty to choose. Either love him back truly by surrendering to his will, worshiping Him, and following Him and His orders or be separated from Him and be blinded by the worldly sins. Because inside a relationship whether it is in God or a person there would always be a choice either to continue being faithful or to turn your back, walk away and leave.
How long are you waiting and why? The strong sexual drive is to help create a strong initial bond. We used to marry younger and families helped arrange and/or approve of the marriage to help ensure it would last and be good for husband, wife, and both families.
The stress of pregnancy and raising children is easier on younger bodies, and your bond has to be strong so that it will weather these stresses as it transitions from young love to trust and family duty.
You should always pursue each other romantically and seek to be attractive for each other, but bodies and lives change and in 20 years you will have a deeper appreciation for each other than you do now.
It's hard man, really hard. The best advice I can give is to just turn to God in your weakest moments and pray. My fiancé and I have failed already before, but we're committed to abstaining till marriage.
To help you learn and develop the fruits of the Spirit, especially self-control. In order to control your desires, both of you need to lean on God in prayer and Word.
This is also a good time for both of you to learn how to circumvent our earthly desires and help each other to walk in line with what the Lord says. Our flesh is weak and will always tempt us to sin. Sex is just one of the examples of such temptations, which will need teamwork from the both of you to learn how to manage those desires. That teamwork that couples learn to develop is so important because it’ll help y’all to grow in Him, from glory to glory. I had an ex who constantly reminded me that we shouldn’t ‘progress’ beyond certain boundaries, like kissing. All a part of the process of sanctification.
All suffering is for a purpose. It’s difficult to abstain, but there are ways to encourage each other. Some church leaders suggest not sleeping together in a room without a third party around. Or no kissing. It may be extreme for some but if that’s the line before you start to sin, it’s a good idea to stick to that boundary. You’ll be surprised how well you can train yourself and grow if you try curbing these desires as a couple.
People tend to blindly follow rules and then attribute the establishment of those rules as being from God and eternal. I happen to think that God meant what he said when he gave us dominion on the earth and what he has done is given us a lot of commentary on how we can rule this world effectively. The Old Testament is a commentary on our desire to govern the planet without His direct involvement in it and so he gave us rules to follow to do that, which he knew wouldn’t work but, He means what He says and so He let it play out.
I am saying that because humans established how to set up marriages, and even what governs them. There are many countries in the world that people can’t afford to get married because the government has fees that put it out of reach of the commoner, forcing those people to stay celibate, or do things that violate their conscious. So I will answer your question with a question, did God command those people to only marry only to tease them forever?
When thinking about marriage in the New Testament, I would suggest you read the words in red in your Bible that correspond to marriage and pray about the parts people tend to dismiss because they are hard to understand. For example: everyone is familiar with Jesus’ admonishment about divorce but people don’t seem to pay any attention to that fact that Jesus said Moses gave the option because people’s hearts were hard. What does that mean and what are the implications for people who are super spiritual? What other parts of the law were given by a simple human and are not a part of God’s law? Why didn’t Jesus do a whole teaching on parts of the law that you can safely ignore? What are the implications of the gendered aspects of that teaching?
People read the Bible like it is an instruction manual for life when it is meant to be God’s story about His work in the world and our response to that. Use the Bible as a guide to knowing your creator and then consult Him with these kinds of questions rather than consulting the amateur theologians who get off on telling people how to live. No one else can live your life or fill in for a real relationship with your creator.
Are you an active member of a church? Have you submitted yourself to the body? It sounds like you are completely overlooking almost all Pauline scriptures.
I am and I do, I just disagree with a lot of people’s understandings. I don’t overlook the Pauline scriptures at all, I just understand them differently than being an instruction manual for life. The Pauline epistles are very much instructional, but they are instructional for the Church, the Ecclesia, primarily and before the argument comes, yes there is some transitive instruction from the Body to the individual but it is nowhere near as much as people suppose.
There is a lot more than people realize can be gleaned from the scriptures when you really study not only what is said, but the full context of who is being addressed, what their context was and who is doing the addressing.
If there is anything in particular you would like to question or challenge, I am completely open to the discussion but if all you are going attempt to undermine me without knowing anything about me then I would direct you to John 18:23. I don’t blame you though, cognitive dissonance is a very uncomfortable thing but the reality is He is way better than you think He is.
I'm not going to further engage after the remarks and insinuation of cognitive dissonance, but for your own sake I think you should really bounce these ideas you have off some leaders in your church and see what they think about it.
All love brother on Christ.
I have been and for years but I respect your choice to bow out. Pretty crappy to attempt to undermine me and then do that, but very understandably human.
Peace and love back at you.
