Adultery and Fornication..what's good?

Of course as always, my desire is to ultimately communicate Christ's perspective, not my own, and I welcome any and all criticism and support.

Adultery and Fornication, as unsavory as these two items may be(for discussion purposes) there is a great need concerning a clear understanding of them and what we can do to change our behavior. My specific burden is for the young men. It needs to be communicated amongst us that these are not desirable qualities. Sounds elementary doesn't it, but it's far from that, fornication and adultery as principles as well as practice run rampant throughout our culture and society. I remember growing up, learning the ropes, how to be good at the practice, the "game", receiving the accolades and praise of my peers. The callus regard for my significant others solidarity when I was in a relationship. I'm not the brightest tool in the shed, but I'm far from a dull blade, how could I stray so far from what I believe is right and decent and forget my obligations to God altogether. The root of the answer is simple, culture and education. The lack or presence of these two things has destroyed countless people and lives throughout history, and we are no different. Our culture must change. No one educates us(young men) "clearly" on what these two behavioral acts actually are in this society. Primarily because of the absence of "God culture". Sure there are many books and quite a bit of reference material on the topics but these are subjective issues, not objective, that is, I should say, personal...this is not business, this is our very lives being destroyed before our eyes with very destructive personal experiences. The only way to leap from this cesspool of cultural detritus is to call it what it is, and embrace the truth of our disposition. From this point we, the older more experienced men should HONESTLY communicate where we've been, what we've done and most importantly, what we are doing now that we know the truth. We must choose to be something other than what we've been. Only in this way can we recover our true heritage and culture, which is in God, not the flesh or human tradition. We must be humble enough to admit that we can't overcome this mess alone, only through Christ can we HOPE to become the men we want to be.

Now, as Christians it is most critical that we observe Christ's desire and will above all other things concerning this matter. So, although it's common knowledge that fornication and and adultery are both immoral and against the will of God I felt the need to erase any doubts with scripture, Exodus 20:14 is the most reference able verse; "Thou shalt not commit adultery", but the verse that communicates the message I am delivering is this one from Proverbs 6:32; "He who commits adultery with a woman lacks sense, he who does destroys his own soul, he will find wounds and dishonor and his reproach will not be wiped away", wow, that doesn't sound good at all does it. Fornication is adultery's twin brother, first Corinthians 6:13 says; "Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, but God will bring to naught both it and them, the body is not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body". In the event that there was some confusion created by that scripture's opening I will clarify. The purpose for the correlation between food and the stomach is to identify purpose, the stomach's purpose is for food, if there was no need for food there would be no need for a stomach. Likewise or correspondingly the body is for the Lord, our purpose is for the Lord, we are meant to contain and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, married or not. Our very bodies referred to as vessels and temples by the Lord. The primary point is this, fornication and adultery defile the temple or container. A defiled container cannot hold what it was designed to hold. Christ's recognition of the status of oneness in a marriage is what changes the behavior from fornication to adultery. Clearly the Lord's desire is that neither be committed, for his sake, the sake of the Gospel. The Gospel is the primary thing, when we, "the container" are defiled or damaged we corrupt our ability to transmit the message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So having this clear understanding of God's desire towards us concerning this matter let us examine how these behaviors effect us and those around us. Both behaviors have the same root in selfishness. Selfishness is the opposite of being selfless, which is Christ's character. Personal experience has shown me that it's not the absence of love that allows these behaviors, or even to some degree knowledge, no, it is an overwhelming yet somehow subtle sense of selfishness. I say subtle because I know from personal experience very few of us considered the practice selfish, it simply seemed to be the way things were. I remember my cousin giving me a speech just before I was married in 1996 concerning the behavior of a married man. In this speech he informed me that I was a man, and a man is going to be a man, meaning I would continue to to seek sex and whatever else I wanted from other women, that the important thing was to keep it out of my home, or not to fall victim to being found out. This offended me more, I think, than anything anyone had ever said to me concerning relationships, truth is, he was my most respected cousin and greatest source of information concerning women, consequently he had the greatest subjective(personal) influence anyone could have on me. Is he responsible for for my heinous behavior as the years went on, no, of course not, but he did help me take the fence down around my castle, and someone helped him, someone helps us all. Anyone observing my wife and I at that time would have clearly seen we were in love, how could I allow that to be destroyed? Knowledge is power is what we say. The Bible says in Hosea 4:6; "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge". Knowledge is not power, knowledge creates opportunity to express what is inside a man. A lack of it leaves a man with only his circumstances and the culture he is surrounded by. Having love is wonderful, God is love, but being unable to express it because of a lack of knowledge is disastrous. Love is not enough apart from knowledge, but we must first have love. I have always acclimated the status of a relationship to that of a stock holder and his shares. When dealing with stocks a broker advises one to diversify their portfolio, that is to spread one's assets to do two things, to generate more wealth as well as protect oneself from loosing it all in one failed swoop. Many of us follow this diagram in our relationships as common practice unknowingly. We diversify our "portfolio" with many different women, we learn to do this at a very early age and become very proficient at it as we grow older. It is a practice encouraged by most of our elders and we receive much praise for being successful at it. The most unfortunate thing about this selfish practice is it works, at least carnally, but success in this way is a monumental failure before the Lord. It is the grandest gateway to fornication we participate in. We share ourselves with everyone but never fully commit to one relationship, abandoning all others. We are the Lord's, it is God's desire that we don't diversify our "portfolio". His desire towards us is that we would at our earliest age put all our proverbial "eggs" in one basket...his. That rather than learn to diversify our relationships we should commit to one sincere subjective relationship with him. Success in this singular relationship with Jesus will provide the diagram, wisdom and experience to sustain a righteous relationship with the opposite sex as well as a true oneness with a spouse.

