"You are my strength, strength like no other. Reaches to me"

Why is it so important that we keep ourselves until marriage?
That we view romance not just with our feelings, react to it not just with our emotions but also with our heads? With wisdom and with respect.
Manda asked this question before when we were on this topic.
Why did God give us brains for if not to use it?

"I love my boyfriend and i am gonna marry him in the end, so why does it matter if we go beyond the limits? Why does it matter if we're having sex now or only later after marriage?"

What IF you DON'T marry him?
What IF you GET PREGNANT and he shirks responsibility?
What IF he does feel the need to be responsible and does marry you, NOT because he is ready to commit and to spend his life with you and sure of it, but only because you're carrying his child?

Would you be able to live with that?
Allowing room for doubt years later down the road where you stop and wonder if things didn't happen the way it did, what would become of the two of you? Where would you now be in your life?

Do you really want that?

There is a need to protect our hearts and to protect our bodies
This is no joke
God planned a season for everything
A season to be single
A season to fall in love
A season to marry and to have children

When we push and rush to be in seasons that we are not ready for
We shortchange our destinies
We shortchange God
Yes, something wonderful may still come out of it
But i'd rather have what God had initially planned for me
I'd rather enjoy the seasons as they come
Beautiful moments can only be beautiful when it's allowed to bloom and grow in it's own season, in it's own place


Joshua Harris writes about intimacy in his book, "I kissed Dating Goodbye" :

(page 28, A little principle) " An intimate relationship is a beautiful experience that God wants us to enjoy. After all, He stated that it wasn't good for man to be alone and created the woman to perfectly complement him and help him (Genesis 2: 18). but God has made the fulfillment of intimacy a by-product of commitment-based love. If we want to experience the goodness of His plan, we need to reconnect the pursuit of intimacy with the pursuit of commitment. This is what i call the Little Relationship Principle:

The joy of intimacy is the reward of commitment.

All of us want intimacy. It means being close to someone. It's being vulnerable, open, and dependent. It's giving to and recieving from another person the deepest parts of who we are - our hopes, our fears, our secrets, our affections. An intimate relationship in which we know and are known by another human is one of the most fulfilling and precious parts of life - it's a gift from God.

There are many different kinds of intimate relationships in life. We can be intimate with a friend, a family member, with a coworker, but the deepest, most meaningful of intimate relationships (outside of a Christian's relationship with God) is the one between a husband and a wife who share not only their hearts but also their bodies- in sexual intimacy, two people know each other in a profound way.

What each of these relationships has in common is trust. We are intimate with those people who have proven their faithfulness to us, people who have shown over time that they will be careful to guard what we have given of ourselves. We're intimate with people who are commited to us.

You might say that intimacy between a man and a woman is the icing on the cake of a relationship headed toward marriage. And if we look at intimacy that way, then it becomes obvious that most of our dating relationships are all icing. They usually lack a purpose or a clear destination. In most cases, especially when we're younger, dating is short term, serving the needs for the moment. We date because we want to enjoy the emotional and physical benefits of intimacy without the responsibility of real commitment. "

Another thing we need to realize, unless we are married to someone, in no way are we allowed to enjoy the benefits of physical intimacy with him or her.

Girls, guard your bodies as much as you guard your hearts.
DO NOT give them away so easily.
Save yourself for a man you truly love and who loves you back just as much
Save yourself for someone who has shown his commitment to you, the one who will place that ring on your finger, the one who will say those vows to you, before God and before the congregation as witness

Guys, protect our hearts and our bodies
When we love, we give our all, sometimes allowing emotions to rob us of being clear,
Thus we need you to guard us too
Respect us
And also in that same way, you save yourself for the woman who will make the same commitment to you, as you do her.

Mum had always told and reminded me, since i was at the age of 6, that a lady's virginity is her gift and probably the best gift she can ever give her husband, and as i grew up, i thought that likewise, by saving myself for him, i would want him to save himself for me!

(page 52, Joshua Harris "I kissed Dating Goodbye") " I cannot "own" someone outside of marriage. In God's eyes two married people become one. And as you continue to mature, you'll often crave the oneness that comes from sharing life with someone. Perhaps you feel the desire even now. Yet i believe that until we're ready to commit our lives in marriage, we have no right to treat anyone as if he or she belongs to us. Sarah and Philip are both seniors in high school and have gone out with each other for six months. Their relationship has reached a fairly serious level. In fact, for all intents and purposes, they might as well be married. They rarely do anything apart - they monopolize each other's weekends, drive each other's cars, and know each other's families as well as their own. Their physical relationship is also fairly serious. In fact, it's in a precarious position. Even though they haven't had sex, they constantly struggle with going too far.