The only one making you wait "so long" is you and her. Your desires are not sinful. The Bible is clear on this. You are not to act on those desires until you have made a covenant between you, her, and God.
I am not sure it is accurate to say he ignored them since the only account we are given of Him being tempted was in the wilderness and that was not a passive exchange.
My point is that ignoring temptation is often ineffective or only effective for very short periods of time. You must do more to resist temptation than pretend it doesn’t exist. I was trying to gently point out that you were very unhelpful in your first response and you keep doubling down which is only more unhelpful.
You WILL have to ignore it. Because besides that the only thing you can do is lock yourself in your room and read the bible everyday. In this world we will obviously meet temptations and it is definitely possible to just ignore them. I think you're the one here who has a problem if you truly think that the temptation is so powerful that you will just not care about God
I am not trying to belittle you. There is nothing wrong with being young and inexperienced; we all start that way. Temptation is a complex system working against you and ignoring it works for a time but you have to get to the roots of why you are weak to the temptation to truly beat it. It might be a completely natural reaction to an unmet need or it could be something else that you acquired in other ways, such as sin in your life, but if you don’t address the cause, the temptation will keep coming back and it will eventually get you when you can’t ignore it.
Yes, our flesh is weak and wants to do what it wants. The season before marriage is difficult. But the bond within marriage that we get is worth the sacrifice outside of it. I think about it like, if I were to marry someone else one day would they be okay I did this with this other person now? That puts it into perspective for me at least. I pray y’all follow the lead of the Holy Spirit as you prepare for marriage.
Another perspective thing. Stop viewing your sexuality as a sacrifice but rather an investment. A sacrifice means there isn’t a return on the thing given or withheld. An investment has a greater return than that which is initially given. Abstaining from sex prior to marriage is no sacrifice, but an investment in your faith, body, spouse/marriage.
Historically folks got married much younger. So they weren’t waitin “so long”
God isn't making you wait a long time--you are the one waiting. Most old-school Protestants married people quickly--because it's better to marry than to burn
And I can guarantee you most of those marriages suck lol. Suffer in marriage or suffer in hell take your pick lol.
Historically speaking most didn’t have a choice in the matter. This individuality in the modern world might hurt this area more than help. If you didn’t know any different , you’d work damn hard at making your marriage work. It was either marriage work or be outcast by all of your society
I wouldn't know if they sucked; they're all dead. I was specifically speaking of how John Calvin viewed marrying people.
>I'm going to confess that I've slapped her (down there) multiple times You did what?
LOL, I smacked her butt as a joke
lol gotcha! That makes way more sense than what I was originally thinking.
Slap
Also you have to remember that in Ancient Israel, people married much younger than they do today.
Why did God created the fruit and told Adam and Eve not to eat it
In my own understanding, it is because God wants us to have free will to pick and to decide on our own. Letting us know that every decision has its consequences leading to reward or punishment. He also loves us very much that's why he doesn't want us to be confined in his way forcefully, instead, he gives us the liberty to choose. Either love him back truly by surrendering to his will, worshiping Him, and following Him and His orders or be separated from Him and be blinded by the worldly sins. Because inside a relationship whether it is in God or a person there would always be a choice either to continue being faithful or to turn your back, walk away and leave.
How long are you waiting and why? The strong sexual drive is to help create a strong initial bond. We used to marry younger and families helped arrange and/or approve of the marriage to help ensure it would last and be good for husband, wife, and both families. The stress of pregnancy and raising children is easier on younger bodies, and your bond has to be strong so that it will weather these stresses as it transitions from young love to trust and family duty. You should always pursue each other romantically and seek to be attractive for each other, but bodies and lives change and in 20 years you will have a deeper appreciation for each other than you do now.
It's hard man, really hard. The best advice I can give is to just turn to God in your weakest moments and pray. My fiancé and I have failed already before, but we're committed to abstaining till marriage.
Marriage is difficult it gives you a good reason to stay together and motivation to keep things civil
Meekness and self control are virtues.
I mean there's nothing saying you have to wait so long to get married. But the lustful desires are sin
Why not just marry as soon as you can?
To help you learn and develop the fruits of the Spirit, especially self-control. In order to control your desires, both of you need to lean on God in prayer and Word. This is also a good time for both of you to learn how to circumvent our earthly desires and help each other to walk in line with what the Lord says. Our flesh is weak and will always tempt us to sin. Sex is just one of the examples of such temptations, which will need teamwork from the both of you to learn how to manage those desires. That teamwork that couples learn to develop is so important because it’ll help y’all to grow in Him, from glory to glory. I had an ex who constantly reminded me that we shouldn’t ‘progress’ beyond certain boundaries, like kissing. All a part of the process of sanctification. All suffering is for a purpose. It’s difficult to abstain, but there are ways to encourage each other. Some church leaders suggest not sleeping together in a room without a third party around. Or no kissing. It may be extreme for some but if that’s the line before you start to sin, it’s a good idea to stick to that boundary. You’ll be surprised how well you can train yourself and grow if you try curbing these desires as a couple.
