1.8 Sexual Immorality

I just realized how odd it is that I'm skipping lines on these pages. Perhaps I meant to come back and write in details about each verse? It seems that I actually filled this list past the bottom and added the first Peter reference last, in a line I typically skipped over. It makes sense that this is a full page... I started in the teenage group Bible class just before turning 13 when my friend who was a year older stopped attending with us. We had been a two-person "middle school" class, and the upcoming middle school class was large, so I was slipped up into the big class full of high school students. Of course, where high school students are gathered, lessons about sexual purity will be taught (for good reason!!) I was blessed to hear lessons on God's plan for purity at the same time (and even before) I learned about and discovered the desires He has given us.

• 1 Corinthians 10:8
• 8 Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day.
• Hebrews 13:4
• 4 Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge
• Galatians 4:19 **Galatians 5:19**
• 19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,
• Ephesians 5:3-5
• 3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;
• 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
• 5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
• 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;
• 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
• 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
• 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
• 12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.
• 13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.
• 14 Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.
• 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!
• 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.”
• 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
• 18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.
• 19 Or ado you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
• 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
• Colossians 3:5
• 5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
• Ephesians 2:3
• 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
• 2 Timothy 3:3-4, 6
• [For men will be:]
• 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,
• 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
• 6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses,
• 1 Thessalonians 5:22
• 22 abstain from every form of evil.
• Romans 13:9
• 9 For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
• 2 Timothy 2:22
• 22 Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
• 1 Peter 1:13-14
• 13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
• 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,

There are several clear messages here. Sexual immorality has no place among Christians, even if it was part of life before knowing Christ. God has always despised sexual immorality, and still does. His plan is for sex to be a pure act within the boundary of marriage. Sexual immorality includes not only adultery - sex with someone other than your spouse - but also impurity, evil desire, passion, coarse jesting, and sensuality. It's not about the act, but the attitude - putting the desires of your flesh above your desire for God and respect for His will. In 1 Corinthians, the Christians at Corinth were making excuses for sexual immorality, saying that it was a physical need, and that sating it did not affect their souls. However, God says that our bodies were not created for sexual immorality, but for Him. We are to join our spirits to God, and Him alone. 

God has given us physical desires, but we are to master and control them, rather than letting them control us. We do this by seeking God! We flee lust and pursue righteousness. We prepare our minds for action! Christ lives in us - we are His vessels. We have to keep our vessel in sanctification and honor. We should give our hearts to love and desire for Him, and leave no place for a love of pleasure or evil desires. God says that we should abstain from every form (appearance) of evil, and that sexual immorality should not even be named among His people. We should live lives that are beyond reproach, so that others will glorify God when they see our lives, not question or mock Him. We have been bought with a price - Christ's sacrifice - therefore we should use our bodies and our lives to glorify Him.