Purity... Part 5
Okay, we've covered a ton of ground and hopefully got you thinking, and maybe feeling convicted. There are choices to make regarding what's been said and what will be said today. The question is who you are going to be at its core: Jesus or something else?
Now, let's take a breather and be honest with each other for a second. I'm a youth/worship pastor and I'm the one doing the talking here, does that mean it doesn't apply to me? Heck no! I'm guilty of lots of sin. To be brutally honest, I'm not just a pastor, I'm a guy which means I have some serious issues with my road to purity. Guys are generally visually stimulated to the point that our culture tries to sell everything to us with scantily clad women. I have had serious issues with that in my life and had to come up with a way to beat it so I could get to know my God. The answer for me was to "bounce" my eyes. If that college girl out jogging knew what I was thinking when I stared, it would have been frightening, but now I was making sure I "bounced" my eyes to something else (a traffic light, the floor, etc.). I got to where I knew where certain billboards (like Hooters, certain "gentleman's clubs," etc.) were along I-35 and made sure I didn't even look that way when I drove past. Was it easy? Not by a long shot. Did I screw up with that intention? Yes. Has it made me a better person today? Undoubtedly.
The second element of my attack on my impure lifestyle was to partner with a "band of brothers." We held each others feet to the fire with total honesty and love, tough love, but always love. We'd check with each other at school asking the tough questions (our questions came in code with extra layers of meaning just for us, so no one else knew what we were talking about, like "Did you pull the trigger?") and responding in love if the other guy had screwed up. We didn't tell each other things like, "It's okay, we all screw up." (despite the truth in that statement). But instead told each other the same thing Jesus told the woman caught in adultery: "Go and change." We also got updates on what the others looked at on the internet to cut out that outlet of filth (check out XXXChurch and download X3Watch, I'll be your accountability partner if finding someone is an issue!). Without those guys, the first line would have lasted a week or two, and then I'd be back cruising down campus corner at 4:45 to stare as several hundred sorority chicks came pouring out for their nightly run...
The third element mixed in with the first two, I began reading my Bible and praying a lot more. In fact, I got a journal book and started writing down what I read and what I thought about as well as what I prayed for (and you can ask my wife, I still do this today). The reason I did that was because of how I process things. I know things better if I write down what I'm thinking (which is part of why I write these up everyday!) plus I could see God answering prayers as I went through the pages of my journal. I followed (and still do) a simple format as I reflected: I asked "what" questions to figure out what it said and what was going on; I asked "why" questions to figure out what it meant and what the motive behind it was; and I asked how that applied to my life (in college I learned that it was the "inductive method" or OIA [observe, interpret, apply]).
The final step (then) was to monitor what I took in media wise: what I watched, what I listened to, what I read. Things that weren't worth the time of day (I'll show my age with the list of things I decided were off the agenda: American Pie type movies, a lot of the metal/rock music [Foreigner, Metallica, etc.], and any book that had language and sexual content I didn't need) I either threw out or eliminated altogether. That often meant not doing some things I might really want to do, like go to a movie that weekend or go to certain concerts. It also meant that some people began to make fun of me. I was often (although very seldom to my face) called a "goody two shoes" and other, less printable names referring to the same idea. Was it an easy choice to make? No. Did I even have the full support of those in our youth group? No. Did I lose friends over my stand for purity? Yes. But I wouldn't take another track regardless.
Today you are bombarded with everything all the time online (porn is a $10 billion plus dollar business for a reason!), at school (seriously, you've seen the wway some people dress), on TV (Jersey Shore, JackA$#, Real World, Secret Life, even Friday Night Lights), in movies (anything remotely related to American Pie, etc.), in music (like the Black Eyed Peas who think the lyric "d@#%" can carry a song for more than one minute alone) and I could go on with other ways, but the choice is yours: do you want to be who God made you to be? Do you want to live life God's way? Do you actually believe what you say you believe?
There are other things I could say, but those four steps can go a LONG way in increasing your overall purity. And it is my prayer and passion, that you become someone who is who God made you to be so that we won't be telling you to set an example, but looking to you as the example. So I'll leave with my prayer for you from 1 Timothy 4:12 as I hope it can be read:
No one looks down on you because of your age since you set an example for all the believers in what you say, what you do, how you love, how you believe, and in your purity...