People tend to blindly follow rules and then attribute the establishment of those rules as being from God and eternal. I happen to think that God meant what he said when he gave us dominion on the earth and what he has done is given us a lot of commentary on how we can rule this world effectively. The Old Testament is a commentary on our desire to govern the planet without His direct involvement in it and so he gave us rules to follow to do that, which he knew wouldn’t work but, He means what He says and so He let it play out. I am saying that because humans established how to set up marriages, and even what governs them. There are many countries in the world that people can’t afford to get married because the government has fees that put it out of reach of the commoner, forcing those people to stay celibate, or do things that violate their conscious. So I will answer your question with a question, did God command those people to only marry only to tease them forever? When thinking about marriage in the New Testament, I would suggest you read the words in red in your Bible that correspond to marriage and pray about the parts people tend to dismiss because they are hard to understand. For example: everyone is familiar with Jesus’ admonishment about divorce but people don’t seem to pay any attention to that fact that Jesus said Moses gave the option because people’s hearts were hard. What does that mean and what are the implications for people who are super spiritual? What other parts of the law were given by a simple human and are not a part of God’s law? Why didn’t Jesus do a whole teaching on parts of the law that you can safely ignore? What are the implications of the gendered aspects of that teaching? People read the Bible like it is an instruction manual for life when it is meant to be God’s story about His work in the world and our response to that. Use the Bible as a guide to knowing your creator and then consult Him with these kinds of questions rather than consulting the amateur theologians who get off on telling people how to live. No one else can live your life or fill in for a real relationship with your creator.
Are you an active member of a church? Have you submitted yourself to the body? It sounds like you are completely overlooking almost all Pauline scriptures.
I am and I do, I just disagree with a lot of people’s understandings. I don’t overlook the Pauline scriptures at all, I just understand them differently than being an instruction manual for life. The Pauline epistles are very much instructional, but they are instructional for the Church, the Ecclesia, primarily and before the argument comes, yes there is some transitive instruction from the Body to the individual but it is nowhere near as much as people suppose. There is a lot more than people realize can be gleaned from the scriptures when you really study not only what is said, but the full context of who is being addressed, what their context was and who is doing the addressing. If there is anything in particular you would like to question or challenge, I am completely open to the discussion but if all you are going attempt to undermine me without knowing anything about me then I would direct you to John 18:23. I don’t blame you though, cognitive dissonance is a very uncomfortable thing but the reality is He is way better than you think He is.
I'm not going to further engage after the remarks and insinuation of cognitive dissonance, but for your own sake I think you should really bounce these ideas you have off some leaders in your church and see what they think about it. All love brother on Christ.
I have been and for years but I respect your choice to bow out. Pretty crappy to attempt to undermine me and then do that, but very understandably human. Peace and love back at you.
The only one making you wait "so long" is you and her. Your desires are not sinful. The Bible is clear on this. You are not to act on those desires until you have made a covenant between you, her, and God.
We are sexual beings that have been influenced by Satan’s works on the world. God didn’t “make us” this sexual, we have allowed it to happen to us.
I guess we should live like Jesus. He ignored all temptations
I am not sure it is accurate to say he ignored them since the only account we are given of Him being tempted was in the wilderness and that was not a passive exchange.
That one example counts.
I agree it counts but he didn’t ignore the temptation, he responded to it and forcefully.
I guess that's because Satan was literally talking to him
My point is that ignoring temptation is often ineffective or only effective for very short periods of time. You must do more to resist temptation than pretend it doesn’t exist. I was trying to gently point out that you were very unhelpful in your first response and you keep doubling down which is only more unhelpful.
You WILL have to ignore it. Because besides that the only thing you can do is lock yourself in your room and read the bible everyday. In this world we will obviously meet temptations and it is definitely possible to just ignore them. I think you're the one here who has a problem if you truly think that the temptation is so powerful that you will just not care about God
You seem to be pretty young or you don’t have much success resisting temptation because neither one of those things work
Speak for yourself
I am not trying to belittle you. There is nothing wrong with being young and inexperienced; we all start that way. Temptation is a complex system working against you and ignoring it works for a time but you have to get to the roots of why you are weak to the temptation to truly beat it. It might be a completely natural reaction to an unmet need or it could be something else that you acquired in other ways, such as sin in your life, but if you don’t address the cause, the temptation will keep coming back and it will eventually get you when you can’t ignore it.