Sex on the Brain

For about a year, I've been serving with a prison ministry that also visits a local juvenile detention center. This experience has truly enriched my life and has been nothing but a BLESSING! Through my time at Juvy the Lord has gifted me with community and grown my teaching ministry. My primary role is to share the Word of God with the kids, to teach them, but they always end up schoolin' me.

Today's lesson title was Counterfeits. We spent a brief time defining the term and naming counterfeits we commonly use including cubic zirconia in place of diamonds, store brand pop (or soda, depending on where you're from) instead of Coke or Pepsi, and monopoly money versus actual Benjamins. We talked about Satan's desire to entice us, to trap us, to snare us, to entangle us in web's of perverse fulfillment of our God-given desires,to use this evil fulfillment to transform us into counterfeits. Thankfully, the conversation quickly turned to sex.

As always, it started with thoughts. The question was posed, "Is it a sin to have sexual thoughts?" I went on to explain that an initial sexual thought would not be considered a sin. (Please feel free to refute this in the comments section.) The problem (sin) would be maintaining these thoughts, dwelling on them, allowing them to, in the words of my 11th grade English teacher, marinate. The boys understood the concept. A bird may hover above your head, perhaps even lay an egg, but you shouldn't allow it to build a nest there. Ok, cool. But what about sex? Does God really expect us to abstain from sex until marriage? The Goodfellas weren't really "feelin' that."

I went on to explain that like every other area of our lives, God has a plan for our sexuality. He has given sexuality and sexual desire to us and they are good gifts. Like all other gifts God expects us to use them to bring Him glory, to make Him famous. Like all other gifts, God has provided guidelines and parameters for their use. Like all other gifts, Satan WORKS to get us to exercise our sexuality, to fulfill sexual desire outside of these boundaries. He tries to make us-people who claim to follow Jesus, people who confess Christ's Lordship or leadership of our lives-Counterfeits.

With the boys' eyes widened, I proceeded to discuss ways that Satan specifically tries to trap men with regards to the abuse of sex. We surveyed Proverbs 5 & 7 where we learned valuable lessons like Girls Got Game, Too, Taste It and Die, Run, Forrest, Run, and Keep Your Butt at Home.

With loads of humor we made it through our lesson and determined that sex is good, at least that's what they tell me, sex is powerful, and sex has rules. It is Satan's job to get us to disobey and succumb to sexual temptation. But with the help of the Holy Spirit, through hiding God's Word in our hearts, through resisting temptation, we CAN live sexually PURE lives.

Got my toes stepped on!

To Be Continued.