May it become reality in you!
Now, let's take a breather and be honest with each other for a second. I'm a youth/worship pastor and I'm the one doing the talking here, does that mean it doesn't apply to me? Heck no! I'm guilty of lots of sin. To be brutally honest, I'm not just a pastor, I'm a guy which means I have some serious issues with my road to purity. Guys are generally visually stimulated to the point that our culture tries to sell everything to us with scantily clad women. I have had serious issues with that in my life and had to come up with a way to beat it so I could get to know my God. The answer for me was to "bounce" my eyes. If that college girl out jogging knew what I was thinking when I stared, it would have been frightening, but now I was making sure I "bounced" my eyes to something else (a traffic light, the floor, etc.). I got to where I knew where certain billboards (like Hooters, certain "gentleman's clubs," etc.) were along I-35 and made sure I didn't even look that way when I drove past. Was it easy? Not by a long shot. Did I screw up with that intention? Yes. Has it made me a better person today? Undoubtedly.
The second element of my attack on my impure lifestyle was to partner with a "band of brothers." We held each others feet to the fire with total honesty and love, tough love, but always love. We'd check with each other at school asking the tough questions (our questions came in code with extra layers of meaning just for us, so no one else knew what we were talking about, like "Did you pull the trigger?") and responding in love if the other guy had screwed up. We didn't tell each other things like, "It's okay, we all screw up." (despite the truth in that statement). But instead told each other the same thing Jesus told the woman caught in adultery: "Go and change." We also got updates on what the others looked at on the internet to cut out that outlet of filth (check out XXXChurch and download X3Watch, I'll be your accountability partner if finding someone is an issue!). Without those guys, the first line would have lasted a week or two, and then I'd be back cruising down campus corner at 4:45 to stare as several hundred sorority chicks came pouring out for their nightly run...
The third element mixed in with the first two, I began reading my Bible and praying a lot more. In fact, I got a journal book and started writing down what I read and what I thought about as well as what I prayed for (and you can ask my wife, I still do this today). The reason I did that was because of how I process things. I know things better if I write down what I'm thinking (which is part of why I write these up everyday!) plus I could see God answering prayers as I went through the pages of my journal. I followed (and still do) a simple format as I reflected: I asked "what" questions to figure out what it said and what was going on; I asked "why" questions to figure out what it meant and what the motive behind it was; and I asked how that applied to my life (in college I learned that it was the "inductive method" or OIA [observe, interpret, apply]).
The final step (then) was to monitor what I took in media wise: what I watched, what I listened to, what I read. Things that weren't worth the time of day (I'll show my age with the list of things I decided were off the agenda: American Pie type movies, a lot of the metal/rock music [Foreigner, Metallica, etc.], and any book that had language and sexual content I didn't need) I either threw out or eliminated altogether. That often meant not doing some things I might really want to do, like go to a movie that weekend or go to certain concerts. It also meant that some people began to make fun of me. I was often (although very seldom to my face) called a "goody two shoes" and other, less printable names referring to the same idea. Was it an easy choice to make? No. Did I even have the full support of those in our youth group? No. Did I lose friends over my stand for purity? Yes. But I wouldn't take another track regardless.
Today you are bombarded with everything all the time online (porn is a $10 billion plus dollar business for a reason!), at school (seriously, you've seen the wway some people dress), on TV (Jersey Shore, JackA$#, Real World, Secret Life, even Friday Night Lights), in movies (anything remotely related to American Pie, etc.), in music (like the Black Eyed Peas who think the lyric "d@#%" can carry a song for more than one minute alone) and I could go on with other ways, but the choice is yours: do you want to be who God made you to be? Do you want to live life God's way? Do you actually believe what you say you believe?
There are other things I could say, but those four steps can go a LONG way in increasing your overall purity. And it is my prayer and passion, that you become someone who is who God made you to be so that we won't be telling you to set an example, but looking to you as the example. So I'll leave with my prayer for you from 1 Timothy 4:12 as I hope it can be read:
No one looks down on you because of your age since you set an example for all the believers in what you say, what you do, how you love, how you believe, and in your purity...
May it become reality in you!
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