Love, Sex & Intimacy

Givers are able to tap into special powers. We were made to be lovers. Lovers are givers not takers. Takers eventually end up supposing they need to change partners. They are parasites who take all they can and then have to move to another victim. They are worse than a zero. They are an empty space sucking the life out of everything around them. The sole value that takers have is that they still have the potential to be transformed into givers, if they let God have his beautiful way in their lives.
 — Grantley Morris

In the beginning, God created both maleness and femaleness as expressions of His likeness. We were created by God for love and intimate relationship. Love and Intimacy are our destiny. Our sexuality was made for intimacy to express the glory of God. In our fallen world, that glory has become ruined. Sin has damaged our sexuality and perfect intimacy is no longer possible. False intimacy has become a substitute for real intimacy. Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins — to restore our sexuality so we can use it to express the glory of God.

 It's not surprising that in a time of growing biblical illiteracy, so few people have any idea what God thinks and says about the extremely important subject of sex. The world holds the Christian view of sex in contempt, considering it prudish, naive and repressive. But the Bible elevates sexuality as God's gift to us that is both sacred and mysterious. The world's perspective degrades it to just something that feels good—another form of recreation or socialization. The world's sex-saturated brine includes the belief that sex is the ultimate pleasure. The message of much TV, movies, and music is that there is no greater pleasure available, and that it is the right of every individual, even teenagers, to have this pleasure.

If the purpose and goal of sex is primarily pleasure, then other people are just objects to be used for sensual gratification. Since people are infinitely valuable because God made us in His image, that is a slap in the face whether we realize it or not. I believe that the purpose of sex is relational, with pleasure as the by-product. The Bible teaches that sex welds two souls together. It is so powerful that it is only safe within a committed, covenant marriage relationship. God invented sex for His glory and our benefit. His basic rule — keep sex inside marriage — isn't meant to be a killjoy, but to protect our hearts and bodies and relationships and families. Intimacy comes only when one’s heart is focused on pleasing the other. 

I believe sex in any marriage that is not approved by God is adultery. Marriage is not just going to the priest and doing the ceremony. Marriage has to be according to Gods will for it to be horned by God. Real marriage before God is a marriage where there is true love. Once lust and intimate perversity gets into it, before God the marriage is annulled and becomes immoral. People should seek God before getting into marriage. They must make sure that the marriage is the will of God, so that harmony and peace will result from it. If we only put God first and not lust first we will definitely find true happiness.

It's easy to recognize real marriage before God. In such marriages the couple live for each other and even when they are too old to have sex the love and harmony continues. But any marriage that is held together by just sex is not real marriage, before God such marriage is adultery. Man cannot fool God!!!

I will give you an example:

A guy in Nigeria was filled with lust for a girl. After trying unsuccessfully to have sex with the girl, he went to the girls parents and declared that he wanted to marry the girl. Luckily for him, the girls pastor was an ex classmate of this guy. They were in cult together during their years in the university. The guy told the pastor(who became a pastor after graduating from the university) his intention of marring the girl and asked the pastor to go and tell the girls parents (who are members of his church) that it was Gods will that the guy should marry the girl.
To make a long story short, after the wedding and after a year of the guy getting as much sex as he wanted from the girl he kicked her out and they finally divorced.

Now my dear friends, please answer the following questions:
1.) Was this marriage real before God?
2.) The guy and the pastor succeeded in fooling the girl and her family. Did this guy and the pastor succeed in fooling God?
3.) During the time he was having sex with her, was he not committing adultery or fornication?

God did not only create us to crave intimacy with our spouses, He also created us to have just as strong a desire for intimacy with Him. And just as a human alone is only a part of the whole, people without God are only a part of what God intended them to be. The truth is you will never achieve intimacy with your mate to the level God intended if each of you doesn’t also strive for intimacy with Him. If you try to develop marital intimacy without intimacy with God, you will shortchange yourself and your mate. 

The marks of mature believers are Love, peace, patience and compassion. The marks of carnal believers are Lust, hatred, judgement and jealousy. Love is eternal where lust is temporary. Lust is lust even in marriage, it is wrong and ungodly. There is a difference between a healthy desire for sex and lust. If you're truly in 'love', you will know that the last thing you want to do to the woman you love is to think about her with lust. What most people today call love is only infatuation which is a glorified name for lust! Real love is entirely different !!!