Our familiarity with adultery and fornication is most often associated with the physical act of sex, but with God it goes much further than that. Everything that exists in our physical world is an expression of what IS in the spirit. A good example of this would be a table or a car. Somewhere in the intangible person's being a need is identified, then a thought and finally a picture of what is desired to meet that need or want. Then it is produced or manufactured. It first exists in the mind and then it is brought into our physical realm by action. In Matthew 5:28 it says; "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart"(KJV), the point of this scripture is to identify that it's the thought that counts. The adultery actually takes place in the heart, not the flesh, the flesh reveals what's in the heart. Christ's concern is for what is in our heart and minds. This is why our focus should be on the renewing of our minds as is stated in Romans 12:2 "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God". I included the beginning of that verse for the purpose of identifying our fornicating and adultery is not unusual in this world, it's normal. So adultery is less of an act than it is who we are. When we practice these behaviors we simply reveal what is present within us. That is Christ's concern. Not what we do, but who we are.

The destruction of relationships is widely regarded as the main result of fornication and adultery, but that's not the case. It is true that our relationships become causualties of these behaviors but the most devistating thing that occurs is the Gospel does not continue to spread. Our bodies are the temples of God, the vessels that contain his Spirit. We are the walking talking Church of God. His Gospel goes forth because we speak, because we act, we are the instruments of his will. Think of your children, their potential, what they can do in this world because they "know" something. How much joy does that produce in you. Then think of watching that potential being endangered by drugs or anything else that damages their body, their mind. That is just a fortaste of what Jehovah experiences as he watches us destroy our ability to contain the Holy Spirt and take the Gospel to the world as Christ instructed. His love for us is so much more intense than we could ever imagine, how much more must he endure the pain as we hurt ourselves. We must abandon this behavior, turn to Christ and repent, be cleansed be filled with his Spirit so that we may have salvation, but more importantly for the sake of the Gospel.

Summarizing, I believe that a clear representation of these behaviors is revealed in the preceding paragraphs. There is no need to go into great detail about the specific acts that we are familiar with concerning these behaviors for the acts themselves may vary greatly, but the root is always the same. If we are to change our behavior we have to address the root, not the the branches of the tree. Our efforts cannot be to change our behavior but rather to change who we are and observe that our behavior changes when we inwardly change. Only when our hearts change will our behavior change, and it's a process. God knows this. For this reason he has offered us Grace and his righteousness, because we can not do it ourselves, the Bible says that God's grace is sufficient, I will take it one step further and say that it is the only grace available to us. Man's grace is vain and temporary, we should avoid it unless that man is expressing the grace that has been extended to him through Christ. That man is in Christ and represents Christ, that grace is not vain. If you have been patient enough to read all of this then you may feel that I am off topic at this point, but let me assure you I am not. The purpose of this blog is to educate, but it is not enough to educate without giving the proper understanding, especially when referencing a problem. The behaviors of adultery and fornication have their root in the human condition(fall from grace) but can be remedied by receiving the grace that God has given us freely, by allowing him to renew our minds through study of his word, yielding to his spirit and rejecting our flesh, but above all else receiving the grace. His grace will cover us through the process of changing, and is sufficient to cover all our mistakes, willful or not, as we embrace the inward change that will come in his time.