Why Is Purity Important for My Present?

According to the Social Security Administration, the average life expectancy in 2014 for a 16 year old girl is 86.4 years (http://www.socialsecurity.gov/cgi-bin/longevity.cgi), which means you have lived only about one-sixth of your life. Adults are always instructing you how you should live your life with the future in mind, yet you have barely lived long enough to have a reference point for the present, let alone the future.  How can you be expected to plan for the rest of your life when you have so little life experience upon which you may draw? To top things off, teenagers today are dealing with far more than they did twenty to thirty years ago. Homework, stretching late into the evenings; athletics, requiring hours and hours of practice and games; music lessons, which require rehearsals; SAT prep classes; volunteering at church; and special interest clubs all compete for your time and attention.  No wonder you can’t envision the future! Your present is so full it has completely blinded you to what might happen a month from now, let alone ten years from now.  And all of this is accompanied by stress.  According to one report, the proportion of 15 to 16 year olds who report often feeling anxious or depressed has doubled in the last thirty years,     (http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/increased-levels-anxiety-and-depression-teenage-experience-changes-over-time). 

I get it. Much of what you are experiencing is due to your vantage point and the physiological changes which are occurring within your body. As you mature, your brain is being bombarded with hormones. These hormones can cause mood swings, sensitivity, anger, depression, and self-hatred.  There is a lot going on. Is it any wonder our young people are looking for instant gratification? Life is so complex, so demanding, that the temptation to escape the current environment and to feel the thrill of the moment is too overwhelming to resist. And yet when speaking to young people, the older generation still uses the same old arguments that they have been making for thirty plus years:  “Think of the future; someday you will be glad you made the choice to…. How will this impact your life? What are your long-term goals?”

I could sit here all day and tell you how keeping yourself pure is important for your future, but like I said, if you cannot imagine a future with you in it, I have not given you anything that is applicable to your life today; and therefore, my words are meaningless. So, why is purity important for your present? How will living a lifestyle of purity benefit you right now?

 Self-esteem

Making good choices—choosing purity—actually helps you feel better about yourself.   Foolish choices can doom you and produce self-hate.

Think about a time when you caved to peer pressure and did something in order to “fit in.” How did you feel afterwards? What happened to your sense of value?

Now, think about a time when you chose to do the right thing. How did you feel about yourself? Did you feel better about who you are?

Any girl who has lost her purity can testify to the fact that the first time she did something to compromise it, there was tremendous guilt and self-loathing. It may feel thrilling and exciting in the moment, but as soon as you are left alone to process what you have done, the shame sets in. It may be easy for a young lady to harden herself and pretend that her experience was amazing and beneficial, but deep down, she knows. Her confidence starts to wane. She starts to look to others to find her self-worth, only to discover that man will fail a person a thousand times over. She may appear to be on top of the world; but behind her smile there is a heart breaking into a million pieces—a life spiraling downward with no bottom in sight.

God’s Word indicates that He takes sex seriously. Peruse the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy and you will find laws concerning whom you may have sex with and when. This is not to be taken lightly. God knew we would pervert this wonderful gift that He had given to man during creation in the Garden of Eden. He also knew that by abusing His gift, we would not only corrupt our relationships with others, but we would also damage our relationship with God.

How can impurity damage your relationship with God?

Read Psalm 32:3-5. This Psalm was written by King David. We are not sure what the incident was that motivated him to write this psalm, but obviously, he was feeling tremendous guilt about some sin in his life. How did David feel before he acknowledged his sin to God?

Now page to the right a few pages and read Psalm 66:18?  What does this verse indicate about how sin affects our prayers?

Sin wracks us with guilt and stands in the way of our prayers. It harms our relationship with God. When our fellowship with God is impaired, our self-esteem plunges. Loving God is how we learn to love ourselves. Being in communion with Him is life-changing. God cannot be in the presence of sin. Habakkuk 1:13a states, “Your [God’s] eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.” Choosing purity in a way is choosing God. And by choosing God, self-worth will follow.

Self-control

If you have been in church long enough, you have at some point in your life heard someone speak about the “fruit of the Spirit.” Galatians 5:22-23 tells us that the “fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Why is self-control so important in a person’s life and how can it benefit you right now? We have all heard the saying, “Good things come to those who wait.” But from where does this idea of waiting come and for what good things am I waiting?

Let’s look at a few Bible verses that deal with delayed gratification.  Read the following verses and for each, write down what you learn about waiting:

Lamentations 3:25: 

Psalm 27:14: 

Psalm 37:7: 

Micah 7:7: 

Isaiah 30:18: 

Isaiah 40:31: 

James 5:7: 

As a Christian, your whole life is lived waiting for death or Jesus’ advent so that you might live in heaven. We are waiting on God, waiting on blessings, waiting on heaven, waiting to be reunited with those whom we have lost, and waiting to be transformed into our heavenly bodies which will know no sorrow, sickness, or pain. If you cannot learn to be patient—to be self-controlled—then this life is going to be pretty miserable for you.

Song of Songs 2:7 instructs young ladies, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” Even love is a waiting game, and perhaps the most important one you will play. By waiting to engage in physical intimacy right now you are learning self-control. You are learning to wait upon your Savior in a world where “waiting” has been turned into a four-letter word. Postponing passion gives you an edge. The discipline you will develop through waiting will give you an advantage in everything you do.

To Be Set apart

You are special. When you accepted Christ as your personal Savior, you became part of an amazing family with characteristics that are very similar to other members of God’s family. Christians should look like they are related—in their behavior, their speech, their entertainment choices, and their love. You should not look like the rest of the world because you do not belong to that family. You are royalty, and as such, certain expectations should be met, as in any royal family. You would never see the queen of England getting drunk and dancing on a table or appearing in public without being decently attired. Royalty shouldn’t behave as a commoner might. That is why it was such a scandalous affair when Prince Harry was photographed drunk and nude at a private party. Monarchs should never engage in such crude behavior. Guess what? As a member of God’s family, there are expectations of behavior for you, too.

Before you were adopted into God’s family, the highest price was paid for your membership. Read 1 Corinthians 6:18-20.  How does choosing purity—behaving differently from the rest of the world—honor God and demonstrate your love for Him?

Read Romans 12:2. What does it mean to you to not conform to the pattern of this world? How do we keep from behaving like the world?

We are to be different! We shouldn’t act like the world around us. Daily, we have to set it in our hearts to stand firm and be different. We are to be in the world—not of the world.

Now read Titus 2:11-14. What teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions? When are we to live godly lives?

God’s grace teaches us. His Spirit is inside every believer, teaching and guiding. Now is the time in which we are to live self-controlled and upright lives while we wait for Jesus to return for those He calls His very own.

Read 1 John 2:15-17. If you love the world, is the love of God in you? (please, understand that when these verses speak about loving the world, they are not referring to people in the world or the created world, but the world—or realm—of sin; we are not to love sin and the things associated with it) What will happen to this world?

As we have already discovered, God cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, if you want Jesus to be with you today, walking every step of the path with you, you must put away sinful desires.

This is not what the world teaches. The world’s philosophy is, if it feels right to you, then it must be good. Purity is not embraced by the world and taking a stand for it will feel very lonely and downright uncomfortable at times. However, 1 John 3:13 tells us, “Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.” Like I said though, you shouldn’t look like the world. The world does not own you. You have been adopted into a royal family full of love and grace. You need to play the part. You are not a commoner, so do not let the world pull you down and sully your regal robes.  Stand firm with your head held high and know that because you are so very loved, you have been set apart.