This weekend I will be presenting part two of the series and focusing on premarital relationships and sexuality.

Here’s some of my thoughts on the topic that I’m tossing around and will be presenting this weekend(a preview if you will).

One question that many Christians like to ask is;” How far is too far (for me to go sexually with my boyfriend or girlfriend before it is considered sin)?

But that’s really the wrong question to be asking. A better question to be asking would be;” How can I honor and worship God the most?”

Do you think that God is impressed by your “How far is too far?” question?

It’s like asking Him;” God, what’s the least I can do to be saved?” “What’s the least I can do to please you?” “How can I get to heaven with the least amount of commitment to You?” ” What’s the least I can do to get my ‘get-into-heaven-free-ticket?’ “How much sin can I commit without going to Hell?” “I know You took on my sin and died an excruciating death on the cross, but You don’t mind if I willingly commit the very sins You died for a little more, do You?”

Get the picture? These kinds of questions that we ask, that I ask, are despicable and come at things from the completely wrong approach. These questions are all about us, and not about God! We try to make life all about getting into Heaven. Well maybe that’s not the case. Let me rephrase that; rethink that. I believe that we try to make life all about getting out of Hell.

And it’s not that wanting to go to Heaven is a bad thing (FAR from it!), or that wanting to avoid Hell is a bad thing either. It’s that our primary goal in life should line up with our primary reason of existence: to worship God, reflect Him  well, and to find joy and satisfaction in relationship with Him. And while that desire isn’t something that necessarily comes naturally or easily to our sinful selves, we need to seek God for it and allow God to change our hearts to be inline with where He has ordained them to be. Anything less is essentially self-worship: How can I get this? How can I avoid that? How can I…

This goes back to the essentials of our romantic relationships. It’d be like me asking my wife;” How far can I stray from you before you divorce me?” “How many nights a week can I go to the strip club…?” “How many girls can I sleep with before you…?” In other words, love for someone is not seeing how far we can go before they ‘reject’ us. Love for someone is seeing how much you can do to please them?

So do you want to really please God, your future (or current) spouse, and yourself with your sexual decisions? Ask yourself this;” How far would be too far for my husband/wife to go sexually with another woman/man?” And wherever that lines is; that’s how far you should go with your current boyfriend/girlfriend because someday, they’ll be someone’s husband/wife. Andy Stanley says that sexual purity leads to intimacy (with your future spouse). So keep pure today, so that someday you can be more intimate with the one you will spend the rest of your nights with.

I think not. Here’s the first problem: The fact that Islam is on the same sticker as a PEACE SIGN?! That’s a problem! Islam is NOT a religion of peace- period. It is a religion that at its core wants to eliminate every “infidel” by the sword who does not except that there is one god whose name is Allah and that Mohamed is his prophet.

This week there was a controversy over Franklin Graham being asked to officiate a special ceremony for the National Day of Prayer at the Pentagon in Washington DC. Why? Because in 2001, after the September 11th tragedy, Graham called Islam evil. He called it as he saw it. And now he can’t officiate a Christian prayer because of his opinion on Islam?

It’s not as if Islam has respect for Christianity or even Christian people. But I, as a Christian, have been called to love my enemy and my neighbor. And the Muslims around me are my neighbors and because of that I will love them and respect them, but I will not respect their religion. They are not my enemy, but the Bible tells me to pray for those who persecute me. And though I may not personally persecuted by Islam, I know that my brothers and sisters around the world are. And I will love and pray for Muslims around the world with great willingness and joy because of it. I love them and I hope the best for them and I want them to find an everlasting committed relationship with Jesus Christ.

I KNOW that there are probably many kind and loving Muslims all around the world that sincerely care for their neighbors, I’m just saying that their religion is not a religion of peace, and that a peace sign next to a symbol representing Islam is an oxymoron, and belittles people’s intellegence to propose that it (Islam) is (a religion of peace).

Jesus wasn’t fooling around in Luke 14:26 when he said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.“

I have recently decided to make a change in my life and what I have learned is that people REALLY HATE CHANGE! Even if a particular person is not making a change themselves; someone else making one causes them to rethink their lives and their (sometimes selfish) plans for you (the one making the change).

I really love my family. We are closer than any family I know, but unfortunately that is making this change much harder than usual. We have all been so content living inside of our little bubble and when God calls one of us out of that bubble, it shakes the bubble up for everyone else in it. It makes them question whether they should be in the bubble or not. Or if they stay in the it, how they will fill the space in the bubble that you just created by leaving.

Now I obviously don’t hate my parents, my wife, or my children. That’s not what Jesus was implying. I love all of those people VERY much. But what Jesus meant, was, that we have to put following Him in front of all of our other relationships. That no matter what Jesus calls us to do, and no matter how many people that upsets, that we do it because we love Him more than everyone else. The love we are to have for Jesus is so much bigger than the love we have for our families; that if you compared the two , the love for our families would seem like hate.

Later in verse 27 of chapter 14, Jesus says,” Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” I am really starting to understand what Jesus meant. Sometimes following Him can be really difficult, but knowing that I am going to follow Him no matter what the cost and no matter who it offends only makes me stronger in the Lord. It will give me a joy in my heart that cannot be understood because it does not make sense to the rational human mind.

Pray for me that God will grant me the strength to make tough decisions and that my relationship with my family would stay strong.

Salvation belongs to God (Revelation 7:10), and is solely a gift of grace for Him to give (Romans 5:15; Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8) to sinful man. It is received by faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:12; Ephesians 2:8-10); whose holy life, substitutionary death, and glorious resurrection made it possible for our sins to be forgiven, our punishment to be taken away, and for His righteousness to be imputed to us (Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:18-19; see notes on The Person and Work of Jesus).

