I Thessalonians 4:3-5 says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like Gentiles who do not know God…”
I was in the local high school this past week and over heard two boys talking about their girlfriends. As a father myself, when I heard the derogatory way they viewed these girls, I thought, “If you were around my little girl, I would finish you off right now.” However, this isn’t just something some guys do. I have also heard girls talking about how they manipulate some poor boy for their own personal pleasure.
It comes down to two things, 1. Do you have a relationship with Christ? and 2. Do you view purity the way God does or the way the world does? The reality is these boys mentioned above were not followers of Christ so they viewed purity as the world, like a paper cup. They were seeking to fulfill their wants and they use up, abuse, and throw away their purity like a paper cup.
But look at this passage, What does God want for us? He wants his people to be sanctified. God is not just saving people from sin but he is working in their lives to free them from sins effects and making them holy.
Why does God do this? The obvious answer is that God values his people and wants them to be holy because he is holy. God’s view of purity is himself. God is pure and he wants his people to be pure. The scriptures tell us that we are the bride of Christ. When we think about a wedding we think about how the ones to be wed love and cherish each other. This is how God feels about his people. So we should handle our purity like tea cups. It is fragile and we should be very careful with how we handle our lives. It is easy to give ourselves away. It is easy to talk carelessly about the other sex. It is easy to do what others do, who do not know God.
So we must ask ourselves, “Are we pure in our entertainment? How about in our conversations? Do we practice purity on Faccebook and other social sites? Is our purity handled like a tea cup, valuable and delicate, or like a paper cup, worthless and thrown away?”
