Here's a great article to ponder for Friday!

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/nine-lies-in-the-not-yet-married-life

My dearest wife;

God, by His holy will, has prolonged my prison sentence to five years and four month. I very much long for the day that I will be reunited with you my dear wife, our children and God's people in the church.

My dear, listen to me; not only as a wife, but also as a Christian woman who has come to understand who God is and how deep and mysterious His ways are. Yes! I love you, I love the children and I would love to be free in order to serve God. But, in here, God has made me not only a sufferer for His Name's sake in a prison of this world over which Christ has won victory, but also a prisoner of His indescribable love and grace.

I am testing and experiencing the love and care of our Lord every day. When they first brought me to this prison, I had thoughts which were contrary to what the Bible says. I thought the devil had prevailed over the church and over me. I thought the work of the gospel in [country] was over. But it did not take one day for the Lord to show me that He is a sovereign God and that He is in control of all things - even here in prison.

The moment I entered my cell, one of the prisoners called me and said, ‘Pastor, come over here. Everyone in this cell is unsaved. You are very much needed here.’ So, on the same day I was put in prison, I carried on my spiritual work.

My dear, the longer I stay in here, the more I love my Savior and tell the people here about His goodness. His grace is enabling me to overcome the coldness and the longing that I feel for you and for our children. Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Am I out of my mind? Am I a fool?’ Well, isn't that what the apostle had said, ‘Whether I am of sound mind or out of my mind, it is for the sake of Christ.’ (2 Cor. 5:13)

My most respected wife, I love you more than I can say. Please help the children understand that I am here as a prisoner of Christ for the greater cause of the gospel.

(originally posted in 2010)

-- a recent letter from a Christian in prison in an African country...

see http://members.opendoorsusa.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=45641.0&dlv_id=0 and http://www.opendoorsusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=17

Regarding this CNN article, "Why young Christians aren't waiting anymore", which linked to a Relevant article reporting that 8 out of 10 unmarried "evangelical Christians" between 18-29 have had sex (only slightly less than the national average of 9 out of 10 for the same age bracket), I have a couple thoughts.

First, as I mentioned in my previous post, many people who call themselves "Christians" are not true believers in Jesus.   They are merely 'culturally' Christian, with no real understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.  Many of them have not even read the Bible, and are perhaps only vaguely aware that the Bible explicitly forbids sex outside of marriage (in more than 40 places, e.g. 1 Thessalonians 4, Hebrews 13, and many others).

Second, here's an interesting excerpt from the article:

The article highlights what challenges abstinence movements face. Movements such as “True Love Waits,” encourage teens to wear purity rings, sign virginity pledges and pledge chastity during public ceremonies. Yet many of these Christian youths eventually abandon their purity pledges....

This is sad and unsurprising, that such outward, public, visibility-focused, man-centric, pledges and covenants and rings and tokens are ultimately failing to help keep (at least 8 out of 10) young men and women pure until marriage.

What is really needed is a true heart-understanding and knowledge of Jesus Christ... knowledge of God's awesome, magnificent, heartwrenching, self-sacrificing, pure, unconditional, LOVE for us.   As Tim Keller says, all sin in the life of a Christian comes from a temporary disbelief in the Gospel.   The Gospel is the good news of how God loved us so much that He Himself paid the penalty of sin that would have cost us eternal death/torment/destruction...  and how He calls those of us who are enabled to understand and believe this to repent of our sins, "turn around", and walk in "newness of life", following Him in new paths of purity and love.

If we really understand God's love for us... if we really consider how much suffering Jesus Christ endured for us because of His love for us... if we really understood how much glory is waiting for us on the other side of death...  then temptation would lose its power.

When temptation strikes, e.g. late at night between a young man and a young woman alone with their feelings and their hormones, a "virginity pledge" or "purity ring" is not going to have any real power.  What is needed instead is a generation who truly knows God, who is truly astounded and deeply satisfied by His love for us... so that we can respond to the temptation as Joseph did - "How could I do this great evil and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9)

If "a woman's heart should be so focused/absorbed/lost in God that a man should have to seek Him to find her" as they say, then, in my opinion, a man's heart should be so focused/absorbed/lost in God that he would not even notice the woman at all until God knocks him out cold and personally gives her to him.