The old attitude says we can "play marriage" if we really love someone. But the new attitude views a claim on another person's time, affection, and future before marriage is unwarranted.
Sarah and Philip realize they need to end their relationship as it now exists. By staking a claim on each other, they've stifled their individual growth and needlessly consumed energy that they should have directed into service and preparation for the future. They've planned their lives around each other when they don't really know that they'll get married someday. And in reality, if they're like most high school couples, there's a good chance they will probably marry someone else.

Even if Sarah and Philip had kept their physical relationship completely pure, they still would have unwarranted claims on each other's spiritual and emotional lives by continuing the relationship. If God wants them to be together in future, their current decision to halt their involvement won't endanger His plan. Right now they should choose to obey God and break up a relationship that has them stealing from each other.

Are you making unwarranted emotional, spiritual, or even physical claims on someone? Ask God to show you whether you need to re-evaluate a current relationship. "

Do not play with fire, lest you get burnt
Do not shoot yourself in your own foot
When we are in a relationship and we explore in ways we shouldn't, we are playing with fire!
Are you ready for the hurt and the pain that comes after that?
When we get burnt?

So what, if he's your boyfriend or she's your girlfriend now? You still have no claim or rights over each others' bodies!
When you give your chastity away so easily, and if/when you marry someone else in the end,
Will you be able to look that person in the eye and be able to say,
"You're the only one"

Respecting each other goes a long way.
It pays to wait.
Making it all the more sweeter when we allow intimacy to happen at the right time.

Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity,
" A question of chastity. An outmoded word, the world says, but the truth is it's a Christian's obligation. It means abstention from sexual activity. For the Christian there is one rule and only one rule only: total abstention from sexual activity outside of marriage and total faithfulness inside marriage. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts"

We need, we must be very careful!
In a time and age where this thinking and value now seems obsulate, it is still possible to have a stand and to stick by it!
To have values and stick with them!

Romans 12: 1: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship"

1 Corinthians 6:18: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside of his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body"

vs19: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have recieved from God? You are not your own"

vs20: "you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body"

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7: " Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes. always perseveres"

Philippians 4: 6-7: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition,with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding,will gueard your heart and your minds in Christ Jesus."


Waiting patiently.

Elisabeth Elliot writes these in Passion and Purity,

" Psalm25: 5: on thee i wait all day"

"1 Chronicles 22:18: To wait on the Lord is to stand perfectly still... can we two trust His words, 'Is not the Lord your God with you? And hath he not given you rest on every side?.."

"Patient waiting does not come naturally for most of us, but a great deal is said about it in the bible. It is an important discipline for anyone who wants to learn to trust."

"But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them thoroughly over with God"

"How long Lord, must i wait?"
"Nevermind, child, trust me"

Lord Jesus, i pray for myself, for my friends and for my generation
Let us hold Your standards dear,
Hold Your values close to us
In no way, we will be moved
Let us in no way compromise who we are in You
Teach us, teach me to patiently wait
To be still, to be quiet
Forgive us Lord when we choose not to trust in You
Forgive us when we choose to steer our own lives
Forgive us for the mistakes we have made
If our thoughts and our actions have not been pleasing to You
Purify us
Santify us
You are God over everything
You created Eve for Adam
So surely, surely Oh Lord
You know who's best for us
You have already fashioned someone for each of us
I pray that we will not shortchange our destinies
Myself and the people i love
We will not toy with Your plans
But our eyes and our ears will be open to Your whispers, to Your thoughts
Matters of the heart can be complicated stuff
But never too complicated for You to handle
Take charge dear God, take control over this area
I love you
Amen.

But friends, i wanna encourage you, if your past is something you're not proud of, remember
Romans 8:1:"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"

There were skeletons in my closet which i hid too, a past i'm not very proud of myself, BUT THERE IS NO CONDEMNATION!

Isaiah 43: 18-19: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not percieve it?


In "Put Away Your past" by Lisa Bevere,
She says, "Your past is not Your future."
"If we measure our future by our past, we are doomed to repeat it. It is fallacy to believe that by studying our past failures, traumas or abuses we prevent or correct our current ones. Looking at our past does not guarentee our future - it prevents it. When we search, analyze and delve into our yesterdays, we are limited to our own accumulated information of abuse or wrong decisions. Drawing on our own wisdom and experience will not safeguard our future. We need someone bigger and wiser than ourselves to guide and protect us - we need God"

" We cannot turn fully into the beautiful future God has for us until we completely turn away from our past"


In "Generation Esther", Lisa Ryan writes,
"I want to say something important here, though: If this discussion about the need for purity has brought conviction in your heart, please be encouraged- you can always begin again. If you haven't maintained purity in your life, you aren't forever disquailified from finding God's destiny for your life. God can cleanse you and make you whole again. If you let Him, God will set you apart again, or perhaps for the first time, for His purposes. Remember this: it is never too early or too late to start walking in purity in every area of your life."

So, give your past to God.
God never remembers the wrong we have done once we offer it to Him and seek His forgiveness
Forget your past and give your future to God (: