Monday, May 4, 2015
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One day my oldest son and I wandered into this huge memorabilia store. And in the cases were all kinds of artifacts of his childhood, and even mine. Like there was a Brachiosaurus... No, but I was looking at baseball cards that I once owned, thanks to the pop bottle deposits I collected many years ago. Notice I said I once owned. When we were moving, my Mother threw them away. And so I found myself looking at what might have been. Those same cards are now worth hundreds of dollars.
My son, meanwhile, was looking at the toys of his not-that-long-ago childhood, including some action figures and a very popular space ship. And I couldn't believe what they're worth today. The dealer said that some woman had bought them years ago, took care of them, held onto them, and now almost 20 years later, she brought them in to cash them in. Now, we had the same thing she did, but we didn't get the value out of them that she did, because she hung on to what others carelessly threw away.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Purity - Your Appreciating Asset."
Our word for today from the Word of God - 1 Thessalonians 4:3, "It is God's will that you should be sanctified." By the way, that means like kept or reserved for special purposes; kept special. You're valuable, and God wants you to stay that way. Not everyone does.
The difference? Well, He goes on to say He wants you to avoid sexual immorality. "That each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable." Staying special means staying away from sexual impurity; so a sexual relationship with anyone but the one God designed sex for, your lifetime marriage partner. In a word, God is talking about virginity if you're not married and faithfulness if you are.
What's the alternative? He talks about "passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God." That's the opposite of controlling your body in holiness. Throwing away something of great value; not realizing what you're losing. My Mother did that with my old baseball cards. Our family did it with the kid's old toys. If only we'd kept them special, they would have been worth so much.
So many people have realized that about their sexual purity on their wedding night. If only they hadn't already thrown it away, it would have been so much more valuable. So many married people have wandered outside their marriage vows and gotten physically involved with someone else, not realizing at the time the treasure they were trashing.
It's very possible that you're feeling heavy pressure right now to give up your virginity or to be unfaithful. Well God knew that, and He wanted to send you this message right now to save you from it. This warning: not to throw it away. If you're single and you're still a virgin, I know it's getting harder and harder all the time to not give in isn't it? You may be taking a fair amount of ridicule for being weird. Well, you're not weird just because so many others have thrown their treasure away. No, you're rare and so you're valuable.
Maybe you've already taken sex out of God's bounds and there's a voice inside of you saying, "What's the use?" Well, that's the Devil himself broadcasting his lie that you have to stay this way. The truth is that Jesus is waiting for you to bring every sexual sin to His cross where He died to pay for everything you've ever done, all of those incidents and to claim His restoring promise of 1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus, God's Son, purifies us from all sin." All sin.
You want to be clean today? You want every sin of your life erased from God's Book? Then this is the day you take what Jesus did on the cross and make it yours. You say, "How do I do that, Ron?" Let me meet you at our website ANewStory.com and take you to where you can begin your relationship with Him. Saying, "Jesus, I'm yours."
You can begin today to restore the specialness of sex and the virginity of your soul. I realized that day in the memorabilia shop that a person can be rich just because they hang onto something that other people throw away. A virgin, a faithful husband or wife, is rich God says. If you're hanging on to your purity no matter what the temptation, I can tell you, your value is going up and up and up.