This faith in Jesus is received by hearing His Word (Romans 10:17). The Holy Spirit draws us into this faith in Jesus by convicting us of our sins, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8-11); thus revealing our need for Him.

Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation (John 14:6).

We are not saved by good works, but rather to do good works (Ephesians 2:10).

The Bible says in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” This is an act of faith. It’s simply acknowledging that you are a sinner who needs the forgiveness of God in your life so that you can be restored in Him, and that the only way for that to happen is to ‘fully rest in the fact that what Jesus did for you took care of everything’ and ‘begin to follow Him’.

Once saved; the Holy Spirit baptizes the Christian into the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-15), dwells within them from the moment of salvation (Acts 2:38; Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20), and seals them until the Day of Redemption (John 6:37-40; John 10;27-30; Romans 8:38-39; 1 Corinthians 1:4-8; 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 4:30; Philippians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:5).

The Holy Spirit sanctifies the believer-making them more like Jesus- (John 14:26; Romans 8:9), thus regenerating the believer and giving them a new life (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Those who are saved- Christians/ believers- will be known by their love for one another (John 13:35) and by the Spiritual Fruit- or good works- that they produce (Matthew 7:15-23; Ephesians 2:10).

It is a Christian’s desire to please God and abstain from sin (Romans 7:7-25); so they must not take advantage of God’s grace and the freedom it gives to indulge in sinful activity (Romans 6; 1 Corinthians 8:9-13; Galatians 5:13; Titus 2:11-15; Hebrews 10:26).

Jesus is God the Father’s one and only begotten -or unique-Son (John 3:16) and is equal and One with God the Father (John 1:1-3) and with God the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14), thus existing forever and possessing all of the attributes of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus became man without ceasing to be God (John 1:14-18; 1 Corinthians 1:27-29; Hebrews 2:8-10), was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20), and born of a virgin (Matthew 1:18-25) to save mankind from their sins (John 3:16-17).

In order for Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice for man’s sin (Romans 3:24-26); He sympathized with our weakness’’, was tempted in every way just as we are (Hebrews 4:15), and carried our burdens (Galatians 6:2) all without sinning against God the Father (Hebrews 4:15). He truly lived the life that we could not live (Romans 3:23).

Jesus revealed Himself to man with miracles (John 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26) and revolutionary teaching (Matthew 5). He invited people to be a part of the Kingdom He was establishing on earth (Matthew 4:17; Matthew 12:28) by following Him (Matthew 4:18-20).

Jesus secured our redemption from sin and death by dying an undeserved death (Luke 23:15)- that we deserved to die (Romans 6:23)- on a cross (Matthew 27; Mark 15; Luke 23; John 19; Romans 5).

Once again; He lived a perfect human life, but when He willingly took on our punishment of death (Hebrews 12:2) on the cross, the Bible says that Jesus literally became sin –our sin- so that He could impart to us His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Those sins that we are responsible for, and the laws we are not able to keep were nailed to the cross with Christ (Colossians 2:13-15).

Theologians call this act The Great Exchange; meaning ‘my sin for His righteousness’. In the Bible this is called justification (Romans 3:24; Romans 5:9). Justification is: to be legally acquitted from wrongdoing. Justification is God forgiving us of our sins through Jesus, so when we put our faith in Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross for us (more on that later in Salvation), God would see us as righteous just as Jesus was righteous in His living, because He took upon Himself the punishment for our sins.

Jesus legally took on our punishment so that we would not have to face it ourselves. The particular act of Jesus taking on our punishment is also known as propitiation (Romans 3:25). To propitiate is to conciliate (an offended power); or to appease. This means that the just wrath of God toward our sin and the punishment thereof was poured out, not on us, but on Jesus (Isaiah 53:10).

These acts: Jesus becoming sin; and Him becoming a propitiation for our sins were so horrible that most theologians believe- as do I-  that God the Father actually had to turn His face away from Jesus while He suffered on the cross (Matthew 27:46).

Jesus was buried in a tomb (Matthew 27:60) and resurrected from the dead three days after His death (Matthew 28:1-15). By raising from dead: Jesus proved that he was the promised Messiah (Psalm 16:10; Acts13:33-35), fulfilled promises that He had made (Matthew 12:38-40; John 2:18-22), proved that he was without sin (Acts 2:23-25), and conquered sin and death for eternity (Romans 5; Romans 6:10; Romans 8:2; Hebrews 2-14; James 5:20; 1 Peter 3:18).

Jesus’ death and resurrection assures those who are saved (more on that to come in Salvation) that they will spend eternity with God and will one day be physically resurrected from the dead to live forever(Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians 5:7-9; Mark 12:25-26; Luke 20:36; John 11:24-26; Acts 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:16, etc…).

After Jesus’ resurrection from the dead He spent forty days on earth; appearing to many people (Acts 1:3; 1 Corinthians 15:6), then ascended into heaven to the right hand of God the Father  (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9-10) as our High Priest  (the entire book of Hebrews);who acts as our intercessor, representative, and advocate (Romans 8:34;  and, once again, the entire book of Hebrews).

Jesus will return imminently (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21:10-36; Revelation 22:12 and 20) to the earth to judge the living and the dead (Romans 14:9; 1 Peter 4:5; 1 Timothy 4:1). He will then reign as King forever and ever (1 Timothy 1:17; 1 Timothy 6:14-16; Revelations 15:3; Revelations 19:16).