J.S. Park

Before asking about this sexual holiness stuff:

When I get questions about fighting for “sexual purity,” I always check out your blog. 

Usually the blog is full of half-naked women, toned up hairless dudes, almost-but-not-quite-but-could-be-porn, and some suggestive-raunchy-provocative imagery. Always a slew of oily tanned celebrities.  Plus plenty of dirty jokes, anti-parent slurs, and all kinds of entitled, angry, spoiled, insufferable memes.

In other words, I would never ever in a billion years let you near my future kids.

If you’re seriously asking about how to fight for holiness — well, hey, like: shouldn’t you actually get serious about that?

I understand this is not easy. You deal with a culture that bombards you with sex and hormones and the ghetto of emotional Hollywood romance.  But you are not making it any easier. 

If you had major heart disease but your fridge was filled with oozing high fructose corn syrup, hot dogs wearing thongs, celebrity ice cream, and chocolate bars dancing on stripper poles: you’re not really doing much to protect your heart’s well-being.  Your doctor would call that counter-intuitive.  It’s the same with your soul.

Fill your head with the eternal, not temporal.  Come on, bro.  Don’t blame this culture or this world or even yourself for your sexual addiction.  Just look to the cross of Christ.  He bled out for you, for every defiled ounce of your brain.

P.S. — I immediately unfollow blogs like the ones I described.  Call me prude but I’m a recovered porn addict, and by the grace of God I prefer to stay that way.

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1 Thessalonians 5:22 — Abstain from every form of evil.

Psalm 119:37 — Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.

Psalm 101:3 — I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me.

1 Peter 1:13-16 — ¹³ Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. ¹⁴ As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. ¹⁵ But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; ¹⁶ for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

James 1:21 — Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

James 1:27 — Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

What God Says About Sex And Holiness

Anonymous asked:

Hey, I just wondered if you could give me advice/help with something. …  I am feeling very distant from God and I’m really struggling with sexual immorality & ‘personal holiness’. I just wondered if you could give me any passages in the bible that i can read or anything that could potentially help! :/ Thanks :)

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There are tons and tons of passages about spiritual transformation and guarding your heart and fighting sexual immorality, so I’ll give you some of the more practical and personal verses that you can apply.

Please remember that true change is always motivated by the Good News.  No one can follow the imperatives of God apart from getting totally exploded by the cross of Christ and what he did.  When we obey God, we’re not merely following a rule-maker but also pleasing the heart of a perfectly good father.  So when you break His commands, you’re also hurting the heart of a graciously good dad. 

As you pray for change, take your eyes off you and focus on Him.  I know that’s some good old-fashioned church advice, but a morbid introspection on your own struggles will only have you circling the drain.  A full face-to-face encounter with Christ will have you picking up your teeth from the tile — in a good way.  We’re not merely running from sin, but running towards someone greater.  No one can identify themselves by what they’re not, but who they now are.

And rely on the Holy Spirit. The church doesn’t mention this enough.  If you believe the Gospel, then God’s Spirit lives in you.  I know this can sound mystical or strange, but remember that God literally has made you His house, and He will convict you with new desires to change.  The Bible doesn’t explain 100% how this works, but I don’t think it needs to: you’ve felt those sober moments after prayer and conviction when it’s like a light went on. 

Be still to listen for His voice.  Ask, What would You have me do in this exact moment right now? Making a practice of that gets easier with time.  One author calls it Dependent Responsibility, because we depend on God for everything but it’s also our responsibility to choose Him.  So choose Him.

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Colossians 3:1-2 — ¹ Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 

1 Corinthians 10:12-13 — ¹² So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! ¹³ No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Psalm 139:23-24 — ²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. ²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Romans 12:2 — Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

1 John 2:15-17 — ¹⁵ Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Ephesians 6:10-18 — The Armor of God

Romans 6-8 — Three Chapters on Change

Psalm 51 — David’s prayer after he was exposed as an adulterer and murderer

Psalm 119 — The longest chapter in the Bible, but worth it

Psalm 19 — A great prayer of reflection