1 Corinthians 13

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Someday My Prince Will Come

My mission statement: Someday, my prince will come, but, until that time, I will be trusting God, turning to Him when the loneliness is overwhelming and waiting in abstinence for the one man that was planned for me from the beginning of time. "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope." (Psalm 130: 5)

Worth the Wait?

Sex. The big, bad three lettered word. In our Western culture we are hammered, pounded, and drenched in sex, sex, sex! It’s in the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the books we read, the magazines we browse, the channels we surf, the sites we visit, the jokes we tell, at school, in the workplace.  Sex is everywhere! There is no escaping it.

Sex has been twisted, maimed, pummeled, and mutilated into something dirty, ugly, horrible, and vulgar.

There used to be something in Hollywood in the early 1930’s called the “Motion Picture Production Code” which was extremely cautious in its treatment of sex . But those days are long over. Almost every single film out there has one or more inappropriate scenes in it. Hollywood calls those scenes “love scenes” or the characters are “making love”. I’ve got a better word for it: LUST! They don’t “love” each other, they just want what they want, right here, right now, instant gratification, instant satisfaction. I’ve got news for you: True love waits. (see 1 Corinthians 13).

In the film Valentine’s Day, Hector Elizondo assures Emma Roberts (who is getting ready to have sex for the first time with her boyfriend) that “young people weren’t as promiscuous back then (in the Good Old Days) as kids are today ”. Wrong! In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon assures us that “what has been done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Solomon goes on to say that even though something looks new, it is not. “It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.” (Ecclesiastes 1:10) In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul also writes that “since there is so much (sexual) immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.”

In other words, young people in the 1930’s were just as promiscuous as they are today, as they were in medieval times and Bible times. Nothing much has changed. We’re no worse than those who lived back in the Iron Age and we’re no better than those hypocrites who lived in the Puritan society. So…

How can a young man/woman keep his/her way pure? (Psalm 119:9). As a woman in her early twenties who is waiting for love, I often ask myself: Is love really worth the wait? So often I see people living sexually immoral lives and yet it doesn’t seem as though there are any consequences for those people. I end up asking myself: Is love really worth the wait? “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.” (Psalm 37:7) “Wait for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.” (Psalm 37:34) Those are such encouraging verses and considering the adulterer and murderer who wrote them, it is almost ironic. David and Bathsheba were severely punished for their sexual immorality; the death of their first born son was a devastating blow.

Purity is not just abstaining from sexual relations until married (which is huge, by the way), it is a lifestyle: “Set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12) “Avoid every kind of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:22) “Do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.” (1 Timothy 5:22) “Do not conform.” (1 Peter 1:14) “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. (Ephesians 5:1-3)