Wednesday, November 11, 2015
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When I was in high school - a long time ago - it seemed like girls had to explain if they weren't a virgin. Now they have to explain if they are. Our culture sees virginity as sort of an oddity. Curious. Nice - sort of. Maybe slightly unnatural. A cable news network once posed this question to their viewers: "Why are we so obsessed with virginity?"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Virgin Treasure."
One of the more recent forays into virgin territory was triggered by an HBO interview with Olympian Lolo Jones. She's won gold medals at the World Indoor Championship twice and has been regarded as one of the best hurdlers in the world. But it was a Twitter mention of being a virgin that started the buzz and made this interview news. After all, she's attractive...she's a star athlete...she's fit - and hasn't had sex? What?
She said, "It's just something, a gift that I want to give to my husband." That's a young woman who understands making sacrifices and working hard to get to a prize. Oh, and she understands the hurdles between her and that finish line. "Please understand," she said, "this journey has been hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, harder than training for the Olympics, harder than graduating from college. I've been tempted. I've had guys tell me, 'If you have sex, it will help you run faster.'" Really?
One gutsy woman - with a seriously tested but uncompromised conviction - again, unintentionally, put virginity back in the national conversation. As did NFL quarterback Tim Tebow some time ago when he revealed he is saving sex for one person - his wife. A pro football quarterback? Come on! Lots of head-scratching; a lot of snickers.
The good news for Lolo and Tim and every man or woman who guards their virginity as a treasure not to be violated is this: you've got God on your side. That's God, as in the Inventor of sex; the Designer of human sexuality, of man, of woman. Oh, yeah, the culture's changed. But you can't change the Creator's plan for His creation.
Jesus said this about sex: "At the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate" (Mark 10:6-9). One man with one woman in a lifetime covenant before God. That's how sex was designed to be. Anything else is settling for a twisted or discounted version of the beauty and the fulfillment God planned for us.
God really cares what we do with His incredible love gift called sex. In Hebrews 13:4, our Word for today from the Word of God, He says, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure. For God will judge...all the sexually immoral." See, God's put a fence around sex. It's called marriage and He'll judge those who violate it. I didn't say that. God did.
My friend Mel has the most amazing vegetable garden I've ever seen and he's got a fence around it. "He doesn't want people to enjoy it, I know." That's not why. He wants to keep it a garden. The fence is there to keep out the things that would ruin it. That's why God put a fence around sex called marriage. It's not there to deprive us of something good or fun. It's there to protect us from ruining something beautiful. A garden is where beautiful things grow if it's kept safe.
The "you're a virgin?" reactions Lolo Jones received as a public person? They're not unique to her. Every person who refuses to bow their knee to the culture's pressure to be "normal," as in sexually active, knows the drill. It's like you're weird or something. It makes me think of the valuable baseball card collection my son built as a boy. The best ones - the ones worth investing in - were those that were hard to find. They were rare. Oh, you could buy a ton of what they called "commons" - the cards there are plenty of - you could get those for cheap. But the rare ones? Valuable!
A virgin isn't weird. They're increasingly rare. And the less there are of them, the more valuable they become. And to all the "Lolos" and "Tims" who still cherish their irreplaceable gift of purity, just know that the finish line - and God's gold medal - are worth the sacrifice and worth the wait.
One of the most powerful words in God's vocabulary is the word "forgiven" because it carries with it the promise that we can be clean and new. It's why Jesus died on the cross. And if you're thinking about what you wish you hadn't done, this is your day when that can be erased from God's Book forever if you're ready to embrace the new beginning Jesus gives at His cross.
Tell Him today you want to belong to Him. And text us that let us help you begin that relationship at 442-244-WORD. This is the day for your "new beginning."